Bitterly Divided: The South's Inner Civil War

by David Williams

The little-known history of anti-secession “Absolutely essential Civil War reading.” —Booklist, starred review  Bitterly Divided reveals that the South was in fact fighting two civil wars—the external one that we know so much about, and an internal one about which there is scant literature and virtually no public awareness. In this fascinating look at a hidden side of the South’s history, David Williams shows the powerful and little-understood impact of the thousands of draft resisters, Southern Unionists, fugitive slaves, and other Southerners who opposed the Confederate cause.   “This fast-paced book will be a revelation even to professional historians. . . . His astonishing story details the deep, often murderous divisions in Southern society. Southerners took up arms against each other, engaged in massacres, guerrilla warfare, vigilante justice and lynchings, and deserted in droves from the Confederate army . . . Some counties and regions even seceded from the secessionists . . . With this book, the history of the Civil War will never be the same again.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review   “Most Southerners looked on the conflict with the North as ‘a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight,’ especially because owners of 20 or more slaves and all planters and public officials were exempt from military service . . . The Confederacy lost, it seems, because it was precisely the kind of house divided against itself that Lincoln famously said could not stand.” —Booklist, starred review

Genres: History, Civil War, American Civil War, Nonfiction, American History, Civil War History, War

316 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2008

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

A professor of history at Valdosta State University, David Williams received his Ph.D. in history from Auburn University in 1988. The author of numerous articles on Georgia history, the Old South, Appalachia, and the Civil War, Williams is the author of Rich Man's War: Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley and Johnny Reb's War: Battlefield and Homefront and the coauthor of Gold Fever: America's First Gold Rush and Plain Folk in a Rich Man's War: Class and Dissent in Confederate Georgia. He lives in Valdosta, Georgia.

Reviews

[Sheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. It's a provocative thesis, for sure, and one with some appeal. But the repeated quotes from particular individuals made me suspicious, and this bibliography is about the saddest one I've run through except for Peavy and Smith's Pioneer Women (which, to be fair, is more of a picture book than anything) -- and the main reason Pioneer Women had so few primary sources is that they used a lot of collections of diary entries on a particular topic. As some of the repeated quotes indicate, this book is mostly based on secondary sources. Either no one else was saying these things, or Williams didn't bother to go looking, or he couldn't find what he wanted.

I thought the most compelling evidence Williams offers in support of his theory is his repeated claim that "almost a fourth" of the Union Army was made up of Southerners, black and white. But he never actually gives the numbers, and when I tried to verify that claim, it's not pertinent. The number of Confederate soldiers is debated due to lost records, but the number of Union soldiers is sometimes claimed right down to the last digit -- the National Park Service sets it at 2,672,341. The number of Confederates is often claimed to be lower than a million: History Net puts it at 750,000 (which is the number I've seen most often), PBS puts it at 880,00, and the National Park Service says it ranged from 750,000 to 1,227,890.

That said, Williams is fudging the data big time by saying that a fourth of the Union Army was made up of "Southerners," and using this as support for his claim that poor southerners didn't support the Confederacy. The number of white confederates in the Union Army is estimated at 75,000-100,000. If you add in the former black slaves -- high end estimates are about 200,000 -- you get at most 300,000, which is a long way from a quarter of 2.6 million. What Williams has done is toss in all the white soldiers from slave-holding states that stayed in the Union (Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky) to make his claim. There were 200,000 white Union soldiers from those states, some of them undoubtedly immigrant, which brings the "Southern" total up to something like a quarter of the Union soldiers (although a lot more like a fifth...).

But those 200,000 soldiers from Union states are not even remotely evidence of a cultural split between rich plantation owners and poor people in the Confederate south, because they weren't Confederate, and most of them didn't live in that sort of plantation culture. So what I considered Williams' strongest argument in favor of his thesis is basically a lie. It's technically true, because he says "Southerners," not "Confederates," but he clearly expects the reader to think "Confederates," and with the context he gives, I would guess most people do.

Without that quarter of the Union Army claim, all he's got is the fact that the Appalachians and mountainous regions were a hot bed of unionism -- which any good Civil War history will tell you -- and the fact that the people in the Confederacy were starving and getting sick of the war and wanted out by late 1863, ditto. In other words, he's got no new evidence, and he's stretching the truth to try to fit his claims.

The one chapter I did find really interesting is what happened to the Indians in Indian territory. I don't know how accurate it was, but much of that chapter was new to me, and a sad and compelling story, too. Whether it'll hold up to future research, I dunno, but unfortunately the basic picture -- Native Americans caught in political battles back in Washington, and being starved while their land is stolen out from under them by government agents -- was true many another place, heaven knows.

[Gregory Casteel · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a proud descendant of Southern Unionists who resisted secession and opposed the Confederacy during the Civil War—some of whom even volunteered to fight in Union blue—I found this book absolutely delightful. It offers a much-needed corrective to the popular myth that most, if not all, white Southerners in the early 1860s were die-hard Rebels who eagerly volunteered to fight against those "Damn Yankees" who (depending on which side of the Mason-Dixon you were raised on) either threatened the South's regional autonomy and way of life, or else threatened its "peculiar institution" of slavery. In actuality, the rebellion was nowhere near as popular in the South as many people today imagine it was. The South was, as the title of this book asserts, "bitterly divided" over the issues of slavery, secession, and civil war. And while slavery was certainly the underlying issue that ultimately led to secession, and secession is what led to war, it is a mistake to view the Civil War in simplistic terms as a fight over slavery, as many people do today—it was much more complicated than that.

Only about a quarter of Southern whites owned slaves, and most non-slaveholders in the South were opposed to slavery (primarily for economic reasons rather than any high-minded concern for the welfare of African Americans; sadly, most white Americans at the time of the Civil War—in the North as well as the South—were horribly racist by today's standards). The drive to secede from the Union was led by wealthy slaveholders. Most non-slaveholders either opposed secession or were unenthusiastic about it—at least until the shooting started. The vote for secession was close throughout the South, and in many states, the pro-secession faction won only with the aid of rampant election fraud. Northerners had mixed views about slavery, just as Southerners did, but few folks in the North—including the newly-elected president, Abraham Lincoln—were willing to go to war over the issue. It was secession, not slavery, that prompted the North to go to war. Ending slavery was not an explicit war aim for the Union until fairly late in the conflict, and even then only for strategic rather than humanitarian reasons. While it's certainly true that the Civil War led to the end of slavery in the United States, it is a mistake to think of it as a war to end slavery. That was not the North's main objective in the war. Lincoln and his generals sought mainly to preserve the Union against armed rebellion. And that, rather than any principled opposition to slavery, was why so many white Southerners sided with the North during the war. Most Southerners were loyal American patriots who had no desire to see the Union torn apart, over slavery or any other issue. That's why nearly a quarter of the soldiers who served in the Union army during the Civil War were Southerners. And that's why many other Southerners resisted the Confederate war effort in other ways. Some fought as guerillas—not formally affiliated with the Union army, but fighting against the Rebels nonetheless. Many others simply dodged the Confederate draft, refusing to serve, often at great personal cost. Many who did serve in the Rebel army—most of whom were drafted against their will—ended up deserting, some even fleeing to enemy lines and offering their services to the Union army. By the end of the war, nearly two-thirds of the soldiers in the Confederate army had deserted. And there were certain parts of the South—especially in the Appalachians—where Unionist sentiment ran so high that there were even moves to secede from the Confederacy! (The Unionist counties in the northwestern portion of Virginia actually did secede from the rest of the state to form the new state of West Virginia. And had history played out just a bit differently, northern Alabama might have united with eastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia to form the state of Nickajack, which would have flown the Stars and Stripes, not the Stars and Bars.) So much for the popular notion that the South was solidly united behind the rebellion.

I wish more people would read this book. It is very well-written—it's a quick and pleasant read—and it tells a fascinating story. More importantly, it helps to dispel many of the popular myths about the Civil War:

• that the South was united in its desire to leave the Union (it wasn't)
• that the North fought the war in order to end slavery (it didn't)
• that all white Southerners supported slavery (most didn't)
• that all Northerners opposed slavery (many didn't)
• that all white Southerners were racist (okay ... yeah ... most were—but so were most white Northerners; it was a less-enlightened time, and Southerners were no more likely to be racist than Northerners were)
• that all white Southerners actively supported the Confederacy (many didn't—in fact, many actually fought against it or resisted it in other ways)
• that Lincoln freed the slaves (not exactly—the Emancipation Proclamation was largely symbolic; the institution of slavery was already starting to collapse because of the war, and in many cases, slaves were able to free themselves: rising up against their masters, running away, or simply refusing to follow orders anymore)
• that the war was all about slavery (it wasn't—it was mainly about secession and the fate of the Union, and there were other factors involved as well)
• that the war was not about slavery at all (it was—the push for secession was led by wealthy slaveholders who wanted to preserve their "peculiar institution")
• that the war was actually about the romantic "Lost Cause" to preserve Southern regional autonomy and the unique, genteel Southern way of life against Northern meddling and unprovoked Northern aggression (give me a break)

If you want to understand what really happened in the Civil War, and how it tore the South apart, read this book. If it were up to me, this book would be required reading in every high school or university history class that covers the Civil War. It would help students get a richer and more nuanced perspective on that troubled period in America's history.

After an introduction, the book is divided into six chapters:

1. "Nothing but Divisions Among Our People"—which deals with the heated and sometimes violent debates over secession that pitted secessionists against Unionists, and the fraudulent methods that the secessionists used to win the vote for secession

2. "Rich Man's War"—which deals with the class divisions in the South during the war, in which the members of the slaveholding elite who were behind the push for secession avoided military service and found ways to profit off of the war without contributing much to the war effort, while the common men who actually had to do the fighting, and their families back home, were often left destitute

3. "Fighting Each Other Harder Than We Ever Fought the Enemy"—which deals with the internal civil war that raged within the South between zealous supporters of the Confederacy and those who opposed it for one reason or another: Unionist partisans, draft dodgers, deserters from the Rebel army, and the desperate wives of solders who were having to try to support their families on dwindling resources

4. "Yes, We All Shall Be Free"—which deals with the war from the perspective of enslaved African Americans, many of whom rose up and freed themselves during the war, with some joining the Union army so they could fight for the freedom of their fellow slaves

5. "Now the Wolf Has Come"—which deals with the war from the perspective of American Indians in what is now Oklahoma who, like Southern whites, were also "bitterly divided" amongst themselves over the war, with many wishing to remain neutral, and some supporting the Union, while the (wealthy, slaveholding) leaders of the most powerful tribes chose to ally themselves with the Confederacy, leading to an internal civil war within the Indian Nations

6. "Defeated ... by the People at Home"—which deals with the end of war and its aftermath and draws conclusions about why the Confederacy was defeated

One final note before I go: When reviewing a book, it is not my habit to respond to other reviews of that same book. I figure that each review ought to stand on its own merits, and that there is value in getting a variety of different perspectives on a book you are thinking about reading. But in this case, I feel the need to note the fact that I have come across at least a few negative reviews of this book on various sites which I feel have no merit at all. Setting aside the inevitable, "It was boring," from readers who clearly have no interest in the subject in the first place, and the occasional, "It was too repetitive," from readers who don't realize that repetition is a good thing because it helps the material to sink in so you can remember it more easily (it also helps the material to sink in so you can remember it more easily), at least a few reviews of this book that I've come across have called into question the author's premises, his methods, his conclusions, and even his motives. Given the fact that the author is a respected Civil War historian, I can't help but suspect that these criticisms must be coming either from die-hard "Lost Causers" who refuse to give up on the long-debunked myth that the Confederacy was a noble experiment, that secession was justified, and that slavery wasn't really all that bad, or else from bigoted "Yankees" who don't want to give up their long-held regional resentments against the South and simply refuse to accept the fact that many white Southerners actually opposed slavery and secession and even fought to preserve the Union. In either case, these people's opinions are not worth listening to. I'd suggest that you ignore them.

[EJ Daniels · Rating 1 out of 5]

An obvious disciple of Dr. Howard Zinn, Dr. David Williams' channels Zinn's hallmarks - anti-establishment social history with a strong Marxist bent - and attempts to apply it to the American Civil War in Bitterly Divided: The South's Inner Civil War. Williams' thesis, however, far exceeds his evidence, and the result is a boorish and boring attempt at history which promptly devolves into a politicizing screed.

In Bitterly Divided, Williams argues that not only was there strong popular opposition to secession and the Confederate government in the American South, but that this opposition was what really "lost" the War for the Confederacy. This grandstanding effort to attribute the defeat of the Confederacy to disgruntled poor farmers and slaves, however, falls flat from the beginning. If one keeps track of Williams' poorly cited quotations and evidence, one quickly notes that any individual point - poor whites identified as a class diametrically opposed to the planter aristocracy, fraud and voter intimidation was rampant in secession conventions, the countryside was swarming with anti-Confederate Southern partisans - is supported by, at best, as few as one and never more than four sources, often from totally disparate localities.

Many of these quotations, in particular, are shown without adequate context and are cited from secondary resources. Utilizing books that I happened to have on hand, I quickly determined that Williams made fundamentally misleading points on several occasions; in particular, in Alexander Stephens' assessment of lawlessness following secession, and on the nature of the draft exemptions for members of the Georgia militia.

Poor argumentation plagues most of Williams' other points as well. He is unable to distinguish between opposition to being drafted and opposition to the Confederate cause, and that food riots undertaken by starving Southern women were properly more an expression of hunger brought about by Federal rapine and not as a protest against the government in Richmond. And most of his points about protest efforts by the South's enslaved population have been stated already, and far more eloquently, as far back as the works of WEB duBois. Williams is clearly so eager to prove his point that he doesn't mind stretching, to an absurd degree, circumstantial and tangential evidence. Factor in his uninspired prose and poor formatting choice to chop each chapter into absurd little sections, and one is left with an excellent example of everything wrong with modern academia, but a very poor history.

I cannot in good conscience recommend Bitterly Divided: The South's Inner Civil War. Those interested in poor Southern opposition to the Confederacy would be better served reading first-hand accounts, such as Sam Watkins' Company Aytch (from which Williams' draws liberally, but never with sufficient context) and the numerous extant slave narratives from this period.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting view on the Civil War. The South dd not just fight the North argues David Williams, but there was a war within its own boundaries. Frank Owlsey, a historian, argued that the Confederacy's tombstone should have the inscription: Here Lies the Confederate States of America. Killed by States Rights. This is not the first time I heard the argument the South was really its own enemy.

Williams provides interesting anecdotes of people who were against the Confederacy. There were slaveowners in Dixie who believed secession was actually the worst act they could do because they saw staying in the Union gave them their best chance of keeping their slaves. Other stories Williams provides is Southerners discussing the corruption regarding voting for secession. People were given alcohol and allowed to vote in favor of secession or huge barbecues that only the rich could attend to encourage a vote for leaving the Union. Other examples were pro-secessionists threatening those who opposed it. "In Mississippi’s Panola County, a group of vigilantes announced their intention to 'take notice of, and punish all and every persons who may … prove themselves untrue to the South, or Southern Rights, in any way whatever'” writes Williams.

Williams' anecdotes were a bit ad nauseum. He seemed intent on proving the South lost the war because it had a civil war of its own. There was dissension in the South, but I do not see it as the cause of it losing the war, or at least the author does not convince me. It was interesting to read about the dissension in Dixie, but a bit repetitive and does not demonstrate the South lost simply because of opposition within the borders.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bitterly Divided by David Williams makes sense. If the political establishment in a bunch of states decided to secede, there would obviously be inhabitants who retained a stronger loyalty to the United States of America. After all, they had been proud U.S. citizens for their entire life. I bet you saw a but coming. The but is that although Williams presents voluminous evidence of insurgence within the CSA, it is not clear that it materially hampered the Confederacy’s war efforts until the last year or so.

The catchphrase, ‘rich man’s war, poor man’s fight,’ may have been a truism, but Southern men continued to fight until victory became hopeless or they received news from home that their families were starving. Williams contends that slaveholders masterminded the war but, for the most part, non-slave holders fought it. Three-fourths of southern whites owned no slaves, so arithmetic alone proves Williams correct.

Statistical data shows that by every economic measure, the North far outperformed the South. The only area where the South exceeded the North was in income disparity. Williams writes: “On the Civil War’s eve, nearly half the South’s personal income went to just over a thousand families.” The rich were very rich and few in number. The uneducated poor white were as omnipresent as slaves.

At the start of the war, a recruitment broadside oddly read, “To arms! Our Southern soil must be defended. We must not stop to ask who brought about the war, who is at fault, but let us go and do battle… and then settle the question who is to blame.”

Today, that poster may not appear convincing, but decades of Democrat propaganda had bred hatred for Yankees and instilled fear of “Black Republicans.” Repeatedly, poor whites were told that freed slaves would “come into competition, associate with them and their children as equals—be allowed to testify in court against them—sit on juries with them, march to the ballot box by their sides, and participate in the choice of their rulers—claim social equality with them—and ask the hands of their children in marriage.”

When the conflict began, relentless propaganda claimed the North had invaded the South, but the Confederate Army was a reality well before Manassas. Prior to that opening battle, the North had only resisted Confederate confiscation of United States property in the seceded states. Still, men believed that they went to fight an enemy that had violated the hallowed land of the South. Why?

Jefferson Davis believed slavery gave every white person an elevated position in society independent of their lot in life. Were the poor fighting to retain this artificially elevated position? Not sure, but I’ll keep reading to find the answer.

[Gianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book totally debunks the myths I've "learned" all my life about the civil war...and it is even in contention with present day attitudes between many southerners and northerners. To my southern friends, I'm just a yankee, not a "damn" yankee (a compliment?)!

As much as Williams illuminated the true sentiments and actions of about 3/4 of the southern population, I felt bogged down by endless repetition by the simple and horrific fact that plantation owners stepped up their cotton and tobacco production, while they had been asked to help provide more produce, therefore starving the soldiers and the families they had to leave behind for three years.

I like how Williams used a lot of primary sources (quotes) to illustrate the thoughts of the underdog during this period. His writing was not smooth and organized, but the message was enough to keep me hooked. I especially appreciated the sections about how women would band together and organize food raids to keep themselves and their children from starving (there are multiple "Raids" and such I must look up and research!) and about the roles American Indians and Slaves took during the war.

Now I would like to read about the northern perspective of the Civil War. I especially would like to have tea and talk with all my past history/social studies teachers!!!

[Chuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Publishing at the rate of about one book per day since the war ended, Civil War historians have about mined out many of the standard Civil War topics. Even revisionists are starting to run dry.

However, the internal history of the South before and during the war is becoming a new and here-to-fore undiscovered motherload of opportunity for historians. The South was, and is, a far more complex arena than common mythology would allow.

This book provides a survey of many of the internal issues faced in the South during the war. And it provides some excellent food for thought on how the South arrived at a situation where half the eligible male population deserted from the confederate army during the war. Where nearly half a million southerners served in the Union Army. Where there was starvation, dispossession, guerrilla warfare and domestic resistance by whites, blacks and Indians.

I found this a well written and very interesting survey if you would look behind the myth of a united and happy South in the Civil War.

[Dick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most informative book I have read thus far of the resistence to the war on the part of residents of the south - all over the confederacy.

[David Robins · Rating 1 out of 5]

While some of the historical excerpts are interesting, the plural of anecdote is still not data.

[Rhuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Williams has gone in-depth into the story of "the Other South," to use Carl Degler's phrase in his history of the same name. As this implies, Williams is not the first to raise this issue, but few have pursued it to this length. The post-war image of the Solid South was created by the same coercive propaganda which led the Secession movement in 1860.

A few criticisms: When he writes on page 11 that "the Civil War did not begin at Fort Sumter . . . or even between North and South [but] as a war between southerners themselves," he overlooks Bleeding Kansas in the 1850s, where civil war truly first erupted, and which was in large part fought between northern and southern settlers.

On page 111 he states: "Most southerners were hardly eager to fight. Had they been so, no draft would have been needed to force them. . . . 'the power which wealth always gives has been brought to bear most heavily upon the poorer classes.' " The same could be said word-for-word for northern opinion as well, the difference being that entrenched patriotism always works better for those defending an older state than those creating a new one. Williams is correct in spotting this distinction between Union and Confederate patriotism.

On page 13 he says that for poor whites "freedom meant little without opportunities for economic improvement." But in a slave society, with much frontier elbow room, it meant more: the right to move around in the freedom of woods and wilderness, which Williams acknowledges as crucial for "Tory" guerrilla operations. This horizontal mobility also explains the difficulty in promoting collective action among poor whites, and their descendants' propensity for free-market ideas.

It's interesting to speculate whether Lincoln's wiser course would have been to let the "Secesh" temporarily have their way, while feeding dissent and insurrection behind their lines - the "Reagan option." If so, much blood and bitterness would have been avoided, during and after the war. Conversely, the "secesh cause" would have been better served by a guerrilla war, with public alienation turned toward Federal occupiers, rather than cultivating heroic poses of rhetorical independence and military might which it could not sustain. The logistical problems Williams details were a reflection of the Confederacy's larger ideology, impractical for defeating a modern conventional army on its own terms.

Overall, this is a necessary re-examination of American social history. Couple this with studies of northern draft rioters and Copperheads, and the complex mosaic of real civil war America returns to life over the dusty tropes of pop culture.

[peter venning]

A lot of anecdotes: newspaper stories, first-hand accounts, etc. There are interesting accounts of how the secession conventions and the selection of delegates were rigged. It's still hard to align the spirit and bravery of the southern armies with a general feeling of resentment and deprivation back home. We knew that certain geographic areas, like the mountain regions, were by and large against secession. And it seems obvious that as the war went wrong, and people grew hungry, war-weary, aggrieved, and more keenly aware of upper-class hypocrisy, Union sentiment would only grow. It was clear to all, north and south, after the summer of 1863 that the war was over--and yet the suffering went on. "Pro-Union" in this case meant merely a desire to have the war over with.

The idea that most, or at least a sizeable portion, of the southerners were pro-Union is new to me. I still would like to understand the depth and the breadth of that sentiment and especially, how it changed over time. Also, I wonder if and how many southerners just took off for the north after the 1860 election made war seem likely.

In any case, the book opened some windows on my brain, and I hope further research is coming.

[Richard Subber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Bitterly Divided is a game-changing perspective on the causes and conduct of the American Civil War.
Read this fabulously researched book by David Williams to get the details.
Some highlights:
About a half million black and white Southerners served in the Union army, about 25% of the total number of men in arms wearing blue uniforms.
There was substantial opposition to secession in every state that seceded. Politicians and rich slaveholders literally corrupted the elections to make secession happen.
In the latter years of the war, at any given time as many as two-thirds of the common soldiers in the Confederate army were absent with or without leave. General Lee worried persistently about deserters.
The Confederate armed forces always had enough ammunition, but the soldiers and their wives and families at home never had enough food—because rich plantation owners insisted on planting the more profitable tobacco and cotton crops.
The Civil War was fought about slavery—because the big slaveholders refused to give up their source of free labor.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com

[Murray Brockman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent analysis, perhaps a bit overstated, but unquestionably true

The planters - the self-anointed southern aristocracy - controlled most of the pre-war and post-war wealth of the South, including most of the slaves. They also controlled the state governments. They led the South to secession, and conscripted poor whites to fight the civil war for them. They exploited and inflamed both racism and economic competition between poor whites and negroes to preserve their wealth and power, until the civil rights movement and the new South economy finally dethroned them. Mr. Williams may occasionally exaggerate the number of dissidents, but his central thesis rings true. A highly recommended must read.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

So glad that I am done with this one. I found the book an extremely tedious and obnoxious read. Williams' thesis is broad-sweeping generalizations which are inadequately supported. The book is very little of an actual formation of ideas or narrative, but rather it is obnoxiously full of anecdotes (albeit they are sometimes interesting). When Williams' tries to make a point using cited quotes, he most often gives you only part of the quote (with inadequate context) and uses it as a completion to his own thoughts. Drudgery, boring, tedious, obnoxious...really cannot think of anything good to say.

[S. Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative and exhaustively researched and footnoted. Excellent resource for debunking the 'Lost Cause' view of the Confederacy. I thought the economic analysis of the Planter Class and their decision to continue (and expand) production of cotton while the South starved for lack of food was very enlightening and reasoned. I thought the book was somewhat dense and had a tendency to repeat itself. That is why I only gave it three stars. More of a resource book than an enjoyable read.

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating look at the South leading up to and during the Civil War, showing it to be a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. I was unaware of the deep divisions within the South and this book was an eye-opener about the class conflict and many guerrilla anti-war and deserter enclaves that existed and fought their own battles. Highly recommended.

[Anthony Bracciante · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very detailed history of the internal forces that worked against the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War and played a substantial role in its eventual defeat. I failed to give this a higher rating due to much repetition in this account of a Rich Mans War fought by the Poor Soldiers.

[Ron Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little repetitive, sometimes just listing one incident after another without much narration. But it's important documentation about the often overlooked fact that many in the South were against the war.
Rich man's war, poor Man's fight.

[Mike Wigal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A side of the Civil War of which few are aware. There was never a chance the Confederacy would succeed.

[Jack Dail]

Did not finish this book; did not like the graphic treatment of Southern sympathizers by the leaders and other officials of the Confederacy

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bitterly Divided: the South's Inner Civil War
© 2008 David Williams
310 pages




Why did the South lose the Civil War? Was it the strengths of the Union -- a better rail network, a superior manufacturing base, more soldiers? David Williams doesn't think so, emphasizing rather the great weakness of the Confederacy, its divided populace. In Bitterly Divided: the South's Inner Civil War, he demonstrates that the south did not fight the war as a unified body. In Williams' view, secession and war were forced upon the population by a few self-interested planters, who instituted the first draft in American history to compel the masses to do their fighting for them. Such an idea flies in the face of modern southern nationalists, but the evidence here does bear out that the the south was a land set against itself during the planters' insurrection, and its disunity -- not Union armies -- may have well led to is demise.

Williams' narrative is energetic and direct. After first establishing that the war was, in fact, about slavery, with a ruling planter aristocracy forcing secession conventions on the states to defend the ailing and embattled institution of slavery against anticipated attacks, Williams notes how quickly popular support for the conflict waned after the first few months. Despite an initial outburst of patriotism following Lincoln's call for volunteers, most "plain folk" quickly lost interest in fighting what they perceived to be someone else's cause. The falling out of volunteers prompted the confederate government to pass the conscription act, forcing everyone, even those without a stake in slavery, to fight to defend it. Curiously, though, the planters themselves passed legislation exempting slaveholders from the draft and providing a means of escape for the wealthy who didn't have quite enough slaves (20) to qualify as indispensable. These same planters also took advantage of the wartime uptick in demand for cotton, and the increase in prices brought on by the Union blockade -- neglecting food in the process.

This selfish neglect deprived the common people food, and wives wrote to their husbands lamenting of their impending starvation. When the price of food climbed, in part owing to speculation, southern ladies took a page from the books of the French revolution and stole the food from merchants at gunpoint. The news of their loved ones’ misery, coupled with that of their own, prompted millions of soldiers to start deserting, so much so that Lee and Davis were fretting over their shrinking numbers only two years into the war. Meanwhile, rebels-against-the-rebellion were hiding in swamps and raging guerilla war on the confederacy, tying down troops and cooperating with slaves, who were not only deserting or killing their masters, but likewise taking up arms – sometimes officially, for the Union cause, joining millions of white southerners who chose to fight for the north in defense of the nation. Nearly a quarter of Union soldiers came from the south. In short, the Confederate government’s enemies didn’t wear blue and weren't massed on one front: they were everywhere. The Confederacy failed because it was a corrupt, abusive institution from the start which never earned the loyalty of the people it claimed to govern.

This is a lively retelling of the story of the Civil War, and a heartening one, but it has its faults. There's no denying the essential truth of Williams' account: the letters, newspaper articles, and government memos he relies on here firmly establish that corruption, abuse, and revolt against the same were rife in the south during the war years. The problem is that Williams hits the reader with a barrage of scattered incidents that doesn't bear the weight of comprehensive evidence. It's easy to pile on examples, but even an avalanche of anecdotes wouldn't do the job. More focused data sets are needed: military reports listing proportions of desertions, for instance. What percentage of the planter class stayed home? As was the case with A People's History, Bitterly Divided needed more attention in the editing process. Repetition abounds, with some cases being cited three or more times. This borders on obnoxious given that the book isn't particularly lengthy.

Bitterly Divided has an excellent point to make, but it is in need of refinement. Presently, it makes for compelling if rough reading. I intend to pursue other authors in this area of scholarship, and will readily recommend Williams to others despite the book’s limitations.

[Carl Palmateer · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are many reasons why the Union won and the South lost. This book examines one aspect that tends to be ignored. It is an excellent book that looks the Southern "home front". Using contemporary news accounts, letters, court documents it looks at the views, opinions and actions of those home.

It shows the hardships encountered in meeting the necessities of day to day life caused by the war usually far from the areas occupied by the armies. Its obvious the south was never fully solid in support of the war but as time goes on more and more become more disenchanted with "a rich man's war but a poor man's fight" for the cause of slavery.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book details the conflict within the Confederacy about secession and the war, and was, for me, an eye-opener. Using primarily soldiers' letters and newspaper accounts, the author attempts to show that there was substantial opposition to secession and the war which fell mostly along socio-economic lines. The book is primarily a recitation of these incidents, which are compelling and overwhelming in sheer numbers. However, I would like to have seen more actual numbers to determine how widespread the opposition actually was--even though I know they might be hard to come by.

However, I thought there were enough facts in the book to support the author's position. For example, the fact that the planter aristocracy steadfastly refused--despite being ordered--to grow enough grain crops to feed soldiers and their families. The reason: cotton and tobacco prices were at an all-time high, and there was too much money to be made from those crops. Meanwhile, they were exempt from conscription and fighting in the war. Their sheer hubris and utter selfishness is mind boggling and obviously self-defeating--especially in the face of soldiers' families starving around them. The chapter about soldiers' wives who rioted and forced store owners at gunpoint to give them flour, etc., to keep their families from starving to death (some did) is compelling and gut wrenching. And the sheer number of soldiers (per statements from Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis) who deserted--at least half due to pleas from their wives to desert and keep their families from starving--is just further evidence of the South's lost cause.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent and necessary book which details resistance in the south against the secessionist movement and then the confederacy itself. This is history that many in the south would like you to never hear and there are monuments everywhere down here to convince us that secessionism was a nationalist movement that had everyone on board. This is simply not true.

There isn't much new here so nobody need be shocked by Williams conclusions. Yes the confederate armies had serious desertion problems practically from the start, yes nearly 1 out of 3 southerners who fought in the war fought for the north. Yes there was severe social unrest within the south; we need only look at the bread riots in Richmond, the capital of the confederacy, for a prominent example of this.

Williams puts a good amount of focus on the issue of class within the confederacy. Southern planters who had the most to gain and were most vocal in starting the war were exempt from the draft if they owned 20 or more slaves. Also, the planter class largely refused to plant edibles over cash-crops even though the confederacy was starving. This is why we see the famous saying "rich man's war, poor man's fight".

This book is full of fascinating stories and fresh analysis. Sometimes it feels as if Williams may be blowing some of the problems out of proportion, but I don't think it hurts his overall conclusions at all.

Warning: this book is not for the "south will rise again" modern day confederate patriot crowd.

[Hotavio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bitterly Divided attakcs the myth that their was solidarity amongst the south during the Civil War, dismissing it as more of a post war phenomena. Williams explains how fractured the south was, particularly amongst the socio-economic divide and how this was a major and often overlooked contributor to the fall of the Confederacy.

Williams does a great job opening his argument and even better closing his argument. He gives tons of examples to back his thoughts. Sometimes the examples run on excessively, jumping from incident to incident, county to county. It led me to hope for either a map to try to track happenings from a geographical standpoint or for the end of the chapter and/or the start of a new subject. I did find the chapter on the Confederate courting of Indian support to be interesting (though another unfortunate example of the the exploitation of Native Peoples).

In essence, the books closure and continued ties to the argument kept me convinced, thus satistfied, though a few areas of the book, I found to be slightly redundant.

[Josh Liller · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Bitterly Divided" looks at the mythical Solid South: how white Southern Unionists, free and enslaved Southern blacks, and Native Americans in the South opposed the Confederate States of America. This is an interesting and important topic, and one probably one unfamiliar to most people.

The book is essentially a compilation of lots of mostly short anecdotes (which are cited). The anti-Confederates are important, but there doesn't seem to be much effort in determining how statistically significant they actually were.

I read about 2/3's of this book before finally putting it down for good. I just found it kind of dull. The sheer volume of anecdotes becomes a bit repetitive. They aren't enhancing a narrative; they are the narrative.

This is an important topic and I heard many good comments about this book from Civil War readers, but unfortunately I can't recommend it myself.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exhaustively researched based on primary sources.

Demolishes the myth of The Lost Cause.

Documents how the South lost because southerners hated each other more than they hated northerners.

The sheer scale of evil perpetrated by the Confederacy is difficult to comprehend.

Explains why, by the end of the war, one-quarter of the Union army consisted of southerners, and two-thirds of the Confederate army was AWOL.

Shows that Jefferson Davis was one of the most evil dictators in history, only later outdone by Hitler and Stalin. Many southerners hated Davis more than they hated Lincoln.

Completely changes my view of the American Civil War.

Should be required reading in U.S. History courses.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book dispels the myth that the white South was solidly united in defense of the Confederacy. About 500,000 white Southerners fought for the Union, an important reason why the South lost. Williams points out that there was a class war in the South between the big plantation owners and the small poor farmers. The desertion rate from the Confederate armies increased as the men realized they were fighting "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight." By the end of the war, wide areas of the South had come under the control of gangs of draft-evaders and deserters. The Confederacy could not win the hearts and minds of its own people.

[Maryellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an ugly view of the South behind the lines of the Civil War. Well written and heavily researched it discusses how slave holding families manipulated politics to support the war. The brutal retaliation of pro Unionists by their seccessionist neighbors. As well as the treatment of poor families who's husbands were fighting for the south etc. Williams provides gruesome stories and pages of evidence to convince the reader that the romantic notion of a noble South is hogwash. Hard reading.

[Carol Buchanan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a great deal about how divided the South was during the Civil War. It was an eye-opener to me, because I hadn't read much that challenged the Lost Cause mythology the way this book does. The bibliography is huge, but the author's citations appear to be all secondary rather than primary sources. Rather than quoting a letter directly, he quotes someone else's quotation of it.