A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy

by David C. Downing

A South Divided is an account of Southern dissidents in the Civil War, at times labeled as traitors, Tories, deserters, or mossbacks during the war and loyalists, Lincoln loyalists, and Unionists by historians of the war. In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in Southern dissenters. A South Divided presents a panoramic overview of Southern dissent. What emerges is a complex pattern of dissent involving every state of the Confederacy and every year of the war. All of these people and groups had their part to play in the epic drama that sapped the strength of the Confederacy from within. They were rebels against the rebellion.

Genres: Civil War, History

240 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2007

About the author

I am a professor of English at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. This is on the edge of "Amish country," and I sometimes pass a horse and buggy on my way to and from campus.

I grew up in Colorado, went to college in Santa Barbara, CA, and earned my PhD from UCLA. I currently teach professional and creative writing at Elizabethtown, as well as a first-year seminar on quest narratives.

I first read the Narnia Chronicles as a college sophomore. I was so enthralled, I read all seven books in a month, then re-read them again the next month. I published my first article on C. S. Lewis that same year. I tackled Lord of the Rings in my junior year of college, and I still remember reading all night, the sun coming up just when I discovered that Gandalf had returned. What a glorious dawn that was!

Living less that an hour from Gettysburg, I have become one of many Civil War buffs in this part of the country. I published A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy in 2007, a study of Southerners who supported the Union during the war.

My wife, Crystal, is a professor of English and film studies at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. She is the author of Writing Performances: The Stages of Dorothy L. Sayers (2004) and How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith (2006).

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This past week I read A South Divided, by David Downing, which covers the same ground in part as David Williams' Bitterly Divided, in that it examines the importance of southerners who worked against the confederacy. But whereas Williams argued that the Confederacy's loss in the American Civil War was primarily one of popular support, not of combat operations, Downing's history is less pointed: he doesn't cut to the quick like Williams, but chooses individual cases in different categories (a southerner who became a leading Union officer, a slave who ran away and took a steamship with him, a given band of anti-confederates fighting from a particular swamp, a county which refused to secede from the Union) to explore the different reasons southerners had for resisting or fighting against the Confederacy. Although his narrative is missing the teeth of Williams', Downing is an English professor, not an historian, and what he delivers is admirable: a book which tells another side of the Civil War, one rich in human interest. His work is superb for illustrating Bitterly Divided, expanding on the untold towards of the southern fight against the confederacy, but by itself it lacks the critical substance.

[Annette · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books (out of several dozen) I've read on the Civil War and its analysis. As our family participates in many community activities commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, this was an unscheduled treasure--purchased for 25 cents at a library sale.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Illustrates that lines are never black and white...

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting information on how the sides were not so clear cut.