A People's Contest: The Union and Civil War, 1861-1865

The New American Nation Series

by Phillip Shaw Paludan

“This is essentially a People’s contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men. . . . to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.”—Abraham Lincoln Chosen by Civil War magazine as one of the 200 best books on the war, Phillip Paludan’s acclaimed work was the first book since 1910 to describe in a single volume the multifaceted impacts of this tragic conflict on Northern society. Weaving together insights from literature, law, politics, economics, diplomacy, and religion, Paludan shows how the North redefined itself as a modern nation through two monumental and inextricably linked events—the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution. More than that, he brings this story to life through the lives and writings of the individuals, great and small, who experienced and influenced the events he describes. “A thoughtful, scholarly, and highly readable survey of the changes wrought in northern society by the twin engines of Civil War and industrialization.”— Kirkus Reviews . “Required reading for all students of the era. The generals, the politics, and the campaigns are here, but they are treated from such a different perspective that Paludan has accomplished the scholarly paradox of a fresh innovative work that is based on secondary material.”—Jean H. Baker, Reviews in American History . “A remarkable achievement that boldly seeks to link the new economic and social history with traditional political and military approaches to the conflict. A stunning accomplishment of synthetic scholarship.”— American Historical Review . “Both a moving narrative of people under pressure and judicious survey of major topics, this book will speak to the imagination of students and teachers long after they have put down other recent works of crude historical materialism and bestselling popular syntheses.”— Civil War History . “Paludan’s brilliant prose rests on wide-ranging, imaginative research and gifted historical insights. A splendid book that will take precedence among studies of the North in war.”—Frank Vandiver, Journal of American History . “For readers interested in a thoughtful survey of the impact of the Civil War on northern society, this is the place to begin.”—Joseph T. Glatthaar, Georgia Historical Quarterly .

Genres: History, Civil War, American History, Nonfiction

524 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

A leading authority on the life and presidency of Abraham Lincoln, Phillip Shaw Paludan was a professor of Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Reviews

[Austin Barselau · Rating 4 out of 5]

A People’s Contest: The Union and Civil War, 1861–1865 (1988) explores the multifaceted effects of the Civil War on Northern society while explaining the structural advantages that enabled the Union to overpower the Confederacy. Rather than writing another narrative military history, Phillip S. Paludan, the late professor of Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield, examines how the North mobilized politically, economically, socially, religiously, and intellectually to wage a modern war, transforming the conflict into what Abraham Lincoln described in his 1861 Message to Congress as "essentially a people's contest." Paludan argues that the Union prevailed because it possessed a political vitality and institutional coherence the Confederacy lacked. Northerners shared a widespread devotion to the nation's political culture and democratic institutions, offered electoral outlets for political opposition, and cultivated patriotic commitment that extended to the local level, allowing the Union to muster the resources and manpower necessary to sustain the war. At the same time, the North's overwhelming economic and material advantages—further strengthened by Republican policymaking—had transformed it into an industrial powerhouse that made ultimate victory increasingly inevitable.

Paludan contends that the North's robust political culture uniquely positioned it to endure the immense sacrifices required to prosecute the war. The mid-nineteenth century witnessed the highest levels of political participation in American history, with more than three-quarters of eligible voters casting ballots in presidential elections and similarly high participation in state and local contests. Many Northerners had direct experience in local self-government and viewed democratic institutions as central to their civic identity. The Union therefore enjoyed a political vitality and cohesion that the Confederacy, riven by sectionalism, resistance to centralization, and an inability to channel dissent through effective electoral politics, struggled to match. By the outbreak of the Civil War, most Northerners had developed a deep attachment to the Union itself, and the South's attempted dissolution of that political order inspired a passionate defense. The surge of patriotism following the attack on Fort Sumter demonstrated the North's willingness to provide both soldiers and financial support for the war effort. As Paludan writes, "Every Northern state had the same story to tell: volunteers rushing to enlist, bankers and other private citizens offering hundreds of thousands of dollars, state legislatures voting appropriations to equip their state's soldiers."

Second, the Union's concentration of material and economic resources, a product of its rapid industrialization during the mid-nineteenth century, enabled it to overwhelm Confederate resistance. Paludan's finest chapters detail the extraordinary advantages enjoyed by the Northern economy:

"Industry for building the weapons of war, transportation for delivering those weapons into the hands of soldiers and for taking both to the battlefield, organizational skills for handling complex institutions on the large scale, all were concentrated in the North… The North had twice the cash value in farm improvements, machinery, and livestock. It produced over four times as much wheat, over twice as much corn, over six times as much oats, over fifteen times more white potatoes, five times more wool, almost three times as many horses, over three times as many sheep…Northern superiority was even more striking in the industrial and financial realm. Of the over 128,000 industrial firms in the nation, the Confederacy housed only 18,026…New York State manufactured four times as much in terms of the value of manufactured products as the entire Confederacy. The Northern states produced 96 percent of the locomotives, and as for firearms, more firearms were made in one Connecticut county than in the entire South. There were over ten times as many industrial workers in the North as in the South.”

Paludan also describes the series of Republican policy initiatives that reinforced these structural advantages and strengthened the Union war effort. During the conflict, Congress authorized the nation's first paper currency, passed the Homestead Act, subsidized public colleges through the Morrill Land-Grant Act, created the first federal income tax, and promoted railroad expansion. Inspired by Hamiltonian principles, the Republican legislative program reflected a growing faith in centralized national authority, transforming what Paludan describes as a "small-scale local operation into a mass-production, high-volume, well-integrated system." The Union laid more telegraph lines and railroad track, produced more pig iron, rails, firearms, nails, and locomotives, and mechanized agriculture at a pace the Confederacy could not match. By 1865, despite sending nearly two million workers into military service, the North had increased both its productivity and national wealth. As one Southern visitor remarked, "every one of [the Federal States] had increased its production and added to its wealth... It is to be seen in the new furnaces, mills, factories, tanneries; in new mines of iron, coal, copper, lead, and zinc; in new railroads and countless oil wells; in the multiplication of machinery and the establishment of new industries; in the vast number of new vessels on lakes, and rivers, and canals."

A People's Contest extends well beyond politics and economics. Paludan devotes substantial attention to the contentious politics surrounding the 1864 presidential election, the social and constitutional implications of emancipation, foreign perceptions of the conflict, the importance of religion in giving meaning to the war, the mechanization of agriculture and industry, and the emergence of a new style of modern warfare under an increasingly capable generation of Union generals. He treats each of these developments as evidence of the strength and resilience of the North's program of liberal nationalism.

Perhaps most compelling is Paludan's demographic analysis. Continued immigration spared the North from the severe labor shortages that plagued the Confederacy: roughly one-fifth of the Northern population and one-fourth of the Union Army were foreign-born. At the same time, approximately 180,000 formerly enslaved men—about 12 percent of the Union Army by the war's end—served in federal uniform, strengthening claims for Black citizenship while reinforcing the Union's commitment to emancipation. Together, immigration and Black military service affirmed many Northerners' belief in the broad appeal of free labor, democracy, and liberty. Military victories, underwritten by the Union's superior economic and social foundations, further strengthened confidence in both the justice and eventual success of the Northern cause. By 1864, the Republican platform had evolved dramatically from its cautious 1860 position, embracing a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, celebrating emancipation and Black military service, and endorsing legal protections for formerly enslaved people. With the Confederacy increasingly on the defensive, the North appeared confident not merely in victory, but in the righteousness of the political order it sought to preserve.

A People's Contest vividly illustrates the immense nonmilitary advantages enjoyed by the Union, highlighting the extraordinary mobilization of Northern society that sustained the war effort. In terms of population, industry, finance, and institutional capacity, the Union possessed overwhelming advantages. As Paludan concludes, "the North won the Civil War because in the largest sense it had the economic, institutional, intellectual, and social resources for victory." It had "more men, more shops and factories, more tools, more railroads, more ships, even more farms, food, and fiber," along with the organizational knowledge necessary to harness those resources effectively. Although Paludan's narrative occasionally becomes overly detailed and would have benefited from tighter editing, his study succeeds in looking beyond battlefield victories to explain how the North's political culture, economic dynamism, and institutional strength proved decisive in winning the Civil War.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent overview of the political, military, economic, and diplomatic issues that suffused the Civil War. While it may not go into great detail about any one issue, it provides a through account of how these issues combined to form the Union's response to secession and war. Paludan moves easily between elite stories (e.g. Lincoln, Seward, Grant, etc) and the experience of 'average' workers, soldiers, or farmers.

The book is dense but easy to read.