by Ben H.
Severance
Alabama’s military forces were fierce and dedicated combatants for the
Confederate cause.In his study of Alabama during the Civil War, Ben H.
Severance argues that Alabama’s electoral and political attitudes were, in
their own way, just as unified in their support for the cause of southern
independence. To be sure, the civilian populace often expressed unease about
the conflict, as did a good many of Alabama’s legislators, but the majority of
government officials and military personnel displayed pronounced Confederate loyalty
and a consistent willingness to accept a total war approach in pursuit of their
new nation’s aims. As Severance puts it, Alabama was a “war state all over.”
In A War State All Over: Alabama Politics and the Confederate Cause,
Severance examines the state’s political leadership at multiple levels of
governance—congressional, gubernatorial, and legislative—and orients much of
his analysis around the state elections of 1863. Coming at the war’s midpoint,
these elections provide an invaluable gauge of popular support for Alabama’s
role in the Civil War, particularly at a time when the military situation for
Confederate forces was looking bleak. The results do not necessarily reflect a
society that was unreservedly prowar, but they clearly establish a polity that
was committed to an unconditional Confederate victory, in spite of the probable
costs.
Severance’s innovative work focuses on the martial character of Alabama’s
polity while simultaneously acknowledging the widespread angst of Alabama’s
larger culture and society. In doing so, it puts a human face on the election
returns by providing detailed character sketches of the principal candidates
that illuminate both their outlook on the war and their role in shaping policy.
About The Author.
Ben. H. Severance is professor and hair of history at Auburn University
at Montgomery. He is author of Portraits
of Conflict: A Photographic History of Alabama in the Civil War and Tennessee’s
Radical Army: The State Guard and its Role in Reconstruction, 1867-1869.
ISBN 978-0817320591, University Alabama Press, © 2020, Hardcover, 264
pages, Endnotes, Bibliography & Index. $49.95. To purchase this book
click HERE.
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