56 Escott, After Secession, 198; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 833-35;
Beals, War Within a War, 147.
57 Stavis, John Brown: The Sword and the Word, 101-2; see also McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom, 832-38; Joseph T. Glatthaar, The March to the Sea
and Beyond (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995). Until the
last year of the war, Union desertion rates were almost as high as Confederate,
but Union deserters almost never joined the Confederate army.
58 Beals, War Within a War, 73. See also Gabor Boritt, ed., Why the
Confederacy Lost (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
59 One old book from my original sample, The American Adventure, quoted
original sources on the evolution of Union war aims and asked, “How would
such attitudes affect the conduct and outcome of the war?”
60 American History, its author apparently unfamiliar with the literature about
division within the South, even claims as an advantage for the Confederates
that “their whole way of life [was] at stake. This added to their determination
and helped make up for the shortage of men and supplies.” Of course, ideas
were not the sole cause of Union victory. Many textbooks mention the North’s
considerable advantages in population, industry, and railroads. Some textbooks
note the naval blockade of the South, coupled with the region’s inadequate
internal transportation. Several recognize that the Union’s government and
financing were already in place. On the other hand, some textbooks point out
that the Confederates had the advantage of fighting on their home turf with
shorter supply lines; a few note that they also had initial sympathy from the
governments of Britain and France. Beyond these factors, idiosyncratic
considerations—what historians like to call historical contingency—were at
work. The South had better generals at first. Lincoln was a far better president
than Davis. McClellan was indecisive. Two of the South’s most capable
generals, Albert Sidney Johnston and Stonewall Jackson, were killed early in
the war. Certain officers did or did not bring their troops to bear in time in
certain battles. Lee’s plans at Antietam fell into Union hands. And so on. Thus,
there was no inevitability to the outcome, and I do not claim that textbooks err
by not saying that the Union won for ideological reasons. I do suggest that
since American history textbooks rarely discuss causation at all, they are
unlikely to treat causes of the Union victory very well, and, indeed, five
textbooks give no reasons! Since textbooks discuss ideas even less often, they
are unlikely to treat ideas as causes in the Civil War. The American Adventure