With Malice Toward Some: Treason and Loyalty in the Civil War Era
By William A. Blair., University North Carolina Press, 2014, $40
It’s difficult not to be impressed with how generous the United States was toward those who committed acts that could be justly labeled “treason” during the Civil War and its aftermath. After their armies surrendered, Confederate soldiers were for the most part allowed to return to their homes, and federal authorities fairly quickly eschewed any notion of executing their leaders or making them stand trial for their actions. Perhaps the greatest evidence of the magnanimity of Union authorities was that fewer than 20 years after the war began the South was firmly under the control of men who, with considerable success, sought to limit the impact of emancipation and the federal government’s involvement in the region’s internal affairs. In this they were helped by the many in the North and border states who, while loyal to the Union, nonetheless shared their views on government and were a thorn in the side of Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party as they pursued “a more perfect Union.”
In this wide-ranging book, William A. Blair offers a compelling consideration of the ways Northern political, military and legal authorities dealt with the question of treason. While the framers of the Constitution had made a determined effort to define treason clearly—and loyal Americans had little doubt that the conduct of Confederates made the appellation of “traitor” proper, Blair demonstrates that dealing with treasonable behavior was not easy. On the surface, dealing with Copperheads and devotees of the Confederacy seemed simple enough, but an array of factors complicated the task of handling both groups. Would, for instance, tough treatment of traitors be ultimately counterproductive to the effort to restore the Union?
Moreover, the Lincoln administration’s ability to exert its will was handicapped by the limited reach of the federal government and the immaturity of the bureaucratic state in the mid-19th century. Blair shows that while historians have appropriately paid a great deal of attention to Lincoln’s intentions and actions, those of state and local officials and a host of other actors both in and out of military uniform were also important. Indeed, it is one of Blair’s great accomplishments that he can effectively consider the issue on so many levels, making this both a sophisticated and fascinating study of the effort to define and stamp out disloyalty in the Civil War era.
Originally published in the November 2014 issue of America’s Civil War. To subscribe, click here.
