1861 the Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart

Civil War Awakening is Adam Goodheart's contribution to the canon of Civil War historiography. The book is unique in that it is focused on the titular year, give or take a few for historical context. 1861: The Civil War Awakening also has the latter word in its title because of the fact that Goodheart focuses much on the social and ideological awakenings that the war came to entail.

Roughly proceeding in chronological order, the chapters of 1861: The Civil War Awakening encompass the lives of those who fought in the war, focusing mainly on Union military personnel and white male citizens. The book fulfills its promise as a narrative of a year in the life of a nation.

The American experience and American society were fundamentally changed after the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, claims Goodheart. To illustrate his thesis, the author draws from detailed analyses of primary source material. The book opens with a Prologue about the events leading up to and surrounding the fateful Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. The reader learns a bit of background about the cohesiveness of the Confederacy vs. The relative complacency of the Union. The Union, in fact, formed in opposition to the Confederacy. That the Confederacy was as serious as it was came as a great surprise: causing the Union to become "Wide Awake," as the author titles the first chapter of the book. We meet characters like Old Uncle Farnham in each chapter and throughout the book. Their individual stories are compelling, but what is more important is how each of these individual threads comprises the entire nation of the United States. The actions and outlooks of individuals determined the character of the war, the way it was fought, and its outcome.

Technology had a major impact on the progress of the Civil War. Goodheart notes that the invention of the telegraph meant the rapid spread of information that altered the character of military strategy. Perhaps more importantly, the invention of communication technology like the telegraph made the American civil war momentous in terms of global history. What happened in the United States was somehow going to matter abroad. As Goodheart puts it, "The world was beginning to seem, for the first time, like a single interconnected web, where a vibration at some distant point might set even solid Boston trembling," (29). Readers also meet Abraham Lincoln the man and the president, learning how his political stance evolved and how his commitment to Constitutional ideals helped him to form a more perfect union. By the end of 1861, the reader understands how Northerners and abolitionists came to view their fellow countrymen as not just political opponents but as enemies.

The main point of Goodheart's book is that the American Civil War helped to define the character of a nation, making the Union realize the underlying meaning of its cohesion. Southerners and secessionists in many ways had developed a stronger sense of character and collective purpose than had the northern states by 1861. United under the general rubric of a sense of persecution, the secessionists hastily created a faux nation -- a confederacy of states -- based on its economic clout and commitment to inhuman methods of achieving that economic supremacy. White supremacy is indeed an ancillary undercurrent of Goodheart's 1861. Although the author does not dwell too long on matters related to race, class, and power in the antebellum United States, Goodheart cannot help but trace the evolution of Union sentiment to one that was almost universally ambivalent towards slavery towards one that was adamantly opposed to it. In fact, this is one of the central features of the awakening the nation experienced. Were it not for the shots heard at Fort Sumter, and were it not for the vehemence with which the Civil War would be fought, the Unionists might never have discovered the ethical and moral purpose for fighting against slavery.

Goodheart presents his thesis about the "awakening" of 1861 well, by using narrative and deft prose. The theme of awakening is a strong one because many readers will assume that the Northerners had already become staunch abolitionists when the South seceded. Not so, notes Goodheart. Goodheart's book 1861 is largely about the North finding itself. The book is about the realization that the nation founded in 1776 was not yet perfect and that there was yet work to be done. For the majority of privileged whites in both Northern and Southern states, the status quo worked just fine. However, slavery was an American addiction. It was a sick means of coping with economic competition and the rise of globalization and industrialization. Had the South not foreseen the importance of fighting for its economic sovereignty, the North might never have recognized the sickness it was enabling by allowing slavery to continue to stain the American consciousness. Slavery and democracy cannot coexist; slavery and freedom cannot coexist; and slavery and liberty cannot coexist.