Why Confederates Fought2007

One of the enduring questions about the Civil War is why 90% of the southern white male population ultimately served in some capacity with the Confederate military. The vast majority of those men were ultimately acting against what appeared to be their own material interests. In a tightly written, beautiful monograph, Sheehan-Dean pushes past the unsatisfactory thesis of The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy, which argued that the Confederate soldier was just a “po’ boy who didn’t know no bettah,” and situates them broadly in the political context of their own time. They understood the political ramifications of secession, he argues, but they supported the Confederate nation because it offered protection for their recently won political liberties [universal white suffrage] and economic success that was grounded in a slave-based economy.