Confederate Reckoning by Stephanie McCurry

These later enlisters’ words reveal five aspects of their motivations. McPherson’s description as “nonslaveholding Southern married farmer with small children” as Noe discloses that half were simply too young before 1862 to serve. Significantly, they do not completely fit James M. Therefore, collectively they appear to be twice as likely to have been “professional men in various white-collar occupations,” but half as likely to be skilled laborers compared to all members of the Confederate army. Three-fifths were engaged in farming and one-fourth were professional men (especially teachers, clerks, merchants, and doctors). Two-thirds were from landholding families and about two-fifths from slaveholding families. He finds that they were “slightly older” at the time of enlistment than the vast majority of those who had already joined and that about half of them were already married (p. Noe identifies basic statistical characteristics of these later enlisters. His study is based on a sample of 320 later enlisters whose letters and diaries reveal their motivations. Noe is curious about the 180,000 men (22.5 percent of all Confederate soldiers), what he terms “reluctant rebels” or “later enlisters,” who entered Confederate service between 1862 and the war’s conclusion. Noe’s book continues the rich scholarly tradition of examining groups that demonstrated behavior varying from the norm. Reviewed by Robert Kenzer (University of Richmond) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.

Reluctant Rebels: The Confederates Who Joined the Army after 1861.Ĭivil War America Series. Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South.Ĭambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010.

Confederate Reckoning by Stephanie McCurry