The Union army's vote for Abraham Lincoln in 1864 has led many scholars to conclude that the soldiers supported the Republican Party’s effort to abolish slavery. Jonathan White challenges this paradigm in Civil War historiography, arguing that the army vote is not a reliable index of ideological motivation or political sentiment.
In this provocative volume, White takes aim at what he claims passes for conventional wisdom about how soldiers in the Union army viewed emancipation and electoral politics, especially during the presidential contest of 1864. The result will spark discussion, and in some cases controversy.
Jonathan W. White is associate professor of American studies at Christopher Newport University and the author of Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman.