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Lincoln's Divided Legion: Loyalty and the Political Culture of the Army of the Potomac, 1861-1865

Fry, Zachery A
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1667-286X
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492292669458662

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, History.
The Army of the Potomac remains the most meticulously-studied field force of the American Civil War, yet remarkably little work has sought to connect the army’s familiar narrative with wider scholarly debates about Union soldier ideology and northern political culture. This dissertation examines the process by which citizen-soldiers gained awareness of the key partisan issues of the day while serving at the front. In particular, it argues active Republican junior officers worked vigorously with party officials and newspaper editors to fight political opponents in their own units and undermine conservative Democratic generals at corps and army headquarters. In doing so, these Republican (or “radical”) officers educated politically-naive enlisted men on the tenets of “hard war” policy, radicalizing the army and priming the ranks to vote for Lincoln over former general George B. McClellan in 1864. The most potent cultural value in the army was loyalty, and Republicans and Democrats disagreed sharply over how to define it for the men under their command. Republicans emphasized obedience to the sitting administration as a wartime imperative, meaning truly loyal soldiers would proclaim fealty to Lincoln’s policies in the face of opposition from Confederates and northern anti-war Democrats. The army’s Democrats, in contrast, defined loyalty as obedience to a strict conservative conception of the Constitution, one which restrained the administration and left antebellum institutions largely untouched. Loyalty, in other words, was to “the Constitution as it is; the Union as it was.” The Republican view of loyalty resonated more readily with the average men of the Army of the Potomac who were enduring hardship and witnessing the realities of wartime Virginia. The failures of the 1862 Peninsula Campaign drained many soldiers of the initial rage militaire which had excited them to enlist, and they implicitly placed trust in commanding general McClellan as their best defense against mismanagement of the war. McClellan’s removal in late 1862 infuriated the army, with thousands of soldiers convinced the political class was arrayed against them. The turning point in the army’s political education came in the first four months of 1863, however, when a peace faction of the Democratic Party emerged in certain strongholds of the northern home front, collectively offering a ready target for soldiers’ frustrations with politicians. Republican-minded junior officers capitalized on this opportunity and organized an army-wide onslaught against “Copperheads” in the northern press. By April 1863, the army eschewed nuance and adopted the understanding that any who wavered in upholding the Lincoln administration were disloyal to the Union. Northern states controlled by Democratic legislatures forbade soldiers at the front from voting in wartime elections, and this intransigence further earned the army’s scorn. Where soldiers could vote absentee, they leveled stern indictments of Democratic candidates. In October 1863, disfranchised Pennsylvania soldiers expressed shock when McClellan endorsed a notorious anti-administration Democrat for governor. Although the operations of 1864 depleted much of the army’s old ranks, survivors worked overtime in the presidential election to defeat McClellan once he received the Democratic nomination. Veterans continued their political engagement in the postwar period, hoping to maintain their status as the conscience of the nation.
Christopher Mark Grimsley (Advisor)
John Brooke (Committee Member)
Paula Baker (Committee Member)
Allen Guelzo (Committee Member)
466 p.
American History; Armed Forces; History; Military History; Military Studies
Army of the Potomac; Union Army; Civil War; George McClellan; Abraham Lincoln; Republican Party; Democratic Party; political culture; emancipation; conscription; Copperheads; loyalty; voting; election; presidential election of 1864; veterans

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Fry, Z. A. (2017). Lincoln's Divided Legion: Loyalty and the Political Culture of the Army of the Potomac, 1861-1865 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492292669458662

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Fry, Zachery. Lincoln's Divided Legion: Loyalty and the Political Culture of the Army of the Potomac, 1861-1865. 2017. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492292669458662.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Fry, Zachery. "Lincoln's Divided Legion: Loyalty and the Political Culture of the Army of the Potomac, 1861-1865." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492292669458662

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1492292669458662
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.