Confederate Slave Impressment in the Upper South - (Civil War America) by Jaime Amanda Martinez (Paperback)

About the Book

Confederate Slave Impressment in the Upper South

Book Synopsis

Under policies instituted by the Confederacy, white Virginians and North Carolinians surrendered control over portions of their slave populations to state authorities, military officials, and the national government to defend their new nation. State and local officials cooperated with the Confederate War Department and Engineer Bureau, as well as individual generals, to ensure a supply of slave labor on fortifications. Using the implementation of this policy in the Upper South as a window into the workings of the Confederacy, Jaime Amanda Martinez provides a social and political history of slave impressment. She challenges the assumption that the conduct of the program, and the resistance it engendered, was an indication of weakness and highlights instead how the strong governments of the states contributed to the war effort.
According to Martinez, slave impressment, which mirrored Confederate governance as a whole, became increasingly centralized, demonstrating the efficacy of federalism within the CSA. She argues that the ability of local, state, and national governments to cooperate and enforce unpopular impressment laws indicates the overall strength of the Confederate government as it struggled to enforce its independence.

Review Quotes

"[A] fresh look at a confederate governance." -- Southern Pines Pilot

"[Historians] will appreciate [Martinez's] book as the most extensive and detailed study of this important subject." -- Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"A detailed and suggestive analysis of the relevance of slave labor to the failure and success of the Southern war effort and to the economic and social history of the Confederacy." -- Michigan War Studies Review

"A valuable addition to Confederate scholarship and part of a growing trend that focuses less on the top-down nature of the centralized Confederate state and investigates a more realistic understanding of the cooperation necessary between Richmond, the states, and the citizens." -- Journal of Southern History

"An essential study in the relationship between Confederate society, the Confederate military, and the Confederate state." -- Civil War Book Review

"Anyone whose fields include slavery or the Civil War should read this book. . . . Martinez's book also stands to serve as a valuable and necessary corrective to enduring popular myths concerning some of the most significant events and developments in southern history." -- American Historical Review

"Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." -- CHOICE

"Martinez has produced a work with which all those who question Confederate nationalism and the efficiency of the Confederate government must reckon." -- Virginia Magazine

"More studies like Martinez's are needed to open unexplored avenues into Confederate economic and political history." -- America's Civil War

"Not only important for scholars interested in understanding how impressment should be situated in a larger governmental balancing act between the home front and the front lines but also in comprehending how integral slave labor was to the economic vitality of the Confederacy." -- Journal of American History