Enemies of the Country - by John C Inscoe & Robert C Kenzer (Paperback)

About the Book

Exploring family and community dynamics, Enemies of the Country profiles men and women of the Confederate states who had to cope with being a detested minority. These featured individuals represent a wide spectrum of the southern citizenry and underscore how varied Unionist identities and motives were.

Book Synopsis

Exploring family and community dynamics, Enemies of the Country profiles men and women of the Confederate states who, in addition to the wartime burdens endured by most southerners, had to cope with being a detested minority.

With one exception, these featured individuals were white, but they otherwise represent a wide spectrum of the southern citizenry. They include natives to the region, foreign immigrants and northern transplants, affluent and poor, farmers and merchants, politicians and journalists, slaveholders and nonslaveholders. Some resided in highland areas and in remote parts of border states, the two locales with which southern Unionists are commonly associated. Others, however, lived in the Deep South and in urban settings. Some were openly defiant; others took a more covert stand.

Together the portraits underscore how varied Unionist identities and motives were, and how fluid and often fragile the personal, familial, and local circumstances of Unionist allegiance could be. For example, many southern Unionists shared basic social and political assumptions with white southerners who cast their lots with the Confederacy, including an abhorrence of emancipation.

The very human stories of southern Unionists--as they saw themselves and as their neighbors saw them--are shown here to be far more complex and colorful than previously acknowledged.

Review Quotes

Enemies of the Country begins to answer the question of how many white Southerners became Unionists. And it adds considerable depth and variety to our understanding of why some Unionists resisted openly and why others remained silent and did what they could.

--Journal of American History

[A] valuable addition to the study of Southern Unionism. . . . All Civil War scholars will find Enemies of the Country worthwhile reading.

--Florida Historical Quarterly

[The essays] provide valuable and often fresh insights into the sources, nature, limits, and remarkable diversity of southern Unionism.

--American Historical Review

An important book. The work opens with an excellent introduction that provides an insightful historiography of Southern Unionism. . . . [Adds] significantly to our understanding of Southern Unionists in the American Civil War through sound scholarship, clear and effective writing, and thought provoking conclusions.

--Journal of Military History

An important contribution to our understanding of Unionists in the South. The essays offer new and unique insights into the complex world of dissent during wartime, and of the sacrifices made to maintain those beliefs. The authors of these essays demonstrate that Unionist ideas and actions were extremely diverse, and depict persons who made remarkable choices in seemingly impossible situations. This book is highly recommended for all Appalachian and Civil War collections.

--Journal of Appalachian Studies

Interesting, thought-provoking, and even moving.

--North and South

Southern Unionists are shown here to be far more complex and colorful than previously acknowledged.

--Franklin Chronicle

Taken together and read within the context of Inscoe's valuable opening commentary, [the essays] provide a fascinating window onto a subject that seems ripe to emerge into the full sunlight of Civil War scholarship. . . . The South's Unionists are beginning to step forward and be counted; may they continue to do so.

--Journal of Southern History

About the Author

John C. Inscoe (Editor)
JOHN C. INSCOE is a professor of history emeritus at the University of Georgia and the founding editor of the New Georgia Encyclopedia. He is coauthor of The Heart of Confederate Appalachia.

Robert C. Kenzer (Editor)
ROBERT C. KENZER is the William Binford Vest Professor of History at the University of Richmond. His books include Kinship and Neighborhood in a Southern Community.