The Loyal Republic - (Civil War America) by Erik Mathisen (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This is the story of how Americans attempted to define what it meant to be a citizen of the United States, at a moment of fracture in the republic's history. As Erik Mathisen demonstrates, prior to the Civil War, American national citizenship amounted to little more than a vague bundle of rights. But during the conflict, citizenship was transformed. Ideas about loyalty emerged as a key to citizenship, and this change presented opportunities and profound challenges aplenty. Confederate citizens would be forced to explain away their act of treason, while African Americans would use their wartime loyalty to the Union as leverage to secure the status of citizens during Reconstruction.

In The Loyal Republic, Mathisen sheds new light on the Civil War, American emancipation, and a process in which Americans came to a new relationship with the modern state. Using the Mississippi Valley as his primary focus and charting a history that traverses both sides of the battlefield, Mathisen offers a striking new history of the Civil War and its aftermath, one that ushered in nothing less than a revolution in the meaning of citizenship in the United States.

Review Quotes

"A meditation on how Americans understood the notion of loyalty and how it related to that of citizenship during the Civil War era. . . . A valuable study."--Journal of American History

"A well-researched and thoughtful study that adds much to our understanding of the complex evolving concepts of American citizenship. Mathisen's focus on the ways of the Civil War altered Americans' understanding of the obligations of citizenship and the role loyalty played in that understanding makes this book a welcome addition."--Journal of Southern History

"A well-researched, thought-provoking, and timely work that makes one reexamine preconceptions of loyalty and citizenship."--Civil War News

"An excellent addition to the field."--Civil War Book Review

"Anyone interested in the Civil War and questions of loyalty and citizenship will find much to enjoy in this book." -- Library Journal

"Intriguing. . . . A nuanced and refreshing treatment of a familiar topic."--American Nineteenth Century History

"Mathisen expertly brings reader's focus in and out of national scale, concentrating alternatively on the federal government and its own grandiose depictions and definitions of citizenship and loyalty, before zooming in on Mississippi and exploring how grandiose definitions filtered down and affected everyday Americans."--Reviews in History

"Mathisen's examination of formerly enslaved persons' efforts to secure property provides a framework for historians studying Reconstruction in the Shenandoah Valley."--Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era

"Offers any number of keen insights. . . . Mathisen guides the reader through complex antebellum debates about sovereignty . . . [and] carefully analyzes ongoing tensions between national, state, and even local levels of authority. . . . This is a book that must be read by anyone seeking to understand the multifaceted reconfiguration of citizenship provoked by the Civil War and Reconstruction."--Journal of the Civil War Era

"This well-researched work should become a welcome addition to any Civil War collection."--CHOICE