Blending Loyalties: Maine Soldiers Respond to The Civil War

Abstract

Scholars agree that during the Civil War most Federal soldiers saw their primary purpose as saving the Union, but their loyalty to the Union was expressed in complex ways. Using a sample of thirty-seven collections of Civil War correspondence and diaries, Andy DeRoche assesses the soldiers ’ view of the war, the Union, the Conscription Act, and the elections of 1864. Above all, loyalty to family structured their thinking about these momentous national questions.