Armies of Deliverance A New History of the Civil War

In Armies of Deliverance, Elizabeth R. Varon argues that Northerners imagined the war as a crusade to deliver the Southern masses from slaveholder domination and to bring democracy, prosperity, and education to the region. And that Confederates, fighting to establish an independent slaveholding republic, were determined to preempt, discredit, and silence Yankee appeals to the Southern masses. Interweaving military and social history, Varon shows how the Union's politics of deliverance helped it to win the war but also ultimately sowed the seeds of postwar discord.

Elizabeth R. Varon is Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History and a member of the Executive Council of the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia.

Maps
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Timeline
Introduction: "We Are Fighting for Them"
Setting the Stage: The Secession Crisis in the North
Building a Wartime Unionist Coalition
The Confederate Response
PART ONE: LOYALISM
1. March of Redemption: From Bull Run to Fort Donelson
Green Together
Advent of the "Contraband" Policy
Missouri and Irregular Warfare in the Trans-Mississippi Theater
Kentucky and "Armed Neutrality" in the Western Theater of War
2. Ripe for the Harvest: To Shiloh
Deliverance Diplomacy
Winter Doldrums
Shiloh
War Work
Battle Hymns
Compensated Emancipation
3. Sacred Soil: Virginia in the Summer of 1862
The Peninsula Campaign
The Seesaw of Deliverance in the Valley
Seven Days
"A Conservative Course"
Portents of Hard War
Military Necessity and Black Labor
The Second Confiscation Act
Lincoln's Road to Emancipation
Lincoln's August Gambit
4. The Perils of Occupation
Carrot and Stick
The "Woman Order" and Female Accountability
Second Bull Run
The War in the West
"My Maryland"
Antietam
Combat Motivation
PART TWO: EMANCIPATION
5. Countdown to Jubilee: Lincoln's Hundred Days
The Righteous Decree
"Liberating" Kentucky
Vicksburg Is the Key
Forlorn Hope at Fredericksburg
Lincoln's Second Annual Message
6. The Emancipation Proclamation
New Birth of Freedom
Reactions to the Proclamation in the North
"Contraband" Camps
Confederate Reactions to the Proclamation
7. Fire in the Rear: To Chancellorsville
Hell's Half Acre
Return to Vicksburg
Slough of Despond
Chancellorsville
Vallandham and Civil Liberties
Union Leagues
The Lieber Code and the Laws of War
8. Under a Scorching Sun: The Summer of 1863
Lee's Second Invasion
Meade Takes Charge
Gettysburg Begins
July 2: Day Two
July 3: Day Three
Vicksburg's Circle of Fire
Port Hudson and Milliken's Bend
Vicksburg Falls at Last
A Turning Point?
The New York Draft Riot
The Fighting 54th
Fort Wagner
PART THREE: AMNESTY
9. Rallying Point: Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan
Chickamauga and Chattanooga
The Liberation of East Tennessee
"Internal Reconstruction" in the Border States
Military Reconstruction in the Confederate States
The Gettysburg Address
Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan
Confederate Dissent and Southern Unionism
10. Is This Hell? Fort Pillow to Atlanta
Fort Pillow
Prisoners of War
The Overland Campaign
Atlanta Campaign, Phase One
Challenges to Lincoln
The Wade-Davis Bill
The Crater
Siege and Stalemate
11. Campaign Season: The Election of 1864
The Fall of Atlanta
The Burning
The National Union Party
Confederate Reactions to the 1864 Campaign
The Result
Sherman's March
Special Field Order No. 15
12. Malice Toward None: The Union Triumphant
The Richmond-Petersburg Front
The Richmond Underground
Confederate Emancipation
The Thirteenth Amendment
Lincoln's Second Inaugural
The Fall of Richmond
The Surrender at Appomattox
The Advent of Peace
Confederate Interpretations of Lee's Surrender
The Assassination
The Final Surrenders
Conclusion: "Deliver Us from Such a Moses": Andrew Johnson and the Legacy of the Civil War
Johnson's Amnesty Plan
Congressional Reconstruction and Beyond
Notes
Suggested Readings
Table of Contents for Sources for Armies of Deliverance
Glossary
Index