Alamogordo Town News Book Club Book Review: Tis Not Our War

Draft dodging came to a height and into the American psyche during the Vietnam War years. When one thinks of draft dodgers one thinks of the controversies of the Vietnam war and the protests nationwide around that war and the abuses of selective service targeting minority populations and the poor.

When thinking of draft dodging few would consider such things occurring during the American Civil War. 

AlamogordoTownNews.org readers have asked us for book recommendations and the book: Tis Not Our War: Avoiding Military Service in the Civil War North, by author Paul Taylor was a subject matter that peaked our interest as a first to introduce to our readers as a recommendation. 

Tis Not Our War: Avoiding Military Service in the Civil War North, author Paul Taylor describes the public view of the Civil War as the war progressed, the cultural mindset of Americans in the 1860s, and why, instead of enlisting, the vast majority chose to avoid fighting the war some by deserted or and others dodging the draft entirely.

Tis Not Our War discusses why some were willing to serve, but focuses on why the rest of white citizens between ages 18 and 45, were unwilling, either becoming totally apathetic or outright hostile toward the idea.

President Abraham Lincoln and his administration saw military service during a time of national emergency as a civic duty, but it was a view at odds with the traditional American sense of rugged individualism. Many citizens believed that a faraway federal government in Washington had no authority over how a citizen lived or died and strongly resisted Lincoln's attempts to compel them to fight the war for the Union.

A large numbers of American men did answer the president's call to arms, especially after the Siege of Fort Sumter near Charleston S. C. in April 1861. As  result President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve in Union militias for three-month enlistments. By the end of 1861, the Union Army boasted more than 640,000 men in uniform.

The author, Taylor calls it the largest mobilization of American military power in history as a percentage of population, estimating that 33%-40% of white, military-age men in the Northern states volunteered to fight for the Union in 1861. On top of patriotism, they joined to preserve the Union and eventuallyaa at end slavery in the United States.

It's a romantic notion, one that the author cuts through by reminding readers that preserving the Union and freeing those in bondage was an equally romantic memory of a bygone era. Per the narrative many joined the Union Army for the regular pay, as America was a rural economy at the time or because they were drafted.

The romance of fighting for the cause was, for many, an idea concocted based on stories of those generations of the past having survived the revolutionary war. 

Lincoln's call for volunteers was, of course, not enough, and Congress would enact legislation to address the Union Army's needs years later referred to as a draft.

The Militia Act of 1862 gave individual states the power to institute a draft when a state could not meet its quota for volunteers. In 1863, Congress passed the Enrollment Act, the United States' first-ever national conscription law, requiring every male citizen and immigrant who applied for citizenship between ages 20 and 45 to enroll to be drafted. Provisions of the law, such as the ability to procure a substitute draftee or to pay a fee to avoid the draft, led to rioting in the streets of New York City.

It was wholly unpopular in the rest of the country. Thus Americans first antiwar anti-draft protest originated with the civil war. 

There were men who didn't serve because they were simply unfit or in poor health. Farmers were needed to grow food, and manufacturers needed to produce war materiel, both of which were every bit as important and patriotic as marching on the enemy, says Taylor. But the author also points out that others who did not fight were labeled "poltroons," cowards of the era, for shirking their duty when the country called. He also discusses why that just isn't the truth.

When the war began, many felt it would be a brief conflict, the South would be taught a lesson, and everyone would return home. There were men who felt that by the time they got to the front, the war would be over and their lives irreversibly disrupted.

Many who enlisted in the Union Army found themselves poorly provisioned, poorly dressed and using antiquated weapons. Camp diseases took its toll on the Union recruits early on. The federal government even struggled to pay its troops. If seeing the plight of these militias had the power to dispel romantic notions of the Union cause, it wouldn't have affected most northern college students and professors simply because they never saw it. The further the university was from the war's front lines, the less of an impact it seemed to have on their lives.

Parents refused to grant permission to sons, wives harried their husbands and schools instituted martial drill programs, all in an effort to keep their military-age men from going off to war. As time wore on, those who went off to war without the personal sense of duty or patriotism began an "epidemic" of desertion. By 1864, an average of more than 7,300 troops deserted every month. When those deserters returned home, their woeful stories of Army life hampered further recruiting efforts. Some 200,000 men left their units during the Civil War, and the threat of execution or being literally branded as a deserter had little bearing on their decisions.

This interesting book, Tis Not Our War, is a fascinating look at the way everyday Americans saw their duty toward the country and its government, and is equally relevant to today's society and its its views toward the central government. 

This thoughts was even at a time when its very existence of that government was at stake and as such may be even more relevant today with democracy at risk per many political philosophers.

It's neither a celebration nor a shaming of those who didn't serve, diserted or avoided the draft of those times. Instead, this book is an empathetic look at the United States at that time but via  modern prospective, its people and the cultural forces that shaped how a people really felt about fighting a war against themselves during the 1860's. Relevant today? Absolutely and an important and relevant read. A recommendation for our readers and anyone that enjoys history, and society. 

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