Best regards, Andrew Stewart - - - Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: September 22, 2020 at 5:06:14 PM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-Nationalism]: Zander on Nelson, 'The Three-Cornered > War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Megan Kate Nelson. The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the > Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West. New York > Scribner, 2020. xx + 331 pp. $28.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5011-5254-2. > > Reviewed by Cecily Zander (Penn State) > Published on H-Nationalism (September, 2020) > Commissioned by Evan C. Rothera > > The introduction of the American West as an important region in the > historiography of the US Civil War has brought many issues into > sharper focus for historians--among them questions about race and > unfree labor in the age of emancipation and the length and extent of > Reconstruction. In the case of historian and writer Megan Kate > Nelson's Three-Cornered War, old debates about nationalism are > revived and given redefined stakes in a work that presents a sweeping > history of competing political and social visions for the future of > the Southwest in the midst of civil war. > > In many ways, The Three-Cornered War serves as an update to two > important works on the history of the Civil War's westernmost > events--Alvin M. Josephy Jr.'s The Civil War in the American West > (1991) and Donald S. Frazier's Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire > in the Southwest (1995).[1] Where Frazier and Josephy lent their > focus to military and diplomatic events, however, Nelson combines a > military narrative with analysis of the social, political, and > environmental factors at play in the region encompassing what is > today West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and much of southern Colorado. > Nelson uses a diverse cast of characters, including army officers, > their wives, volunteer soldiers, Native American leaders and Native > American women, Hispanic borderlands residents, and territorial > politicians to weave together a narrative of conquest and > consolidation, where some participants emerge as winners, others > gamble their reputations and lose big, and some have their ways of > life permanently transformed, and often not for the better. > > The Three-Cornered War makes a three-pronged argument. First, the > monograph implicitly argues for the importance of the West as an > ideological battleground between visions of a slaveholding empire in > the West and one predicated on free soil and free labor (an empire > for Anglo-Americans at the expense of all others). Second, the book > argues that Civil War events primed the region for debates that would > come to a head in the Reconstruction period, supporting historian > Elliott West's framework of a "Greater Reconstruction" that > encompassed a longer chronology and wider geography than most > traditional histories depict. Finally, Nelson demonstrates that > regardless of its military importance, the West warranted significant > attention from both the Union and Confederate national governments, > whose political and legal maneuvering caught Native American nations > and Mexican peoples in their crossfire.[2] > > Historians of nationalism will be especially interested in how > Nelson's argument contributes to the field-defining debate over > whether the Confederacy existed as an independent nation--and whether > it existed as such solely in the minds of Confederates or as a > political entity capable of making and enforcing laws. In her > profiles of both Henry Hopkins Sibley and John Baylor--the two > military officers who led the Confederate invasion of the > Southwest--Nelson makes a case for the Confederacy's territorial > ambitions. Despite Confederate president Jefferson Davis's > pronouncement that "we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement ... all we > ask is to be let alone" in his inaugural address, Nelson shows that > the Confederate government made no attempt to stop Sibley and > Baylor's great land-grab in the Southwest.[3] > > Nelson's work thus joins a new wave of scholarship that affirms the > legal and political ambitions of the Confederacy as a nation that > simultaneously waged a war of independence and one of aggrandizement. > Historian Adrian Brettle's recent Colossal Ambitions: Confederate > Planning for a Post-Civil War World (2020) offers an excellent > corollary to Nelson's work, investigating the ways in which > Confederate leaders envisioned their postwar nation, which > encompassed not only the American Southwest but also foreign > territory. Collectively these activities represented a continuation > of the antebellum Southern international ambitions that historian > Matthew Karp detailed in This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at > the Helm of American Foreign Policy (2016). Readers who approach the > question of Confederate nationalism in 2020 cannot ignore the > contributions of all three authors, as well as Paul Quigley's > excellent Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, > 1848-1865 (2011), in assessing whether there was a Confederate > nation. The answer in Nelson's work on the Civil War West is an > implicit yes.[4] > > But what about the United States, whose national identity was > fractured by secession? What did the Western arc of the Civil War > mean for the Lincoln government and the ascendant Republican Party in > the territories? Nelson contends that for the United States the Civil > War in the West "exposed a hard and complicated truth about the Union > government's war aims: that they simultaneously embraced slave > emancipation and Native extermination in order to secure an American > empire of liberty" (p. 202). In her discussion of Union territorial > official John Clark, Nelson gives readers a chance to see the > interior politics of territorial expansion. While the Lincoln > government could not commit military resources to the Southwest on a > scale that compared to Virginia or Tennessee, the administration > placed trusted political subordinates in key positions early in the > war. Initially these appointments helped to prevent several > territories from voting in favor of secession, but as the war wore on > they worked to engender greater loyalty to the United States than had > previously existed in the region. > > Territorial officials also worked closely with military officers to > approve and carry out one of the most brutal instances of Indian > removal in the nation's history. In 1864 Major General James H. > Carleton (whose California Column represented the largest Union force > in the far West) ordered Kit Carson to march as many as nine thousand > members of the Navajo nation over four hundred miles from their lands > in Arizona to the Bosque Redondo reservation in New Mexico. Carson > adopted a strategy that Civil War Americans were increasingly > becoming familiar with--razing much of the territory he crossed and > destroying Navajo property to compel capitulation. Historian Mark E. > Neeley Jr. has cautioned historians against comparing the strategy of > Carson (or the infamous John Chivington, perpetrator of the Sand > Creek massacre) too closely with that of Ulysses S. Grant, William T. > Sherman, or Phillip H. Sheridan, because, he argues, those officers > did not invent the strategy of "total war." If anything, the Civil > War version was an adaptation of tactics that had long been used > against Native Americans.[5] Nelson's narrative of the Bosque Redondo > and several other postbellum Indian conflicts reveals further > adaptation of the total war strategy and the way in which the Civil > War empowered the military conquest in the American West. From the > perspective of military historians, Nelson could have been clearer > about the development of American military strategy in the Southwest; > however, because the monograph is narratively driven, rather than > historiographically, this is a small quibble. > > One final area where Nelson's monograph excels is in telling the > environmental side of the story of the Civil War West. The > Three-Cornered War's attention to the unique conditions present in > the Southwest allows Nelson to explain what set military campaigning > in the Southwest apart from marching and fighting in other Civil War > theaters. In New Mexico access to water mattered far more than any > other condition, for example, and without consistent supplies coming > over an established transportation network, territorial occupation > quickly became untenable--as Henry Hopkins Sibley discovered when his > supply train was destroyed after the battle of Glorietta Pass. > Attention to the environment is critical to Nelson's updated military > narrative and puts her work in conversation with both Kathryn Shively > (Nature's Civil War: Common Soldiers and the Environment in 1862 > Virginia, 2013) and Earl J. Hess, (The Civil War in the West: Victory > and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi, 2012), who > detailed the effect of drought conditions on Confederate general > Braxton Bragg's 1862 Kentucky campaign, which ended similarly to > Sibley's New Mexico invasion. > > Books about the US Civil War typically strive toward one goal--making > sense of an event that threw the nation into chaos and touched the > lives of millions of people. Though Megan Kate Nelson only deals with > a handful of individuals, her tapestry of stories offers a compelling > new format for writing about a conflict that often feels too large to > fully grasp. Nelson's characters help her to humanize the Civil War > in the West and should point future historians to rich veins of > testimony about the Civil War era that still have much to reveal > about the conflict's impact on a region that has not traditionally > been part of the geographical narrative. The Three-Cornered War is an > admirable effort to chart a new course on an old map and will no > doubt help to form the foundation of a new field of historical > inquiry into the causes, conduct, and consequences of the Civil War > in the West. > > Notes > > [1]. Other recent works dealing with the Civil War West include: > Christopher M. Rein, The Second Colorado Cavalry: A Civil War > Regiment on the Great Plains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, > 2020); Adam Arenson and Andrew R. Graybill, eds., Civil War Wests: > Testing the Limits of the United States (Oakland: University of > California Press, 2015); Virginia Scharff, ed., Empire and Liberty: > The Civil War and the West (Oakland: The Autry National Center and > the University of California Press, 2015; and Ari Kelman, A Misplaced > Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek (Cambridge, MA: > Harvard University Press, 2013). > > [2]. Elliott West, "Reconstructing Race," Western Historical > Quarterly 3 (Spring 2003):6-26; Elliot West, The Last Indian War: The > Nez Perce Story (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). Richard > White has taken up a similar argument in his contribution to Oxford's > History of the United States Series. See White, The Republic for > Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the > Gilded Age, 1865-1896 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). > > [3]. Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and > Speeches, ed. Dunbar Roland, 10 vols. (New York: J. J. Little and > Ives Company, 1923), 5:84. > > [4]. Two main schools of thought dominate the historiographical > question of Confederate nationalism, which in turn has been used a > point of analysis for explaining Confederate defeat--loss of civilian > morale and lack of national identity are often identified as two > critical factors in the Confederacy's defeat by the United States. > Nelson's work aligns more strongly with the school of thought that > Confederates did sustain a national identity throughout the conflict > and shows how geographically widespread a belief in Confederate > independence was, encompassing not only the eleven seceded states but > also substantial pockets of the Southwest. For the literature on > Confederate nationalism see Gary W. Gallagher, The Confederate War > (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); William A. Blair, > Virginia's Private War: Feeding Body and Soul in the Confederacy (New > York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Drew Gilpin Faust, The Creation > of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War > South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988); Anne S. > Rubin, A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, > 1861-1868 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005); > and Stephanie McCurry, Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in > the Civil War South (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010). > > [5]. Mark E. Neeley Jr., The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction > (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 165-66. > > Citation: Cecily Zander. Review of Nelson, Megan Kate, _The > Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in > the Fight for the West_. H-Nationalism, H-Net Reviews. September, > 2020. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55636 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#1838): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/1838 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/77023638/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
