Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia (review)

Combat motivation has been a hot topic in military history since at least the mid-1970s, when John Keegan nudged the profession toward a deeper scholarly understanding of the “will to combat.” Marvin Cain formally accepted Keegan’s challenge on behalf of historians of the American Civil War in the early 1980s, and no one writing about Johnny Reb or Billy Yank since then has dared to ignore the issue. Indeed, the question of why men fought, broadly conceived, has become a dominant theme in the military history of the war.

In both his methodology and conclusions, Aaron Sheehan-Dean has made a singular contribution to the debate. His focus is limited but precise. He asks why Virginia Confederates fought. Why did men enlist? Why did they continue to fight, even after witnessing the brutality and capriciousness of war? In seeking answers, Sheehan-Dean does not limit himself to the battlefield. Rather, much of his discussion involves general conditions of service and the political expectations of volunteer soldiers. He is especially keen, as his subtitle implies, to explore connections between military loyalty and conditions on the home front. He is more interested in why the average soldier supported the war effort than why he did not literally flee the fight. Still, much of this is of a piece, and Sheehan-Dean does an admirable job of stitching it together.

His conclusions are balanced and reasonable. Sheehan-Dean emphasizes the constantly-shifting rationale for Confederate loyalties in Virginia. A few factors remained constant but acquired more importance in some seasons than in others. The sufferings wrought by invasion, occupation, and depredations on families produced additional reasons for husbands and fathers to stand fast. Some motives, old and new, also became more deeply felt as the war progressed. At the start of hostilities, for example, Sheehan-Dean finds no single issue to account for the rush of Confederate volunteers. Patriotic zeal, economic self-interest, religious conviction, honor, security, and a giant dollop of testosterone all contributed. Those elements had been much diluted by the end of the war but not the commitment of Virginians to the Confederate cause. Most important by 1865, Sheenan-Dean says, were a sense of racial superiority, the sanctity of the family, and, above all, devotion to the Confederate nation. This last factor, a product, Sheehan-Dean believes, of a “vibrant culture of nationalism” among Virginia rebels (p. 187), represents his most contentious argument.

How much Sheehan-Dean’s analysis tells us about why other Southerners fought for the Confederacy remains to be seen. His conclusions seem sound for a state that acted as the seat of the Confederate nation, and whose soldiers seldom defended the borders of any other state. However, those circumstances may well prove unique to Virginia, the depth of loyalties and the reasons for fighting or not fighting being markedly different in other places. Still, Sheehan-Dean cannot be held accountable for the motives of all Confederates. He has done well enough to dissect the thinking of Virginians in so sensible and engaging a manner.