The South vs. The South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War by William W. Freehling (review)

we can only imagine "what's behind that fence / what was left, when the clamor of flesh was stilled" ("Caleb"). Though Depta's poetry is filled with images of failure and enclosure, his vision of the world is not rightly categorized as a dark one. Just as a fence can be built to enclose the object of our desires and separate us from them, so too can someone "prepare ... a room" to enclose us within a house of many desires. And in the end, Depta's poetry seems to ask us, is not this a form of love? Regardless of how one responds to Depta's temptations, his deft mixture of lyrical introspection, visionary interpretation and realistic narrative makes for a rare and pleasurable reading experience. His volume of poetry is a temptation well worth giving in to. —J. Morgan William W. Freehling, The South vs. The South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 238 pages. Preface, index, maps, illustrations, $27.50, cloth. This sparkling analysis of the Civil War by William W. Freehling of the University of Kentucky was first presented as the Littlefield Lectures at the University of Texas. Freehling was invited to speak to address the arguments of Civil War specialist Gary Gallagher that the white South was overwhelmingly loyal to the Confederacy. Using knowledge gained from his exhaustive studies of the South in the 1850s, Freehling presents a compelling case that pro-Union southerners played a decisive role in the conflict. He accomplishes his task by taking a much broader definition of the South than Gallagher does. He asserts—and I agree—that any discussion of the South should include all of the slave states and not just those that composed the Confederacy. Thus, the failure of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri to join the Confederacy was a critical factor in the success of the Union. These states contributed 200,000 men and a large industrial capacity to the Union cause. Equally important, according to Freehling, the failure of these states tojoin the Confederacy meant that Union military offenses could start in the mid-South rather than the upper South. Freehling also points out how siginificant the contributions made by the 100,000 white soldiers from the middle South and 150,000 black soldiers from all parts of the South were in providing the manpower needed to subdue the Confederacy. 89 This extremely readable book has all of the strengths and limitations of a broad study prepared for oral presentation. The chapters are well organized; the argument is clear and easy to follow; and the carefully selected incidents are revealing. Freehling's discussion of the importance of "naming" groups and movements is especially convincing. This is also true of his overall conclusion that the political division of the greater South was a major reason for the defeat of the Confederacy. Because of the breadth of the study and the necessary selectivity in the use of evidence, many readers will have some disagreements with Freehling's presentation and specific analyses. Amajor disappointment for the readers of this journal is his failure to acknowledge the existence of the Appalachian South. Recent works by Todd Groce, Martin Crawford, Jonathan Sarris, Ralph Mann, Ken Noe and Shannon Wilson, and John Inscoe and Gordon McKinney are not cited. This is due in part to Freehling's dependence upon a monocausal explanation for southern white behavior. He claims that the proportion of African Americans in the population provides the major explanation for European American behavior during the secession crisis and the Civil War. Perhaps as a broad category of explanation, this framework is successful. Taking the border states, middle South states, and the lower South as a whole, Freehling's argument holds up. Looking at more discreet locations, major discrepancies appear. The most obvious example of the failure of Freehling's analysis is the contrast between western North Carolina and East Tennessee. Both of these mountain districts had approximately the same proportion of African Americans in the population—about one-tenth. They both had strong Whig party allegiance during the Second American Party System, and the voters opposed secession by strong...