Deserter Country: Civil War Opposition in the Pennsylvania Appalachians (review)

America’s military conflicts have almost always triggered dissent, as Robert Sandow points out in his excellent new book, Deserter Country: Civil War Opposition in the Pennsylvania Appalachians. What is less clear is what to make of this dissent—its nature, its extent, its power. In the case of the Civil War, the debate over these issues has for years been dominated by Frank Klement, who argued that Civil War Republicans unjustly defined Democratic dissent as widespread, conspiratorial, and treasonous. More recently, Klement’s challengers have suggested that Civil War Republicans had it right, more or less: wartime dissent was extensive, it not infrequently verged on treason, and it came close to ending the northern war effort. Sandow’s Deserter Country is the newest entry in this debate, and it offers a refreshingly nuanced analysis of the subject.

Focusing on the Pennsylvania Appalachians—an area dubbed “deserter country” by contemporaries—Sandow sets out to uncover the causes and nature of wartime dissent. Though the focus of most scholars of resistance to the war has been on immigrant laborers and industrial centers, the mountains of the Keystone State are particularly appropriate for study because, as the author asserts, “the most important fact about Northern opposition” was that “the majority of war opponents were not the immigrants living in the North’s crowded manufacturing cities but the backbone of rural America” (8). Drawing on manuscript censuses, government records, legal documents, and newspapers, Deserter Country approaches the question of wartime dissent from the perspective of the dissenters.

Sandow’s study begins with a rich, evocative description of the world of the farmers and woodsmen who populated this part of Pennsylvania. Mountainous terrain, dense forests, and poor soil led farmers to turn to the lumber they cleared to supplement their income, floating timber rafts downriver for sale or barter. One remove from the newly expanding market economy, the area was largely Democratic. When the market finally arrived in the Pennsylvania Appalachians, steam sawmills and log drives threatened the farmers’ livelihood. Their response revealed strong local identities and republicanism rooted in land ownership. Since state Republican leaders were the advancing market’s chief advocates, the conflict was also understood in partisan terms. In 1857, tensions culminated in a violent raftsmen’s rebellion. By the time the Civil War brought new burdens to Pennsylvania’s mountain farmers, a political culture defined by these values and experiences characterized the region. As wartime policies pulled labor from the fields and made demands on local communities, the farmers placed the blame for their problems on the Republican administration. Conscription and emancipation exacerbated animosity toward the government among a people leery of strangers and committed to states’ rights and white supremacy.

In many ways, resistance to war measures in the Pennsylvania mountains mirrored the trajectory of wartime opposition throughout the North. In newspapers, churches, and political organizations, residents argued about the values of the nation and the meaning of patriotism. Party interest was never far from these debates: there were rural Union Leagues promoting devotion to Republican ideals and Democratic vigilance societies cultivating voter loyalty. Though Republicans claimed to have discovered a chapter of the largely illusory Knights of the Golden Circle, there is no evidence that one existed.

While Republican fears were exaggerated for partisan effect, there was some truth to the charges of violent resistance. Democratic editorials reflected the desperation and powerlessness the farmers felt, particularly after the Conscription Act. Living in poverty and burdened with family responsibilities, facing seemingly arbitrary incursions by an intrusive state, they employed the “weapons of the weak”: “foot dragging, desertion, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, and sabotage” (104). Mutual protection societies formed to assist men who had been drafted or had deserted. The wooded environs nurtured this resistance: with few navigable roads, draft resisters and deserters found a safe haven. And the community supported them: enrollment officers were harassed or assaulted—of...