The Confederate Heartland: Military and Civilian Morale in the Western Confederacy by Bradley R. Clampitt (review)

For historians, morale is a slippery topic, hard to quantify and difficult to trace to specific events, but still a powerful force in shaping participant perceptions of war. Despite methodological pitfalls, the study of morale offers great opportunities to understand the course of the American Civil War. Studies of the Confederate home front have long demonstrated the powerful social, political, and economic bonds between southern civilians and soldiers at the front. Scholars have also documented the links between the conditions at home and desertion, war weariness, and the dedication of soldiers to their cause. In this interesting and provocative study, Bradley R. Clampitt attempts to map the contours of soldier and civilian morale in the western Confederacy during the last eighteen months of the war.

For Clampitt, morale is "a measure of human emotion, including the enthusiasm, loyalty, and especially confidence or lack thereof among individuals with regard to the success of their cause" (3). He eschews the traditional and often meaningless categories of high or low morale in favor of gauging morale as a belief in an eventual Confederate victory. He argues that in Alabama, Mississippi, and west Tennessee, two groups of persistent Confederates emerged even as the fortunes of war began to turn against them. The first consisted of white southerners who espoused a strong sense of nationalism and "expected the Confederacy to win the war." The second group exhibited lower morale while it "continued to desire southern independence as much as ever, but they no longer expected southern independence" (3). Those southerners who, in their thoughts or actions, had abandoned the southern cause are not the focus of this study, but Clampitt acknowledges that their growing numbers did shape morale and the ways it was expressed as the war wore on.

Using a chronological approach, Clampitt analyzes the diaries and letters of Confederate soldiers and civilians to trace the waxing and waning of morale. Clearly, both soldier and civilian morale remained linked to battlefield success. Nathan Bedford Forrest's victory at Brice's Crossroads in northern Mississippi boosted morale across the region, and the defeat at Atlanta generated malaise. For civilians, impressment and the tax-in-kind continued to cause tension with the Richmond government, but belief in the cause remained relatively strong. Among those in the army, morale remained tied to both battlefield success and the competence of their commanders. Soldiers held Joseph E. Johnston in high esteem even after the fall of Atlanta, but John Bell Hood's often reckless exploits undermined morale. According to Clampitt, men and women across the social and economic spectrums continued to support the Confederate cause until very late in the war. More important, he argues, people in the Confederate heartland forged a distinctive and powerful Confederate identity that sustained them during the war and remained a touchstone for years afterward.

Clampitt offers a thorough and engaging study of Confederate morale. He demonstrates that for both soldiers and civilians belief in the potential success of the Confederate cause continued until the winter of 1865, when hope evaporated in the face of declining military fortunes and growing hardships on the home front. He also reinforces that idea that, far removed from the major theaters of war, civilians in the Confederate heartland developed a strong sense of persistent nationalism and a powerful identity of their own. His real contributions remain his attempt to show the true effects of battlefield and home front conditions on individual morale and the ways he traces the changes in morale among soldiers and civilians over time. Scholars may question his sample size or the power of the forces he argues affected morale, but his approach has provided new insight into an often elusive topic. His work will shape discussions of morale, the Confederate home front, and southern nationalism for years to come.