The Fishing Creek Confederacy: A Story of Civil War Draft Resistance by Richard A. Sauers, Peter Tomasak (review)

In The Fishing Creek Confederacy: A Story of Civil War Draft Resistance, Richard A. Sauers and Peter Tomasak take a microhistorical approach to northern wartime dissent and its suppression. While focused on rural communities in north-central Pennsylvania, the narrative illustrates broader patterns of protest across the Union. Republican editors coined the term “Fishing Creek Confederacy” to exaggerate and vilify antiwar sentiment in northern Columbia County. The label suggested both an organized anti-government conspiracy and prosouthern sympathies—concepts associated with “Copperhead” Democrats. Previous scholarship frequently echoes Democratic rhetoric, depicting men arrested by the government as martyrs of civil liberty. Consequently, military authorities appear villainous and authoritarian. Tomasak and Sauers seek to present “the truth behind the draft resistance in Columbia County” (xiii).

Scholars of the Union home front have long documented the internal discord that arose. As early as 1928, Ella Lonn lifted the veil of northern patriotism to expose widespread opposition in Desertion during the Civil War. By 1960, Frank L. Klement’s The Copperheads in the Middle West anchored an expanding genre of midwestern political studies tracing Democratic resistance to ideological and economic roots. The theme is also central to Jennifer L. Weber’s more broadly focused Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North (2006). Additionally, studies published in the shadow of Vietnam link opposition to the inequities of the draft, including Eugene C. Murdock’s One Million Men: The Civil War Draft in the North (1971) and James W. Geary’s more highly analytical We Need Men: The Union Draft in the Civil War (1991). Most recently, Mark E. Neely Jr. has done much to frame the debate over wartime civil-military relations as well as the impact of partisan politics. His landmark The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (1991) largely absolves Lincoln’s military of partisan influence in administering flawed conscription and civil liberties policies. Yet in The Union Divided: Party Conflict in the Civil War North (2002), Neely argues that intense partisanship hindered the war effort and heightened fears of “treason.”

In explaining Columbia County’s draft resistance, Sauers and Tomasak offer an orthodox view. They point to military failures and controversial policies of emancipation, the suspension of civil liberties, and especially conscription. They stress that political partisanship nourished discontent and resistance. The text generally sympathizes with soldiers and federal officials enforcing unpopular draft laws. The authors find little evidence for abuse of power or political motivation. Republicans may have exaggerated the threat of Democratic opposition, but many believed the threat to be credible. As for opposition, the authors argue that organized resistance failed to materialize. Even the military expedition’s commanding officer declared the rumors “a grand farce” (56). Regardless, widespread grassroots dissent did exist. The book refers not just to heightened debate, confrontations, and informal meetings but to an amorphous “system of home defense” devised by local men to avoid the draft (119). As a form of material evidence, the authors conjecture that a ruined foundation atop North Mountain may have served as a “fort” for area deserters.

More could be done to contextualize the nature, extent, and significance of draft resistance in Columbia County. The narrative suggests that Columbia County, while staunchly Democratic, was not a scene of widespread antidraft violence or above-average levels of draft evasion. Neither state nor federal conscription elicited significantly more than partisan condemnation. In July 1864, a veteran named James Robinson was shot leading a nighttime raid to arrest deserters and draft evaders. The authors conclude that he had no official capacity connected to the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau. His wounding (but not death, which came months later) along with “reports of widespread draft resistance” justified military operations (xii). It would be instructive to learn more about community-based politics and patterns of resistance.

The Fishing Creek Confederacy has many strengths. It...