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Reviewed by:
  • Lincoln and the Union Governors by William C. Harris
  • Stephen D. Engle
Lincoln and the Union Governors. William C. Harris, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0-8093-3288-5, 184 pp., cloth, $24.95.

Few historians can boast of having contributed as much to Civil War scholarship in the past forty years as William C. Harris. His body of work is impressive, and he has added significantly to our understanding of Abraham Lincoln and his presidency. In this fresh new work, Harris writes northern governors back into relevance and demonstrates how and why they had significance in saving the Union. Indeed, his work provides a point of departure for scholars seeking to explore the nature of Civil War federalism.

For a scholar who has devoted much of his scholarly career to analyzing Lincoln, Harris recognizes that the president had assistance in winning the war, beyond military commanders, congressmen, and his cabinet. He rescues [End Page 181] those political leaders—known as the war governors—from obscurity precisely because he believes they significantly contributed to Lincoln’s success. In doing so, his work contrasts with William Hesseltine’s Lincoln and the War Governors, published more than sixty years ago. In his 1948 work, Hesseltine argued that however important these governors were in 1861, by 1862–63, they were nothing more than recruiters for the Union armies and no match for Lincoln’s power. Consequently, he cast them aside, where they remained for the rest of the war. In the last several decades, the literature that considers state and federal administrations in any capacity treats individuals in biographies and places them either in a political context or in isolated state or regional affairs. The void is so impressive that it calls for an integrated approach in extracting from the governors’ considerable perspective how northern federalism prevailed during the conflict. By examining the role of northern governors, Harris’s slim book deepens our understanding of how local, state, and federal governance functioned during the war.

Harris establishes a framework for understanding how federalism operated in the Union and how that cooperative exercise contributed to strengthening and unifying political goals among vast and diverse states. In short, in preserving the Union, Lincoln needed the loyal governors as much as they needed him. They suppressed border ruffians, turned back Indian invasions, outmaneuvered recalcitrant legislatures, and fought political opposition, including journalistic critics. They mobilized troops, procured resources, eventually enlisted black troops, and even conscripted soldiers. Through the daily political tug-of-war between federal and state executives, Union leadership found and justified its way to a fundamental repositioning of the war’s purpose, from restoring the Union to freeing the slaves. According to Harris, this partnership ultimately legitimized the shift of authority and leadership from state to nation but did so in a way that strengthened federalism. Perhaps the central feature of the state-nation relationship for Harris was the Altoona conference of September 1862, which he argues represented an important success for both “working in tandem to save the Union and end slavery” (78).

In summation, Harris has done it again. He has delivered a book full of new insights on the problems Lincoln faced in managing the war and how governors were integral to his success both politically and militarily. Skillfully argued and lucidly written, this volume reveals his mastery of political history and will challenge scholars and students to think more broadly about the nature of Civil War federalism. [End Page 182]

Stephen D. Engle
Florida Atlantic University
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