Driven from Home: North Carolina's Civil War Refugee Crisis by David Silkenat (review)

Many historians have analyzed refugees during the U.S. Civil War. However, David Silkenat contends, most have failed to situate the experiences of a particular group within the broader refugee crisis brought on by the war. He asserts that the defining feature of the refugee crisis was diversity and that "Southerners of all races, genders, classes, and political alliances chose or were forced to move as a consequence of the Civil War" (p. 4). He explores five groups: African Americans and white Unionists who fled to Union lines, white pro-Confederates who sought refuge in the interior and the "refugeed" slaves they dragged with them, and daughters sent to boarding schools (p. 130). Because many rebels fled to North Carolina and many rebels and Unionists moved within the state, North Carolina is an appropriate location for studying the refugee crisis.

Driven from Home: North Carolina's Civil War Refugee Crisis begins with an analysis of African Americans and white Unionists in eastern North Carolina. Fugitive slaves successfully served the Union as spies, to the point that they "became the eyes and ears of the Union army" (p. 29). Contact with slaves did not erase the prejudices of white soldiers, but it spurred many to revise their opinions of slavery. Prejudices about Unionist refugees proved pervasive. Many soldiers questioned the loyalty of white refugees who arrived after the Confederacy instituted conscription, deriding them as "'poor white trash'" (p. 36). Many authorities believed white refugees were more dependent on aid than were black refugees.

After considering eastern North Carolina, Silkenat examines white rebels and refugeed slaves in western North Carolina. Transporting slaves to the North Carolina Piedmont kept them away from the Union army, but many slaves resisted, either actively or passively. Tensions between refugees and local people became pronounced. Many refugees believed the locals took advantage of them because they had difficulties finding housing and food. Refugees did not understand or care that their presence drove prices up to exorbitant levels and "contributed to an economic crisis" (p. 130). Furthermore, while many people in the Piedmont embraced the peace movement, white refugees usually supported aggressive prosecution of the war.

Silkenat also investigates female students in boarding schools and white southerners and their slaves who sheltered in the North Carolina mountains. North Carolina's female academies increased their enrollment as parents moved their daughters away from the war. Student refugees faced some hardships but fared better "than almost anyone else on the Confederate home front" (p. 173). Students' experiences gave them a skewed understanding of the war. Later in life, they promoted "a version of the Confederate experience that drew heavily from their atypical vantage point in the relatively safe and well-provisioned sanctuaries provided by female academies" (p. 183). Some South Carolinians fled to the North Carolina mountains, specifically the town of Flat Rock. Mountaineers hated refugee planters. Deserter gangs terrorized civilians, and planters "spent the final months of the war bunkered in their mountain estates" (p. 214). However, mountain refugees did not suffer "disease, overcrowding, and famine" like other refugees (p. 215). Furthermore, their fortunes allowed them to buy food, even at inflated prices. Silkenat concludes by arguing that surrender did not end the refugee crisis; it merely began "a new phase" (p. 220).

This well-written and thought-provoking book has much to offer. Silkenat successfully illustrates the complexity of the crisis, the different groups of refugees, and how each group interacted with other refugees, soldiers, government officials, and aid workers. Furthermore, he provides an in-depth analysis of refugee communities and illustrates how the refugee situation became a genuine humanitarian crisis. Driven from Home would work well in advanced undergraduate classes and graduate seminars, and it will appeal to anyone interested in the history of North Carolina, the U.S. Civil War, or refugees.