Galvanized Yankees on the Upper Missouri: The Face of Loyalty (review)

Michele Tucker Butts, Associate Professor of History at Austin Peay State University, focuses her attention on the 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry, Confederate prisoners of war who were put into American military service in the Trans-Mississippi frontier between 1864 and 1866. Although these "galvanized" soldiers have been written about before by Robert Athearn, Dee Brown, and Richard Current, Butts provides the first complete account of this regiment, carefully quantifying, analyzing, and explaining how and why these Confederates became Federal troops.

These soldiers were detailed to guard the Minnesota-Dakota frontier, but the main contingent was sent to garrison the forts on the upper Missouri. Butts graphically describes the soldiers' travails at Fort Rice in Dakota Territory. The fort was at the river crossing and prime bison hunting territory of the Sioux. Besides being unprepared to understand the culture of the Sioux, the soldiers had to contend with frigid temperatures that reached minus forty degrees Fahrenheit, dysentery, malnutrition, scurvy, and typhoid fever, as well as illicit trading with the Indians that increased frontier tensions. Remarkably, only when peace came in April 1865 did their duty to obey and follow their Federal officers dwindle in their desire to return home.

By thoroughly mining the records of the War Department (RG94) and the Office of Indian Affairs (RG75) at the National Archives and the Charles A. R. Dimon and Alfred Sully Papers at the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the author shows that the regiment largely carried out its assigned mission to guard the upper Missouri frontier, at least right through Lee's surrender at Appomattox. While federal officials were attempting to bring the South back into the Union, Butts shows that the upper Missouri frontier was also being "reconstructed," being brought under more control by federal officials, who were preparing the groundwork for railroad development and white settlement.

Butts is best in two areas: (1) analyzing why the Confederate prisoners took their oath of allegiance to fight for the Federal army, and (2) describing the key role and career of the regiment's commander, Colonel Dimon. She shows the horrible conditions these Confederates faced while imprisoned at Point Lookout, Maryland. Although this was a factor motivating them to join the 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry, this was by no means the only reason, as she details in her state-by-state analyses. For example, many of the soldiers from North Carolina, the largest number recruited, came from areas where there was significant unionist activity and draft evasion. Many of the Tennesseans came from areas opposing conscription or from parts of the state that voted against secession. In general, Butts shows that most came from "low-to-moderate slaveholding rural country or the central portion of his home state" (43). By 1864, the prisoners of war were also influenced by the declining fortunes of the Confederate war effort.

The author rehabilitates the military career of Colonel Dimon. Butts portrays him as an honorable man, loyal to his men, his mission, and to the army. He was a strait-laced New Englander who had been mentored by Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler. Dimon lobbied for more supplies, attempted to check the power and influence of corrupt traders, and brought cohesion and discipline to a wide assortment of former Confederates. Although Dimon made mistakes and was censured for them, Butts finds that much of the criticism leveled on him has been unfair. He was caught in turf conflicts between the War Department and the Office of Indian Affairs. In order to keep his word and maintain peace with the Indians, he bent the rules, making informal agreements with tribal leaders. He instructed his officers "to convince Native Americans to camp near military posts and to trade only with authorized...