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  • The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia
  • Jason N. “Dutch” Palmer
The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia. By Michael A. McDonnell. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8078- 3108-3. Notes. Index. Pp. xx, 544. $45.00.

Michael A. McDonnell’s The Politics of War: Race, Class & Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia seeks to reshape the consensus that Virginia politics changed little during the American War of Independence. He argues that popular resistance to military mobilization during the war, and resistance to taxes and debt collection after 1781 “signaled the rise of very different ideas about political and social relations that helped shape life in postwar Virginia” (p. 14).

Much like Richard Buell’s social history of paper money in Dear Liberty: Connecticut’s Mobilization for the Revolutionary War, McDonnell’s study successfully draws from a specific issue conclusions about the nature of the War of Independence and how political conflicts stirred up by the war lingered after the fighting ended. The patriot movement in Virginia escaped elite (and moderate) control in 1775 and was driven further down the path of rebellion by the actions of volunteer companies whose often self-elected leadership were not representative of Virginia’s social hierarchy. Largely in response to Lord Dunmore’s threats to encourage black slave unrest or to stir up Native Americans, volunteer companies became increasingly radical. Legislated efforts to restore the influence of Virginia’s elites resulted in the creation of “Minute-men” units that were supposed to harness the enthusiasm of the volunteer companies under more acceptable leadership. Unable to appoint their own officers and wary of harsh disciplinary measures, Virginia’s small planters and farmers failed to enlist in the requisite numbers. Elites used the promise of enlistment bounties and land grants to lure poor Virginians into both the Virginia line and state militia. Elites were forced, however, by “the resistance of the lower sort to the appropriation of their own labor” (p. 11) to expand recruiting efforts to include small-holding farmers in several militia drafts. Complaining that their extended absence would ruin their families, common Virginians co-opted popularly elected local officials, refused to obey draft laws that excepted their superiors, and crippled the state’s mobilization efforts with their protests.

Although a bit dense at times, The Politics of War presents convincing arguments. McDonnell exploits court records and county petitions to give Virginia’s lower class a voice. He pays particular attention to the often troublesome relationship between Virginia’s wartime governors and their appointed militia officers or county officials. The final chapter, however, which claims “the upheaval of the war shaped political divisions in the postwar years and the very contours of the public debate that led to the creation of the Constitution” (p. 524) lacks sufficient explanation of elites’ reactions to make its point. Despite this, The Politics of War is a valuable addition to American Revolutionary War historiography and will appeal to devotees of the “War and Society” branch of military history. McDonnell joins a growing list of historians whose analyses of early American societies at war tell us much about class, race, and conceptions of liberty in the American Revolution. [End Page 942]

Jason N. “Dutch” Palmer
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
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