Why Texans Fought in the Civil War (review)

Analysis of the Civil War's common soldiers has been in development ever since Bell Irvin Wiley published his seminal works Johnny Reb (1943) and Billy Yank (1952) more than half a century ago. Since those groundbreaking works, scholars have explored issues such as why soldiers fought in the war, how the experience of combat affected them, and the impact of slavery on motivation and morale. Yet in the midst of this burgeoning scholarship on the Civil War's rank and file, no one had fully explored the motivations behind why Texans fought until Charles D. Grear stepped into the mix with his aptly titled work, Why Texans Fought in the Civil War.

And while Civil War scholars might initially consider Grear's work as a regional study that would fit within a broader framework of southern soldiers, the fact remains that Texas soldiers were unique to the Confederacy and the Union. "Although Texas had many similarities to the rest of the South," Grear writes, "there were also differences. A major difference was that Texans had multiple local attachments" (5). The author thus emphasizes the concept that since the majority of Texans were from other states, they held local attachments and loyalties to their native lands and their adopted homes. This argument serves as the crux of Grear's study.

Nevertheless, the loyalty that Texas troops felt towards the lands of their birth and the town where they happened to live would influence more than the soldiers' motivations for fighting. In fact, the author argues that the affection Texas soldiers felt for their homes would influence where they wanted to fight, and it would also impact their desire to return home by the latter stages of the war.

Grear's study clearly focuses on Texans and their motivations to fight. Like other historians, such as James McPherson, have previously argued, honor served as a dominant trait influencing why Texans joined the ranks with abundant martial spirits. Yet Grear moves beyond broad reasons for the initial desire to serve in the war. He delineates the different and variant motivations for Texas soldiers, distinguishing between those who fought in the East and those who wanted to remain in the Trans-Mississippi theater to fight. Of particular note, Grear also devotes a chapter to analyzing the ethnic Texans who joined the ranks of the Civil War armies. As such, he studies how European immigrants and Mexican Texans (Tejanos) viewed the conflict. Building on the scholarship of Jerry Thompson, Grear explores how Tejanos used the same notion of attachments and loyalties to join the fray on the Confederate or Union sides.

Grear's study is a valuable contribution to Civil War history. Not only does he examine the military aspect of the Lone Star State, a worthy notion in itself, but his study delves into the realm of the social history of Texas and the South as it explores the diverse makeup of Texans while touching on the themes of ethnic and immigration history to support his interpretations. The author grounds his study on a rich array of archival accounts, newspapers, and published works in addition to a long list of secondary studies. No other study of Civil War Texas has provided such a comprehensive list of manuscript sources and archives. Accordingly, Grear's book will serve as the standard work on Texas Civil War soldiers; yet Civil War scholars beyond the Lone Star State can also benefit from this study and its arguments.