The Shattering of Texas Unionism: Politics in the Lone Star State during the Civil War Era (review)

340CIVIL WAR HISTORY Two other essays involve celebrated Confederates. William J. Miller uses topographical engineer Jedediah Hotchkiss as a model to illustrate how Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson painstakingly assembled a staff of men willing to sublimate their own ambitions for the collective good. By contrast, George Pickett's controversial decision to execute twenty-two deserters at Kingston, North Carolina , in February 1864 is appraised by Donald E. Collins. Collins views Pickett's decision as a response to Robert E. Lee's efforts to stem desertion. While Pickett's draconian measures failed to do so, even within his own division, Collins largely absolves Pickett for his decision to hang the men, who had entered Union service. Philip L. Sherman's intriguing essay assesses efforts by William Rosecrans in 1862 and 1863 to cope with woefully inadequate engineering and topographical resources. Rosecrans met with mixed results in assembling an efficient engineering unit, yet he succeeded remarkably well with his topographical endeavors, primarily because he was blessed with innovative assistants. Taken together, these seven essays underscore how arduous commanding a Civil War army was, and how considerations often neglected by latter-day historians helped shape the decisions and options of commanders on both sides. Christopher Losson St. Joseph, Missouri The Shattering of Texas Unionism: Politics in the Lone Star State during the Civil War Era. By Dale Baum. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999. Pp. xvii, 289. $37.50.) The concept of Unionism in the American South during the Civil War era is an enigma with which historians have wrestled for more than a century. Dale Baum has previously focused on Massachusetts as a case study in Civil War politics. In this work, he turns his attention to party wrangles in Texas before, during, and after the Civil War. In so doing, he focuses on Texas Unionists and finds they are not the cohesive threat many secessionist Democrats wanted Texans to believe they were. In fact, through Baum's work it seems that the label "Unionist " could have been applied to very few Texans in this period. Baum combines traditional primary and secondary sources with regression analysis to dissect Texas Unionism. While he admits that the latter produces "merely estimates or probabilities of how individuals voted" (12), he uses such methods extensively. The result is a convincing portrayal ofTexas Unionists as a voting bloc whose membership constantly shifts and is rarely unified. The key factors in this fluidity seem to be local issues and the constant flow of new immigrants into the state. Voters do not change their minds as often as they change their locations. Meanwhile, the issues that immediately affect them, such as frontier defense and race, shift even more frequently. Thus, many indicators used by historians to measure the strength of Unionism in Texas during the BOOK REVIEWS34I Civil War era, including Sam Houston's prewar gubernatorial triumph, in fact have little to do with loyalty to the national government. The use of demographic techniques in this work lends a fresh perspective to well-known issues. Careful study of county-level records by the author confirms previous assertions of vote fraud and intimidation, as well as suspicions that Texas Unionism was not a significant threat to the Confederacy or its adherents ' firm hold on postbellum politics. The many extensive tables in this book are not for the statistically faint-of-heart, but they reveal interesting patterns that bolster the evidence found in more traditional sources, an extensive bibliography of which is appended. Maps of election results are included as well and do a fine job of supplementing Baum's detailed discussions of tangled political contests on the state and local levels. Baum cautiously asserts that his analysis of Texas Unionism can be applied elsewhere in the South. Some might dispute this, but recent studies of localism and mobility during the nineteenth century, especially during the war, suggest that he may well be right. His Texas research is excellent, his statistical models are solid, and his conlcusions are sound. If more such work can be produced for other states of the Confederacy, then the riddle of Unionism may actually be solved. Unfortunately this will not only reveal the chicanery of...