Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848–1865 by Paul Quigley (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 84 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY commander Robert Barclay did not use Procter’s soldiers as “unskilled labour” (211) but as gunners and marines. Barclay did not possess a “slight advantage” in long guns (211); the Americans outgunned him three to two in both long and short guns. During the retreat from the Thames, the British Army was not encumbered with baggage (217), Procter did not travel “far in advance” (223), officers made no attempt to depose Procter from command (223), and the six pounder at Moraviantown was not “without ammunition” (224). Finally, Fort Shelby was not a “new fort” (230) but the new name for Fort Detroit. While dated, The War of 1812 endures as a classic, especially insightful about American operations. In recent years, David C. Skaggs, Gerry Altoff, Larry Nelson, Thomas and Robert Malcomson, and I have produced accounts of the war, all of which have benefited from Gilpin’s pioneering and important work. More than fifty years after its initial publication, Gilpin’s study remains highly recommended. Sandy Antal Independent Author Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848-1865 Paul Quigley In this study of southern identity, secession, and Confederate nationalism, Paul Quigley treads some of the most hallowed and contested ground in the history of the South and Civil War America. He offers a conceptually sophisticated and comparative approach that places the South’s antebellum and wartime experiences within the broad continuum of mid-nineteenth century nationalist movements in Europe and Latin America. Shifting Grounds is a thoughtprovoking study of the nineteenth century South that contributes to a number of critical and longstanding debates in the field. Quigley traces Confederate nationalism in three directions: “outward” to the rest of the world and southerners’ views of nationalism generally ; “backward” to the antebellum period and the South’s understandings of American nationalism ; and “inward” to southerners’ “everyday lives and identities” (5). Quigley assumes that nationalism and identity are interrelated, and that they thrive “by traversing different areas of people’s lives, crossing boundaries between the historic and everyday, the public and the private ” (10). From this perspective, Quigley connects the usual subjects of intellectual history— the cultural and literate elite—with the mass of white southerners, particularly as he looks “inward.” As in the best work about nationalism , Quigley connects the ideology to society as a whole—to “ordinary folk”—through events, ideas, and developments that touched people’s daily lives. He emphasizes religion, gender, and death as central to southerners’ collective and individual identities, and he traces how each of these shaped everyday life. In terms of gender, he argues that “for men, national identity shaped and was shaped by their traditional roles as protectors of women, children, and homes” (170). This aspect of male identity underwent dramatic change during the war as men became increasingly unable to fill their “traditional roles,” in BOOK REVIEWS WINTER 2012 85 turn affecting how they understood nationalism and testing and in many cases breaking their loyalty to the Confederacy. White southerners’ understandings religion and gender had broad resonance both in peace and war, and helped to translate their shared identity from one generation to the next. The author’s narrative proceeds chronologically and topically. The first three chapters consider different aspects of antebellum southern ideas about nationalism. Quigley emphasizes southerners’ deep devotion to American nationalism , founded in Christianity, democracy, and shared memories of the Revolution. Many southern whites never abandoned these strong bonds. Indeed, Quigley makes a strong case for the enduring power of Unionism in the face of radical separatists like William Lowndes Yancey and William Gilmore Simms. But under pressure from the sectionalism of the 1850s and the Republican rise to power, southern whites found their attachment to American nationalism tested. Most whites, Quigley concludes, never embraced the radical nationalists; rather, they felt betrayed by a northern majority that seemed determined to violate the federal compact and the “brotherhood ” of men within the nation. “The acceptance of secession did not result from a positive embrace of the idea that the South possessed some naturally occurring national identity that mandated national independence. Rather, it resulted from the conviction that the present Union with the North was…detrimental...