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Reviewed by:
  • Keystone State in Crisis: The Civil War in Pennsylvania by Judith Giesberg
  • Adam H. Domby
Judith Giesberg. Keystone State in Crisis: The Civil War in Pennsylvania (Mansfield, PA: Pennsylvania Historical Association, 2013). Pp. 96. Illustrations, notes. Paperback, $14.95.

editor’s note: Following are two different perspectives on the same book. Adam H. Domby focuses on the book’s challenge to traditional narratives of the Civil War in Pennsylvania, while Tad Fenton focuses on the opportunities for further scholarship suggested by the book.

Keystone State in Crisis: The Civil War in Pennsylvania by Judith Giesberg gives readers an introduction to Pennsylvania’s Civil War experience. Giesberg, a professor of history at Villanova University, has created a short work at just ninety-six pages that provides a succinct summary of recent scholarship about [End Page 572] the home front in Pennsylvania during the war. Aimed at a general audience, the book focuses on multiple aspects of the war that complicates the common narrative most people know about the Civil War in Pennsylvania.

Unlike an earlier generation of state histories, this is not the story of how Pennsylvania was the most loyal, bravest, and least racist state. Instead, it is an academic synthesis of recent historiography and an excellent primer for anyone interested in Pennsylvania during the Civil War. Each chapter covers a different topic—providing an introduction to a different aspect of Pennsylvania’s Civil War experience.

The book might better be called a history of the Civil War era, spending the first chapter addressing how the state went from a democratic stronghold to voting for Lincoln in 1860. Explaining how Pennsylvanians went from supporting the state’s native son James Buchanan, who “negotiated” the Dred Scott decision, to Lincoln, the signer of the Emancipation Proclamation, Giesberg shows how Pennsylvanian’s views changed during the 1850s (11). Giesberg does not pretend that all or even most Pennsylvanians’ views on race massively shifted. She notes the importance of the Homestead Act, support for a protectionist tariff, and nativist sentiments in Republican political appeal. The honest and nuanced depiction of racism and race relations in Pennsylvania politics displayed in this chapter carries through throughout the book.

In chapter 2, Giesberg shifts to the mobilization of Pennsylvanians during the war. Instead of just discussing those who served, she explores why some chose not to enlist. She argues against the tired argument that Pennsylvanians all fought to preserve the nation that was founded in Philadelphia. Indeed, almost 40 percent of eligible men never enlisted. Enthusiasm for service “was particularly low in the lumbering and coal-mining regions of the state in the North and Northwest,” where troops even had to be dispatched to put down resistance to the draft (31). Discussing the use of federal troops in suppressing labor disputes during the war and the use of conscription to undermine laborers’ attempts to organize presents a view of the United States Army that is rarely seen in accounts of the Civil War.

Those wanting yet another account of Gettysburg will be disappointed in the book. When addressing the Gettysburg campaign in chapter 3, the book focuses on the kidnapping of former slaves by Confederate soldiers. In fact, as with the first chapter, much of chapter 3 addresses the antebellum period and efforts to resist slave catchers in southern Pennsylvania. A section on the shooting of slave catchers at Christiana in 1851 complements nicely [End Page 573] a discussions of black enlistment in the United States Colored Troops and efforts of African Americans to avoid capture by Lee’s army in 1863.

Chapter 4 is an eclectic chapter that discusses draft resistance, labor unrest, Pennsylvanians fighting at Gettysburg, and the task of burying the dead. It is in the discussion of labor unrest that Giesberg reaches her most interesting conclusions. She argues that the use of troops during the war to suppress labor disputes provided a precedent that was returned to in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.

The decision to focus on parts of history usually ignored by books aimed at a general audience continues throughout the book. A final chapter examines the role of Pennsylvania political leaders and regular citizens in bringing...

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