The Bonds of Union: Religion, Race, and Politics in a Civil War Borderland by Bridget Ford (review)

While countless volumes of historical research have explored national divisions prior to the Civil War, fewer have chosen to focus on the ties that bound the nation together. In her inventive and ambitious new book, The Bonds of Union: Religion, Race, and Politics in a Civil War Borderland, Bridget Ford explores the intellectual work of creating those bonds in one of the country’s most “fractious” regions—the Ohio-Kentucky borderland (xi). In doing so, she helps explain Kentucky’s fragile loyalty to the Union, while also providing a blueprint for broader studies of American borderlands during the Civil War era and beyond.

In order to capture the creation of these “bonds of union,” Ford focuses on two borderland communities: Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky. She argues that these two cities were unique because of the presence of large numbers of European immigrants, a complex antislavery movement, and the creation of hospitals and sanitary commissions during the war. Nonetheless, she states, these two cities were influential enough in their respective states to shape the politics and policies of the larger region. At times, however, her desire to credit the laudable religious and political leaders of these two cities threatens to exaggerate their influence in the region while simultaneously downplaying the impact of other vital borderland communities.

Perhaps Ford’s greatest contribution is her creative use of sources. In order to explore the ways in which Cincinnatians and Louisivillians “construed their connections to others and to things larger than themselves,” Ford expands her focus beyond literal discussions of “union” to incorporate religious, intellectual, and cultural sources (xiv). These sources, including poetry, architecture, antislavery fiction, and devotional literature, demonstrate the ways in which people in this region sought to bridge the gap between themselves and others with whom their religious, racial, or political background differed. This history of building bonds served the region well when their most vital bond—that of national unity—threatened to snap.

The first, and most persuasive, section of Bonds of Union explores religious conflict in the Ohio Valley region. During the antebellum era, thousands of migrants poured into Cincinnati and Louisville. The western frontier became a religious battleground between the forces of the Protestant revival movement and Catholic “fervor” from Europe. However, Ford argues that their conflict for adherents actually created moments of collusion, as each sought to borrow the most appealing traits of the other. For example, Catholics adopted a revival-inspired sermon style, while Protestants began building more ornate medieval-style churches. As they did so, both “dwelled sensitively on the best means to connect personally with disparate peoples” (30).

Ford should also be commended for including black leaders in her story of borderland bonds. In her second section, she explores racial conflict and violence in antebellum Cincinnati and Louisville before turning to a discussion of the ways in which the white and black communities depended upon one another. White citizens relied upon black workers’ services, like dressmaking and hairdressing, to cement their class status, while black activists utilized such alliances to shape white attitudes on programs like colonization or free public education for black children. These educational activists especially “construct[ed] the foundation for a particular kind of biracial society,” one that recognized black intellectual capabilities (148).

Finally, Ford closes with the war itself. Louisville, which created the largest “Hospital Directory” in the country, became a “vital link reconnecting Northern families and sons, fathers, and spouses” (267). As residents reached out to assist their Union brethren, they began to envision themselves as more closely connected to this region and more distant from Southern secessionists. Similarly, when Cincinnati held its Great Western Sanitary Fair in 1863, the organizers’ incorporation of both Catholic and Protestant representatives, as well as white and black educational leaders, demonstrate the numerous community connections built throughout the antebellum era, neatly tying together the various “bonds of union” Ford traces throughout her...