"The Most Complete Political Machine Ever Known": The North's Union Leagues in the American Civil War by Paul Taylor (review)

In "The Most Complete Political Machine Ever Known," Paul Taylor provides a narrative account of the various organizations that promoted the preservation of the Union and the supremacy of the national government during the Civil War era. Taylor believes this effort "represents the first-ever book-length published work to examine the entire wartime Union League movement" (13). The narrative begins with prewar, precursor groups, such as the Wide-Awakes, then covers early Union groups in the Border South, the major organizations in the North during the war, and, finally, the Union League in the former Confederate states during Reconstruction. Most of the book is focused on the Union League of America, the largest Union organization, which began in June 1862 in Pekin, Illinois, and the three elite independent organizations created in Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. Other wartime groups, including one for women headed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, are also described in some detail.

A major point Taylor emphasizes throughout the book is that the three elitist organizations in Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston were not representative of most of the individuals involved in Union leagues. He contends that most leagues were grassroots organizations created by average, middle-class American citizens. Another major theme is that many of the league organizations—especially those in the Midwest and loyal slave states—were not only involved in promoting nationalism and the Union in politics but also served as mutual protection organizations against Democrats' aggressive, threatening behavior. Taylor emphatically rejects Frank Klement's view of Democratic disloyalty plots and actions being exaggerated by Republicans and grounds his analysis of members' "legitimate fear" of the threat Democrats posed in recent work by such scholars as Stephen Towne (50). Taylor describes a remarkable array of activities by the more than 1 million individuals who belonged to the various Union league organizations during the war, including producing massive amounts of published propaganda to influence both voters and Union soldiers; doing political legwork to identify pro-Republican voters and making sure they voted; ostracizing those deemed disloyal (firing them from jobs, boycotting stores, et cetera); helping veterans and their families with pension claims; assisting both the Sanitary Commission and the Christian Commission; undertaking vigilante actions such as destroying Democratic newspapers; spying on disloyal neighbors and reporting them to provost marshals; acting as militia for the government, which provided league members with thousands of weapons; and raising more than ten thousand soldiers for the Union army (by the Philadelphia organization).

The publishing of propaganda was especially impressive, as the leagues and their printing organizations produced around 4 million pamphlets, broadsides for reprinting in newspapers across the country, and a Philadelphia league newspaper. Compared to those of the leagues, the Democrats' printing operation was tiny. While Taylor presents a generally positive picture of the leagues and portrays them as a patriotic force for good, his honest depiction of leagues spying on their neighbors, ostracism, and vigilante escapades makes it clear that Democratic charges of political repression were rooted in more than the arrests under the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The author sees the leagues as forerunners of today's political action committees, but some readers may see them more as a precursor of the American Protective League in World War I.

Taylor is a retired insurance agent who has published seven books on a remarkable range of Civil War topics that have received multiple awards. The book's bibliography displays a broad knowledge of relevant historiography. The author writes well in a manner easily accessible to Civil War buffs as well as professional historians. The factual mistakes and incorrect citations I found were very few and insignificant.

A possible problem with the work concerns its organization. Taylor portrays the development of the leagues during the war as being motivated...