Oliver P. Morton and the Politics of the Civil War and Reconstruction by A. James Fuller (review)

Among the estimable political figures of the Civil War and Reconstruction is Indiana's Oliver P. Morton. Both governor and US senator, Morton was a contentious individual whose actions often attracted national attention. Morton, by official resolution, is known as the "Great War Governor" in Indiana. Remarkably, no book-length treatment of this man has appeared in over one hundred years. Thus, A. James Fuller's Oliver P. Morton and the Politics of the Civil War and Reconstruction is to be welcomed by both serious and casual students of history. Fuller admits that his book offers, in general, "a positive interpretation of a leader committed to his core principles" (xxiv). Yet, the author, clearly cognizant of his role as a professional historian, tries "to analyze the subject in the context of his or her own time, which allows negative as well as positive analysis" (xxii). By and large, Fuller succeeds.

As the title indicates, this is a political biography. Morton's key principles of "freedom, Union, power, and party" are used throughout as a medium by which the subject's actions are analyzed (181). Aided by a fine organization, which is both topical and chronological, the reader will have no difficulty in following Morton's development as a public man. Fuller is especially to be congratulated on the sweeping nature of this work, as it casts a wide net that captures both the broad context of national politics with the more parochial concerns of Indiana affairs and Morton's personal initiatives. Ultimately, of course, Morton is the central figure, and here we meet him as a young lawyer and circuit court judge, governor of the state, as well as US senator. Though known primarily as the "war governor," Morton's important stances as a Stalwart and Radical Republican are arguably even more important in understanding the subject, and Fuller rightly devotes about half of the book to the very critical postwar period of Reconstruction.

Among the more interesting modes of interpretation that Fuller uses to analyze his subject is geography. At the very beginning of the first chapter, the reader becomes acquainted with the region that helped shape Morton's early life. The author notes that a defining feature of the subject's life was the National Road, an artery that "connected the East … with the West" but also, critically, tended to divide migrants from Northern and Southern states (2). These geographical tendencies contributed to the flow of ideas, as well as North–South tensions that would influence the course of Morton's political development. The early portions of this chapter are written in an especially poetic style. If the author's style becomes somewhat more rigid in the rest of the work, it is, perhaps, because of a handicap under which any biographer of Morton must labor. Morton burned most of his personal papers, so the fine nuances of his personality are difficult to fathom. Instead, we get to know him primarily through his public papers and speeches. These sources, plus copious newspaper files, do make for a rich narrative of primary sources.

The reader will find in three critical chapters an appraisal of Morton as the war governor. Detailed information builds a portrait of the subject as an uncompromising proponent of the Union, a politician both pragmatic and ideological, who "used the context of the Civil War to change the nature of the governorship and centralize power in the office" (76). Insight is gained not only on the more overtly military matters at this stage in Morton's career (e.g., procuring arms for the state and reorganizing the militia) but on important financial matters as well. Beginning in 1863, Morton simply circumvented a sometimes recalcitrant legislature and set up a bureau of finance in his own office. From here, he raised private funds and effectively subjected the state to one-man rule. Fuller does a...