Midwestern Soldiers in the Civil War

In Standing Firmly by the Flag, James E. Potter ably covers the campaigns and tribulations of the 1st Nebraska Regiment. Although Nebraska was short on population, its white settlers proved long on patriotism: the territory provided some 3,000 soldiers out of a pool of barely 9,000 men of military age (xiii). However, the heart of Potter's research centers on the Civil War's effects on Nebraska's political, social, and economic development during the 1860s. Passed by Congress in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act fueled sectional tensions and led to the rise of the anti-slavery Republican Party in the North. Hence, from its very beginning as a political entity, Nebraska found itself at the center of the fierce debate over the meanings of freedom and the role of African Americans in the national social fabric. As Potter points out, "Although Nebraska Territory was distant from the Civil War's major theaters, its people were not unmindful of the war's issues, un-involved in its prosecution, or insulated from its effects" (xiii).

Nebraska's soldiers fought not only the regular army of the Confederacy, but also bushwackers, partisans, and guerilla fighters, as well as Native Americans. Like other regiments, the 1st Nebraska saw high rates of death from disease, and its members complained regularly about physical hardships, lack of supplies and food, and the monotony of camp life. Potter also highlights the war's consequences for "Nebraskans who stayed home" (xiv). His book gives due attention to the role of civilians, especially women, in shaping the war's eventual outcome and legacy. Whatever the sufferings of both civilians and soldiers, Nebraska benefited substantially when southern politicians who had opposed the transcontinental railroad and free homesteads in the western territories left Congress. During the war, the Union government passed favorable legislation regarding both issues, giving a huge boost to Nebraska's economy and population growth (xv). Although hundreds of miles removed from the major battlegrounds, and with only a handful of black residents among them, white Nebraskans engaged fully in the national dialogue over the nature of the war, emancipation, and the role of freed slaves in postwar America.

Through analysis of newspapers accounts, diaries, and letters, Potter reveals the thoughts of common people and their stance on the most divisive issues of the day. To enrich the reader's visual understanding of a frontier society at war, Potter includes in his book dozens of newspaper etchings and photographs, including one of free black people laboring in Nebraska in 1864. The highly useful maps and illustrations found throughout Standing Firmly by the Flag allow for a broad overview of the strategic theaters of operations. However, the book lacks photos or drawings of the Native American Peoples who remained powerful actors in the shaping of Great Plains societies and politics until the end of the nineteenth century. The American Civil War lasted only four years. The transformation of Nebraska from frontier to territory to state occurred over the span of thirteen years. Both events took place against the larger and longer drama of a 400-year war against Native Americans. Indeed, Potter emphasizes that the white settlers in Nebraska waged war against both secessionists of the South and Native Peoples of the Great Plains.

For those Native Americans, 1865 did not mean a new birth of freedom; if anything, a united United States could now focus more of its energies and resources on subduing the last remaining Native resistance movements in the Great Plains and the Southwest. Even for newly freed African Americans who now called themselves Nebraskans, the post-1865 era witnessed the rise of Jim Crow and racial...