Audiobook7 hours
The Union War
Written by Gary W. Gallagher
Narrated by Mel Foster
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Even one hundred and fifty years later, we are haunted by the Civil War-by its division, its bloodshed, and perhaps, above all, by its origins. Today, many believe that the war was fought over slavery. This answer satisfies our contemporary sense of justice, but as Gary W. Gallagher shows in this brilliant revisionist history, it is an anachronistic judgment.
In a searing analysis of the Civil War North as revealed in contemporary letters, diaries, and documents, Gallagher demonstrates that what motivated the North to go to war and persist in an increasingly bloody effort was primarily preservation of the Union. Devotion to the Union bonded nineteenth-century Americans in the North and West against a slaveholding aristocracy in the South and a Europe that seemed destined for oligarchy. Northerners believed they were fighting to save the republic, and with it the world's best hope for democracy.
Once we understand the centrality of union, we can in turn appreciate the force that made Northern victory possible: the citizen-soldier. Gallagher reveals how the massive volunteer army of the North fought to confirm American exceptionalism by salvaging the Union. Contemporary concerns have distorted the reality of nineteenth-century Americans, who embraced emancipation primarily to punish secessionists and remove slavery as a future threat to union-goals that emerged in the process of war. As Gallagher recovers why and how the Civil War was fought, we gain a more honest understanding of why and how it was won.
In a searing analysis of the Civil War North as revealed in contemporary letters, diaries, and documents, Gallagher demonstrates that what motivated the North to go to war and persist in an increasingly bloody effort was primarily preservation of the Union. Devotion to the Union bonded nineteenth-century Americans in the North and West against a slaveholding aristocracy in the South and a Europe that seemed destined for oligarchy. Northerners believed they were fighting to save the republic, and with it the world's best hope for democracy.
Once we understand the centrality of union, we can in turn appreciate the force that made Northern victory possible: the citizen-soldier. Gallagher reveals how the massive volunteer army of the North fought to confirm American exceptionalism by salvaging the Union. Contemporary concerns have distorted the reality of nineteenth-century Americans, who embraced emancipation primarily to punish secessionists and remove slavery as a future threat to union-goals that emerged in the process of war. As Gallagher recovers why and how the Civil War was fought, we gain a more honest understanding of why and how it was won.
Author
Gary W. Gallagher
Gary W. Gallagher is John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia. His most recent book is Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War.
Related to The Union War
Related audiobooks
Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bloody Shirt: Terror after Appomattox Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5April 1865: The Month That Saved America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850–1873 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shiloh, 1862 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Calculus of Violence: How Americans Fought the Civil War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road to Disunion: Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The War after the War: A New History of Reconstruction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Visions: The United States 1800-1860 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerica's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Lincoln Republican: The Presidential Election of 1880 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Women's War: Fighting and Surviving the American Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Nation Without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars, 1830-1910 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great War in America: World War I and Its Aftermath Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Republics: A Continental History of the United States 1783-1850 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Politics For You
The 48 Laws of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5While Time Remains: A North Korean Girl's Search for Freedom in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Can't Joke About That: Why Everything Is Funny, Nothing Is Sacred, and We’re All in This Together Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Behold a Pale Horse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Out of the Wreckage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The MAGA Diaries: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right-Wing (And How I Got Out) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dragonfire: Four Days That (Almost) Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prince Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romney: A Reckoning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The War on the West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letter from Birmingham Jail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Union War
Rating: 4.625 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
8 ratings0 reviews