Book Review Of Slavery By Chandra Manning

Chandra Manning’s book about soldiers, slavery, and the Civil War was a combination of her views and a collection of thoughts from soldiers about what started this war. Manning read many different collections of soldiers’ journals and pieces of newspapers to develop her understanding. Her impression on what started and caused the war all pointed to the topic of slavery. Soldiers found themselves talking about slavery rather than other topics such as issues that went with along the government. From her research she outlined the soldier’s views of the war and proved that this war was in fact about slavery. From what I understood, Manning was trying to push the soldiers’ writings to show that even from the beginning the two sides knew it

This softened their view on slavery but not on equality. As time passed and practices such as selling children was witnessed and talked about the soldiers understood more about what they were fighting to abolish. They could not understand how Godly people could sell humans based on a race, break up families, beat and even rape their slaves to gain money and social clout. Seeing slavery up close made the Union committed to the abolishment of slavery. They believed that the United States could only rebound without slavery. “...the soldiers who decided that the Army must either get rid of slavery or prepare to fight the same battle all over again. 132 As a New York soldier put it, “as long as we ignore the fact (practically) that Slavery is the basis of this struggle so long are we simply heading down a vigorously growing plant that will continually spring up and give new trouble at a very short intervals.” (50) The Union did change and allow black soldiers to fight during the war and many previous slaves agreed to fight. When they joined the Union they shared the belief that slavery was wrong and it was an evil that was preventing the nation from being better. “By war, God is regenerating this Nation.” (182) The blacks that fought wanted more than the abolishment of slavery. They wanted rights that every human should have. They wanted to go to school, own property, and even

They were fighting to separate from the Union because they wanted to maintain their livelihood. They fought to protect their homes, land and property which included slaves. Just like the north, they fought for slavery, but the difference between the two was that the Confederate soldiers believed that slavery needed to exist to maintain stability in the south. The Confederate soldiers believed that slavery needed to exists because it affected every aspect of their life. The southern way of life balanced on slavery. “So intrinsic was slavery to southern life and culture, pervading everything from white men’s individual identities to safety to the structure of society, that many white Southerners simply could not imagine its absence.” (38) Manning states that slavery was the south’s security blanket, even for those who did not own a slave. Manning also wrote that having slaves was protection. “…the protection of their families, interests, and very identities as men, and they relied on it to prevent race war. Perceived northern attempts to destroy it had to be stopped.”