Book Review Of What This Cruel War Was Over By Chandra Manning

What This Cruel War Was Over is a book written by historian Chandra Manning. The book takes the reader from the start of the Civil War, the Union surrendering Fort Sumter in chapter one, to the end of the Civil War, with General Lee’s surrender and the aftermath of the war, in chapter six and the conclusion chapter. Throughout the introduction, six chapters, and conclusion, Manning brings to life what is happening on the battlefields and in the political arena. She also brings to life what is going on in the minds of both the Union and Confederate men and slaves. Manning adds a depth to her book by including photos and drawings at the start of each chapter to foreshadow the upcoming chapter and give life to the events that are about to unfold.

She argues that the white Union men who enlisted disliked slavery from the beginning, even though they viewed blacks as inferior. She argues that over the course of the war, the Union armies saw firsthand the brutality of what slavery had done. For instance, Manning includes accounts of Unionist seeing slaves with “great welts, and callous stripes … [and] great scars” (77). She also has narratives of Unionist who saw slaves that were almost as white as they were and the anger that they felt towards the sexual abuse that slave women went through at the hands of white men (77-78). On the other hand, she argues that the Confederates wanted to preserve slavery because it was the backbone to the southern economy and that there would be dangers to society if the slaves became free. She argues that the ideal southern man would not want his white wife or daughter to mix with former black slaves and that white men needed to have power over the women and blacks (35-36). Manning also includes accounts from black Unionist who believed that by helping the war effort they would be able to gain citizenship and freedom for their people. She argues that the black soldiers “could help dispel one of the most pernicious … evils, racial inequality” (128) and by fighting could help the black men claim their manhood (130). By including different testimonies, Manning showcases all the sides of the