Document generated on 09/24/2021 6:57 a.m. Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations Practical Liberators: Union Officers in the Western Theater during the Civil War, By Kristopher A. Teters (2018) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 240 pages. ISBN: 978-1-46963-886-7 Evan C. Rothera Volume 74, Number 2, Spring 2019 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1062094ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1062094ar See table of contents Publisher(s) Département des relations industrielles de l’Université Laval ISSN 0034-379X (print) 1703-8138 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this review Rothera, E. C. (2019). Review of [Practical Liberators: Union Officers in the Western Theater during the Civil War, By Kristopher A. Teters (2018) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 240 pages. ISBN: 978-1-46963-886-7]. Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 74(2), 414–416. https://doi.org/10.7202/1062094ar Tous droits réservés © Département des relations industrielles de l’Université This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit Laval, 2019 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ 414 RELATIONS INDUSTRIELLES / INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS – 74-2, 2019 are the interlocutors of cooperatives require work of emancipation. During the first year them to comply with high standards—stan- and a half of the war, the army manifested dards that cooperative workers negotiate, inconsistent policies toward fugitive slaves. seeking to preserve an autonomy that is Some officers returned fugitive slaves; part of their collective commitment. Even others did not. After President Abraham in the face of municipalities close to the Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclama- Workers’ Party, and therefore benevolent tion, the army focused heavily on liberat- a priori in recognizing the rights of coop- ing able-bodied adult male slaves. Thus, erative workers, autonomy is and remains according to Teters, “the army proved to be an issue under close scrutiny. Could it be practical liberators” (p. 4). Teters makes an otherwise when it is a major issue in the important point about the Western Theater. conflict between capital and labour? In This theater included Alabama, Mississippi, other words, collective bargaining is a way Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Caro- of policing this conflict but does not go lina, and South Carolina, as well as portions beyond it. The various examples discussed of Louisiana and Florida and, thus, contained here raise the question again and again the vast majority of the slaves in the South. as to whether other institutional construc- Teters correctly asserts that the Western tions, other forms of compromise than Theater, rather than the Eastern Theater, that inherited from Fordism and widely is the critical arena for understanding how challenged in the world, are possible and emancipation unfolded on the ground and desirable. In any case, the richness of the officer attitudes. empirical evidences presented here allows In the early months of the war, Union us to raise some questions. armies did not fight to liberate slaves. Carole Yerochewski However, the slaves themselves forced the Associate Professor in Industrial Relations issue by fleeing to the Union lines. As Teters Université du Québec en Outaouais notes, officers responded inconsistently: “Top Gatineau, Québec, Canada commanders in the West adopted generally very conservative or moderately conservative Practical Liberators: Union Officers approaches in dealing with fugitive slaves” in the Western Theater during (p. 8). This often meant protecting slavery the Civil War in border States like Missouri so as to not By Kristopher A. Teters (2018) Chapel Hill: alienate Missouri Unionists. Interestingly, University of North Carolina Press, even as he spins a story of practical army 240 pages. ISBN: 978-1-46963-886-7. commanders who refused to confiscate When he began his study of Union offi- slaves and returned fugitive slaves, Teters cers in the Western Theater of the U.S. Civil turns up, again and again, stories of soldiers, War, Kristopher A. Teters hoped to find that lower-ranking officers, and sometimes entire many embraced emancipation for moral regiments, who rebelled against the poli- reasons. However, what he discovered was cies of their commanders. As he notes, in that “pragmatism, far more than morality, a revealing statement, “through Grant and motivated western officers to support eman- Halleck tried to keep slaves away from Union cipation” (p. 2). Although many officers lines during the 1862 campaign into west- eventually accepted emancipation because ern Tennessee, they faced challenges from they believed it helped the Union war effort, below” (p. 18). Officers routinely defied the Teters contends that their racial attitudes orders of their commanders. Charles Wills, barely changed at all. Practical Liberators an adjutant in the Seventh Illinois Cavalry, focuses on 410 Union officers in the West- for example, “contended that army gener- ern Theater, and how they conducted the als assured the slave owners that the slaves RECENSIONS / BOOK REVIEWS 415 would not be permitted to leave with the cation and employment of slaves, because army” (p. 20). Notwithstanding, General they believed harder measures necessary Pope’s army welcomed the slaves around to destroy the rebellion. Still, even as many New Madrid into Union lines. In addition, embraced emancipations, “it appears that some higher-ranking officers, like Brigadier nearly as many officers still opposed taking General Ormsby Mitchel “grasped that the war in an emancipationist direction” confiscating slaves was a military necessity (p. 63). Even those officers who embraced before most other generals” (p. 22). emancipation did so out of pragmatism The inconsistent policies changed con- rather than principle. Teters comments, “the siderably when Congress replaced the rela- level of opposition to emancipation declined tively weak First Confiscation Act with the strikingly after the first few months of 1863 stronger Second Confiscation Act. Union because officers came to realize its practical officers tended to allow many slaves to enter benefits and, in some cases, came to under- Union lines and, despite diverse attitudes stand the harsh reality of slavery” (p. 73). toward African Americans, officers “were Similarly, many white soldiers opposed black generally willing to carry out emancipation troops, usually out of racism, but “some policies” (p. 45). Even Don Carlos Buell, officers still supported black soldiers because one of the most conservative generals in they would help win the war” (p. 76). In the Western Theater, “began to grudgingly sum, officers followed Lincoln’s language adopt more proconfiscation policies” (p. 50). from his reply to Horace Greeley’s “Prayer of That is not the say that all officers acted Twenty Millions,” what they did, they did to identically. Brigadier General Lovell Rousseau save the Union. Pragmatism, Teters asserts, returned fugitive slaves to Kentucky masters “counted for far more than morality or and had an explosive confrontation with idealism” (p. 82). the Twenty First Wisconsin. The regiment Despite coming into contact with Afri- allowed two slaves to hide in their camp can Americans, the racial views of officers and drove their masters away. Rousseau changed very little. Black servants might “ordered the other regiments of the brigade temper racial prejudices, but “no matter to surround the Twenty-First Wisconsin with how much officers might respect individual their guns loaded” and asked the men if black Southerners, there was no profound they would tell him where the slaves were transformation in their racial attitudes” (p. and obey his orders. On soldier piped up, 101). Teters makes an interesting point, but “Yes General, if consistent with our duty and he uses his evidence to advance an overly Conscience, but no slave catching” (p. 53). sweeping conclusion when he writes, “this As other historians have illustrated, the U.S. persistent racial prejudice of Union officers Civil War featured many wars within the war. helps explain why the North eventually Rousseau versus the Twenty First Wisconsin retreated from Reconstruction and acqui- was surely one of the more epic struggles. esced in segregation and disfranchisement. In this confrontation, members of the mili- The Civil War had eliminated slavery but tary offered sharply diverging ideas about had hardly solved the problem of racial how to conduct the work of emancipation. prejudice” (p. 105). Reconstruction failed Nor was this conflict an aberration; as Teters for many reasons, not least of which was notes, “while the high command of the massive violent resistance by ex-rebels. Army of Kentucky made clear their policies Historians should be careful about assign- on slaves, lower-level officers did not always ing too much blame to northern soldiers. In obey their superiors’ orders” (p. 56). addition, the point Teters argues is a straw The army began to consistently carry out man. No serious scholar would argue that emancipationist policies such as the confis- the Civil War solved the problem of racial 416