Chandra Manning offers ample evidence as to what motivated both the Union and Confederate soldiers to fight during the Civil War. Through four miserable years of defeat,victory, death, disease, and despair, views of the war changed on both sides. The Confederate troops began the war with the mindset of fighting for a new government that would protect their personal interests, families, and the institution of slavery. As the war progressed the government began to threaten the very ideals that they sought to protect. The motivations of the Confederate soldiers began to change alongside an evolving government but ultimately they fought under the unifying principle of protecting their self-interest, family, and the institution of slavery.
As the first few shots reverberated through the Antebellum South, the confederate rank and file were motivated to fight a war “about securing a government that would do what government was supposed to do: promote white liberty, advance white families’ best interests, and protect slavery”( Manning p 29). The Union was aimed at the goal of abolishing slavery, which to the southern white man, was a direct threat his livelihood. Manning argues that, “Black slavery enabled white liberty and equality because it allowed all whites to pursue property ownership (including slaves) without outside interference, and because it made whites equal in not being slaves.”(p 33) In short, slavery was an economic resource but it also provided a balance to society and reinforced the ideal of white male superiority. If the Union was to abolish slavery then the entire social structure would be turned upside down. Among the rank and file of the Confederacy, soldiers had different self interests and different backgrounds, but the “Shared belief in the dangers of abolition powerfully united Confederate soldiers and motivated them to fight, even when they shared little else”(p 31) This united front gave the Confederates a unique sense of patriotism; a self-serving patriotism, but patriotism nonetheless. It is clear that at the beginning of the war that the rank and file of the South were fighting for a new government that would protect white liberties, white families, and the institution of slavery.
As early as 1862 the Confederate troops began to see the ‘promises’ of their government merely as nothing but words. Defeat and despair started to take a toll after losses in Missouri and Arkansas, surrendered Forts Henry and Donelson, and the loss of major cities like New Orleans, Nashville and Memphis(p 54). What was once optimism and confidence turned into an exhausted and demoralized plight. An Arkansan admitted he was “awful tired of being a soldier” and referred to the war as a “wild Goose Chase” wishing the Confederate leaders would “dry it up and let us go home”(p. 55) As things began to deteriorate the Confederate government took notice and addressed the important issue of needing more soldiers. In 1862 the Confederate Congress and Jefferson Davis worked to impose a conscription law and on April 16, 1862, the Confederate Congress enacted the first national conscription law in American history(p 55-56). It drafted white men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five and extended the enlistments of current soldiers. Manning claims that the law “enraged troops because it violated their rights, as soldiers saw them, by extending enlistments without their consent”(p 56). Along with the Conscription Act the government sought to “permit the Army to commandeer private citizens’ crops”(p 55) This is where we begin to see the change in the soldiers view and motivation. The government began to change their role and southerners viewed it as unjust and a threat to their own livelihood. The Confederate government was sought to protect the their self-interest, family and the institution of slavery and now it was threatening these very things. I believe that Virginia Sergeant John White summed up the thoughts of all Confederate troops when he said, “I love my country but I love my family better”(p 59). I think that he perfectly alludes to the steadfast ideal that of Southerners that at the end of the day self interest and family are the most important things in life. Although most Confederate troops were dissatisfied and at time outraged at their government, they clung to the ideal of defending slavery and keeping Union ideals out of their life.
It is clear that the confederate troops’ views and motivations changed throughout the war and it was facilitated by changes in their Government’s actions. Regardless of how meager the situation seemed, they maintained the unifying principle of protecting self-interest, family and the institution of slavery.

As I read What This Cruel War was Over, my mind traveled back to my fourth grade social studies class and our preparation for Virginia standardized tests, the SOLs. One of the practice exams for the Virginia/US history test featured part of a letter from a Confederate soldier to his family. While I do not remember what the letter said, the question asked what we could infer from the letter, and the answer was “That the Confederates were fighting bravely for their homes and families.” This question struck my teacher as both inaccurate and offensive—she was appalled that the state standardized tests would have a question about the Civil War without mentioning slavery. Yet as Manning showed in her book the question was only partially inaccurate. Yes, the question should have mentioned slavery’s role in the Civil War, but for Confederate soldiers it would have been impossible to think about fighting a war to preserve slavery without thinking about the preservation of their homes and families. Indeed, even as Union soldiers’ motivations for fighting the Civil War changed and developed, Confederate soldiers remained steadfast in their belief that the war was about protecting their families by defending the institution of slavery.

When the Civil War began in 1861, most southern soldiers joined the Confederate army with the goal of “securing a government that would do what government was supposed to do: promote white liberty, advance white families’ best interests, and protect slavery” (Kindle Edition, Locations 566-79). Additionally, Confederates “warned that abolition would obliterate the rights and duties of white manhood, chief among them the protection of white women’s virtue” (Kindle, Locations 689-702). Confederates thus fought to protect their families and their way of life. Manning argues that all of these arguments came back to slavery, and although she is correct in this assertion, she places too much emphasis on slavery. She notes “it is patronizing and insulting to confederate soldiers to pretend that they did not understand the war as a battle for slavery when they so plainly described it as exactly that” (Kindle, 620-32). Yet I would argue that it is patronizing for her to make the jump from quotes where Confederate soldiers “could rally to the ‘watch word of ‘Our Mothers, our wives, our daughters, our sisters, Our God and our country’” to analysis that stated “most of all, losing to the Union was unthinkable…because it would mean abolition” (Kindle, 1231-45). Slavery was important and slavery was tied to Southerner’s definition of family, but quotes like this one focus more on the importance of protecting white womanhood from the Union than on protecting slavery. These thoughts may even have been so connected that protection from the Union meant protection from abolition, but it is overly simplistic to think that the family always meant slavery—sometimes the family meant that white Southerners were appalled that their wives were starving, or had been forced to keep their opinions to themselves thanks to Butler’s Women Order.

By the end of the war Confederate soldiers’ motivations to stop fighting were nearly identical for their reasons to begin fighting. Manning notes that to Confederates, “Most obviously, the belief that an independent Confederacy would do a better job of furthering the interests of white southern families looked tragically ridiculous by the fourth year of the war, when men…regularly received letters from hungry families” (Kindle, 3913-26). Confederates were willing to surrender (and for many soldiers, desert) because if their families were suffering, then it was time to stop fighting and go back home to protect them. They left home to protect their families, and returned home to do the same. Throughout the war, their families were a constant motivation, and of course, protecting them from the end of slavery was part of that motivation.

However, it is important to note that Southerners did not know a world without slavery: it was inextricably linked to their way of life. Although this proves Manning’s point that slavery was key to the war, she focuses so much on slavery that attributes southern passion for family as passion for slavery. At times, they were the same passion (and sometimes the passion for slavery was stronger), but at times, the family was the motivator for Southerners to fight, and simply because they had never known the family without slavery does not mean that they only fought for the family because of slavery.

Manning’s book offers evidence to explain why both non-slaveholders in the South would fight for a Confederate government devote to upholding slavery and why Northern soldiers would fight in a war to emancipate slaves.  Her arguments regarding each of these questions are largely based on the timing and relative ideologies of the men involved and are very different for Confederate soldiers motivations and Union soldiers motivations.

In the case of non-slaveholding whites in the Confederate army, she states “Non-slaveholders regarded black slavery as vital to the protection of their families, interests, and very identities as men and they relied upon it to prevent race war.”(Manning, 39)  Central to Manning’s argument is the southern the fear of disruption of the social order which they relied upon as the basic organization of society and relations. As the Richmond Enuqirer, which Manning uses as a source, states, “where the two races  approximate equality in numbers, slavery is the only protection of the laboring classes against the evils of amalgation.” (Manning, 36)  Amalgamation or miscegenation refers to sexual relations between the races, which while a common practice between white males and black females, in the case of white females and black males became an issue at the heart of Southern white manhood.  Southern white manhood and honor are a major factor in Manning’s explanation of non-slaveholding whites participating in the war, as the protection of slavery meant white southern men would remain at the top of the social order and would needed to protect the honor and chastity of white women.  While not all white men owned slaves in the South, by this explanation of Manning, they had far more invested in the social order and structure of slave institutions in the South.

Like Southern non-slaveholding whites, Northern men without major convictions about abolition would fight in a war to emancipate slaves.  Aside from her arguments that while Northern soldiers entered the slave south they saw a string of abuses and through their interactions with blacks would change their motives, the main motivations according to Manning lie in a different type of ideology. Spawned by the Second Great Awakening, Manning argues that Northern soldiers had been raised in the ideologies that, “the United States as a specifically chosen example would bring ideals like liberty to the whole world, while simultaneously leading the rest of the globe to a state of moral perfection.” (Manning, 42)  This special understanding of the place of the United States in the world and its moral authority could be tarnished by slavery taking place within America’s borders.   This moral superiority and a strong faith in the Union are according to Manning perhaps the biggest motivators of participation in the war effort.  As she states,  “the immoral and blighting institution of slavery was antithetical to republican government and that any republican government that tried to accommodate slavery was doomed to eventual failure.” (Manning, 50)  This clear statement of why Northern non-abolitionist whites may choose to participate places most of the ideological weight, not with the abuses Northerners may have seen happening within the South, but instead with maintenance of all that was held dear in the republican government.

It is interesting, that Channing presents the idea that the Civil War motivations for fighting were not merely to protect property or emancipate slaves, but instead were related to ideological differences and what each side felt was central to the functioning of society.  According to Manning’s interpretation the events that unfolded, soldiers weren’t necessarily fighting over the fate of the slaves, but instead the fate of the nation and how it might be organized in the future.  In both cases, not to win would doom society to failure.

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