Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War

Written by Meredith Sue Willis

Narrated by Paul Woodson

Loyal Americans marched off to war in 1861 not to conquer the South but to liberate it. So argues Elizabeth R. Varon in Armies of Deliverance, a sweeping narrative of the Civil War and a bold new interpretation of Union and Confederate war aims. Northerners imagined the war as a crusade to deliver the Southern masses from slaveholder domination and to bring democracy, prosperity, and education to the region. As the war escalated, Lincoln and his allies built the case that emancipation would secure military victory and benefit the North and South alike. The theme of deliverance was essential in mobilizing a Unionist coalition of Northerners and anti-Confederate Southerners.

Confederates, fighting to establish an independent slaveholding republic, were determined to preempt, discredit, and silence Yankee appeals to the Southern masses. In their quest for political unity Confederates relentlessly played up two themes: Northern barbarity and Southern victimization. Casting the Union army as ruthless conquerors, Confederates argued that the emancipation of blacks was synonymous with the subjugation of the white South.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Aug 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781515933366

Meredith Sue Willis

Elizabeth R. Varon is professor of history at Temple University.

Reviews for Armies of Deliverance

[stevesmits · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In every war there develops a predominant shared public perception of "who are the enemy?". Our conception of the enemy informs our willingness to accept the sacrifice and loss that war brings about. These views are usually morally based, often leading to dehumanizing the enemy. This history of the Civil War focuses on the perceptions of the Union public and political leadership on the South's motivation to separate from the union, on the political, social and cultural circumstances that created the Confederacy. There was great antipathy toward the "Slave Power" elite, but quite a different view of the other classes of Southern people. As the title suggests, many in the North held the belief that a great number of rebels were at arms only due to the coercion and manipulation of the political leadership and social aristocracy of the planter elite. Thus, the subjugated masses, the North believed, would respond to the "deliverance" brought by the Union armies as they gained territory throughout the South. The fervency to restore the national union was bolstered by the understanding that the lower castes of the Southern states would come to accept the North not as invaders, but rather redeemers. The author does a good job of showing how emancipation, even in the face of widespread Northern racism and aversion to the idea of political and social equality for blacks, could be rationalized as an element of deliverance since most of the Southerners were not slave holders who would come to understand that perpetuating slavery was only to the interest of the elites. The North's political leaders and much of the newspapers significantly over estimated the degree of overt and latent unionism throughout the Southern states. There was a mistaken sense that once unburdened of the oppressive yoke of the power elite many Southerners would openly rally to restoration of the Union. This misapprehension supported the belief that all but the top political and military leaders of the rebel states were deserving of leniency at the conclusion of armed conflict. This certainly informed Lincoln's reconstruction plan and Johnson's even more liberal approach. This degree of open welcome back to the fold was not shared by the Radical Republicans who disputed Johnson's executive actions and put into effect their own harsher legislation.While not primarily a military history, the author does a good job of succinctly recounting the military campaigns and weaving the public's reaction toward these military events into the theme of hoped for deliverance from the tyranny of the ruling elite.