Recently I’ve been reading “Lincoln,” the biography by David Herbert Donald. I was struck by this passage, describing the situation in the North during late 1862 into early 1863. At this point the war, which many in the North had believed would be won quite quickly, was instead going terribly, and support for it was collapsing. The following paragraphs paint quite a portrait of hopelessness:

In the West discontent manifested itself in sporadic outbreaks of violence. In several counties there was resistance to the arrest of deserters from the Union armies; on occasion Union men or soldiers at home on furlough were murdered; there were demonstrations and armed parades against continuing the war. Ugly racism was often evident in these outbreaks. In a Detroit race riot many blacks were beaten and some thirty-five houses were burned.

Numerous mass meetings and county conventions announced “that the Union can never be restored by force of arms,” protested the conversion of the war into an abolition crusade, challenged the impending conscription legislation as unconstitutional, and called for a cease-fire. Many of these meetings favored summoning a national convention, to be held at Louisville on the first Tuesday in April, in order “to obtain an armistice and cessation of hostilities.” So strong was antiwar sentiment that the Times of London believed that Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had “proved a solvent which has loosened the federal bond in the North itself” and predicted the imminent secession of the Western states from what remained of the Union.

Many Western Unionists shared that foreboding, and they passed along their fears to the President. John A. McClernand, a sturdy Illinois Democrat, warned the President of “the rising storm in the Middle and Northwestern States,” and predicted “not only a separation from the New England States but reunion of the Middle and Northwestern States with the revolted States.” Republicans were even more alarmed, finding “Treason … everywhere bold, defiant — and active, with impunity!” In Illinois the Democratic majority in the state legislature insisted that the Union could not be restored unless Lincoln withdrew the Emancipation Proclamation and urged him to declare an armistice; they also tried to appoint delegates to the Louisville peace convention, to block arbitrary arrests, and to prohibit the immigration of blacks into the state. [...] Similarly in Indiana the Democrats who controlled the legislature threatened to take over control of the state’s military efforts; they were blocked only when the Republican members, bolting the chamber to prevent a quorum, brought about adjournment before any appropriations bills could be passed. For the next two years Republican Governor Oliver P. Morton governed the state without legislative authorization. Both governors attributed Democratic obduracy to secret, pro-Confederate organizations, especially the Knights of the Golden Circle, which were allegedly fomenting disloyalty throughout the West.

As incredibly bleak as all that reads, what ultimately turned things around were, of-course, the victories that finally came in the field. Few are the hardy (or foolhardy) souls who are willing to support an apparently losing fight. Many, on the other hand, are those who are willing or eager to wave the flag when the battles are being won — even with casualties as unspeakably horrendous as they were in the U.S. Civil War. So it goes, I guess.

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