Desertion During the Civil War
Book description
Desertion during the Civil War, originally published in 1928, remains the only book-length treatment of its subject. Ella Lonn examines the causes and consequences of desertion from both the Northern and Southern armies. Drawing on official war records, she notes that one in seven enlisted Union soldiers and one in…
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2 authors picked Desertion During the Civil War as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Despite this book’s age—almost a century in print—it still stands as a seminal work on an important topic: desertion and its devastating effects on both armies. Lonn was born in 1879 in Indiana, and earned her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the few female historians at the time to do so. She was not immune to the racism of her day nor the cloying ideology of the Lost Cause, yet she told her readers she wanted to understand “the ugly and sordid sides of war.” Her book offers readers a wealth of information and insight to better…
From Lesley's list on the Civil War and the soldiers who fought in it.
Ella Lonn’s Desertion During the Civil War (1928) addressed a controversial element of the conflict and, more than ninety years after it was published, still stands as the only general treatment of the subject. Lonn described both the Union and Confederate sides of the story, examining the causes and scale of desertion, the behavior of men after they left their units, and efforts by both national governments to control the problem. She judged desertion a contributing factor in bringing Confederate defeat and found it especially crucial in 1864-1865. In states such as North Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi, she concluded, the…
From Gary's list on the Civil War era.
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