My Amazon Review of Fergus Bordowich's "Congress at War....."

 

The Civil War Congress

 

Instead of focusing on Lincoln, historian Fergus Bordowich turns his trained eye on the role of the Republican Congress during the Civil War. He tells his story through the eyes of Senate Finance Chairman William Pitt Fessenden (R-ME), staunch abolitionist and House Ways and Means Chairman Thaddeus Stevens (R- PA), Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War Chairman and staunch abolitionist Ben Wade (R-OH) and traitorous Democratic Congressman Clement Vallandigham (D-OH). It is Fessenden and Stevens who come up with the wartime tax and borrowing measures that kept the Union financially afloat during the darkest days of the war. Wade’s committee shines the light on General George McClellan ineptitude that leads to the appointment of General Grant. And we see Vallandigham spreading defeatist propaganda and raising every possible civil liberties argument against Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus and restrictions on antiwar speech. I wonder where today’s ACLU would be in that context?

 

Congress is way ahead of Lincoln on emancipation. Straight off it passes the confiscation act which frees the slaves captured from the Confederate army. This happens in 1861 well ahead of the draft Emancipation Proclamation that was written in mid-1862 and not formally released until January 1863. But we also learn that many abolitionists harbored deeply racist beliefs, though not true of Wade and Stevens.

 

While engaged in wartime issues the 37^th Congress, perhaps the most productive in history passes the Morrell Act (land grant colleges), the Homestead Act, the Pacific Railway Act and the National Banking Act which created federally chartered banks. As a result, although rapidly depreciating, a national currency in the form of greenbacks was created. The next Congress passes the 13^th Amendment which abolishes slavery. Bordowich also discusses the fate of the Republican Party from its triumph in 1860 to its suffering a major defeat in the 1862 midterms to its great victory in 1864 following Sherman’s military successes in Georgia and the Carolinas.

 

Of note his discussion of Nathan Bedford Forrest who has once again become known in his role as founder of the Ku Klux Klan. What I didn’t know was that Forrest was a slave trader before the war and he conducted perhaps what was the greatest war crime of the war with his massacre of Union troops ( both black and white) Fort Pillow, Kentucky. His is one statue that should come down.

 

For those readers interested in a different take on the Civil War, Bordowich has offered up a very insightful book.

For the full Amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1Z7DLD4IL9YH1/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv