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27 - War in the West

from Part II - Places

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2019

Aaron Sheehan-Dean
Affiliation:
Louisiana State University
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Summary

While actual clashes between Union and Confederate forces occurred in the American West, residents of that enormous region’s landscapes during the war years can be forgiven for using America’s internecine conflict to advance other interests and agendas. Although there can be little doubt of the intimate connection between westward expansion and the politics of slavery as well as the centrality of the West to the futures imagined by both Northern and Southern statesmen, the military conflict that dominated the country east of the Mississippi River barely touched the region. Little wonder that both scholars and ordinary Americans interested in the Civil War have traditionally spoken of the “western theater” in a manner that might confuse uninitiated readers. Yet one should not think that the American Civil War was irrelevant to westerners or that the West had no impact on the struggle between North and South. In fact, the American Civil War sharpened existing divisions within western states and territories, and provided the larger context for quickening transformations in the region’s politics, culture, economy, and society. At the same time, the West, though peripheral to the main theaters of war, loomed large in the strategic thinking of Union and Confederate leaders. Thus, an examination of the American West during the war years exposes tensions and outright contradictions: simultaneously committed and disengaged, westerners found that the conflict provided the perfect cover to address their perennial interest in controlling the pace and extent of Euro-American expansion. They could do so, moreover, wearing the uniforms of a federal government that before the war had sought to check or soften their expansionistic tendencies, an irony that was not lost upon contemporary observers.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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References

Key Works

Arenson, Adam and Graybill, Andrew (eds.). Civil War Wests: Testing the Limits of the United States (Oakland: The University of California Press, 2015).Google Scholar
Bottoms, D. Michael. An Aristocracy of Color: Race and Reconstruction in California and the West, 1850–1890 (Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Colton, Ray Charles. The Civil War in the Western Territories: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah (Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1959).Google Scholar
Etulain, Richard W. Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Frazier, Donald S. Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Josephy, Alvin. The Civil War in the American West (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).Google Scholar
Lamar, Howard Roberts. Dakota Territory: A Study of Frontier Politics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1956).Google Scholar
Lamar, Howard Roberts. The Far Southwest: A Territorial History, 1846–1912 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966).Google Scholar
Maxwell, John Gary. The Civil War Years in Utah: The Kingdom of God and the Territory that Did Not Fight (Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 2016).Google Scholar
Morrison, Michael A. Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997).Google Scholar
Richards, Leonard. The California Gold Rush and the Origins of the Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).Google Scholar
Scharff, Virginia (ed.). Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West (Oakland: The Autry National Center of the American West and the University of California Press, 2015).Google Scholar
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  • War in the West
  • Edited by Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Louisiana State University
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the American Civil War
  • Online publication: 11 October 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316563168.027
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  • War in the West
  • Edited by Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Louisiana State University
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the American Civil War
  • Online publication: 11 October 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316563168.027
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • War in the West
  • Edited by Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Louisiana State University
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the American Civil War
  • Online publication: 11 October 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316563168.027
Available formats
×