Civil War Issues in Philadelphia, 1856-1865

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Philadelphia, before the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter, was not simply a Northern city. Unlike proslavery Washington but also unlike antislavery Boston, Philadelphia lay in the Northern border area, where mixed sympathies led to divided loyalties and to frequent convulsions over the great issues that preceded the war.

In Civil War Issues in Philadelphia, 1856-1865, author William Dusinberre examines three traditional interpretations of the war and shows how each has to be modified to fit Philadelphia’s experience. In Part I he portrays the fundamental Philadelphia attitudes as they appeared in 1856 and the two main controversies-the fugitive slave question and the territorial issue-as they developed until 1858. Part II is devoted to the John Brown affair and the secession crisis. Part III analyzes wartime issues: the treatment of dissenters, the Negro question, and the recruitment of short-term soldiers when Confederate armies approached Pennsylvania.

From this investigation emerges a vivid portrait of the North’s second greatest city and its leading citizens-racist sympathizers with the South, cautious conciliators, firm conservatives, unconstrained anti-Southerners, outnumbered idealists-contending with the crisis of the Civil War periods.