Loyalty and Loss - (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War) by Margaret M Storey (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Though slavery was widespread and antislavery sentiment rare in Alabama, there emerged a small loyalist population, mostly in the northern counties, that persisted in the face of overwhelming odds against their cause. Margaret M. Storey's welcome study uncovers and explores those Alabamians who maintained allegiance to the Union when their state seceded in 1861--and beyond. Storey's extensive, groundbreaking research discloses a socioeconomically diverse group that included slaveholders and nonslaveholders, business people, professionals, farmers, and blacks. By considering the years 1861-1874 as a whole, she clearly connects loyalists' sometimes brutal wartime treatment with their postwar behavior.

Review Quotes

In this thoughtful, engaging, and deeply researched book, Storey has rescued Alabama's Civil War unionists from undeserved obscurity. Their experience is now revealed in all its complexity and drama. This is Civil War history at its best.--Stephen V. Ash, author of When the Yankees Came: Conflict and Chaos in the Occupied South, 1861-1865

Storey vividly demonstrates that divided loyalties and home front conflicts were no less intense in the Deep South than they were in other parts of the Confederacy. A major addition to the literature on southern unionism.--John C. Inscoe, editor of Enemies of the Country New Perspectives on Unionists in the Civil War South

About the Author

Margaret M. Storey is professor of history at DePaul University in Chicago.