Freehling's The South Vs. The South

In The South Vs. the South, he ably displays just how Union numbers overwhelmed the Confederacy. Through study of the activities of two large geographical and population groups-upper South whites and middle South slaves-he demonstrates the importance of those people's actions to the ultimate Union victory. In order to strengthen his theory, Freehling also discusses the basis for the upper South's neutrality, Lincoln's tortured racialist path to the Emancipation Proclamation, and the arguments both North and South used for and against arming the slaves.

The first section of this splendid volume is devoted to what Freehling calls "white on white." For him, the neutrality of the border slave states made the Confederate war effort vulnerable