The soldiers of the 22nd and 28th Iowa defined themselves as citizens fighting in the defense of the republic. Their political attitudes as expressed in their own extant letters and their newspaper of choice, the Iowa City Weekly Republican, provide motive for their killing of Butler’s bloodhounds. Historians have agreed that the United States Army of the American Civil War was a force of volunteer citizen-soldiers and were conscious of their role as a political weapon.
A republican ideology demanded volunteer service as a demonstration of “civic duty and patriotic virtue.” The nationalism subscribed to by many northern soldiers demanded that the planter class should be overthrown for the nation to survive. This attitude led many Union soldiers …show more content…
However even those soldiers who expressed racist views were consistent in their negative opinion towards the slaveholding class, the “Southern chivalry,” whom they blame for the conflict. Corporal Hemphill is not shy in his letters; announcing his contempt for “nigger regiments” and his belief escaped slaves were unworthy of aid provided by the army. Yet, during the Red River Campaign of 1864, he identified the region in which he was encamped as the setting for the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin and attacks the local wealthy planters for their decadence in fine homes and laziness in acquiring their wealth through the labor of others. Lieutenant Haverly, who so fervently proclaimed his devotion to the Republic, rooted his opposition to abolition in his concern for free northern labor. He believes firmly in the superiority of northern society, disparaging the south as the “land of Secesh and niggers.” He fears former slaves will migrate to Iowa and take jobs from white men; undermining northern …show more content…
Booth is not impressed with the politician’s mansion and chivalric manners. He calls him an “ignoramus” and believes it important to his reader that he belonged to the “class which orchestrated the war.” Captain Alfred Cree would inform his wife that the houses he finds in Louisiana are better than the houses at home, but not as plentiful “as the land is all owned by planters.” These planters call northern farmers “mud sills,” because they possess, he estimates, a quarter of the
A republican ideology demanded volunteer service as a demonstration of “civic duty and patriotic virtue.” The nationalism subscribed to by many northern soldiers demanded that the planter class should be overthrown for the nation to survive. This attitude led many Union soldiers …show more content…
However even those soldiers who expressed racist views were consistent in their negative opinion towards the slaveholding class, the “Southern chivalry,” whom they blame for the conflict. Corporal Hemphill is not shy in his letters; announcing his contempt for “nigger regiments” and his belief escaped slaves were unworthy of aid provided by the army. Yet, during the Red River Campaign of 1864, he identified the region in which he was encamped as the setting for the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin and attacks the local wealthy planters for their decadence in fine homes and laziness in acquiring their wealth through the labor of others. Lieutenant Haverly, who so fervently proclaimed his devotion to the Republic, rooted his opposition to abolition in his concern for free northern labor. He believes firmly in the superiority of northern society, disparaging the south as the “land of Secesh and niggers.” He fears former slaves will migrate to Iowa and take jobs from white men; undermining northern …show more content…
Booth is not impressed with the politician’s mansion and chivalric manners. He calls him an “ignoramus” and believes it important to his reader that he belonged to the “class which orchestrated the war.” Captain Alfred Cree would inform his wife that the houses he finds in Louisiana are better than the houses at home, but not as plentiful “as the land is all owned by planters.” These planters call northern farmers “mud sills,” because they possess, he estimates, a quarter of the