Thanks to Dr. Cecily Zander for taking the time to talk with me about her wonderful new book, The Army Under Fire: The Politics of Antimilitarism in the Civil War Era. Cecily teaches history at Texas Woman’s University.
As I mentioned at the top of this interview, after spending years reading about the Civil War, it can often feel like new books are just filling in minor details, but once in a while a book comes along that fundamentally shifts how you think about a certain aspect of this history.
This is one of those books.
I have long understood the extent to which Americans were weary of standing armies going back to the American Revolution and British occupation, but I knew nothing about the opposition to the Regular Army embraced by the Republican Party beginning in the 1850s and through Reconstruction.
Cecily convincingly argues that Republicans worried about the extent to which the Regular Army was being used to advance the agenda of southern slaveholders during the antebellum period. This translated into numerous attempts to reduce military expenditure from Congress and efforts to maintain as small an army as possible. This continued right through the war and Reconstruction.
The implications of this are profound for how we understand fundamental questions about this period, especially Reconstruction.
Enjoy the interview and definitely take the time to read this book.
A Conversation With Historian Cecily Zander