What Union Meant and Why They Were Willing to Fight For It

Perhaps right now we are not so far removed from appreciating the commitment on the part of Americans in the 1860s, who stood up and defended the rule of law.

(Source: Library of Congress)

One of the toughest things to explain to people about the American Civil War is why so many loyal citizens rushed to volunteer in the spring and early summer of 1861. Tens of thousands of men from large cities to small villages put down their ploughs, closed their account books, and left their studies in the wake of the Confederate firing on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 to put down a “rebellion” by force of arms.

Explaining why white Southerners volunteered involves much less heavy lifting. Their homes and “way of life” (including the institution of slavery) were now under direct threat. Many would soon view their “Yankee” enemies as invaders.

But why would a young man in Maine or in Minnesota risk their lives and travel hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from home and family? Their homes were never under direct threat of military invasion. Their families and communities stood to lose very little if anything. Why not just let their Southern neighbors go their own way?

Answering this question involves appreciating what Union meant to the loyal citizenry of the United States in 1861. A good place to start is Gary Gallagher’s book The Union War. To Northerners, according to Gallagher, the Union stood for democracy, and they fought because they fervently believed that slaveholding aristocrats were a threat to liberty, the rule of constitutional law, economic opportunity, and the work of the founding generation. In a world of monarchies and failed European revolutions, the Union offered the promise of individual liberty, political freedom, and economic opportunity through ‘free labor.’

Today while researching in special collections at the Boston Public Library, I came across a stunning letter. The letter is contained among the correspondence between Samuel G. Bowdlear and Austin C. Wellington.

Bowdlear was a flour merchant in Boston and the owner of S. G. Bowdlear & Co. Wellington worked as his bookkeeper before joining the 38th Massachusetts Regiment in 1862. Bowdlear kept up a regular correspondence with his former employee during the war, filling his letters with observations of life in Boston and the impact of military operations on his family and friends.

One letter in particular, however, stopped me in my tracks. Bowdlear wrote the following on the day before the battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862:

I am surprised as I pass through our streets to see so many young men, whose faces are familiar to me, of from 19 to 25 years of age, with the U. States Uniform on, and belonging to some one or other of the new Regiments forming among us. Massachusetts is now certainly sending the ‘flower of her youth’ to the great battle. In some respects and in some aspects they are fortunate who are young enough and strong enough, and have enough of love of country in them to move them to go forth in such crowds to the rescue of their Country from the invaders of our Constitution & Laws. Happier times will come and then will come the crown of glory for our Country’s young defenders. You, with your Regiment will soon be counted among the veterans, the ancient and honorable, who have seen honorable service.

There is something about Bowdlear’s reference to “invaders” that I find so striking. On the one hand, he could simply be referring to the fact that Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had entered the loyal state of Maryland.

I think Bowdlear is saying much more here. Lee’s offenisive into Maryland was not just a threat to one loyal state, but a threat to the rule of law itself and as a result a threat to all the loyal states under the Constitution.

It was not just the state of Maryland that had been invaded, but the very Constitution that still cemented it into the Union in 1862.

The reference to “invaders” clearly drives home a more visceral notion of what Union meant to the vast majority of the loyal citizenry of the United States.

Returning to the top of this post, perhaps right now we are not so far removed from appreciating Bowdlear’s patriotism and the commitment on the part of Americans in the 1860s, who stoop up and defended the rule of law even if it meant sacrificing their lives in the process.

Perhaps it’s only when the Constitution is so clearly threatened that ‘we the people’ have the opportunity to recommit ourselves to its defense and the continued work of perfecting our Union.