Confederate Reckoning

Stephanie McCurry summarizes the Confederacy as a “gamble of world historical proportions” in which they tried to create “a modern proslavery and antidemocratic state” (1). The Confederacy was an attempt to resist global trends toward democracy and against enslavement. It was a nation with 12 million citizens, 4 million of whom were white women who had no real political rights and another 4 million of whom were enslaved (2). Even lacking political rights and representation, many women were powerful supporters of the Confederacy and opponents of the Union. However, there were also women within the South who resisted the Confederacy.

Enslaved people themselves played a role in bringing about the end of the Confederacy, since the Confederacy was forced to compromise with its own enslaved population for the sake of the war effort. McCurry argues that enslaved people resisted the Confederacy during its existence, forcing its leaders to compromise on their own fundamental belief in racial enslavement and playing a decisive role in the downfall of the Confederacy.

Instead of a traditional political history that would focus on the politicians and voters of the Confederacy, McCurry seeks to explore how the society of the Confederacy was shaped by war.