'Soldiers are continually advised by letter to desert:' Finding Democratic Voices in the 1863 Campaign to Discourage Civil War Soldiers

Abstract

In 1863, during the American Civil War, family members and acquaintances of federal soldiers from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois sent letters to those troops in an effort to persuade them to reject the war effort, desert, and return home. The letter writers frequently used racist arguments to encourage desertion. Receipt of these letters angered many soldiers, who sent them to hometown newspapers with requests that editors publish them in order to shame the writers. This article examines these letters, which represent a new body of evidence for studying the discourse of Democrats resident in Midwestern states.