Jersey Blue

Download or read book Jersey Blue written by William Gillette and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This political history of New Jersey during the Civil War and the years immediately before and after invites us to rethink New Jersey's role and in particular its relationship to the border states. William Gillette argues that there is little evidence supporting the idea that New Jersey's residents were pro-southern before the war, or even antiwar during it, although attitudes toward the abolition of slavery were more ambivalent. The perspectives Gillette offers in Jersey Blue, from the recruiting ground, the battlefield, and the home front, cast new light on New Jersey's wartime activities, state identity, and our understanding of the interrelationships between New Jersey's national, regional, and state developments. Gillette takes a broader view of the politics of the Civil War as he touches on the economy, geography, demography, immigration, nativism, conscription, and law. The result is a pioneering history of New Jersey that deepens our understanding of the Civil War.