Description: Situational and wartime constructions of "Patriotism" and "Loyalty" shaped American discourse and actions throughout the Civil War. While most scholarly work on Civil War Era nationalism has focused on southern identity and Confederate nationhood, this volume examines the variable, fluid constructions of these concepts in the Civil War Era North.
Brief description: Jonathan W. White is an assistant professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University, in Newport News, Virginia. He is the author of Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman (Louisiana State University Press, 2011), and has another book, titled To Aid Their Rebel Friends: Politics and Treason in the Civil War North, under contract with LSU Press. White has published A Philadelphia Perspective: The Civil War Diary of Sidney George Fisher (Fordham University Press, 2007) and articles in Civil War History, American Nineteenth Century History, Ohio Valley History, and the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography.
Review Quotes: In Contested Loyalty, editor Sandow presents ten thought-provoking essays by some of the most talented Civil War historians writing today... Perhaps the greatest strength of the book is its powerful demonstration that neither loyalty nor the Civil War North is simple.-- "Journal of Southern History"