A really interesting book about different perspectives held by people during the time of the Civil War. Great for anyone interested in this time.

Here’s a book that I think is sorely needed. ‘Tis Not Our War by Paul Taylor looks at the Civil War from the Union side, and how it was never the intensely patriotic, we’re-all-in-this-together-movement that many people tend to view it as today.

There are so many examples listed in the book for reasons men absolutely did NOT want to go off and fight. Parents wanting to keep their young boys from bad influences in the military, immigrants not wanting to get involved, men who needed to care for their wives and children or ailing parents, men waiting to inherit property and money who were unwilling to throw it all away to be a soldier, the pay was bad and unreliable, men wanting to fight solely for abolition or not at all (with the inverse in 1863 of them NOT wanting to fight for abolition), conscientious objectors, and those who labelled themselves honestly as cowards—all these are excuses given, with many more to be found. Men were desperate to avoid first the war and then the draft, paying commutation fees, hiring substitutes, fleeing ahead of the draft, or simply not showing up if called to duty. Families and communities banded together to warn men when the military was coming to seek enlistments, and often they would throw rocks, set dogs on the officers, or even engage in open gun fighting. People dug in their heels to avoid taking part in the war; whether they personally supported it or not, they did not want to be the ones to make a sacrifice, especially if they had already sent family members off to fight while others in the town had not.

I did not know the depth of resistance to the war, with only 6% of the men who were drafted actually showing up to take their position in the ranks. I did not know that 40% had deserted at some point by the war’s end. I did not know when Lincoln promised amnesty to soldiers who returned within 60 days near the end of the war that only 1,755 did so out of a total of over 119,000. Most civil war books don’t really focus on the resentment and rage of the men who would do anything to stay out of the army, so all of this is sobering information. I am glad of it, though, because I think more people need to see it.

I especially would like to slide this work in the direction of those who claim that the war was essentially fought in this manner: South wanted to keep slaves, North wanted to free the slaves. This book underlines that many in the Union did NOT join for that reason, and used it as an excuse to flee or to resist joining, whether or not they felt so strongly on the point of abolition.

I think this could do with perhaps a little editing here and there, but overall it’s very enjoyable. I also appreciated the inclusion of illustrations that broke up the text now and again that ranged from advertisements for insurance to pay for substitutes to artwork mocking Copperheads and shirkers.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

‘Tis Not Our War shattered numerous assumptions about Civil War patriotism that I didn’t even know I possessed. It’s hard to imagine that in 2024 an author could write something about the Civil War that hasn’t already been fully addressed amidst the plethora of works about the War of Rebellion. But Taylor does just that. Uncovering a wealth of primary source accounts, Taylor exposes the various reasons for anti war sentiments in the North. Making the claims that dissent against war isn’t a novel concept in America and that it was most fervently demonstrated in the Vietnam War, ‘Tis Not Our War exposes the massive difficulties faced by Lincoln and his administration in maintaining the manpower necessary to sustain the war effort. The book attempts to portray the multitude of causes for avoiding war service while also providing a chronological record of the issue. With this approach, there was quite a bit of repetition in the later chapters. However, the vast research and multitude of individual narratives make this dense work an important and interesting work for any Civil War enthusiast.


I am grateful to NetGalley and Stackpole Books for providing me with an advanced reader copy of Paul Taylor’s ‘Tis Not Our War.

This book is about men who avoided military service in the Civil War and who were from the North so who would have fought on the Union Side, but they said This isn’t Our War (even though in so many ways it WAS) so here, Paul Taylor has devised a text that explains some of the major reasons why men in the North did not fight and avoided military service in the Civil War, and the first thing that interested me about this is the fact that to my understand, there was heavy conscription going on during this time. The Union and Confederacy both had conscription, meaning if you were cleared for combat, you had to sign up and fight. Although there were exceptions of those who wanted to serve but were declared medically unfit or unfit for other reasons, or those who actually fought to be able to sign up even though they were too young, and they enlisted with a false age. If readers are super interested in this topic, I think it’s a recommended text that I would suggest.

None of my direct descendants fought in the Civil War - most of them weren’t even here yet. Among the few who were, most were either too young or too old to have served. Only one was of military age at the time - a great-great grandfather, who was an Irish immigrant living in New York. I can see from old records that he dutifully registered for the draft in 1863, but he doesn’t appear ever to have served. What I don’t know is, why?

And that’s what Taylor aims to explore in this book, in a scholarly and nonjudgmental way. Not specifically why my own great-great grandfather didn’t fight in the war, but why so many northerners like him chose not to. Many simply shared the mindset of Union General Joshua Chamberlain’s father, who gave this book its title by observing about the conflict, “‘tis not our war.”

Many books have explored what motivated Union soldiers to fight. But Smith points out that only about 40% of eligible northerners did. So why didn’t the others?

Taylor mined letters and diaries and other sources, pulling quotes and anecdotes that he uses throughout the book to represent civilians’ various justifications for staying out of the war, ranging from hostility to indifference. Some who joined the fight did so for the reasons we like to imagine were foremost in everyone’s mind - to preserve the Union and defend the country’s ideals. To others, though, liberty meant having the freedom not to fight if they so chose.

Others were far less high-minded about their choices. Some who enlisted needed money and a job, while some who didn’t were already steadily employed. Some were simply bored and seeking adventure, while others had families and responsibilities. Some recent immigrants didn’t feel duty-bound to fight for a country that wasn’t really theirs, for a cause that didn’t directly impact them, while others enlisted in order to prove their patriotism to their adopted country. And yes, it must be said, some were brave while others would do anything to avoid putting themselves in harm’s way. The common belief that the war would be a short one led some enlistees to say “why not?” while others concluded, “why bother?”

While many southerners believed they were fighting for their very survival and way of life, the war was more remote to many northerners. One might imagine today that the war hovered over everything and was omnipresent in daily life. But Taylor found at least a couple of diaries that span nearly the entirety of the war years, whose authors memorialized the daily minutiae of their lives, but somehow failed to meaningfully mention anything at all about the war. Not only did they not volunteer to fight, it appears that doing so never even crossed their minds.

Once the Union draft was instituted, only a tiny percentage of those who registered actually ended up serving - alluring bounty payments for volunteers and the mere threat of being drafted (with no bounty) made large numbers of draftees unnecessary. Even with this carrot-and-stick approach, though, war weariness and a reluctance among some to fight for emancipation ultimately dimmed many would-be enlistees’ enthusiasm to sign up - and dulled the societal pressure to do so. “What was viewed as shameful, cowardly behavior in the summer of 1861,” Taylor writes of avoiding service, “became acceptable in a shrug-of-the-shoulders manner by late 1864.”

The book gets off to a strong start in analyzing and categorizing non-soldiers’ motives, but later strays somewhat from its stated focus by considering such topics as deserters, draft dodgers and paid substitutes, which are more about how men avoided service rather than why. It’s a bit of a diversion, but once Taylor considers all the reasons that northerners chose not to join the fight when the war broke out, there needs to be somewhere for the book to go as it follows the war to its conclusion. The book could also have been a bit tighter, as there are a few observations that Taylor repeats more than once.

As compared to, say, the Mexican-American War or the Vietnam War, which faced vigorous and vocal homefront opposition, the Civil War (in the north at least) is largely seen today as one of the “good wars.” So it’s tempting to look back and believe that everyone at the time thought the same, and pulled together for a common cause. Of course, in some quarters, there was some strong opposition to the war. But Taylor’s book shows that there was a large degree of relative ambivalence as well.

I’ll never know why my great-great grandfather chose to stay home. Was he strongly opposed to the war’s aims? Or, as a recently-married working man and father to a newborn, were his loyalties to his family and community stronger than those to his adopted country and what it stood for? For the majority of northern civilians like him, Taylor concludes that the war “had not grazed their lives.” As much as we might prefer to romanticize that era and those who lived through it, to many of them, just like Chamberlain observed, “it had not really been their war” at all.