The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (review)

Abstract

276CIVIL WAR HISTORY passage of Admiral Farragut's fleet past it, and of Banks' bloody, uncoordinated , unsuccessful assaults against it. The final chapter argues the Banks-Grant point in a "what if section which is interesting but unprovable. Had Banks been successful in his early assaults at Port Hudson, Hewitt contends, hewould havebeen able to link up with Grant and, by virtue of rank, would have superceded him, become thehero of Vicksburg, and eventually become commanding general ofthe entire Union army. Hewitt also argues herethat black performance at Port Hudson was instrumental in causing the North to accept the idea of black troops. Unfortunately he does not prove this point either. Hewitt tacks his brief discussion of these contentions onto his main effort: describing what happened when Union and Confederate forces clashed over Port Hudson on land and river. Hewitt does a good job in describing the fighting. He does not sugarcoat the horror of war; in one place, for example, he notes that "Blood, brains, and other parts of human bodies covered the Richmond" (p. 92) . He graphically depicts what happened to Union sailors and soldiers on both sides who were caught in the slaughter: they suffered horrible wounds and died awful deaths. They also ran; they pillaged; they scavenged ; they deserted. Officers gave stupid orders and stubbornly refused to change them in the face of the most obvious human and geographical obstacles. Human beings died, futilely charging into areas where no human could expect to survive. Hewitt clearly shows that fighting at Port Hudson was not romance and glamour; it was chaos and gore and death. Anyone desiring a detailed account of the skirmishes that took place around Port Hudson will find this book satisfying reading. More maps would have helped provide a clearer understanding of all the military maneuverings, but Hewitt's fine prose carries the reader along despite this deficiency. In recent years, during what has to be considered a renaissance in Civil War batde historiography, many new books of this kind have appeared. This one is thoroughly researched and well written and is aworthy example of the best of this genre. Still, the question has to be asked: just how many Civil War battles really need this kind of detailed treatment? John F. Marszalek Mississippi State University The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856. By William E. Gienapp . (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. xi, 564. $35.00.) The years between 1852 and 1856 were among the more tumultuous in the political history of the United States. William E. Gienapp in his impressive study of the origins of the Republican party captures that book reviews277 tumult—the great complexity of issues, events, emotions, interests, and personalities—while providing a clear interpretative focus. This is political history at its best and will be the starting point for future studies of the politics of the 1850s. Gienapp's achievement does not lie in the creation ofa new interpretation of the rise of the Republican party. He follows in the path of Joel Silbey, who over two decades ago emphasized the importance of ethnocultural issues in antebellum politics, and Michael F. Holt, whose Political Crisis of the1850s (1978) provides the intellectual framework for The Origins of the Republican Party. Rather than developing a new explanation for the political realignment of the 1850s, Gienapp's great strength lies in the depth and breadth of his research, in his methodology, and in his impressive argument for Holt's thesis. Gienapp analyzes the actions of party leaders, contemporary assessments of political developments, and a huge array of election returns to provide a comprehensiveview of the progress of realignment at the state and national levels. Targeting nine northern states for close study, he supports his findings with an appendix of tables. The political realignment of the 1850s involved the replacement of the second American party system, comprised of national Whig and Democratic organizations, with a southern-oriented Democratic party and an exclusively northern Republican party. It also involved considerable shifting of party allegiances and the politicization of new voters. Like Holt, Gienapp argues that this took place in two distinct stages. In the first, prior to 1854, local ethnocultural issues...