Subtitle: Civil War Politics in New Jersey, 1854-1865
Author: William Gillette
Subject: New Jersey and the Region/Military Studies
Paper ISBN 0-8135-2694-9
Pages: 389 pp.

Winner, Award of Merit, 1996, American Association for State and Local History

"Gilette has done Civil War studies in the North a service by exploring in great depth the interrelated political issues of slavery, expansion, unionism, and dissent. . . . [It's] the most comprehensive and penetrating study of New Jersey politics in the Civil War era."--Civil War History

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.

William Gillette is a professor of history at Rutgers University and author of Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879.

Publication of this book is supported in part by a grant from the Tomlinson Family Foundation.