Why Texans Fought in the Civil War (Volume 20)

Sam Rayburn Series on Rural Life, sponsored by Texas A&M University-Commerce

by Charles David Grear

In Why Texans Fought in the Civil War , Charles David Grear provides insights into what motivated Texans to fight for the Confederacy. Mining important primary sources—including thousands of letters and unpublished journals—he affords readers the opportunity to hear, often in the combatants’ own words, why it was so important to them to engage in tumultuous struggles occurring so far from home.
As Grear notes, in the decade prior to the Civil War the population of Texas had tripled. The state was increasingly populated by immigrants from all parts of the South and foreign countries. When the war began, it was not just Texas that many of these soldiers enlisted to protect, but also their native states, where they had family ties.

Genres: History, Civil War

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2010

Reviews

[Helen]

Does this book answer the question of why Texans fought in the Civil War? For the most part, it does. German immigrants of the Texas Hill Country were in large part, Unionists, but some of my relatives fought on the side of the Confederacy and I am still wondering why. The choices open to them were either conscription or escaping to Mexico.

[Nathan Zimmermann]

I found the book superficial regarding the reasons behind the Civil War experiences of Tejanos, Germans, Central Europeans, Poles, English, Irish. Also the book deals only cursorily with Der Treue Union and the experience of other Unionists.