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| Book Review | Indiana Magazine of History, 103.4 | The History Cooperative
103.4  
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December, 2007
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REVIEWS

Copperheads
The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North

By Jennifer L. Weber
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xi, 286. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $28.00.)

Carl von Clausewitz, the German war theorist, claimed that a nation's success in waging war required a coordinated effort between its people, its leaders, and its army (p. 10). If one leg of this triad falters, the structure will topple. The Civil War proved no exception to this theory. Indeed, Lincoln feared that a third column of antiwar Democrats (Copperheads) would undermine the Union war effort; he called this internal threat "the fire in the rear." In Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North, Jennifer L. Weber persuasively argues that "the fire in the rear" was no mere fizzle, but a volatile blaze stoked by Union defeat on the battlefield. 1
      Combining meticulous research in military, political, and social history with an engaging narrative, Weber's excellent book challenges the prevailing views of historians like Frank L. Klement who have dismissed the Copperhead threat as a "fairy tale" invented by Republicans to justify their expansion of federal power. Weber demonstrates, rather, that "the peace movement was broad, and so influential by August 1864 that it very nearly took over the Democratic Party." . . .
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