The Vacant Chair

The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home. By Reid Mitchell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Mitchell is a professor of history at the University of Maryland. He is also the author of Civil War Soldiers. His work, The Vacant Chair, is about Northern soldier’s concept of “domestic imagery” and how it impacted them during the war. Many Civil War histories focus on either the home front or the lives of soldiers, but Mitchell draws the line between the two, fusing them together. Mitchell contends that “home and family were central to the Northern soldier’s understanding of the Civil War.” (xii) His goal is to couple social history with military history, which helps the reader better understand soldier’s experiences during the war. He examines many primary and secondary sources, which include soldier’s diaries from the war.

Mitchell asserts that the war was fought over the meaning of home. The Northern soldiers fought to safeguard their institutions, which included democracy, education, and Christianity. Furthermore, he reminds historians that Union soldiers were mere extensions of their home communities, and the army became their family during war. In fact, a soldier’s local community would oftentimes appraise action taken by troops. For instance, bravery and cowardice among soldiers pervaded the discussions of local communities. Furthermore, men that went off to war were classified as more masculine than those that stayed at home.

Northern troops also found comfort in linking authority to paternalism. Interestingly, soldiers saw the national government as a paternal institution. The Southern rebellion was a revolt against “the paternal image of the national government.” Northerners believed they had to crush the rebellion and force the Confederates back into the Union. At the same time, they had to forgive them for the rebellion. In fact, “reconstruction was like calling the family back to the table and to fill vacant chairs.” (133) Even on the battlefield, troops looked to their officers and viewed them as paternal.

The absence of women also became an important topic throughout The Vacant Chair. A good Northern woman was a mother since she was able to instill republican virtues in her children. Interestingly, a woman was not idealized as a sister, a prostitute, a rape victim, or as a wife. A wife would keep her husband from fighting since she saw the realities of danger from war. But a mother represented strength and instilled the impulse in her sons to fight. The absence of women had a profound impact on soldiers, and Mitchell argues that in many ways troops made up for lack of femininity by “becoming women themselves.” (72) Soldiers, for instance, would attend balls, which was an expression of feminine characteristics. Union troops yearned for feminine virtues, which were seen as nurturing and consoling. Nurses would sometimes assume the roles of women, but usually men had to perform tasks that women would do at home. In the camps, for instance, they had to cook, wash, and clean.

Mitchell also discusses the importance of religion and the impact it had on soldier’s lives. Many Civil War historians tend to overlook the importance of religion and its impact. For many soldiers, religion was the only coping mechanism against death. Finally, Mitchell concludes with a subsection called “Domesticity and Confederate Defeat.” This section examines the reasons for Northern victory and Southern defeat within the context of culture and home. This short part could certainly be expanded and even be a continuation of A Vacant Chair. Overall, historians will debate Mitchell’s provocative work for years to come. His insightful analysis makes this work a fun and enjoyable read.

Shawn Devaney

The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home. By Reid Mitchell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Reid Mitchell attempts to put together “two different historical literatures” in his work The Vacant Chair; he tries to bring gender and domestic studies into the broader Civil War literature. He considers the solider both as a man at war and a boy away from home. While the soldiers are away at war, the life of the family must continue. It is in these two worlds, the army camp and the home front, that Mitchell sets his work. His explanation of the Northern soldiers relies heavily on personal accounts, and sounds almost trite at times. He does manage to draw some interesting connections between Northern society and conduct of Union soldiers.

The Vacant Chair explains that while combat, military discipline, ideology, and leadership all affect the conduct of a soldier, the community values must also be considered. Mitchell finds that these community values, instilled by families, were crucial to the American way of war from 1861-1865. To Mitchell, even the war itself can be viewed as a conflict over the meaning of community and conflicting values. Most Northern soldiers did not travel very far in their soldiering. This creates a double edged sword; the closeness of the solider to his hometown undercut traditional military discipline but also created a community in which military service and patriotism were highly valued. Mitchell finds that the Civil War armies rarely succeeded fully in converting men and boys into soldiers. To complete conversion to military life is to adopt new modes of dress, ritual, and discipline. Many Civil War armies retained too much of their home community’s culture, but this is unsurprising as units were usually drawn from the same geographic area. The local nature of companies and regiments underscored the connection between soldiers and their homelands. Northern soldiers often served with brothers, cousins, uncles, and neighbors; even the commanders usually came from the same hometowns or counties as the majority of their soldiers.

Mitchell also considers how traditional roles for women and African Americans affected the actions of the Union Army. In Northern society, while African Americans were not slaves they were segregated from whites. This continues in the Union Army; even when whites were forced to mix with black soldiers, they consider themselves superior. White commanders referred to their African American troops as “boys” rather than soldiers. The relationships of Northern soldiers to women, both Northern and Southern, are much more complicated. Northern women, as mothers and wives, encouraged their men to fight bravely. Mitchell relates antidotes in which Union soldiers engaged in outright suicidal attacks to prove their bravery in response to these encouragements. The implication from the author is clear; women drove their men to greater acts of bravery, and at times stupidity, than their fellow soldiers. This conclusion is far from proven, and Mitchell may be attributing societal influences to women when unwarranted. Southern women found themselves as targets of Northern armies often. Interestingly, Union soldiers rarely raped Southern white women. The need to protect white women seems too firmly engrained to allow such violations. This courtesy did not extend to free Southern black women or slaves. Often slaves were targeted for rape as a means of harassing the white slave owners.

Mitchell relies heavily on personal accounts. He uses journals, diaries, and memoirs to great effect. The recollections of young soldiers are perhaps the best part of this work. Otherwise, Mitchell’s mixture of military and social history fails to satisfy readers of either genre. His social history is muddled by the frequent estimations of how society affected the young soldiers. Without reliable social surveys and data, Mitchell is allowed to choose those letters and diaries that confirm his theory. The military history is disjointed and confusing. Mitchell’s original intent is interesting, but perhaps another author would be more successful with the outcome.