Civil War Iowa and the Copperhead Movement

In examining a small but vocal antiwar element of the Democratic party in Iowa during the Civil War, this new book also raises the provocative question of what is disloyalty in wartime. Author Hubert H. Wubben suggests that some Copperheads among the Democrats, while not traitorous, were disloyal in the sense that they preferred a stalemate or a Southern victory to victory won under the Republicans. The Copperheads generally veered close to a position that opposed a forcible reunion of the North and South if it had to be achieved under a Republican administration. They demanded that the Lincoln administration explore peaceful means to end the rebellion and permit the South to reenter the Union with all its privileges and institutions restored--including slavery. This minority within the Democratic part was motivated by rage at the loss of its dominant position to the "Black Republicans." It tried to capitalize on race antagonism, war weariness, and anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sent