Standing Firmly by the Flag: Nebraska Territory and the Civil War, 1861-1867

From a pool of barely nine thousand men of military age, Nebraska—still a territory at the time—sent more than three thousand soldiers to the Civil War. They fought and died for the Union cause, were wounded, taken prisoner, and in some cases deserted. But Nebraska's military contribution is only one part of the more complex and interesting story that James E. Potter tells in Standing Firmly by the Flag, the first book to fully explore Nebraska's involvement in the Civil War and the war's involvement in Nebraska's evolution from territory to thirty-seventh state on March 1, 1867. Although distant from the major battlefronts and seats of the warring governments, Nebraskans were aware of the war's issues and subject to its consequences. National debates about the origins of the rebellion, the policies pursued to quell it, and what kind of nation should emerge once it was over echoed throughout Nebraska. Potter explores the war's impact on Nebraskans and shows how, when Nebraska Territory sought admission to the Union at war's end, it was caught up in political struggles over Reconstruction, the fate of the freed slaves, and the relationship between the states and the federal government.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Nebraska Territory on the Eve of War 1. 1861: "Civil War Is upon Us" 2. 1862: "Nobly Did the First Nebraska Sustain Its Reputation" 3. 1863: "Let Us Battle ... for 'The Constitution As It Is, and The Union As It Was'" 4. 1864: "You May Expect a General Indian Outbreak in All This Western Country" 5. 1865: "Peace Will Soon Again Bless the Land" 6. 1866: "A Change of Government ... Is Being Freely Discussed" 7. 1867: "Nebraska Has a Singularly Bright and Prosperous Future" Epilogue: The New State and the Old Soldiers Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
 James E. Potter is a senior research historian at the Nebraska State Historical Society. He is the coeditor, with Edith Robbins, of Marching with the First Nebraska: A Civil War Diary.

Review :
A masterful narrative of wartime passions, played out on the battlefields, in the newspapers, and in the territorial legislature. Standing Firmly by the Flag tells the tumultuous story that culminated not on the road to Appomattox, but on the fitful path to Nebraska statehood. Eli Paul, editor of The Nebraska Indian Wars Reader: 1865-1877 This is easily the most complete and satisfying study of a critical but relatively neglected period in Nebraskas territorial history... Standing Firmly by the Flag offers a multifaceted portrait - military, political, economic, and social - of a frontier territory more affected by the tumult of civil war than its location (hundreds of miles from the conflicts major battlefields) would suggest. Edward G. Longacre, author of The Cavalry at Gettysburg and Lees Cavalrymen