cover image IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES: War in the Heart of America, 1859–1863

IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES: War in the Heart of America, 1859–1863

Edward L. Ayers, . . Norton, $27.95 (480pp) ISBN 978-0-393-05786-7

Two counties, one in Virginia and one in Pennsylvania, are united by the vast Shenandoah Valley, but divided by the Mason-Dixon line. As late as 1859, these border counties, and by extension their respective states, saw themselves not on opposite sides of a divided nation but as the historic and contemporary heart of a country where such forces as a shared history and a common language made civil war inconceivable. The inhabitants of both counties initially prided themselves on resisting provocation by fire-eaters in the far North and the deep South. Ironically, they eventually committed themselves fully, sacrificing blood and wealth unstintingly to a conflict few of them welcomed. That process, however, was by no means straightforward, as Ayers (The Promise of the New South) brilliantly shows. If Confederate supporters in Augusta County, Va., ultimately accepted slavery as the touchstone of their social order, they also insisted they were fighting for the right to be left alone, free of a Northern influence perceived as increasingly alien. Their counterparts in Pennsylvania's Franklin County went to war not to destroy slavery but to prevent the South from destroying the Union by leaving it. Emancipation grew from the contingencies of war—and not the least of these was the increasing determination of black Americans to take charge of their own destinies, thereby challenging at its roots the social contract established by the revolution of 1776. Ayers tells his complex story with a master's touch, shifting smoothly between North and South, and between the lesser worlds of his two counties and the wider events of the war that changed them both utterly. He pauses with Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania in 1863, just before the Battle of Gettysburg—a decision both intellectually and aesthetically satisfying. This volume lays the groundwork; we are left to anticipate the climax and the denouement to be presented in its successor. (Sept.)