Booknotes: Radical of Radicals

New Arrival:

• Radical of Radicals: Austin Blair, Civil War Governor - In His Own Words edited by Jack Dempsey (Mission Point Pr, 2025).

Northern war governors and the key role they played in facilitating Union victory, as well as the degree to which each was ideologically aligned with the Lincoln administration on a variety of domestic and military policies, has become a common topic of discussion in recent decades. Michigan's Austin Blair hasn't received the same degree of popular attention awarded to fellow western state leaders such as Indiana's Oliver Morton or Richard Yates of Illinois, but he was a steadfast war advocate widely assigned to the "radical" wing of the Republican party. He also served as governor for nearly the entire war, along the way sinking most of his own personal wealth into furthering the cause.

From the description: "Statesman Austin Blair championed human rights in America, cherished the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and made major contributions to Union victory in the Civil War. Believing strongly that secession is treason, he supported emancipation and the use of the North's military power to defeat the slave owners' rebellion. Labeled a "radical" by political opponents, Blair's vision of a nation of equal opportunity and civil rights for all people marked him as a leader ahead of his time."

Editor Jack Dempsey's Radical of Radicals: Austin Blair, Civil War Governor - In His Own Words explores Blair's beliefs and actions through a large collection of the governor's public words and writings from 1845 to 1865. After setting the stage with a general introduction and chapter-length account of Blair's early life, Dempsey, in addition to footnoting the material, provides additional context and background content for each of the volume's nearly fifty compiled "messages, speeches, and remarks." According to the book's Editorial Note, few of Blair's letters survive, making the excerpts also added to this book a matter of publishing "more of his words than ever before." Finally, a large body of supplementary correspondence and other documents is collected in the appendix, that material also footnoted with attached editorial commentary throughout.

This is the first of two planned volumes. The second, currently scheduled for release in the latter part of 2026, will carry on the project from the end of the war through to Blair's death in 1894.