In rare defiance of the narrow periodization that has marked past studies of Texas politics during the Civil War era, this sweeping work tracks the leadership and electoral basis of politics in the Lone Star State from secession all the way through Reconstruction. Employing a combination of traditional historical sources and cutting-edge quantitative analyses of county voting returns, Dale Baum painstakingly explores the double collapse of Texas Unionismffirst as a bulwark against secession in the winter of 1860–61 and then in the late 1860s as a foundation upon which to build a truly biracial society.

By carefully tracing the shifting alliances of voters from one election to the next, Baum illuminates the most turbulent political period in the history of the state, interpreting both the weight of continuity and the force of change that swept over it before, during, and immediately after the American Civil War. Students of the South, the Civil War, and African American history, as well as sociologists and political scientists interested in vote fraud, political violence, and racial animosity, will reap benefits from this significant volume.