The Copperheads, or anti-war Democrats, have been called traitors who actively aided the Confederacy. Strong in Midwestern states such as Indiana, the Copperheads saw themselves as expressing legitimate dissent against the policies of the Lincoln administration but their outrage included violent draft resistance and opposition to emancipation. Did the Copperheads merely express anti-war sentiments that should be permissible in a free society (although rarely tolerated with good grace during wartime) or did they actually aid the Confederacy? Drawn from her award-winning book, Etcheson examines the role of the Copperheads by looking at the Peace Democrats in Putnam County, Indiana, a hot-bed of anti-war sentiment.

Nicole Etcheson is the Alexander M. Bracken Professor of History at Ball State University. She is the author of A Generation at War: The Civil War Era in a Northern Community , Bleeding Kansas, and The Emerging Midwest. She is currently working on a project about suffrage in the post-Civil War era.

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