Letter to the Editor, Oath of Officers, Responding to Mackubin Owens' General of the Lost Cause

Abstract

Seth Barrett Tillman, Letter to the Editor, Oath of Officers, 15(3) Claremont Review of Books 11, Summer 2015.

My letter comments on Mackubin Thomas Owens’ article: 'General of the Lost Cause' from the prior Spring 2015 issue. Owens argues that former-Union officers, who resigned from the Union armed forces and then fought for the Confederacy, violated the oaths to uphold the U.S. Constitution. I argue that their resignation (arguably) discharged their prior oaths.