John M. Sacher, Ph.D.

• Associate Professor
• john.sacher@ucf.edu
• 407-823-5501
• Campus Location: TCH315D
• View CV

Education

• Ph.D. from Louisiana State University (1999)

Research Interests

Civil War, US South, 19th Century Politics

Recent Research Activities

John M. Sacher's research focuses on politics and society in the nineteenth-century South, particularly during the Civil War era. His Confederate Conscription: A Struggle for Southern Soldiers (LSU Press, 2021) traces the history of the military draft in the Confederacy as southerners had to decide what they were willing to sacrifice (materially and ideologically) to win the war.   A Perfect War of Politics: Parties, Politicians, and Democracy in Louisiana, 1824-1861 (LSU Press, 2004) examines antebellum politics and secession in Louisiana. 

Selected Publications

Books

• Confederate Conscription and the Struggle for Southern Soldiers (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2021)

• A Perfect War of Politics: Parties, Politicians, and Democracy in Louisiana, 1824-1861. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003). Winner of the 2003 Kemper and Leila Williams Prize for best book on Louisiana History.

Articles/Essays

• “Reconsidering the ‘Twenty-Negro’ Law as the Overseer Exemption,” Journal of the Civil War Era (June 2017), 269-92.

• “The Loyal Draft Dodger? A Reexamination of Confederate Substitution,” Civil War History, (June 2011), 153-178.
• “’Our Interest and Destiny are the Same’: Governor Thomas O. Moore and Confederate Identity,” Louisiana History (Summer: 2008), 261-286.
• "'A Very Disagreeable Business': Confederate Conscription in Louisiana," Civil War History (June 2007) vol. LIII, no. 2, pp. 141-169.
• "'The Ladies are Moving Everywhere': Louisiana Women and Antebellum Politics," Louisiana History 42 (Fall 2001), 439-57. Winner of the Presidents Memorial Award for Best Article in Louisiana History, 2001
• "The Sudden Collapse of the Louisiana Whig Party," Journal of Southern History 65 (May 1999), 221-48. Included in Carolyn De Latte, ed., Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial Series in Louisiana History, Volume 4, Antebellum Louisiana, 1830-1860, Part B: Politics (Center for Louisiana Studies,2004), 260-81.

Book Sections/Chapters

• “Davis and the War,” in Aaron Sheehan-Dean, ed., The Cambridge History of the American Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 501-20.

• “’Searching for ‘Some Plain and Simple Method’: Jefferson Davis and Confederate Conscription,” in Samuel C. Hyde, ed., The Enigmatic South: Toward Civil War and Its Legacies (LSU Press, 2014), 133-149.

• “The Elections of 1824 and 1828 and the Birth of Modern Politics,” in Sean P. Adams, ed., A Companion to the Era of Andrew Jackson (Blackwell-Wiley, 2012)

Awards

• Confederate Conscription  Winner of 2021 Jules and Frances Landry Award for most outstanding LSU Press publication in the field of Southern Studies

• Confederate Conscription Finalist Gilder Lehrman Abraham Lincoln Prize

• A Perfect War of Politics Winner of 2003 Kemper and Leila Williams Prize for best book on Louisiana History
  

Courses

• Spring 2023
• Fall 2022
• Summer 2022
• Spring 2022
• Fall 2021
• Summer 2021