If this novel's protagonist were not literally named America, there would be good reason to presume that perhaps it were designed as a kind of social novel. Like Jane Austen's sets of characters for instance, this cast is also afflicted by the urgent need to be coupled up and married, but when the reader adds back in that the protagonist is literally named America, and the novel is set in the Civil War, then of course another layer must be added to that initial interpretation.
Not only is the novel about the social dance of companionship, it is about the brokenness of the Civil War. The North and South are also competing for "America" in a sense, because as the character America chooses between North and South, the nations also compete for a leg up on their opponent. Either side would love to fill the role that America had already begun to fill by the mid 19th century.
Another way this affects the plot is that America's love life is coupled with a very real threat of death. The novel begins with that threat of death, in fact. The idea seems to be that while America the nation is at war with itself, the normal parts of life must still continue, but in a deathly, sometimes horrific way. America isn't just choosing a spouse. She is choosing a companion for survival, because the stakes of their political situation are literally the poorest in American history.
