Despite more than two centuries of academic discourse, historians of the Civil War are still adding fresh works to the historiography.  Since the conclusion of the war, historians have sought a better understanding of the battles and generals.  Numerous historians have written on the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, including William Allan, Gary L. Ecelbarger, Robert K. Krick, and Robert G. Tanner.  The works of both Allan and Tanner, however, exhibit strong Confederate bias and thus give unfair assessments of the Union during the campaign.  Both Ecelbarger and Krick focused on battles and not the entire campaign.  In Shenandoah 1862, Cozzens adds balance to the debate and offers a sweeping reexamination of the campaign while avoiding bias by using both Confederate and Union primary sources (p. 2).  Central to Cozzens’ argument that Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson was not without imperfections, nor were the Union generals inept as often depicted in previous works.

Written in a narrative style, Shenandoah 1862 offers substantial insight into Jackson.  Throughout the work, Cozzens gives background information to provide a better understanding of Jackson’s thought processes.  In chapter one, when addressing Jackson’s religious views, Cozzens notes that Jackson’s strong faith allowed him to act comely in the heat of battle.  In doing so repeatedly, however, Cozzens drowns his arguments in a sea of narrative.

In his introduction, Cozzens argues that the significance of Jackson’s victories during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign “demonstrated that the Union armies and their commanders not only were not invincible, but also could be made to appear foolish through deft and daring maneuver” (p. 5).  The issue with this statement is that the Confederate victory at the battle of First Manassas in 1861 demonstrated the vulnerabilities of Union forces.  Consequently, the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign can only reinforce what was already made evident a year earlier at Manassas.  Additionally, Cozzens undervalues the significance of First Manassas when stating that until Shenandoah, it had been a while since a Confederate victory.  While the victories during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign reinvigorated a Confederacy beset with recent defeats in the Western Theater, many Confederates remembered the triumph at Manassas a year earlier.

Several topics are of consequence to Cozzens’ work, most significantly the actions of Jackson and the failures of the opposing Union generals.  Regarding Jackson, Cozzens argues that the general’s strengths included a keen understanding of topography and the rapid movement of his forces to exploit enemy’s weaknesses.  Cozzens’ maintains, however, the Jackson’s quick troop marches left his men too drained to be useful during the latter stages of the campaign (p. 509-10).   Moreover, Jackson never shared his plans with his officers, thus leaving them bewildered in battle.

As for the Union, while previous historians contend that Abraham Lincoln’s generals were incompetent, Cozzens argues that the Federal command structure hindered their ability to meet the changing realities of a campaign.  Cozzens maintains that Lincoln’s discontent with events in Virginia lead to the president interfering in both the Shenandoah and Peninsular campaigns.  Concerns over the defense of Washington, resulted in Lincoln’s shuffling of troops from operations against Richmond to the hopeful destruction of Jackson’s forces in the Shenandoah Valley.   Cozzens notes that despite Federal meddling, Union generals conducted themselves well in the Shenandoah Valley.

Another issue with Cozzens’ work is that of citations.  Cozzens builds his work on a large primary and secondary source base.  While that is certainly a strength, the lack of citations for every quote is problematic.  For example, when quoting Jackson in the first paragraph on page 7, Cozzens does not provide any footnotes.  Further complicating the issue is that Cozzens uses many works on Jackson, thus it is impossible to match the uncited quotes with any particular source.  Another instance appears in the last paragraph on page 177, where Cozzens uses multiple quotations to relay a discussion of tactics between Colonel Nathan Kimball and Major General Harry G. Armstrong.  Again, it becomes difficult to attribute the quotations to a single source.

In sum, Cozzens offers a fair assessment of Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign.  While previous publications expresses strong Confederate bias, Cozzens addresses the shortcomings of all commanders, regardless of their affiliations.  Moreover, Cozzens provides substantial insight into how Jackson’s personal beliefs and military fortitude affected his leadership.  Despite some weaknesses, Cozzens demonstrates that fresh analysis of the Civil War are possible and indeed, valuable.

The motivations of Confederate soldiers have long been debated by scholars.  Before Kenneth W. Noe’s Reluctant Rebels, historians concentrated on the young men who joined the army shortly after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter.  Motivations for joining the war, argues war correspondent William Howard Russell, did not include ideological reasons such as politics and liberty.  In agreement, Gerald Linderman notes that men wanted, and were expected, to demonstrate their courage through battle.  Conversely, James McPherson contends that after Fort Sumter, men enlisted because they believed in the political ideology of the Confederacy.  These men saw the war as an extension of the American Revolution and were more than willing to fight for slavery and liberty.  Agreeing with McPherson, Randall Jimerson added that Confederates linked the protection of slavery with fighting for the defense of their homes and for liberty.  All of these scholars, however, based their findings on the men who joined the war in 1861.  Moreover, with scant evidence, scholars suggested that men joining the cause later on held different ideological views and were inferior soldiers.  Therefore, Noe seeks a nuanced understanding of the motivations, and abilities, of those who joined the army in 1862 and beyond.

Noe divides his work in three parts.  In part one, Noe addresses the ideological contention that men enlisted to defend their rights.  Noe argues that late enlisters wrote little of nationalism and were not worried about duty and honor.  Slavery, however, played a more significant role in that noticeably more post-1861 enlisters were son’s of slave holders.  Part two centers on the oversimplified assertion that Confederates only joined the army to protect their homes.  Here, Noe argues that young late enlisters were fueled by romanticism, while older men were concerned with defending their loved ones.  Part three examines the factors that caused men to enlist and what empowered them during the time in the army.  In this portion of his work, Noe concludes that the home maintained a strong presence in the lives of the soldiers.  Religion played a key role in connecting men with their homes and motivations to keep fighting, yet prevented larger group camaraderie.

To gain a nuanced understanding of the men who enlisted after 1861, Noe assembles a group of 320 men.  Through the use of census data, diaries, letters, and service records, Noe constructs a compelling rebuttal.  From these sources, Noe uncovers that these men were angered by the North’s hard hand of war and dwelt on the local ramifications of the conflict.  Moreover, these men were older and, generally, had backgrounds related to manual labor.  Noe’s statistical data suggests a clear connection between slavery and soldier motivations.  In his research, Noe finds that between thirty and forty percent of his sample were from slaveholding families.  Consequently, Noe demonstrates that these men had a stronger connection to slavery than the men who joined the army in 1861.  Additionally, Noe’s correlation between slavery and soldier motivations reflects a wider trend already suggested by Joseph Glatthaar in General Lee’s Army.  Nevertheless, Noe’s sample is far from perfect.  Not wanting to write “yet another study of white Southern elites,” Noe included those who where, and where not, literate.  Yet, as Noe acknowledges, this means his sample is “only suggestive at best for the entire population” (p. 13).  Futhermore, Noe excludes officers on the grounds that are more prosperous than enlisted men for fear that they would skew his data set (p. 16).  Consequently, Noe’s sample ignores men that could hinder his argument that men joining after 1861 were less ideologically motivated.

Contrary to earlier assessments that post-1861 soldiers were more likely to dessert and flee in battle, Noe uses his evidence base to argue that ultimately these late enlisters still “marched, fought, killed, and died for the Confederacy on dozens of battlefields” (p. 209).  Moreover, Noe adds that these men “were not cowards. Called upon to engage in combat, most seemingly fought to the best of their abilities” (p. 209).  Instead, Noe argues that these men were older and tired from hard work, thus combat exhausted them rather quickly.

Reluctant Rebels demonstrates the value of statistical evidence.  Despite issues over how Noe assembled his sample, his work remains valuable to the debate over Confederate soldier motivations.  Noe successful nuances preexisting arguments by explaining what many earlier works simply assumed, that being the traits of the enlisted solders after 1861.  It is Noe’s evidence that suggests that late enlisters where different from the men who joined the army in 1861, but they were certainly not inferior soldiers.

The rifle musket was once conceived as the reason for a prolonged and bloody Civil War. In The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat, Earl J. Hess endeavors to rewrite the history of the war’s most infamous firearm.  Historians and soldiers alike assumed the assertions of “pre-Civil War rifle enthusiasts with little alteration or questioning”  by accepting range of the rifle musket to be “anywhere from 250 to 1,000 yards” (p. 2-3).  Since the rifle musket’s range was claimed as superior to that of the smoothbore musket, scholars like James M. McPherson argue that despite the new rifle, soldiers continued to fight with outmoded tactics.  In addition to McPherson, Hess challenges the works of John Mahon in “Civil War Infantry Assault Tactics (Military Affairs, Summer 1961), and Grady McWhiney and Perry Jamieson in Attack and Die. These scholars advocated the “rifle revolution” theory, where the rifle musket’s longer killing range directly contributed to enormous causalities, the use of trenches, ineffective artillery and calvary attacks, and ultimately a protracted Civil War.  Citing Paddy Griffith’s Battle Tactics of the Civil War as the impetuous for his own work, Hess notes that Griffith found that most battles of 1863 and 1864 occurred between 127 and 141 yards.  Accordingly, Mark Grimsley and Brent Nosworthy reached similar numbers when examining the firing distances of the rifle musket (p. 7).  Adding to the debate, Hess argues that a combination of the rifle musket’s parabolic trajectory and combat within 100 yards on hilly terrain meant that the rifle musket was only slightly more lethal than its smoothbore predecessor.

Essentially, Hess seeks the termination of the “rifle revolution” theory.  To do so, Hess builds his work with the data compiled by other scholars as well as his own examination of archival documents, such as service records.  From this research, Hess argues that an increased effective range does not mean more casualties.  Rather, Hess notes that skirmishes typically occurred at a distance of 94.4 yards, which is an effective range for both rifle and smoothbore muskets.  Despite the potential of the rifle musket, soldiers were not trained to fire the weapon at longer distances.  Moreover, soldier’s were not well versed in trajectories of the rifle musket’s minie ball projectile.  Hess writes that when fired, the minie ball followed an arc-like trajectory, whereby the bullet passed through two killing areas.   Since soldiers did not consider the trajectory of the rifle musket, they did not adjust their aim when firing.  Thus all too often soldiers fired over the heads of the advancing enemy.

The rifle musket, asserts Hess, did alter Civil War tactics.  Since both Confederate and Union armies continued to fight with Napoleonic troop formations, Hess asserts that the impact of the rifle musket was restricted to skirmishing and sniping.  Nevertheless, Hess states that the rifle musket’s heightened effectives in “skirmishing was never a substitute for good fighting by the battle line” (p. 174).  Furthermore, Hess perceives the increased sniping range as having only a marginal affect on military operations (p. 196).

Along with the discussion of the combat effectiveness of the rifle musket, Hess address how soldiers came about acquiring weapons.  In his analysis of general orders, Hess finds that the Army of Tennessee lost 4,000 rifles simply from retreating soldiers (p. 46-7).  Although some troops simply abandon their rifles while in a hasty retreat, Hess uses the recollections of soldiers to suggest that some troops had the legitimate need to discard damaged firearms.  Additionally, Hess concludes that riflemen discarded their weapons in exchange for undamaged ones on the battlefield, with some did so when ammunition for their current rifle ran out (p. 48).

While Hess’s work deals serious damage to the “rifle revolution” thesis, The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat is not perfect.  The majority of Hess’s evidence stems from the use of the rifle musket in the Western Theater.  Consequently, Hess’s data is perhaps more indicative of western battles than those of the Eastern Theater.  Another point of contention is that while Hess’s argues that soldiers were not trained to estimate distances accurately, the author accepts the purported firing ranges of soldiers without hesitation.  One should acknowledge the serious implications of soldier observations during the heat of battle.

Aside from the weakness in Hess’s work, the author has produced a noteworthy rebuttal to the works of previous historians.  Far from simply a study of the rifle musket, Hess’s examination demonstrates that technology alone does not win wars.  Therefore, Hess’s work ought to receive a warm reception from history buffs and Civil War scholars.

Besides the study of battles and the conduct of the war, recent Civil War historiography emphasizes the lives of contemporary women.  In Gender and the Sectional Conflict, Nina Silber dedicates three short chapters in which she argues that the role of gender is integral to understanding Civil War ideology and memory.  While building on Drew Gilpen Faust’s Mothers of Invention, Silber synthesis directly connects the arguments put forth in her previous work, The Romance of Reunion, with the studies of LeeAnn Whites and David Blight.  According to Silber, Whites argues in her 1992 essay that scholars should strive to understand the Civil War as a gender struggle (xii).  This argument caused Silber to reexamine her previous research by including men and women, which in turn allows the author to analyze the ideology of both northerners and southerners.  Furthermore, Blight’s Race and Reunion emphasizes the postwar connection between race and America’s quickness to forget issues of slavery and emancipation.  Adding to Blight’s work, Silber contends that gender allowed the nation to concentrate on the home and ignore links to issues of race (xix).  In essence, Silber focuses on how women from both the Union and Confederacy shaped the rational behind waging the Civil War as well as their involvement during the war, and after, the conflict.

The ideological arguments provided by Southerners and Northerners for going to war is central to Silber’s first chapter.  Sibler contends that Confederates fused the need to defend their nation with the more crucial duty of protecting their families.  As noted by Silber, for Confederate men, “while the nation may have been a cause worth fighting for, it meant nothing in the absence of homes and families” (xiv).  In contrast, Silber argues that Unionists understood the need to secure a positive future for their family as more vital than their current well being (xv).   Put another way, Silber states “If Confederate soldiers fought for ‘home,’ Union men very clearly—and more self-consciously—fought for ‘country’” (13).

Mid-war patriotism of women provides the focal point of Silber’s second chapter.  Silber finds that Union and Confederate women differed in how they shaped the nations ideological rational for going to war.  During the war, Silber contends that southern women upheld contemporary ideals of gender.  To support the Confederacy, southern women gave aid to soldiers because these men were defending the institutions of the home and womanhood.  Northern women, however, found themselves at the center of the Union debate over issues of class and antiwar sentiment.  In the North, many writers used women to question whether the working class bled more than the elites for the Union.  Silber argues that to silence critics,  northern women were more inclined to associate support for the war as loyalty to the Union and thus were open to developing political opinions not entirely inline with those of northern men.

The discussion of the Civil War’s legacy dominates chapter three.  In this chapter, Silber address the role women played in shaping postwar memory.  The burial of war dead affected how northern and southern women participated in the shaping of memory.  Since the federal government handled the interment of Union dead, northern women were invisible to the public.  Silber does note, however, that northern women concerned themselves with helping needy veterans.  In contrast, southern women were heavily involved in the burying of Confederate dead, which many women used to demonstrate their allegiance to the family, and more significantly, the defense of the Confederacy.  Consequently, southern women became an indispensable component of the romanticizing of the Lost Cause.  Silber maintains that northerners concluded that defending the Republic “was ultimately men’s business, not women’s, and it was a business that lacked the sentimental and feminine influences that surrounded the Lost Cause” (88).  Using both primary and secondary sources, Silber develops a valuable synthesis on the study of gender during the Civil War.  Although most of Silber’s sources emerge from recent scholarship, her work is certainly not any less significant.  Additionally, despite the brevity of Gender and the Sectional Conflict, Silber successfully combines the arguments of Whites and Blight with her own research, thus providing a holistic understanding of the current historiography.   Ultimately, Silber’s work forces historians to reexamine Civil War constructions of gender in terms of patriotism and memory.

4th & 3rd-Century BC

Roman conquest of Italy

Ross Cowan writes on the tendency of Romans to decorate their homes with war trophies.

2nd-Century AD

An abbey with connections to the Romans and the Second World War? The Lost Fort offers a detailed history of Incholm Abbey and other sites neighboring the Firth of Forth.

16th-Century AD

Over at Marginalia there is an insightful post on Francis Stewart and his betrayal of his cousin Jame Stewart.

18th-Century AD

American Revolution

A King George’s War fort in the United States? Boston 1775 discusses the funding issues for this rare historical site.

British Soldiers, American Revolution recounts the fates of two British soldiers who served together and experienced the harsh reality of 18th-Century disease.

19th-Century AD

Mexican-American War

Blog 4 History argues that a wealth of knowledge awaits scholars who embark on a study of the Mexican-American War.

American Civil War

The 48th Pennsylvanian Infantry/Civil War Musings presents a letter from private who was eager to fight the Confederates.

Civil War Memory takes readers to the Antietam battlefield and discusses the value of blogging and confirms the existence of the Lost Cause in Sharpsburg, Maryland.

The brief and sad wartime experiences of Alfred DuBois, father of W.E.B DuBois, over at The Sable Arm.

20th-Century AD

First World War

Over at the Australian War Memorial, a series of short posts on Herbert Vincent Reynolds No. 622 First Field Ambulance, First AIF. Although the AWM series on Reynolds began back in February, March has had its fair share of posts. Throughout the series, readers are exposed to the experiences of an ANZAC soldier leading up to the infamous Gallipoli campaign. Here is the post for 14 March 1915. Be sure to read the rest.

Airminded examines the German bombing of Warrington Crescent, highlighting the effects of the attack on both property and social memory.

The CBC pays tribute to Canada’s last First World War veteran, John Babcock, who died at the ripe old age of 109.

Recently Geoff Robinson discussed the issues associated with teaching students about Australia’s participation in two world wars. Enjoy the clip from Gallipoli.

Second World War

The Daily History Blog elaborates on the pre-war activities of the Hitler Youth in Germany Great Britain.

The Aerodrome uses archival gems to discuss the issues that plagued Coalition air power.

Over at Thoughts on Military History, Ross endeavors to separate the popular media interpretations of Air Chief Marshall Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory from historical fact.

Battlefield Biker sheds some light on the plot to keep General Bernard Montgomery’s location a secret in the days leading up to D-Day.

Strange Maps pinpoints some of Germany’s schools named after infamous Nazis.

Vietnam War

Here at Thompson-Werk I offer some musings over the policies and events that contributed to America’s involvement in Vietnam.

Who does not adore America’s 37th president? Edge of the American West provides some of President Richard Nixon’s more colorful references to the Vietnam War.

Seven cadets from Virginia Military Institute are marching more than 80 miles in the footsteps of their counterparts who fought in the Civil War Battle of New Market.

Sophomore Aaron Cregar of Frederick, Md., says the march from Lexington to New Market gives the cadets an understanding of what cadets went through in 1864.

I wonder why the cadets do not re-enact the burning of VMI by General David Hunter as part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Maybe it is because the Lost Cause reigns supreme.