Embattled Courage : The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War

Rating:
Summary: Two Faces of Civil War Courage
Review: Gerald Linderman's "Embattled Courage" (1987) is an outstanding study of the motivation of soldiers during the American Civil War and of the values of the society to which they responded.

The book is in two broad sections. The first part of the book, titled "Courage's War" covers the early years of the war to about mid-1863 (the time of the climactic Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg). During these years, Linderman sees the primary motivating factor of the war as courage and of individual effort. The soldier enlisting in the war effort -- and during the early years volunteers bore the overwhelming brunt of the effort- had concepts of personal bravery in the face of danger, fearlessness and commitment to duty and to a purpose. He believed that the actions of an individual mattered and could make a difference to the result of a battle. This was an idealistic concept and Linderman shows well how it was reinforced and complemented by concepts of manliness, comradeship, godliness and morality, chivalry, and the brotherhood of soldiers, which assumes a certain degree of respect for the enemy on the other side of the line. Linderman points out that the Civil War may have been the last conflict in which these ideals were taken seriously. They were dashed in WW I, and in the later phases of the Civil War itself.

The second part of the book, titled "A Perilous Education" shows how the initial idealism underlying the soldiers' war effort became hardened and tarnished with the stark reality of combat. The concept of courage didn't disappear but it changed and the soldiers became tougher and more realistic. On occasion cynicism and disilusion set in. The factors leading to this change in perspective were the horrors and deaths on the battlefield, reulting largely from the increased range of Civil War weaponry which helped make the traditional offensive charge (as at Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Cold Harbor) ineffective and death-dealing to the agressor. Other factors include the crude Civil War hospitals, with blood and amputation on every side, the long forced marches, the toll of disease in the camps, which led to twice as many deaths as did combat, the boredom of camp life, imprisionment in camps such as Andersonville, the lengthy character of the war, the confiict between volunteers and draftees, and the lack of food and supplies which led soldiers to "forage" from civilians and to strip valuables and clothes from the bodies of dead comrades and enemies. The civil war became a total, brutal war in the final two years. Stonewall Jackson early in the war, and Grant and Sherman subsequently, understood the total nature of the effort that was required to pursue this war.

The idealism with which the volunteers entered the war and their concept of individual effort changed radically when faced with the harshness of the war. This changed their understanding of themselves, the war effort, and their relationship to the civilian population.

There is a lengthy "epilogue' to the book which discusses the fate of the concept of courage following the war and how it evolved through the end of the 19th century. Broadly speaking, a certain nostalgia set in beginning in the 1880's when the original ideals of courage revived in memory and the hardships of the war effort receded.

Lindererman's book is well documented with contemporaneous accounts from the soldiers and with subsequent memoirs. It taught me a great deal about motivation in combat and how it changes with experience. Those interested in pursuing the subject further might be interested in James McPherson's "For Cause and Comrades", which takes issue with Linderman on certain points, and in David Blight's "Race and Reunion". The latter book develops the theme sketched in Linderman's epilogue by showing the effects of time on how people in the United States perceived the conflict of 1861 - 1865.

Rating:
Summary: Two Faces of Civil War Courage
Review: Gerald Linderman's "Embattled Courage" (1987) is an outstanding study of the motivation of soldiers during the American Civil War and of the values of the society to which they responded.

The book is in two broad sections. The first part of the book, titled "Courage's War" covers the early years of the war to about mid-1863 (the time of the climactic Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg). During these years, Linderman sees the primary motivating factor of the war as courage and of individual effort. The soldier enlisting in the war effort -- and during the early years volunteers bore the overwhelming brunt of the effort- had concepts of personal bravery in the face of danger, fearlessness and commitment to duty and to a purpose. He believed that the actions of an individual mattered and could make a difference to the result of a battle. This was an idealistic concept and Linderman shows well how it was reinforced and complemented by concepts of manliness, comradeship, godliness and morality, chivalry, and the brotherhood of soldiers, which assumes a certain degree of respect for the enemy on the other side of the line. Linderman points out that the Civil War may have been the last conflict in which these ideals were taken seriously. They were dashed in WW I, and in the later phases of the Civil War itself.

The second part of the book, titled "A Perilous Education" shows how the initial idealism underlying the soldiers' war effort became hardened and tarnished with the stark reality of combat. The concept of courage didn't disappear but it changed and the soldiers became tougher and more realistic. On occasion cynicism and disilusion set in. The factors leading to this change in perspective were the horrors and deaths on the battlefield, reulting largely from the increased range of Civil War weaponry which helped make the traditional offensive charge (as at Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Cold Harbor) ineffective and death-dealing to the agressor. Other factors include the crude Civil War hospitals, with blood and amputation on every side, the long forced marches, the toll of disease in the camps, which led to twice as many deaths as did combat, the boredom of camp life, imprisionment in camps such as Andersonville, the lengthy character of the war, the confiict between volunteers and draftees, and the lack of food and supplies which led soldiers to "forage" from civilians and to strip valuables and clothes from the bodies of dead comrades and enemies. The civil war became a total, brutal war in the final two years. Stonewall Jackson early in the war, and Grant and Sherman subsequently, understood the total nature of the effort that was required to pursue this war.

The idealism with which the volunteers entered the war and their concept of individual effort changed radically when faced with the harshness of the war. This changed their understanding of themselves, the war effort, and their relationship to the civilian population.

There is a lengthy "epilogue' to the book which discusses the fate of the concept of courage following the war and how it evolved through the end of the 19th century. Broadly speaking, a certain nostalgia set in beginning in the 1880's when the original ideals of courage revived in memory and the hardships of the war effort receded.

Lindererman's book is well documented with contemporaneous accounts from the soldiers and with subsequent memoirs. It taught me a great deal about motivation in combat and how it changes with experience. Those interested in pursuing the subject further might be interested in James McPherson's "For Cause and Comrades", which takes issue with Linderman on certain points, and in David Blight's "Race and Reunion". The latter book develops the theme sketched in Linderman's epilogue by showing the effects of time on how people in the United States perceived the conflict of 1861 - 1865.

Rating:
Summary: I recommend it to anyone that wants a common's view of war!
Review: I had purchased this book from a now defunct bookshop and was told from a friend in Cyberspace, that if I wanted an in depth understanding of the common soldier and his thoughts about combat and the war, I had to read Linderman's Embattled Courage. In the overleaf, Linderman quotes from Livy's History of Rome, XXX.20, "Nowhere do events correspond less to men's expectations than in war." Linderman uses this quote for his main thesis. He lets the soldiers themselves communicate their thoughts using their own letters to home. In the early chapters, Linderman examines the values of the soldiers and their will to fight for their respective causes. He focuses on the values that the soldiers carried with them to the front-manliness, godliness, duty, honor, and knightliness. In the letters from the soldiers, Linderman reveals how the young men believed that they had joined up to fight a civilized war where bravery and courage would protect them and guarantee victory. ! After the newness of battle wore off on the citizen soldiers, they began to learn what war actually was-killing, death by disease, and extreme boredom. The war itself is transformed in the latter years to what Sherman described as "total war." No longer were heroic charges the mainstay of attack. In 1864, the shovel was used to build trenches. War in the latter stage was not as glorious as the soldiers perceived it to be in 1861. The disillusionment of war is stated by Rice Bull of the 123rd NY: "The next afternoon on our way back to the picket line I saw fifteen unburied Confederate soldiers lying where they had fallen. It was not a pleasant sight to me, even though these man had been our enemies. I thought when I saw them, of the sorrow and grief there would be in fifteen homes somewhere; and for what had these young lives been sacrificed?...There should be some way to settle political differences without slaughtering human beings and wearing out the bod! ies and sapping the strength of those who may be fortunate ! enough to escape the death penalty." Rice Bull's late war attitudes differ greatly from that which many had in 1861. At war's end, men distanced themselves from all facets of the war. In the 1890's, as the soldiers faded into old age, they once again fondly reminisced about their war days. The GAR swelled from 30,000 men in 1878 to 428,000 men in 1890. Youngsters were told of the great days that the soldiers had in war. Ironically, those same soldiers who were so disillusioned in war at its closure were forgetting those lessons in their twilight years. Those soldiers who were to learn that their expectations of war in 1861, differed greatly from that which they saw in 1864-65, would return in the 1890's to re-perpetuate their prewar expectations thus creating the vicious cycle of war that has plagued man since the days of the Romans. Linderman's book was quite thought provoking for me and I recommend it to anyone that wants to reflect on what motivates men to fight ! in war and the lessons that never seem to be learned about the cruel realities of war. Ask yourself what peaks your interest in the Civil War, the Courageous War of 1861-63 or the Cruel War of 1864-65?****************Korky

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but questionable scholarship
Review: Linderman has written a very interesting study of soldiers' psychological reactions to the Civil War. He discusses the viewpoints that people had going into the war and how they changed with the experience of combat. Perhaps the best part of the book is his study of Civil War veterans and the post-war reaction. Having said that, though, I found some of Linderman's scholarship problematic. He has a tendency to make broad sweeping statements ("All soldiers thought X...) which worries me. His bibliography is a little short and is slanted, as is some of his analysis, toward Northern contributors. Thus, he has very little to say about whether losing the war was psychologically different from winning it, which one would think would be the case. Overall, this is a useful book but I would read it in conjunction with other works on the subject -- McPherson's studies and *Seeing the Elephant* in particular.

Rating:
Summary: Courage and the Civil War Soldier
Review: The inability to unerstand the mind set and motivation of another generation is the challenge facing those who attempt to look at the past and particularly those who take a bottoms up approach to the study of history. Gerald Linderman faces this challenge in EMBATTLE COURAGE. Primarily through the use of letters and diaries, Linderman allows the reader to probe the psychological motivation of Civil War soilders and attempts to answer the question: what lead soldiers to fight.

As soldiers lost their connection to the civilian world and suffered from hunger, depravation and the cruelty of war, they abandoned earlier concepts of respect for the property of fallen comrades and opponents. Foraging gave way to looting and looting gave way to destruction of private property. Civilians who watched as spectators during early battles and were considered separate and apart from the military effort were eventualy encompassed into the term enemy. The discussion of civilian involvement and attacks on the civilian population reminded me of discussions during the Vitnam war of attacks by the United States military on civilian villages and the military justification that was provided.

Linderman admits in his introduction that he does not include the 180,000 blacks who fought in the Civil War. He does include women through the use of letters and reflections on thier support on the home front. According to Linderman, women strongly supported te concept of courage throughout the war even after soldiers had abandoned it. However, such statements as "Women in both North and South set themselves staunchly against desertina" (P. 91) seems extremely general and assumes that women were totally accepting of the hardships they were forced to endure. This depiction of their continuing opposition to desterions during the entire war depicts women as static and unaffected by the circumstances of life while one of the themes of the book is the changes of attitude and perception that men experienced. thelong casualty lists, service in hispitals, keeping family farms and plantations operating without fathers brothers and husbands surely affected the attitudes of women regarding desertations and continuation of the war, a point that Linderman fails to consider.

The Civil War soldier marched off to the unknown. He brought with him pieces ofhome, such as homemade quilts lovingly made by mothers, sisters and wives. He also brought with him their shared dreams and social values. Like the homemade quilts, those dreams and social values were left by the side of the road early in the war. The burden of carrying them in the face of combat and death was too heavy. The horrors of war and advances in the technology of fighting changed the soldiers and forced a separation between them and their communities, a relationship that has been open to much historical debate. The war changed the soldiers and they also changed the nation.Gone was the innocence of an earlier age. As America experienced its second revolution, it changeld like the soldiers who fought in it.

Bell Irvin Wiley set the standard for the conventional wisdom on the motivation of Civil War soldiers in his 1943 and 1953 works. Based on his research, Wiley concludes that men enlisted primarily out of ecnoomic need and because their communities pressured them. They stayed and founght largely for the sake of their friends. James W. McPherson, takes a different view. While not dismissing the findings of Wiley and Linderman, McPherson concludes that Union and Confederate soldiers possessed deeply held political and ideological convictions, which were the major reason they enlisted, remained in the ranks and fought. Confederate soldiers acted largely out of the convcition that there were defending rights and liberty and Union soldiers believed that self government and thier own freedom depended upon upholding the Republic against division and anarchy. Emphasizing duty and honor, McPherson finds a strong reliance on obligations of duty and pride.

Linderman looks first at the conception of war held by American soldiers and civilians during the Civil War and then at motivation. He focuses on vlunteers of 1861 and 1862, both North and South, and shows how the values held by these soldiers and their home communities evolved, changed and eventually bifurcated under the stresses of camp life, combat, military hospitals and physical depravation as the war progressed.

In Lnderman's views, the core motivation of Civil War soldiers was courage. However, courage must be seen in light of the companion viruties of manliness, Godliness, duty, honor and kinghtliness, all of which were shared with those on the home front. This concept of courage coupled with religious faith was so strong early in the war that soldiers believed that it protected them from physical harm. And indeed it did protect them as long as both sides held the same standard. Soldiers on opposing sides sometimes withheld fire on an officer or man who demonstrated extraordinary valor in combat. This early war, as described by Linderman, was a war in which men had no respect for sharp shooters and guerila fighters and withheld fire when men were answering to the call of nature. The cessaion of combat by virtue of an informal truce, trading between the lines and withholding firing on pickets was common.

Relying on the letters of literate middle class soldiers, it is interesting the speculate whether or not Linderman would have reached the same conclusions relying on the now silent voices of the generally illiterate lower classes.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but questionable scholarship
Review: This book is an exceptional read for those who want to explore the world of America during the Civil War period. It takes a look at why men fought the Civil War, what kind of uses the notion of Courage had for the men, what other values were important for those brave fellows, and discusses the disallusionment and reaction to the Civil War by its Veterans very nicely. (Which was the best part of the book in my opinion.) If you are a history person, I highly recommend this book! :)

Rating:
Summary: An excellent read on the uses of Courage in the C.W & beyond
Review: This book is an exceptional read for those who want to explore the world of America during the Civil War period. It takes a look at why men fought the Civil War, what kind of uses the notion of Courage had for the men, what other values were important for those brave fellows, and discusses the disallusionment and reaction to the Civil War by its Veterans very nicely. (Which was the best part of the book in my opinion.) If you are a history person, I highly recommend this book! :)

Rating:
Summary: Title is Misleading
Review: When I picked this book up I was excited to read it given that it looked to cover what life was like for the soldier in the field during the Civil War. Unfortunately, a detailed view of the fighting was not exactly what this book offered. The author spent the first third of the book talking about what part courage played in the war effort and with the individual soldier. He goes into detail on the different aspects of how courage and how brave the soldiers effected the way the war was fought, the way the soldiers interacted with each other and the view of the general public. This was somewhat interesting as a study of how personnel emotion and appearances effect the soldier in a war, but this not was I was looking for. I wanted detailed accounts of what it was like to be an every day Joe fighting day in and day out.

This may be a bit harsh in that the second half of the book does get into more detail about the soldiers in battle. He covers many different aspects of the war effort from gathering food and firing weapons to what it was like to get wounded in a fight. I found the information on the looting that took place to be interesting and surprising that these guys would basically steal from their neighbors. I also felt that the writing was just a bit stiff, the author is talking about courage and battle, very moving and exciting topics, unfortunately the book was not. Overall, the book was a solid piece of reporting and research on the topic of bravery and a war effort; it just was not want I was looking for.

Rating:
Summary: Title is Misleading
Review: When I picked this book up I was excited to read it given that it looked to cover what life was like for the soldier in the field during the Civil War. Unfortunately, a detailed view of the fighting was not exactly what this book offered. The author spent the first third of the book talking about what part courage played in the war effort and with the individual soldier. He goes into detail on the different aspects of how courage and how brave the soldiers effected the way the war was fought, the way the soldiers interacted with each other and the view of the general public. This was somewhat interesting as a study of how personnel emotion and appearances effect the soldier in a war, but this not was I was looking for. I wanted detailed accounts of what it was like to be an every day Joe fighting day in and day out.

This may be a bit harsh in that the second half of the book does get into more detail about the soldiers in battle. He covers many different aspects of the war effort from gathering food and firing weapons to what it was like to get wounded in a fight. I found the information on the looting that took place to be interesting and surprising that these guys would basically steal from their neighbors. I also felt that the writing was just a bit stiff, the author is talking about courage and battle, very moving and exciting topics, unfortunately the book was not. Overall, the book was a solid piece of reporting and research on the topic of bravery and a war effort; it just was not want I was looking for.