The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat. By Earl J. Hess. Modern War Studies. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. Pp. xii, 244.)
When examining the experiences of Civil War soldiers, most historians tend to focus on the motivations and non-battle aspects of their time in the military. Bell Irvin Wiley started this trend with his classic examinations The Life of Johnny Reb (1943) and The Life of Billy Yank (1952). Eventually, this topic blossomed with additional and similar cultural studies in the 1980s and 1990s. Yet, few historians attempted to explore the soldiers’ experience in combat. Earl J. Hess looks to reverse this trend in The Union Soldier in Battle. Rather than focusing primarily on the motivations for men to join or the social aspects behind their enlistments, Hess tries to recreate the nature of combat and how it affected Union soldiers from enlistment through their memories of the conflict.
Similar to John Keegan’s The Face of Battle, Hess hopes to reconstruct the combat experience of Union soldiers. Through this exploration, he finds that the ordeal of combat was central to the Northern veterans’ experience. Once taking part in combat, the outlook and attitude of the soldiers adjusted to cope with the situation.
The men did not enter the Union forces prepared for combat. Initially, these volunteers based their perceptions of warfare on what they read and stories from earlier conflicts. This meant that the soldiers entered into service with a glorified vision of combat, making necessary for them to transform from civilians to soldiers through their early experiences in battle. These first instances became an attack on the senses for the soldiers. Grotesque images of wounded and dead men, the putrid smell of death, and strange noises created by artillery and infantry fire broke the soldiers’ mindset from the initial perception of combat that they created in civilian life.
With these first experiences, the soldiers transformed and created an environment for themselves to cope with the trauma. This included constructing a definition of battlefield courage that encompassed the majority of men. Even the bravest troops, however, deviated from this ideal from time to time, but they continually returned to fulfill their duty. Although the majority of Union troops fit into their created definition of battlefield courage, additional factors prevented them from abandoning the battle lines. Comradeship played the biggest role in keeping the men in the ranks. Fighting for your friends and fellow soldiers gave many individuals a purpose that transcended many of their fears, as they would feel guilt for abandoning their comrades during battle. The support of the home front and the constructed community within the individual regiments also motivated the troops to remain in line. Finally, the Unionist cause and a stoic understanding of God’s role in their lives calmed the men’s nerves while in combat.
Hess argues that the soldiers’ implemented comparisons and metaphors of their civilian lives to their battle experiences in order to shape their understanding of combat. For example, using natural comparisons, such as matching the sound of musket balls flying through the air to that of swarms of bees, provided a familiarity for the soldiers. “Through this process,” Hess argues, “soldiers tamed battle” (p. 128). This way, they were not just passive victims of combat, but tried to make sense of this unique experience in their lives.
In the penultimate chapter, Hess goes beyond just the wartime experience of the Union soldiers. He examines how these men remembered their time in combat and how it influenced their lives. Visits to battlefields and veteran reunions were the most important triggers to their memories. Although a traumatic event in their lives, Hess points out, these men tended to retain fond memories of their combat experiences.
Perhaps Hess’s most important contribution comes about in his conclusion. After discussing and reflecting on what he found in his exploration, Hess challenges historians to change how they examine their subjects. Hess argues that most studies of Civil War soldiers have misread the men who enlisted and fought. Incorporating twentieth- and twenty-first-century ideals that warfare “becomes a metaphor for waste,” these examinations have overlooked how Civil War Americans viewed combat, therefore reflecting modern-day values onto historical characters. Instead, Hess argues that historians must try to view their subjects from their time and the values of those eras. By doing so, historians may project a much different image of Civil War soldiers than they previously had done.
Although one of many studies on the experience of Civil War soldiers, Hess’s study should act as a model for historians interested in the combat experiences of the soldiers. Despite being a smaller part of their overall military careers, combat greatly influenced and affected the volunteers, making it an important but overlooked part of the Civil War soldiers’ lives. Hess provides an excellent base for others to build on.
Mike Burns Texas Christian University
Earl J. Hess. The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997).
Earl J. Hess provides insight into the combat experience of the average Union soldier in The Union Soldier in Battle. Although some earlier works discuss soldiering, these books emphasize the broader military experience and do not focus solely on combat. Hess fills this void and explains how the Northern enlisted man bore the brunt of battle in order to champion the Union’s cause. (ix).
Hess investigates the Union soldier’s wartime experience beginning with the volunteer’s transformation from civilian to soldier. Part of this transition involved experiencing battle for the first time. Neophyte soldiers entered the horrors of combat finding it difficult to comprehend its unfamiliar chaos and quickly learned that battle bombarded the senses. Grotesque images, rancid smells, and unfamiliar noises forced them to realize that this experience was not comparable to anything they had previously encountered in civilian life.
Soldiers, however, adapted to this chaotic environment and devised methods of attempting to deal with combat stress. Some turned to religion while others maintained thoughts of loved ones on the home front. Meanwhile, the belief in a larger cause helped steady nerves along the battle line. Typically, a combination of these motivations prompted the Union soldier to stand in battle and exchange punishing fire with the enemy at close range. Despite the horrors of combat and the post engagement battlefield, soldiers evolved throughout their tenure and usually became stoic, hardened veterans. Many adopted a fatalistic attitude and began to view soldiering as a profession like those they left behind the lines. Thus, they sought to maintain control over an experience which seemed to deprive them of agency. In short, the veteran became a professional soldier capable of dealing with battle stress.
Yet, at times, even the veteran displayed difficulty maintaining his composure. Hess notes that the changing nature of combat from Napoleonic linear battle to more modern trench warfare extracted a high toll on both recruits and veterans. The former, involved maneuver campaigns which resulted in large battles thus creating a short experience that would give the soldier the remainder of the year to psychologically and physically recuperate. By 1864, however, the nature of the war had changed. War became a daily enterprise without respite pushing soldiers to their limits. According to Hess, “Continuous marching, digging entrenchments, skirmishing, repelling or launching frontal assaults, hastily burying the dead, and beginning the cycle of combat all over again was the rule for months”(67).
The final segment and conclusion of Hess’s book proves valuable. He discusses the veteran’s postwar experience and relates how soldiers dealt with the trauma of combat in their twilight years. Interestingly, much of what historians know about Civil War soldiers comes from these postwar accounts dating from the 1880s and 1890s. While scholars rely upon this information in order to gain insight into the past, veterans related their tales in order to come to grips with the wartime experience and attribute meaning to their sacrifice. In sum, it provided a means of reintegrating into the society that they championed on the battlefield. Those who deal with Civil War military sources on a regular basis will find this segment useful as it provides insight into soldier accounts.
Hess’s conclusion, though short, ends on a thought provoking sentiment. According to Hess, modernist views of the Civil War military experience tend to cloud interpretations. This view, in short, rejects the Clausewitzian axiom that war represents a logical tool to achieve political goals. The human experience from World War I through Vietnam has clouded modern perceptions of nineteenth century conflict, “Soldiers have become tragic victims rather than honored heroes. War has become a metaphor for waste”(197). Hess keenly points out that this view, while true when describing modern warfare, does not prove accurate when examining Civil War soldiers, “Americans of the Civil War era generally placed more emphasis on ideology, patriotism, religion, and civic virtue than their twentieth-century counterparts. Their essentially premodern culture primed them to think in more idealistic terms . . . The Northern soldier fought a traditional war in all respects, but particularly in his mind. The mental and emotional field of battle was the most old-fashioned of all”(197-198). Thus, Hess ends on an important reminder: historians should attempt to discard their contemporary world in order to better understand the past.
Texas Christian University Justin S. Solonick
The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat. By Earl J. Hess. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. 244pp.
The motivations, transformations, and justifications exhibited by the Northern soldier in the midst of battle during the American Civil War are the central focus of Earl J. Hess’s The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat. The author endeavors to understand the complex factors that surrounded the Union soldier before, during, and after, engagement in heated battle throughout the course of the war. Though acknowledging the parallels that existed between the Union and Confederate soldiers’ experiences in battle, Hess is concerned with the Northern rank and file due to their fundamentally different reasons for fighting and conclusions concerning the war. Furthermore, the author examines the psychology and morale of the Union soldier particularly amidst battle across the entire span of the war, unlike other historical works that dealt with the soldier during a specific battle or dealt with morale issues among larger groups of military and civilian populations. The text presents an “interpretive essay” (ix) wherein the process of facing, coping, and explaining battle by countless Northern soldiers, through memoirs, diaries, and personal narratives, allows the reader to better grasp the mental and physical elements of combat experience during the Civil War.
Combat in the American Civil War initiated a difficult, and often painful, transformation of the Union soldier. In effect, the exigencies and experience of battle eviscerated the innocence of the freshly trained soldier, and eventually led to the emergence of a hardened and wizened veteran. Battle in the war was an incredibly sensate experience and the various diaries and memoirs abound with descriptions of the smells, sounds, and sights of combat. The smell of putrefaction, the sound of bullets and shells impacting flesh and bone, and the horrific sight of immense carnage and suffering, quickly shaped the attitudes and understandings of the Northern soldier. Furthermore, the immediacy of death was brought to the attention of the soldier as he witnessed the continual demise of friends and fellow combatants: “Frank Wilkinson of the 68th Indiana Infantry saw 150 of his regimental comrades fall in only fifteen minutes of fighting in the first day of Chickamauga” (26).
For the Union soldier in battle, the situation and experience was characterized by inordinate chaos. Attempts to impose some aspect of order or control during battle occupied much of the efforts of Northern soldiers. The inability to maintain strict formation, the obstacles inherent in the variety of landscapes, and the unfortunate presence of friendly fire, helped constitute the chaotic nature of battle. The novel use of continual fighting, begun in 1864, resulted in constant psychological strain and exhaustion for Union troops. Coping mechanism emerged among Northern soldiers in order to facilitate some measure of control over the surroundings. Familiar analogies or references, such as nature, or romantic, heroic metaphors, were utilized by the rank and file to help assuage the mental challenges inherent in the battlefield experience. Even more common, due to the preponderance of working class backgrounds among Union soldiers was the adoption of an attitude to combat akin to hard labor. That is, innumerable Northern soldiers concentrated on the “tasks” and “job” of fighting which, in turn, led to a greater efficiency in combat.
The motivation and rationale to engage in fierce battle took a variety of forms. Arguably the most prominent reason for fighting was the comradeship induced by the war itself. The Union soldier fought in order to help his fellow regimental soldier. The communal bonds of Union soldiers cannot be overstated. The “touching of elbows” that constituted the frontal lines of assault created a uniquely strong current of comradeship and loyalty among Union soldiers and propelled men into battle. Also, religious faith and belief in the justly cause of union and unjust institution of slavery motivated Northern soldiers. Ideology, and the support of the liberty and freedom believed by Union soldiers to constitute the Union acted as a motivating factor to engage in battle, and continued to hold sway over the mental attitude toward combat after the war ended.
The battlefield experience during the Civil War generated a seemingly inexhaustible supply of memoirs. The explanations and justifications for the experience of battle among Northern soldiers are categorized by Hess into four categories: those that reiterated their belief in the Cause of the war (ideology, abolitionism, etc.), those that became embittered and disillusioned from the experience of battle, those that discovered new justifications for fighting (comradeship, moral education), and those that merely articulated the more pleasant aspects of the war experience (campfire bonding, etc.). In sum, Hess argues that of these four types, those accounts that reaffirm the ideological, moral, or religious motivations for engaging in battle far outnumber the rest. The result illustrates the non-modern, more idealistic nature of the Civil War and the admirable tenacity of the Union soldier immersed in battle.
Bryan Cupp
The
Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat. By Earl J. Hess.
(Lawrence, Kansas: The University Press of Kansas, 1997).
In The Union
Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat, author Earl J. Hess
explores how the average Civil War soldier in the Union army coped with the
wartime experience from enlistment to post-war reintegration into civilian
society. He attempts to understand
how newly enlisted soldiers and battle-hardened veteran soldiers endured the
hardships and horrors of nineteenth century warfare. The author acknowledges
that a similar study of Confederate soldiers would undoubtedly yield similar
conclusions. However, a major
difference lay in the Confederate and Union soldiers’ interpretation of their
experiences during and after the war. Hess chooses to study the experiences of
Union soldiers because he intends to focus on the experiences of a successful
army. Although Civil War battles
were frightening and disorienting experiences for the soldiers committed to
serving the Union cause, most soldiers drew upon a wide range of factors, such
as nationalist ideology, comradeship, religion and personal honor, to
psychologically and emotionally endure the experience.
According to the author, Union soldiers survived as victors over the
horrors of battle, rather than the victims many recent historians have
portrayed.
The author addresses the actual experience of battle
in his first three chapters. The
first chapter, “Innocents At War,” examines the ideology and motivations of
soldiers enlisting in the Union Army. Indoctrinated
to the notion that war was a “glorious sacrifice for country and good cause”
by antebellum schoolbooks and the patriotic public, young men overwhelmingly
anticipated the adventure of going off to fight a war.
However, few new recruits understood the reality of battle, with its
sounds, sights, smells and tactile sensations.
When confronted with their first battle, raw recruits were often
overwhelmed at the experience, reacting in a variety of ways.
Some soldiers ran, some froze and some adjusted to their environment as
survival instincts took over. In
the second chapter, entitled “Paying for Victory,” Hess exposes the
brutality and gore of Civil War combat. The
author’s discussion of the indoctrination of soldiers into an environment in
which they are shot at, sometimes wounded, forced to confront the loss of their
comrades, and compelled to fight battles in fields littered with dead and
decaying corpses leaves little to the imagination.
Hess’s sources throughout the text rely on personal journals and
letters of soldiers who devoted significant discussion to these aspects of army
life. The third chapter, “The
Nature of Battle,” explores the nature of combat in which participants avoided
hand-to-hand combat in favor of depersonalized battles.
In this chapter, Hess concurs with Sheridan that “war is hell,”
supporting this claim with examples of soldiers describing the chaos of battle.
According to the author, “Battle was a comprehensive experience of the
senses that surrounded the soldier with a lethal, chaotic environment.
He had no control over that environment and often had great difficulty
controlling his emotional response to it.” (47)
Hess argues that the policy of continuous campaigning adopted by the
Union Army in 1864 represented a “new and terrible experience” for Union
soldiers. Prior to 1864, long
periods of recuperation followed battles. Continuous
campaigning meant that soldiers lacked the opportunity to rest or recover their
shaken spirits. The new strategy,
while enabling the Union to win the war, exacted great physical and emotional
hardship upon the individual soldier.
Hess’s next five chapters explore the mechanisms
soldiers utilized to endure battle. The
Civil War experience required soldiers to define personal ideals of courage.
Battle pushed men to the limit of their endurance.
Most successfully overcame the tests of their courage.
The author devotes significant discussion to the idea of moral and
physical courage. Moral courage
relied on ideological notions of fighting for a higher purpose.
Physical courage was viewed as an unreliable measurement of a man’s
courage, since the same soldier might perform momentous feats of bravery in one
battle and cower in fear in the next. Hess
makes a fine distinction between cowardice and falling back to regroup.
According to the author, Union officers recognized that a temporary
retreat might be acceptable if the group reformed and re-engaged the enemy.
Soldiers were not expected to be foolishly brave in the face of
impossible odds. Only individual acts of cowardice garnered censure.
Soldiers serving in the Union army clung to ideals of courage, honor, and
self-control to fulfill ideological or religious imperatives they attached to
the war. Many of these men were individuals “who saw, suffered, and
still believed, who consciously used their principles as a shield against the
horrors of the battlefield.” (99)
Many soldiers clung to their religious beliefs and dealt with their
participation in killing by sacrificing their innocence for the Union.
The comradeship of fellow soldiers also played a significant role in
motivating individuals to hold formations and continue fighting. The “touch of the elbows” of fellow soldiers in the
battle line provided soldiers with a sense of camaraderie that reassured fraying
nerves. This sense of an army
family possessed both positive and negative aspects for soldiers.
Although it provided moral support, it also carried the potential to
devastate morale when fellow soldiers became casualties of war.
The same paradox applied to thoughts of and communications with families.
Thoughts of families often sustained soldiers in the war and gave them
something to fight for. However,
concern for families or the death of family members could replace positive
support with emotional desolation.
The author addresses the post-war memories of veteran soldiers in his
chapter, “Memories.” Union
soldiers returned to civilian life and dealt with their wartime experiences in a
wide variety of ways. Many veterans
wrote memoirs of their battlefield experiences.
Others joined tourists in visiting Civil War battlefields.
Some soldiers expressed bitterness at the post-war reconstruction,
believing that reconstruction failed to live up to their heroic sacrifices and
ideals. Others focused on the noble
cause they fought for. Many
soldiers believed that their experiences yielded transformative effects upon
their character and personality. Still
other soldiers chose to concentrate less on the “dark side” of war and wrote
about the positive aspects of military life.
Hess’s work is well written and brutally factual in content.
Readers are vicariously thrust into the Union military experience.
The author’s tome concludes with endnotes and an index.
The author’s endnotes reveal copious research based primarily on
private letters, journals and both published and unpublished memoirs.