A View From the Ground

THE VIEW FROM THE GROUND Experiences of Civil War Soldiers (University of Kentucky Press)
By Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Editor

I received my review copy of A VIEW FROM THE GROUND: EXPERIENCES OF CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS on Monday and spent most of yesterday with it. This type of work really interests me as I have spent the last 5 years looking through a lot of letters and diaries by Civil War soldiers; primarily in reference to my book on the 11th Wisconsin which oddly enough I hesitate to call a “Regimental History Book” as I feel it is much more than that. I find the study of Civil War soldiers to be extremely fascinating. Historians are still today grappling with important issues such as soldier “motivations, experiences, and effects”.

Just twenty years ago social historians were more or less MIA on the Civil War historiography landscape. Even after Bell Irvin Wiley’s two books (Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy and Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union) came out, there was little progress. It was just 17 years ago when it was asked, “Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War?…” No, they had yet to find it really. It was 20+ years into the social history movement and the Civil War was still largely ignored.

Today the field, though not exploding during the last decade+, has certainly taken off. Part of that is seen by the inclusion of the common soldier’s letters and diaries in the more mainstream battlefield and campaign books published since the 1980s. But more importantly, it is the work of recent scholars/historians who have opened the floodgates. The work of Reid Mitchell, Earl J. Hess, Gerald F. Linderman, Randall C. Jimerson, Joseph T. Glatthaar, James. M. McPherson and others.

A VIEW FROM THE GROUND really seems to fit nicely into the developing canon of Soldier Studies. As the book notes in its introduction: “Historians of soldiers begin from the assumption that soldiers are real historical actors who have the potential to shape, not simply respond to, their environment.” The experiences of the so-called “average” person during an epic event can be evaluated within the greater context of the events and can add up to show “larger patterns of historical change.”

My first stop in the book was Aaron Sheehan-Dean’s essay, “The Blue and the Gray in Black and White,” which was similar to Reid Mitchell’s essay on the historiography of Soldier Studies titled “Not the General but the Soldier,” in Writing the Civil War: the Quest to Understand (1998). I thought Sheehan-Dean’s essay was not as in depth as Mitchell’s work, but is a very nice complement. He covers pretty much the same material, though Sheehan-Dean does find an early starting point in the study of Civil War soldiers pointing out some work from the 1920s. As he notes, Soldier Studies emphasis on how soldiers adjusted over time as well as the emerging themes of their experiences, are all receiving ample attention.

However, I was a bit surprised by his description of Mark Grimsley’s The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865, as it closely resembled Reid Mitchell’s description. Both found the The Hard Hand of War to be “nuanced” in its presentation. I did take exception to Sheehan-Dean’s proclamation that the 1960s and the Vietnam War aided in the social history explosion in Civil War studies because the Vietnam War allowed historians to “sympathize with those who actually fought in war.” There can be no doubt that the Civil Rights movement and the nature of the 1960s contributed to the rejection of the mainstream great dead white men approach to history, but to connect the above dot is a bit much. The Vietnam War did not foster any kind of sympathizing with soldiers, if anything it was a reaction against not only traditionalism, but also the culture of warfare, period.

In the end, as Sheehan-Dean notes, “Civil War soldiers are no longer objects to be pulled out of the war for dissection but are living parts of the whole experience that can be understood only in relationship to the context within which they existed.” Amen. Sheehan-Dean and Reid Mitchell’s essays offer probably the best starting point for anyone interested in learning more about this emerging and exciting sub-field of Civil War study.

Of course, fellow Civil War blogger (and historian) Kevin M. Levin has an essay included, “Is Not the Glory Enough to Give Us All a Share?” An Analysis of Competing Memories of the Battle of the Crater. Bravo Kevin, this is quite an accomplishment as far as I am concerned. It is very interesting how Confederate veterans fought over the “memory” of the war. In a way they attempted to highjack history.

The last essay that I wanted to mention was Chandra Manning’s A “Vexed Question” White Union Soldiers on Slavery and Race. I thought her essay really hit the nail on the head in terms of the issue of slavery and its role in soldier motivation during the war. As we know very few soldiers initially volunteered to fight because they were emancipationists. Slavery was usually the furthest thing from their mind. And even though most historians would agree that slavery was the root cause of the war, the irony is that very few soldiers (North or South) started the war fighting in the name of slavery. However, as Union soldiers descended into Rebeldom and came in contact with slavery, their minds were opened to the idea that the war was about slavery. It indeed became one of the motivating factors. I saw this with my research on the 11th Wisconsin who fought exclusively along the Trans-Mississippi, and as they descended deeper into the South the letters and diary entries on Negroes and slavery changed significantly by late 1863 and early 1864. However, I do think Manning overstates the obvious when she proclaims, “many Union soldiers held anti-slavery and racist views at the same time” as if it was a surprise to us, or her. How could they not hold racists views, they were living in early 19th Century? Virtually the entire American culture at the time pre-determined that they would be. So in a way she understates the true progress Union soldiers made as they learned, for the first time, the true horrific nature of slavery. It was indeed an education for almost all of them.