A "Face of Battle" Needed: An Assessment of Motives and Men in Civil War Historiography

Abstract

A "FACE OF BATTLE" NEEDED: AN ASSESSMENT OF MOTIVES AND MEN IN CIVIL WAR HISTORIOGRAPHY Marvin R. Cain In the years following 1945, at a time when nuclear "massive retaliation " was national policy, historians turned away from the "causes" of the Civil War and began to examine in greater detail the "consequences " of the mid-nineteenth century conflict. As the Vietnam debacle registered on the national consciousness, the "needless war" thesis was replaced by presentisi revisionism of the 1960s and 1970s. Although there was not an immediate historiographical antiwar consensus , the bitter debate between John Rosenberg and Phillip Paludan revealed that the morality of the Civil War had become a central question and that the issue of judgmental balance between the destruction of slavery and the preservation of the Union, as weighed against human suffering and economic loss, dominated historial thought. However, as in the case of the "causes" generation, the historians of the "consequences" era did not explore the conflict's human equation, the Civil War soldier. There is more detail about the life of the Union soldier in the ever increasing literature of the Civil War, but the relevancy of his attitudes, his behavior, and his motives has been generally neglected.1 1 David Donald, "American Historians and the Causes of the Civil War," SouthAtfontic Quarterly 59 (1960): 351-55; Eric Foner, "The Causes of the Civil War: Recent Interpretations and New Directions," Civil War History 20 (1974): 197-214; Phillip Paludan, •Triumph Through Tragedy," Civil War History 20 (1974): 239-50; Richard O. Curry, "The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Critical Overview of Recent Trends and Interpretations , 18T1-1877," Civü War History 20 (1974): 215-38; Robert Cruden, The War That Never Ended (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1973); William L. Barney, Flawed Victory:ANew Perspective on the Civd War (New York, 1975); Arthur M. Schlesinger,Jr., "TheCauses of the Civil War," Partisan Review 16 (1949): 969-81; Peter Geyl, "The American Civil War and the Problem of Inevitability," New England Quarterly 24 (1951): 147-68; Thomas N. Bonner, "CivilWar Historians andNeedless Wax,"Journalof theHistory ofIdeas 17 (1956): 193-216; James G. Randall, "The Blundering Generation," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 27 (1940): 3-28; Avery O. Craven, The ComingoftheCivilWar(NewYork, 1942); John S. Rosenberg, "The American Civil War and the Problem of 'Presentism': A Reply to Phillip S. Paludan," Civü War History 20 (1974): 242-53; Phillip S. Paludan, "Taking the Benefits of the Civil War Issue Seriously: A Rejoinder to John S. Rosenberg," Civil War History 21 (1975): 254-60. Civil War History, Vol. XXVIII, No. 1 Copyright«1982byThe Kent State University Press 0009-8078/82/2801-0001 $01.00/0 6 CIVIL WAR HISTORY In the past two decades, with the emergence of the new military history, historians such as Joseph L. Harsh, Edward Hagerman, Peter Karsten, Richard Kohn, Allan Millett, Peter Maslowski, Russell Weigley, and several others have come to regard war as an integral part of the stream of human conduct instead of an episodic event created by the aberrant behavior of generals and demonic statesmen. These scholars view war as a matter of conscious choice that, however flawed or catastrophic , has some explainable logic and human purpose.2 They conclude that the memory oftheCivil War remains undiminished and that it has had an impact on the national psyche, on local institutions, and on educational and social values during cycles of both political conservatism and liberalism but has not affected American military policy or even learning in the conduct of future armed conflicts. Nearly all of the new military historians agree that in order to understand the Civil War manynew factors mustbeevaluatedandthatthemythofantimilitarism, as part of American tradition, should be abandoned by scholars of serious intent. Theyhave asked for arejection ofpastdogmaswhichhad limited innovative thought.3 Significantly, however, these new military historians have not supplanted established Civil War scholars, such as StephenE. Ambrose, David Donald, Warren Hassler, Jr., Harold M. Hyman, Grady McWhiney, Allan Nevins, Bell I. Wiley, and T. Harry Williams.4 Both 2 Allan R. Millett, "American Military History: Over the Top," in The State ofAmerican History, ed. Herbert J. Bass (Chicago, 1970), pp. 158-64; Richard H. Kohn, "Myths and Realities of America...