A Proper Sense of Honor: Service and Sacrifice in George Washington's Army

Abstract

Warfare was an integral part of early American history, and historians have increasingly turned their attention to the military institutions of the colonial and revolutionary periods. In particular, they have examined the social makeup, recruitment, motivation, and service of the forces that fought in the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution. Caroline Cox has contributed to this scholarship with a well-crafted study of officer—enlisted man relations in George Washington's Continental Army. Cox's central point is the wide social chasm separating the officer corps from the rank and file, a gap that mirrored the practices of the British and other European standing armies and, in an exaggerated way, the class gradations of late colonial society. Officers were considered gentlemen and were appointed disproportionately from propertied and socially prominent families. In contrast, enlisted soldiers derived mainly from the economically deprived and socially marginal elements of the population, a pattern that grew more pronounced as the war progressed and the early martial enthusiasm dissipated. Once in service, the prevailing military norms reinforced the social dichotomy. Officers enjoyed advantages in pay and accommodations commensurate with their status as gentlemen, cultivated a keen sense of honor that emphasized personal autonomy, and scrupulously avoided fraternization with their enlisted inferiors. For soldiers, honorable behavior mainly entailed unquestioning obedience to higher authority and acceptance of the hardships of army life.