Civil War Experience Research Articles

Between Short Story and Novel: A Mosaic of Violence and Corruption in Honduras: Waldina Mejía's La tía Sofi y los otros cuentos

Few studies exist of the Central American short story. This paper assesses a collection of short stories by the Honduran writer Waldina Mejía. While many other collections could have been considered, this one has been chosen for two main reasons: firstly, Honduran literature is probably the least well known from this troubled region, partly because, while not experiencing civil war on the same scale as its neighbours, it is arguably the most undemocratic of the Central American countries today; secondly, the way in which the book is contrived has revealing implications for what a short story collection can achieve.

Why do Some Oil Exporters Experience Civil War but Others do Not? A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Net Oil-Exporting Countries

According to quantitative studies, oil is the only resource that is robustly linked to civil war onset. However, recent debates on the nexus of oil and civil war have neglected that there are a number of peaceful oil‐rentier states, and few efforts have been spent to explain why some oilexporting countries have experienced civil war and others have not. Methodologically, the debate has been dominated by research using either quantitative methods or case studies, with little genuine medium‐N comparison. This paper aims to fill this gap by studying the conditions of civil war onset among net oil exporters using (crisp‐set) Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA). Considering a sample of 44 net oil exporters between 1970 and 2008, we test conditions such as oil abundance (per capita) and dependence, the interaction of ethnic exclusion and oil reserve locations (overlap) as well as the type of political regime (polity). Our results point to a combination of necessary and sufficient conditions that has been largely ignored until now: low abundance is a necessary condition of civil war onset. Two pathways lead to civil war: first, a combination of low abundance and high dependence and, second, a combination of low abundance and the geographical overlap of ethnic exclusion with oil reserve areas within autocracies. Quantitativen Studien zufolge ist Erdol die einzige Ressource, die robust mit dem Ausbruch von Burgerkriegen verbunden ist. Die bisherige Forschung hat bisher weitgehend auser Acht gelassen, dass es auch eine Anzahl friedlicher Rentierstaaten gibt. Es ist kaum untersucht worden, weshalb einige Erdol exportierende Lander von Burgerkriegen betroffen sind, andere dagegen nicht. In methodischer Hinsicht wird die Debatte zum Zusammenhang von Erdol und Burgerkrieg entweder von quantitativen Ansatzen oder aber Einzelfallstudien dominiert. Untersuchungen mit mittleren Fallzahlen fehlen fast ganzlich. Der vorliegende Beitrag mochte zur Schliesung dieser Forschungslucken beitragen, in dem die Einflussbedingungen fur Burgerkrieg durch (crisp‐set) Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) untersucht werden. Anhand eines Samples von 44 Erdol exportierenden Landern wird der Einfluss von Olreichtum (pro Kopf), Olabhangigkeit, der geographischen Uberlappung von Erdollagerstatten und exkludierten ethnischen Gruppen und der politische Regimetyp fur die Periode 1970 bis 2008 untersucht. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf eine Kombination aus notwendigen und hinreichenden Bedingungen, die bislang keine oder nur wenig Beachtung fand. Zwei Kausalpfade fuhren zu Burgerkrieg: ‒ Eine Kombination von geringem Reichtum an und hoher Abhangigkeit von Erdol sowie ‒ eine Kombination geringen Reichtums und der Interaktion von Erdolvorkommen und ethnischer Exklusion in autoritaren Regimen.

“The Dear Old Regiment”: Maine's Regimental Associations and the Memory of the American Civil War

When Maine veterans marched home after Appomattox, many sought to preserve connections with former comrades-in-arms and share Civil War experiences. They formed regimental associations, some of which persevered to publish invaluable unit histories. These narratives describe not only the conflict's events but its enduring impact upon its survivors as well.

The black experience in the Civil War South

The first book of its kind to appear in a generation, this comprehensive study details the experiences of the black men, women, and children who lived in the South during the traumatic time of secession and civil war. The Black Experience in the Civil War South is the first comprehensive study of the Southern black wartime experience to appear in a generation. Incorporating the most recent scholarship, this thematically organized book does justice to the richness of its subject, looking at the lives of blacks in the Confederate states and the nonseceding Southern states; at blacks on farms and plantations and in towns and cities; at blacks employed in industry and the military; and at black men, women, and children. Drawing on memoirs, autobiographies, and other original source materials, the author details the experiences of blacks who took up residence in Union contraband camps and on free-labor plantations and those who enlisted in the Union army. He introduces individuals who escaped from slavery, as well as the small minority of Southern blacks who were free when the war began. Most significantly, this revealing study deals not only with those who gained freedom during the war, but those whose freedom came only after the conflict's end. A helpful introduction provides background on Southern blacks before the war and on how slavery was maintained Photographs of black Southerners in the Civil War years illustrate the various aspects of their wartime experience A bibliographical essay discusses other studies of the black Civil War experience for readers who want to explore the subject further

Why Do Civil Wars Occur? Understanding the Importance of Institutional Quality

As states get stronger, they are expected to be more successful in preventing insurgency and, in turn, the occurrence of civil wars. While intuitively appealing, the theoretical and empirical understanding of the linkage between state capacity and civil war onset remains at an early stage of development. To date, the role of state capacity has been conceptualised and measured in limited ways that focus mainly on the repressive ability of the state. In this paper, we broaden the understanding of state capacity by incorporating an important but neglected dimension; institutional quality. We examine the relationship between institutional quality and civil war onset and argue that states characterised with high institutional quality are less likely to experience civil war. Analysis of cross-national time-series data from 1984 to 1999 reveals that the quality of institutions, defined as freedom from corruption in government, rule of law, and bureaucratic quality, plays a significant role in explaining the likelihood of civil war onset.

State-Building, Stability, and Oil as “Shared Competencies” in Iraq

Introduction Despite the democratic and developmental progress made in Iraq, the state's key ethnic, sectarian, and political groups have yet to achieve consensus on core issues, including the division of oil wealth and resolutions to territory disputes in Khanaqin and Kirkuk. Control of Kirkuk represents control over one of two major oil producing regions in Iraq and, thus, control over a substantial amount of wealth from the surrounding region's oil development. Moreover, tensions between the leadership within the Government of Iraq (GOD and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) demonstrate that progress on issues such as these is critical to achieving a stable, secure Iraq that is not merely a short-term phenomenon. These tensions are exacerbated by the inability of the Council of Representatives (COR) to pass a set of hydrocarbon laws that clarify oil and gas policies as well as related management procedures, constitutional amendments, and other investment laws. (1) The short history of Iraq's nascent, democratically elected government has shown that legislation passed by the COR sometimes fails to be implemented. Even worse, a meddlesome executive is occasionally wont to tinker with legislation already passed or, in extreme cases, quash it altogether. These actions only serve to degrade a legislative process that is beset with indecision and institutional delays most recently associated with the certification of the 2010 election results and the protracted government formation process. As of October 2010, the four hydrocarbon laws that were introduced in the COR in 2007 have been neither finalized nor signed into law. The discord regarding hydrocarbon legislation is, arguably, driven by competing regional interests and exacerbated by the asymmetrical constitutional division of powers and weak institutions that exist at the federal, regional, and gubernatorial levels. Blanchard notes: Concurrent negotiations regarding constitutional amendments have had direct implications for the hydrocarbon legislation debate, particularly efforts to clarify the specific authorities granted to federal and regional governments to regulate oil and gas development and export activities under Articles 111 and 112 of the Iraqi Constitution ... violence and political tension that have prevailed in Iraq in recent years have not been conducive to careful consideration of detailed hydrocarbon sector legislation or new national oil and natural gas contracts. (2) The focus of this analysis on intergovernmental control over the oil and gas industry is deliberate--Iraq has the world's fourth largest oil reserves, and its primary economic challenges are complicated by weak institutions and persistent stability and security concerns. (3) While oil and gas are part of Iraq's economic policy, each is not treated as such in the Constitution, Provincial Powers Law of 2008, or the draft oil and gas laws. Understanding oil as such is critical, because qualitative and quantitative studies suggest that a state's oil resources can have antidemocratic effects, rentier effects, (4) repression effects, (5) and modernization effects. (6) Regardless of the structure of the government it may very well place at risk state-building, stability, and democratic consolidation given the lack of economic development often associated with wealth. (7) When tying these effects together, existing research suggests that states like Iraq face a resource curse wherein the greater the state's wealth, the more slowly the state develops, the greater the instability, and the more likely it is to experience civil war. (8) Decision-makers in Iraq are faced with overcoming these effects and the constitutional dilution of the GOI's federal authority, specifically with respect to the regulation of the oil and gas industry and its resources. The division of powers related to oil as a shared competency of the federal, regional, and provincial governments has the potential to lead to negotiation gridlock across these government levels and result in the continued promotion of alternative markets for the sale and export or trafficking of oil not regulated by the government. …

Army at home: women and the Civil War on the Northern home front

Working-class women develop political agency during wartime. Introducing readers to women whose Civil War experiences have long been ignored, Judith Giesberg examines the lives of working-class women in the North, for whom the home front was a battlefield of its own. Black and white working-class women managed farms that had been left without a male head of household, worked in munitions factories, made uniforms, and located and cared for injured or dead soldiers. As they became more active in their new roles, they became visible as political actors, writing letters, signing petitions, moving (or refusing to move) from their homes, and confronting civilian and military officials. At the heart of the book are stories of women who fought the draft in New York and Pennsylvania, protested segregated streetcars in San Francisco and Philadelphia, and demanded a living wage in the needle trades and safer conditions at the Federal arsenals where they labored. Giesberg challenges readers to think about women and children who were caught up in the military conflict but nonetheless refused to become its collateral damage. She offers a dramatic reinterpretation of how America's Civil War reshaped the lived experience of race and gender and brought swift and lasting changes to working-class family life.

Why Did Richard Baxter and John Owen Diverge? The Impact of The First Civil War

This article explores an important but hitherto neglected factor that helps to account for the early divergence between Richard Baxter (1615–91) and John Owen (1616–83). Theological differences alone cannot account for that divergence, since in the early 1640s Baxter and Owen would have agreed on the issues that later separated them. Their starkly contrasting experiences of the First Civil War helped to set them apart. For Baxter, personally caught up in the upheaval, the war was a disaster that corrupted the Gospel. For Owen, untouched by the fighting, the war was a blessing from God that liberated the Gospel from Arminian captivity. All this helps to illuminate some of the ways in which the civil wars continued to shape religious developments and divisions long after the battles had ceased.

The Uncompromising Diary of Sallie McNeill, 1858-1867 (review)

540Southwestern Historical QuarterlyApril cause. He largely ignored the first year of the war, choosing instead to focus on his business interests. In 1862, however, he grudginglyjoined Spaight's Eleventh Battalion, which later became the 21st Texas Infantry. Duncan, a natural leader and widely respected among the men in his unit, was eventually elected an officer. The vast majority of the book covers Duncan's Civil War years and highlights many important themes central to Civil War history: the uncertainty of enlistment and service, morale, national identification, defeat, and life after the conflict. The lengthy depiction of Duncan's Civil War experience presents a refreshing departure from the many narratives that tend to emphasize glory won on large batdefields, grand campaigns, and larger-than-life leaders. Rather, the reader is offered a glimpse into the war's often-forgotten underside: messy camps, miserable garrison duty, monotonous drills, and general distaste for war. More importandy, though, Duncan's service along the Texas Gulf Coast and in southwestern Louisiana reflects the book's central theme. He endured severe bouts of low morale and thus wavered constandy in his dedication to the Confederate cause. The lack ofmilitary activity, in addition to feelings ofuselessness and time boringly wasted, sapped any energy Duncan might have directed toward the war effort. Civil War historiography rarely highlights these emotions as central elements of the Confederate experience. Caudill, however, embraces the opportunity to reveal the deep-seated and negative sentiments expressed so candidly in Duncan's diaries. Caudill's contribution is undoubtedly welcome, yet he seems to translate Duncan's brand of sour morale into an answer for the Confederacy's defeat. By adopting the outmoded "loss-of-will" thesis, seemingly based on the sentiments of one individual's diary entries, Caudill concludes that "Southern unity in support of the Confederacy was in widespread disintegration by 1863" (44). Moreover, he maintains that a "consensus" exists among Civil War historians who argue that Confederate morale peaked at the beginning of the conflict and diminished consistently thereafter until the surrender. These interpretations neglect the significance of recent scholarship from William A. Blair, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Gary W. Gallagher, James M. McPherson, and Jason Phillips who collectively submit that Confederates possessed the will to win despite low morale, disgust widi the Confederate government, or battlefield reverses. Duncan's instantaneous and war-wearied sentiments were clearly sincere and exposed the nature of service in a Trans-Mississippi backwater. However, they hardly reflected the totality of the Confederate military experience and did not accurately reveal the causes for Confederate defeat. Thus it is questionable to use an individual who was not necessarily representative of the Southern war effort in order to endorse a mode of analysis that has been successfully displaced by recent literature. Rice UniversityAndrew F. Lang The UncompromisingDiary ofSallieMcNeill, 1858-186·]. Edited with an introduction by Ginny McNeill Raska and Mary Lynne Gasaway Hill. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009. Pp. 214. Illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography , index. ISBN 9781603440875, $32.50 cloth.) 2?? o Book Reviews541 By revealing the inner world of Sallie McNeill, a young woman of the planter class living in Brazoria County, Texas, this diary provides rich insights into life in south central Texas in the turbulent years surrounding the Civil War. This watershed event and the South's ultimate defeat prompted Sallie to write, "Slowly, we are awakening from die feeling of utter despair, which overwhelmed all classes, upon receipt of the 'news' of the fall of the Confederacy" (125). For the South (and Texas specifically) , in the span of a few short years, everything had changed. In addition to insights on the war and its aftermath, this diary is especially valuable in exposing the often-unexplored world, or "terra incognita," of a young woman who described herself as "not remarkable for anything" (1). On the contrary, Sallie 's diary is an indispensible resource for those interested in the gender and class dynamics present in the Old South, including both the opportunities and limitations afforded young elite woman during this period. In their brief introduction, Raska and Hill describe Sallie as both a typical and atypical Southern lady. According to the editors, Sallie held typical attitudes on slavery...

The Continuity of Innovation: The Civil War Experience

Capitalist development involves ongoing technological changes in which a series of innovations develop and diffuse.Wars and other discontinuities periodically break the process, thwarting some innovations and generating others. Wartime experience hence illuminates the question of whether innovation responds to the changing economic environment or maintains earlier directions. The paper examines the roles of peacetime factors and wartime dislocations in the development of three Civil War innovations, firearms, shoe mechanization, and petroleum. Using patent data, government procurement records, and selected firm records to compare antebellum and wartime activities, I argue for the continuity of innovation in its content and in the occupation, network status, and location of patentees. Wartime innovation evolved out of antebellum firms, networks, and inventors. It drew on machinists, engineers, and applied scientists to transfer critical antebellum capabilities into innovating sectors. The war accelerated innovations in firearms and shoe mechanization and may have slowed petroleum innovation. Whereas the North continued antebellum innovation processes during the war, the South, with little capability in any of the sectors, was unable to innovate successfully even when military need was strong.

The Continuity of Innovation: The Civil War Experience

Capitalist development involves ongoing technological changes in which a series of innovations develop and diffuse.Wars and other discontinuities periodically break the process, thwarting some innovations and generating others. Wartime experience hence illuminates the question of whether innovation responds to the changing economic environment or maintains earlier directions. The paper examines the roles of peacetime factors and wartime dislocations in the development of three Civil War innovations, firearms, shoe mechanization, and petroleum. Using patent data, government procurement records, and selected firm records to compare antebellum and wartime activities, I argue for the continuity of innovation in its content and in the occupation, network status, and location of patentees. Wartime innovation evolved out of antebellum firms, networks, and inventors. It drew on machinists, engineers, and applied scientists to transfer critical antebellum capabilities into innovating sectors. The war accelerated innovations in firearms and shoe mechanization and may have slowed petroleum innovation. Whereas the North continued antebellum innovation processes during the war, the South, with little capability in any of the sectors, was unable to innovate successfully even when military need was strong.

Civil Wars, American Interests and Actions: Catastrophic Precedents?

Catastrophic Consequences: Civil Wars and American Interests. By Steven R. David. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 204 pp., $25.00 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-8989-9). In his provocative study, Steven David raises the question of what the most imminent concern for the United States’ interests is in an age when international conflict is no longer a major threat for states. David's answer to the puzzle is widely-accepted. Civil wars, instead of inter-state wars, have been the reality of the post-Cold War international system. Civil wars of other states are to be taken more seriously particularly because terrorists are more likely to obtain weapons of mass destruction in failed states experiencing civil war. David sets out as his main task clarification of this widely-accepted phenomenon. He also identifies the states vital for U.S. interests and assesses the likelihood of civil war in these states. Finally, David evaluates options for dealing with these states and the threats they raise to the U.S. and the global system, if these states were to fall victim to civil wars. David provides strong evidence in support of the claim that international conflict is no longer the main threat of instability in international relations. Clearly, other forms of violence such as transnational terrorism and civil conflicts are now imminent security concerns. Civil wars lead to state failure and failed states are more likely to lose control of their resources, which lead to non-state actors’ domination of the government and thus weapons of mass destruction. The foremost issue is that civil conflicts lead to unintended consequences. Hence, dealing with them is trickier. David shows that there are three reasons why a state might fall apart as a result of civil war: first, there needs to be intense grievance held by the population; second, the population should believe that they have a right to engage in violence and finally, a fair chance of success should be expected as a result of armed rebellion. David …

Alcohol and drugs in post-war Sierra Leone

The kind of social stress that a civil war expose the population to makes it easy to assume that an increased level of alcohol and drug abuse should be observable in post-war Sierra Leone. This is, however, not the case. As this study reveals, the pattern of alcohol and drug consumption in Sierra Leone. This is, however, not the case. As this study reveals, the pattern of alcohol and drug consumption in Sierra Leone is the same as we find in other African countries that has never experienced civil war. The majority of the population do not drink very much or use drugs at all, but there is a small minority that are frequent drinkers and use drugs. These findings are based on a survey in Sierra Leone and explore who the drinkers are, how many people drink and what characterises drug users in Sierra Leone.

Changing Lanes or Stuck in the Middle: Why Are Anocracies More Prone to Civil Wars?

Past research on regime type and civil war points to anocratic regimes as having a high probability of civil war onset. The specific characteristics of anocratic regimes that lead to their predisposition for civil war have been left unexplained. In this article, the authors examine how the transitional characteristics of anocracy explain the enhanced risk of civil war onset. The results point to three important conclusions. First, anocratic regimes are most likely to experience civil war in the first few years of their duration. Second, transitions into anocracy from democracy leave states at a higher risk of civil war. Third, the probability of civil war onset increases with the magnitude of a transition into anocracy.

Evolutionary Psychological Foundations of Civil Wars

I propose an evolutionary psychological perspective on wars and suggest that the ultimate cause of intergroup conflict may be the relative availability of reproductive women. Polygyny, which allows some men to monopolize all reproductive opportunities and exclude others, may increase the prevalence of civil wars, but not interstate wars, which did not exist in the ancestral environment. The analysis of the Correlates of War data support both hypotheses; polygyny increases civil wars but not interstate wars. Polygyny explains a greater proportion of the variance in civil war experience than democracy does in interstate war experience. If the democratic peace is the first law of international relations (interstate wars), then polygyny may be the first law of intergroup conflict (civil wars).

Un]Succesful "Metabolization" of the Northern Irish War: The Post-Troubles Trauma in Glenn Patterson's Writing

[Un]Succesful "Metabolization" of the Northern Irish War: The Post-Troubles Trauma in Glenn Patterson's Writing Northern Irish literature of the last decade illustrates an arduous effort of the Ulster men to break down the walls of political and cultural partition. Yet, even though the Northern Irish community tends to present itself in terms of a variety of images, the ultimate impression is that the recent novelistic and critical productions resonate with past antagonisms and the post-Troubles trauma. It is so since the North, as many a scholar indicates, is as if fated to continually recompose its past. This paper then, set against the background of the civil war experiences, discusses Glenn Patterson's excavation of individual and collective memories which prove that the dead are constantly materializing in today's Northern Irish reality. Hence, Glenn Patterson's accumulation of voices by means of which the author ponders over the politics of memory and imparts knowledge of the characters who, on a long journey out of the darkness into the space of light, find some vestiges of the old conflicts still echoing and rather difficult to hush up.

:An Apprenticeship in Arms: The Origins of the British Army, 1585-1702

I. A MILITARY APPRENTICESHIP 1585-1640 1. The Irish Wars 2. The Low Countries Wars 3. British Manpower and the States' Army 4. Recruiting in the British Isles for Mainland European Armies 5. Military and Naval Expeditions of the 1620s 6. The campus martius: The Domestic School of War II. THE EXPERIENCE OF CIVIL WAR 1640-1660 7. Mercenaries and Gentlemen 8. Raising and Organizing Standing Armies 9. Atrocity, Plunder, and Discipline 10. The Civil Wars in Ireland and Scotland III. THE DECAY OF A MILITARY TRADITION 1660-1688 11. Standing Armies in the Three Kingdoms 12. The Decay of the Militia 13. English, Irish, and Scots in Mainland European Armies IV. THE RECOVERY OF A MILITARY TRADITION 1688-1702 14. The Descent on England 15. The Williamite Conquest of Scotland and Ireland 16. The Nine Years War 17. Conclusion: Military Professionalism Select Bibliography Index

Mennonites, Amish, and the American Civil War. By James O. Lehman and Steven M. Nolt. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. xiv, 353 pp. $39.95, ISBN 978-0- 8018-8672-0.)

James O. Lehman and Steven M. Nolt provide a nuanced study of the Civil War experience of American Mennonites and Amish. Using extensive archival material, the authors place these Anabaptist sects in the broader context of American religious and cultural life while making their account relevant to the wider Civil War story. Lehman and Nolt approach their well-documented study of these groups regionally, looking at the heavy concentrations of Mennonite and Amish communities in Pennsylvania, especially the southeastern corner; the scattered settlements of the Midwest; and those that emerged in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley in the eighteenth century. The authors reveal that the experiences of and responses to the war evinced by the Mennonites and Amish varied from state to state and region to region, and were affected by the concentration of coreligionists and the economic status of the particular group. Nevertheless, the authors demonstrate convincingly that throughout the war Mennonites both north and south struggled to find a balance between living by the dictates of conscience and obeying the demands of civil government. When the balance between the requirements of these “two kingdoms” could not be reached, conscience usually prevailed.

Soldier, Surgeon, Scholar: The Memoirs of William Henry Corbusier, 1844-1930 (review)

212Southwestern Historical QuarterlyOctober vincing Southerners that any evils remaining in the system stemmed from the activities of a small group of itinerant traders rather than respectable dealers. "A class of evil slave traders," Gudmestad concludes, "could be publicly and ritually condemned for wreaking havoc in the lives of slaves so that ordinary slaveholders would feel no remorse for engaging in essentially the same activities" (p. 205). Even this transformation, however, could not totally eradicate the taint attached to slave traders, regardless of the scale of their business. When Isaac Franklin died in 1846 as one of the wealthiest men in the South, not a single newspaper account of his life and death mentioned his profession. Readers of die Southwestern Historical Quarterly may be disappointed to find that this study has little or nothing on slave traders in Texas, especially since dealers operated in Galveston and Houston throughout the late antebellum years. However, since most Texans of that day were Southerners who grew up in the culture of the older slave states, it may be assumed that they shared the prevalent attitudes toward men who profited from the sale of bondsmen. Overall, A Troublesome Commerce does not fundamentally change the well-known story of how slave traders served as scapegoats, but it adds depth to our understanding of one important way Southerners coped with the moral burdens of slavery. University ofNorth TexasRandolph B. Campbell Soldier, Surgeon, Scholar: The Memoirs of William Henry Corbusier, 1844—1930. Edited by Robert Wooster. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. Pp. xx+234. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-8061-3459-2. $29.95, cloth.) The generation of individuals who saw both the Civil War and the Second Industrial Revolution may have witnessed more change than any other in human history. Robert Wooster's edited, annotated Soldier, Surgeon, Scholar: The Memoirs of William Henry Corbusier, 1844-1930 presents an eyewitness account of America's sometimes painful emergence from a devastating Civil War to become a colonial world power. Corbusier's stream-of-consciousness writing takes the reader with him on his travels around the United States during his service in the United States Army. Corbusier's writing style reveals a man of few words. He writes almost wistfully about his youth and treats the reader to many details about everyday life growing up in New York City, on a farm in Nyack, New York, and in the golden fields of California. His Civil War experiences introduced him to the army that became his life. It is interesting to observe the parallel evolutions of Corbusier and the nation. During the Civil War, when Corbusier began his army service, the germ theory of disease had not yet been developed. By the time he left the service thirty -nine years later, not only were the causes of diseases much better understood, but many new techniques for treating illnesses had been put into practice. Corbusier held many of the beliefs and prejudices common among mainstream whites during this period and believed that his purpose was to uplift the Indians 2??8Book Reviews213 and Filipinos he encountered in the course of his travels. While his knowledge of medicine and the world around him grew, so did the United States. When he entered the U.S. Army the frontier was still a very real part of American life; by the time Corbusier retired, the United States had become an urban, industrialized , world power. Wooster's editing and annotation are thorough and informative. One minor criticism is the lack of maps. There are only two maps in Soldier, Surgeon, Scholar, and at times it is difficult to follow Corbusier's many moves around the country. Soldier, Surgeon, Scholar should be read and compared to its companion volume by Fanny Dunbar Corbusier, William Henry Corbusier's wife of forty-eight years (see Fanny Dunbar Corbusier: Recollections ofHerArmy Life, 1869—1908, ed. by Patricia Y. Stallard, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003). Both works are valuable contributions to American, and especially Western, history of the second half of nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The combination of excellent scholarship , editing, and annotation makes these primary documents readily available to both scholars and the general public...

The Business of Civil War: Military Mobilization and the State, 1861-1865

This wide-ranging, original account of the politics and economics of the giant military supply project in the North reconstructs an important but little-known part of Civil War history. Drawing on new and extensive research in army and business archives, Mark R. Wilson offers a fresh view of the wartime North and the ways in which its economy worked when the Lincoln administration, with unprecedented military effort, moved to suppress the rebellion. This task of equipping and sustaining Union forces fell to career army procurement officers. Largely free from political partisanship or any formal free-market ideology, they created a mixed military economy with a complex contracting system that they pieced together to meet the experience of civil war. Wilson argues that the North owed its victory to these professional military men and their finely tuned relationships with contractors, public officials, and war workers. Wilson also examines the obstacles military bureaucrats faced, many of which illuminated basic problems of modern political economy: the balance between efficiency and equity, the promotion of competition, and the protection of workers' welfare. The struggle over these problems determined the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars; it also redirected American political and economic development by forcing citizens to grapple with difficult questions about the proper relationships among government, business, and labor. Students of the American Civil War will welcome this fresh study of military-industrial production and procurement on the home front-long an obscure topic.