Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War

by Gerald F. Linderman

Book Overview

A haunting exploration of the psychosocial effects of the Civil War upon the soldiers who fought in it, using riveting first hand accounts of the personal conflicts behind the historic battles culled from the diaries of Union and Confederate soldiers. 16 pages of photographs.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029197600
• ISBN13: 9780029197608
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 357 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Fascinating

This civil war book is unique, in that we see the war from the perspective of those who were involved. Linderman includes excerpts from letters and diaries of the men who fought this horrible war. The reader gets a true feel for what this period in history must have been like for the men and women who lived through it.

Unique to the field

According to Linderman, courage meant everything to a Civil War soldier. Being brave under fire, retreating only when ordered, and not deserting under harsh conditions, signified respect from fellow comrades and a soldier's ability to prove his manhood. Linderman attempts to answer the question of courage and manhood and if both go conjointly with its association to war. He probes the psychological motivation of a soldier, challenges the romanticization of combat, and connects the realities of war to the tribulations dealt with by the soldiers both on the field and on the home front. Additionally, Linderman argues that courage and manhood are interchangeable. War put the test of manhood to a higher level where "a failure of courage in war was a failure of manhood." As Linderman suggests, soldiers from both sides used courage and masculinity simultaneously when describing combat. The author supports the cohesiveness of both words by explaining that such rhetoric was necessary to "motivate the soldiers to fight one another." As he indicates, modern Americans may not understand this anomaly because extensive military training forces discipline in today's armies. Back in the 1860's with these volunteer units, indiscipline was constant and the ideal of courage "compelled men to combat." In all probability, Linderman is accurate in this regard, as little formal training existed to discipline these soldiers. Besides, with many of these men coming from small towns where "individualism and egalitarianism contributed nothing to military discipline," resistance to subordination to a military hierarchy appeared common. Furthermore, manliness and courage went hand in hand with godliness as many "thought of their faith as a special source of bravery." Most soldiers heavily depended on religion as a way of protection while under fire. The more faithful would earn God's care and such conviction was itself an inducement to courage. Linderman argues that these assumptions appeared more frequent in Confederate camps as men such as Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson held such devotional assurance. But, as Linderman asserts, as courage and godliness went linked, so too did cowardice and disbelief. Fighting the battle over fear became the ultimate test in combat. Linderman insists that privates held themselves to a strict standard, "that of fighting man fashion," where an enormous amount of discipline and fearlessness was required in order to not quicken their pace under fire, dodge shells, or seek cover. Fear became the unrivaled enemy as soldiers chose not to express it nor even talk about it with anyone. In addition to the common soldiers, Linderman lumps officers into this group but acknowledges that they had to prove their necessity to their comrades through example. Sometimes this example led to threatening a fearful soldier by force because, as Linderman suggests, "cowards apparently lost the right even to be numbered among the trophies."

Two Faces of Civil War Courage

Gerald Linderman's "Embattled Courage" (1987) is an outstanding study of the motivation of soldiers during the American Civil War and of the values of the society to which they responded.The book is in two broad sections. The first part of the book, titled "Courage's War" covers the early years of the war to about mid-1863 (the time of the climactic Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg). During these years, Linderman sees the primary motivating factor of the war as courage and of individual effort. The soldier enlisting in the war effort -- and during the early years volunteers bore the overwhelming brunt of the effort- had concepts of personal bravery in the face of danger, fearlessness and commitment to duty and to a purpose. He believed that the actions of an individual mattered and could make a difference to the result of a battle. This was an idealistic concept and Linderman shows well how it was reinforced and complemented by concepts of manliness, comradeship, godliness and morality, chivalry, and the brotherhood of soldiers, which assumes a certain degree of respect for the enemy on the other side of the line. Linderman points out that the Civil War may have been the last conflict in which these ideals were taken seriously. They were dashed in WW I, and in the later phases of the Civil War itself.The second part of the book, titled "A Perilous Education" shows how the initial idealism underlying the soldiers' war effort became hardened and tarnished with the stark reality of combat. The concept of courage didn't disappear but it changed and the soldiers became tougher and more realistic. On occasion cynicism and disilusion set in. The factors leading to this change in perspective were the horrors and deaths on the battlefield, reulting largely from the increased range of Civil War weaponry which helped make the traditional offensive charge (as at Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Cold Harbor) ineffective and death-dealing to the agressor. Other factors include the crude Civil War hospitals, with blood and amputation on every side, the long forced marches, the toll of disease in the camps, which led to twice as many deaths as did combat, the boredom of camp life, imprisionment in camps such as Andersonville, the lengthy character of the war, the confiict between volunteers and draftees, and the lack of food and supplies which led soldiers to "forage" from civilians and to strip valuables and clothes from the bodies of dead comrades and enemies. The civil war became a total, brutal war in the final two years. Stonewall Jackson early in the war, and Grant and Sherman subsequently, understood the total nature of the effort that was required to pursue this war. The idealism with which the volunteers entered the war and their concept of individual effort changed radically when faced with the harshness of the war. This changed their understanding of themselves, the war effort, and their relationship to the civilian population.Th

An excellent read on the uses of Courage in the C.W & beyond

This book is an exceptional read for those who want to explore the world of America during the Civil War period. It takes a look at why men fought the Civil War, what kind of uses the notion of Courage had for the men, what other values were important for those brave fellows, and discusses the disallusionment and reaction to the Civil War by its Veterans very nicely. (Which was the best part of the book in my opinion.) If you are a history person, I highly recommend this book! :)

I recommend it to anyone that wants a common's view of war!

I had purchased this book from a now defunct bookshop and was told from a friend in Cyberspace, that if I wanted an in depth understanding of the common soldier and his thoughts about combat and the war, I had to read Linderman's Embattled Courage. In the overleaf, Linderman quotes from Livy's History of Rome, XXX.20, "Nowhere do events correspond less to men's expectations than in war." Linderman uses this quote for his main thesis. He lets the soldiers themselves communicate their thoughts using their own letters to home. In the early chapters, Linderman examines the values of the soldiers and their will to fight for their respective causes. He focuses on the values that the soldiers carried with them to the front-manliness, godliness, duty, honor, and knightliness. In the letters from the soldiers, Linderman reveals how the young men believed that they had joined up to fight a civilized war where bravery and courage would protect them and guarantee victory. ! After the newness of battle wore off on the citizen soldiers, they began to learn what war actually was-killing, death by disease, and extreme boredom. The war itself is transformed in the latter years to what Sherman described as "total war." No longer were heroic charges the mainstay of attack. In 1864, the shovel was used to build trenches. War in the latter stage was not as glorious as the soldiers perceived it to be in 1861. The disillusionment of war is stated by Rice Bull of the 123rd NY: "The next afternoon on our way back to the picket line I saw fifteen unburied Confederate soldiers lying where they had fallen. It was not a pleasant sight to me, even though these man had been our enemies. I thought when I saw them, of the sorrow and grief there would be in fifteen homes somewhere; and for what had these young lives been sacrificed?...There should be some way to settle political differences without slaughtering human beings and wearing out the bod! ies and sapping the strength of those who may be fortunate ! enough to escape the death penalty." Rice Bull's late war attitudes differ greatly from that which many had in 1861. At war's end, men distanced themselves from all facets of the war. In the 1890's, as the soldiers faded into old age, they once again fondly reminisced about their war days. The GAR swelled from 30,000 men in 1878 to 428,000 men in 1890. Youngsters were told of the great days that the soldiers had in war. Ironically, those same soldiers who were so disillusioned in war at its closure were forgetting those lessons in their twilight years. Those soldiers who were to learn that their expectations of war in 1861, differed greatly from that which they saw in 1864-65, would return in the 1890's to re-perpetuate their prewar expectations thus creating the vicious cycle of war that has plagued man since the days of the Romans. Linderman's book was quite thought provoking for me and I recommend it to anyone that wants to reflect