Civil-Military Relations on the Frontier and Beyond, 1865-1917 (review)

In this, the most recent addition to the "In War and in Peace: U.S. Civil-Military Relations" series, Charles A. Byler describes the ambivalent relationship between the armed forces and civilians between the end of the Civil War and the nation's entry into World War I. In this carefully written overview, Byler concludes that the American military "actually fared reasonably well" (p. xiv) once the controversies of Reconstruction dimmed from memory. Civilian perceptions of the military generally improved, fueled in part by the army's success in restoring order during the strikes of the 1870s and 1890s, the navy's victories in the war against Spain, and the military's obvious utility to the expanding American empire. Even so, government policies still reflected traditional fears of a large standing military force, as evidenced by Congress's insistence that the National Guard remain an important component of the National Defense Act of 1916 and resistance to more radical changes advocated by reformers such as Stephen Luce and John M. Schofield. Despite private complaints from many soldiers and sailors about the ineptitude of their civilian leadership, few openly challenged their subordination to civilian authority. Of those who did, concludes Byler, only Ulysses S. Grant seemed to have benefited, with others—most notably Nelson A. Miles, Leonard Wood, and Bradley Fiske—finding themselves increasingly marginalized even within the armed forces.

Blending secondary and printed primary sources, Byler succeeds admirably in compiling a useful synthesis of existing scholarship regarding civil-military relations in the United States between 1865 and 1917. Non-military historians of the period will find Byler's work a convenient introduction into the American armed forces, thus making easier the reintegration of the army and navy into more general academic studies. A useful chronology and eleven primary source documents that illustrate the complexities of the civil-military relationships also support the work's broad appeal. Few of Byler's conclusions will surprise specialists in military affairs during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, but his willingness to deal with both the army and navy should encourage students of these respective branches to step out of their narrow fields and adopt more expansive approaches to their own scholarship. They will also find his work appropriately nuanced, full of caveats and exceptions rather than simplistic generalizations. Given the wide array of personalities—both in the armed forces and among the nation's political leaders—this approach rings true. Thus the book emerges as a careful and sound overview, stressing the fitful and uneven changes wrought by evolution, not revolution.

This reviewer's only criticism of this much-needed synthesis concerns its thematic, rather than chronological, organization. Individual chapters on public perceptions of the armed forces, congressional policymaking, the military experience, reforms, subordination to civilian authority, and challenges to that authority are tight packages in themselves. But the approach makes it more difficult to observe how the cumulative impact of these themes affected any particular period, rendering broader conclusions about civil-military relations somewhat less obvious.