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BOOK REVIEWS93 quently failed to abide by its pledges and promises. In more traditional fashion, Rogers has emphasized the role and rhetoric of agrarians in the bitter political campaigns and the ultimate salutary effects that such exposures had in ending the negativist stance of tight Bourbon control. Rogers book will undoubtedly stand as the definitive narrative of late-nineteenth-century agrarian struggles in Alabama. Although he minimizes interpretation, his exhaustive search for material and the variety of findings provide a reliable basis for a clear understanding of a complex subject. This reviewer wishes that he had commented more fully on the usefulness and availability of his materials which, for the most part, are merely listed in the "Critical Essay on Authorities." Allen J. Going University of Houston The United States Soldier Between Two Wars: Army Life and Reforms, 1865-1898. By Jack D. Foner. (New York: Humanities Press, 1970. Pp. iv, 229. $7.50.) For the military history buff who views life in the United States Army on the frontier through the eyes of John Wayne or Randolph Scott, Professor Jack Foner's book will come as a shocking but needed corrective. For the scholar of United States military history Foner's book will represent a welcomed addition to his library. He has succeeded in weaving together a voluminous amount of primary material into a narrative about army life and reform in the post-Civil War regular army that will prove a boon to anyone interested in research in this period. In presenting a study of army life in this period Professor Foner has done an exhaustive job of research as his forty-nine pages of footnotes and 151 pages of text obviously indicate. Dr. Foner's book outlines the life of the enlisted man in the regular army, his oppression under the army legal system and his relationships with officers and the civilian community. This provides the background for his discussion of the movement for reform in the army. Desertion, the number one problem of the army of the post-Civil War period is one of the underlying threads which appears in Foner's study and indeed he suggests that the search for remedies is what gives rise to the long overdue reforms needed by the army. As welcome as these reforms were, they did not, as he suggests, solve the problem. The need for reform in the military justice system has been a constant concern for the army. The Uniform Code of Military Justice established in 1950 is another indication of the continuing reform in the military judicial system . Certainly Professor Foner documents the desperate need for army reform in this period between wars in what military historian William Ganoe called the dark ages of the United States Army. Equally interesting is the chapter on the black soldier in the postCivil War regular army. It is a brief but informative overview of the 94CIVIL WAR HISTORY problems faced by the black soldier. He concludes, and this reviewer heartily concurs, that the army is only a mirror of the larger society. Thus the racial discrimination found and practiced in the army was not unlike that practiced in the American society of that period. It is disappointing , however, to find a good scholar publishing in 1970 who still uses the term "colored" when referring to black soldiers. Since the emergence of a complete and well defined black culture, especially during the last decade, many black people, especially the young, have made it clear that they would rather be referred to as black than "colored," which carries a negative connotation. I would, but only as a minor point of interpretation, take issue with Dr. Foner when he suggests that the extremely low desertion rate on the part of black troops as compared to white troops was because they saw the army as a "career." To be sure, that was a part of the reason for the low desertion rate, but it was much more than that. Chaplains George G. Mullins, D. Ellington Barr, Allen Allensworth and many other officers of the black regiments commented on the sense of dedication the black soldiers had to their race. Black troops felt that they...

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