With Sword and Shield: American Military Affairs, Colonial Times to the Present (review)

280CIVIL WAR HISTORY Potomac played such an important role. Yet the modern student of warfare will find a random selection of incidents that will contribute to a modern historiographical outlook. Vivid descriptions of the sheer physical difficulty of movement with a mass army in American terrain qualitatively brings to life the quantitative realities of modern logistical analysis . There is something for the modern historian who attempts to analyze organizational and technological realities in the development of a modern system of tactical and strategic communications. He will find a personalized sense of the problems arising from the extended lines of mass armies running through woods, up hill and down dale. Descriptions of the enormity of the tactical transition to trench warfare and mass slaughter in frontal assaults is peculiarly underplayed considering its prominence in the life of the Army of the Potomac. The author is more comfortable with the personalized side effects of tactical history, with reactions to death, dying, doggedness, and courage. Sedgwick, a conservative Democrat, successfully attempted to enlist the financial support of the Sixth Corps behind the political career of his old commander George McClellan. The author presents personalized material which provides the historian of military culture with a sense of Sedgwick's cultural innocence as he gets caught between a professional world view that attempts to reduce the military officer to his functional military role and the traditional view of an officer playing interdependent roles, including a political role, in the passing culture of preindustrial society. The author's concern with portrayal of the personality and character of this solid and stolid general is sometimes poignant and credible and at other times slips in the direction of myth making. One wonders at times whether the New England author is attempting to do for his home turf what Freeman did for Virginia. Perhaps it is this quality which makes the book a good read from whatever prejudice the student of history approaches his material. Edward Hagerman York University With Sword and Shield: American Military Affairs, Colonial Times to the Present. By Warren W. Hassler, Jr. (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1982. Pp. 462. $29.50.) Although Americans generally do not consider themselves to be a combative people, they have participated in thirteen major wars and numerous minor conflicts within the last three hundred years. Thus, while America's past may not have been militaristic, it has been decidedly military. Even though the American military heritage is brief when compared with that of much older nations like China or Great Britain, it is extensive enough to warrant a survey text of considerable dimensions. BOOK REVIEWS281 With student interest having recovered from its Vietnam era nadir, the need for a good interpretive history of American military affairs has never been greater. Over the years, the writing of American military history has changed markedly. Early writers contented themselves with stirring battle pieces, filled with blaring bugles and flashing bayonets. Gradually, more analytical accounts of wars, campaigns, and battles began to appear . Most recently, the "new military history" explored the relationship between soldiers and the society from which they emanate. At present, accounts of combat have fallen into disfavor with academic historians, leavingpopularizers to satisfy thepublic's appetite for such works. This is an unfortunate trend, no more valid intellectually than the earlier, simplistic recounting of campaigns and battles. Students of the American military experience need to be exposed to all facets of that experience , peace and war, garrison and battlefield, technology and tactics. Any modern text attempting to explain America's military past should integrate all of these diverse currents into a coherent, interpretive account. Unfortunately, Warren W. Hassler, Jr.'s new text, With Sword and Shield: American Military Affairs, Colonial Times to the Present, fails to provide the synthesis so badly needed by students of American military history. The book is simply a chronological recounting of the major military events from the colonial wars of the 1600s to Vietnam. Within this mass of detail many little-known facts abound, and their easy availability is one of the book's strengths. Another positive factor is the largenumber of colorful descriptions of significant individuals. Yet, to be of greatest utility, a...