- Defeating Lee: A History of the Second Corps, Army of the Potomac
One of the more interesting ways recent scholars have endeavored to integrate social, political, and military history in their study of the Civil War is by examining the experiences of particular units and their members and considering how they shaped and were shaped by larger forces at work in nineteenth-century America. In addition, these studies have the potential to improve our knowledge and understanding of particular military engagements by providing examinations of specific tactical events in greater depth than is possible in general campaign studies. It also provides a nice way to gain an understanding of how events were experienced and perceived from both the top down and the bottom up.
As it has since pretty much the day the shooting stopped in 1865, the literature on Civil War military units has been dominated by regimental histories. This is not [End Page 277] surprising. After all, each regiment was composed of officers and enlisted men hailing from a single state—and in a number of cases the same region within a state—and men were socialized to attach their greatest loyalties to the regiment and develop their strongest bonds within it. Yet, as Lawrence Kreiser, Jr. demonstrates, soldiers were also capable of developing strong attachments to their corps, an organizational unit that was first developed during the Napoleonic Wars, but did not make its first appearance in the United States until the first year of the Civil War.
Few military organizations played as conspicuous a role in the triumph of the Union as the Second Corps. Organized in March 1862 under the command of Edwin Sumner, it found itself engaged where the action was hottest on some of the most famous battlefields of the war. It first saw significant action at Fair Oaks (Seven Pines), where it famously crossed to the south side of a notoriously swollen Chickahominy River to help restore a badly battered Federal line, then won further distinction for its conduct during the Seven Days Battles. After missing Second Manassas, Sumner's men once again found themselves hotly engaged at Antietam—though the bloodiest day in American military history could hardly be considered a triumph for the unit. Sumner personally led one division to one of the most catastrophic defeats any unit of its size would suffer during the entire war in the West Woods, while the other two encountered severe difficulty as they overcame ferocious Confederate resistance at Bloody Lane.
At Fredericksburg, the Second Corps participated in the assaults on Marye's Heights that were an exercise in bloody futility with few parallels in American military history. Then, after being lightly engaged at Chancellorsville, the Second Corps turned in a stalwart performance at Gettysburg where, under the command of Winfield Scott Hancock, it played a critical role in minimizing the consequences of the collapse of the Third Corps on July 2, and turned back Pickett's Charge on July 3. Throughout the Overland campaign of 1864, Hancock and his men were consistently given tough assignments and as a consequence were ground down to the point of near ineffectiveness by the time they reached the outskirts of Petersburg in June. Its effectiveness further dulled by the incorporation of large numbers of conscripts into its ranks, the Corps turned in decidedly problematic performances at First Petersburg, Jerusalem Plank Road, and, above all, Reams's Station. Nonetheless, when the time came to chase down the Army of Northern Virginia in April 1865 and corner it at Appomattox, the Second Corps was there and, under the command of Andrew Humphreys, saw their long years of service culminate in victory.
It was an impressive and important story, one Kreiser tells fairly well. He has done an impressive amount of research, writes clearly, and provides an especially [End Page 278] effective chapter on the efforts of members of the Second Corps to make sure the memory of the unit's service was...