After Charles Russell Lowell's death at the Battle of Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley on October 19, 1864, his wife, Josephine Shaw Lowell, spent the rest of her life in public service to live out her husband's ideal of the "useful citizen." Lowell was further memorialized in the poetry and novels of Herman Melville and in his friend Henry Lee Higginson's dedication of Soldiers Field to Harvard. Now Carol Bundy has produced a beautifully written narrative biography of the young man that Phil Sheridan called "the perfection of a man and a soldier."
Lowell was part of the Boston Brahmin clan network that controlled the institutions of Boston and the emerging industrial order of New England, but his father had been a failure and he grew up in genteel poverty. He was deeply affected by national politics in the 1850s and became a critic of the political failures of his parents' generation. Bundy characterizes this phase of Lowell's life as a tension between his "commitment to be of use to society and the temptation [End Page 423] to be a free spirit (91)." Physical illness and a search for a career in railroads and ironworks would not resolve this tension. And then the war came.
Lowell, unlike most young men his age, sought a commission in the regular army and was commissioned captain of the 6th U.S. Cavalry. After service with that unit and a stint on McClellan's staff, Lowell would accept the colonelcy of the 2d Massachusetts Cavalry. In the war Lowell found purpose. He rejected his youthful belief in self-culture in favor of a philosophy that found meaning in action. In war, unlike in civilian life, he felt he could see what needed to be done and could do it.
Lowell's 2d Massachusetts spent its first months of the war in Virginia trying to handle John Singleton Mosby. Lowell experienced all the frustrations of irregular warfare as he experimented with ways to fight this unconventional enemy. The nature of the regiment's assignment contributed to tensions between Massachusetts men and a California contingent that petitioned for a transfer. As problems mounted, desertion in the regiment rose, and Lowell resorted to a drum-head court-martial and summary execution of a deserter. Bundy simply comments, "Something about insubordination drove him to a particular fury" (366).
Bundy explores the evolution of Lowell's attitudes toward war and his participation in the emergent hard war of the Shenandoah Valley. As a professional writer but not a professional historian, she does this in the context of a narrative biography rather than a work of analytical scholarship. Her discussion is relevant to the debate between Gerald Linderman and James McPherson over whether or not the volunteers lost early ideals of courage and self-discipline, for example, but she never compares her own analysis with theirs. Lowell's actions against Mosby are never placed in context of the literature on hard war. How did Lowell's actions compare to Union policy at the time? Other historians have used Lowell to make arguments about the shift to hard war in the minds of Union officers. What does Bundy think of these interpretations? These comments are not a criticism; Bundy's book is not meant to be a work of academic scholarship and these kinds of questions and arguments would detract from the narrative flow she so successfully employs.
Once Lowell's regiment is transferred to Sheridan's command and Lowell acts in the capacity of brigadier general, he emerges as one of the Union cavalry's exceptional battlefield commanders. Bundy aptly demonstrates his innovative thinking and his quick tactical ability during the stress of battle. Lowell was especially successful in his use...