The Army in Transformation, 1790-1860 (review)

James M. McCaffrey's brief study of the army between 1790 and 1860 is the first volume to be published in a series entitled American Soldiers' Lives, intended to describe the everyday experiences of ordinary American soldiers throughout the history of the republic. The intended audience appears to be high school and college students and general readers, though the steep price and school text format will probably restrict the market mainly to libraries. McCaffrey, whose earlier works include a study of American soldiers in the Mexican War, briefly traces the army's early history, then provides chapters on key aspects of military life: recruitment and training; garrison duty and recreation; food, medical care, and clothing; military discipline; and campaigning and combat. The book is based on a commendable range of sources, including manuscript collections, published letters and diaries, and a selection of secondary works, and the author provides an extensive and useful bibliography. The writing style is fast-paced, drawing heavily from soldiers' personal accounts and making extensive use of colorful anecdotes.

While McCaffrey's book provides an engaging introduction for students, readers expecting an analytical and nuanced view of the soldier experience may find it disappointing. The coverage is uneven and rather quirky, with extended treatment of some topics—weaponry, uniform changes, the handful of women serving as soldiers—but with limited or no attention devoted to others, such as social backgrounds, promotion, retention, and the experience of noncommissioned officers. The author fails to differentiate systematically among the various categories of soldiers, intermingling evidence from regulars and volunteers, officers and enlisted men, raw recruits and old soldiers. Moreover, he draws material indiscriminately from across the entire time period to support his generalizations, though the army of the 1850s was a very different institution from that of the 1790s. In his unremitting reliance on anecdotes, McCaffrey largely ignores the extensive statistical data available on the social history of the early army, based on enlistment records and muster rolls, which might have given his account more structure. For example, he uses officers' descriptions to perpetuate the stereotype of regular army recruits as the dregs of society, whereas careful studies by J. C. A. Stagg, Dale R. Steinhauer, and others suggest a much more complex picture of enlistment patterns and their relationship to economic conditions in the broader society. The chapter on military discipline and punishment would have been enriched by sampling the army court-martial records, a vast reservoir of information on the most intimate aspects of army life. In particular, these files highlight officers' widespread use of arbitrary, degrading, and illegal corporal punishments, by far the most corrosive element in officer-enlisted man relations and a primary cause of "mutiny" and desertion.

In sum, McCaffrey succeeds in his goal of presenting students and general readers with a fast-paced and colorful introduction to aspects of military life in the early national and antebellum eras. There remains a major need, however, for a balanced, nuanced, and sophisticated social history of the early army's enlisted soldiers.