The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784-1898 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS91 The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 17841898 . By Edward M. Coffman. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Pp. 464. $29.95.) Edward Coffman's The Old Army is a work of amazing scope. A social history of the U.S. Army by one of America's foremost military historians , it provides a comprehensive overview of the life of the army's officers , enlisted men, and dependents. Filled with a wealth of detail, this fine work rests upon a solid foundation of manuscript and archival material, and the incredible array of sources cited in the copious notes and bibliographic essay at the end of the book will provide guidance for any number of researchers in the future. A few of the major themes of this work are seen in its appealing chapter titles. Chapter one summarizes the development of "That Perhaps Necessary Evil," the army, from 1784 to 1812. The chapters that follow focus on two periods (1815-60 and 1865-98) and three groups (officers, women and children, and enlisted men). For officers "Buried in Oblivion " (chap. 2) before the Civil War, "Promotion's Very Slow" (chap. 5) after it. Still, a budding military professionalism is evident in both periods , and throughout the century officers managed to avoid political entanglement despite their dependence upon political favor. The women and children accompanying the army's men, the "Companions of Our Exile" (chap. 3), often found themselves enthralled by "The Roving Life We Led" (chap. 6), despite its hazards and hardships. Finally, filled with immigrants and plagued with desertion and drunkenness, the army's enlisted ranks provided the "Wanderers in the Land" (chap. 4) that tamed the frontier before the Civil War but remained "That Not Wholly Appreciated Class" (chap. 7) as far as the rest of the nation was concerned. For officers, enlisted men, and dependents alike, however, the army provided membership in "one great and extensive family" (p. 21 1) and a life of adventure and excitement. In a brief final chapter, Professor Coffman blows a final "Tattoo" for that old army life, laid to rest with the coming of the war with Spain. One is reluctant to criticize a work of such excellence, but a few conceptual flaws are present. In at least one respect the end of the nineteenth century is not a logical termination point. The professionalization that began in the last half of the nineteenth century continued unabated after the Spanish-American War, and many of the same issues and individuals are involved on both sides of Professor Coffman's seemingly arbitrary dividing line. World War I represents a more logical point of termination in a study of the army that devotes considerable space to the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. The unity of the two decades on either side of the war with Spain is seen in such works as Timothy Nenninger's The Leavenworth Schools and the Old Army and in James Abrahamson's America Arms for a New Century. Similarly, the "Man- 92CIVIL WAR HISTORY agerial Revolution" described by Walter Millis in Arms and Men, an old but still provocative work, also falls on both sides of Professor Coffman 's termination date. A second problem stems from Professor Coffman's claim that "the mission of the army as a frontier constabulary" did not end until "the last Indian War campaign in 1890" (p. 403). An alternative interpretation would emphasize the way in which developments taking place in the last quarter of the century, many of them noted by Professor Coffman in chapter five, challenged the frontier constabulary mission well before 1890. The Old Army is better at describing the army's growing professionalism in the late nineteenth century than explaining why the army evolved as it did, and some readers will lack the cynicism required to assume that the primary motive for that professionalism was the desire of officers to create work for themselves. Disagreement with Professor Coffman over interpretation should not detract from the outstanding service he has done for us all. The Old Army is a superb study of the evolution of the American army and the changing life of its members...