"Seeing the Elephant": Raw Recruits at the Battle of Shiloh (review)

BOOK REVIEWS351 "Seeing the Elephant": Raw Recruits at the Battle of Shiloh. By Joseph A. Frank and George A. Reaves. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989. Pp. 215. $39.95.) This is one of the better "face of battle" books of the last decade. The authors have painstakingly reconstructed the terrible struggle at Shiloh as experienced by 381 Union and Confederate raw recruits who were members of 160 green regiments and batteries, and who survived the battle. The recruits were selected on the basis of their correspondence which, in the judgment of the authors, contained at least ten responses to seventy-six questions that were compiled from studies of "military sociology and combat psychology" (5). Frank and Reaves challenge conclusions reached by Wiley, Linderman, Robertson, and others on Civil War combat motivation and support some observations made by S. L. A. Marshall, Kellett, and Moran concerning soldiers in World Wars I and II. The authors contend that the recruits were motivated by "powerful patriotic beliefs" (37) and a personal "sense of duty" (179), which included self-esteem and moral obligation. Northerners and Southerners alike viewed their enlistments as contractual with community and country, and themselves as members of social and political homogeneous units in "neighbor armies." This bond between regiment and community, the authors argue, formed the emotional underpinning of combat motivation and was the soldiers' support system while they reconciled their egalitarian beliefs with military discipline and training. Frank and Reaves draw a collective psychological portrait to explain the recruits' motivations. They conclude that the Union soldiers fought for democratic government and not against slavery although, by 1862, many of them saw it as the root cause of the war. The Confederates perceived themselves as defenders against Northern aggression and not as the gendarmerie of racial control. The recruits on both sides eagerly prepared for decisive battle and were critical of their generals for not seeking it sooner. But, on the eve of Shiloh, the recruits were upset over the physical devastation and civilian hostility they had encountered in the divided border states. The authors do not find many Southerners who took into battle a heroic and chivalric view of war or who displayed a volatility that affected their tactics and spirit. They also reject the notion that either side acted out of any Victorian ethos of bravery and convincingly demonstrate that only a third displayed any soldierly steadfastness or elation in the initial stages of the battle. With maneuver restricted and control lost, the majority of the recruits saw only confused "cameos of seemingly disconnected events" (92), and momentarily succumbed to an exhaustive fear that was compounded by panicky rumors and the horrors of the 352CIVIL WAR HISTORY battlefield. Most recruits, however, were alert enough to realize that musket fire was more deadly than artillery explosions. Indeed, the authors conclude that a large majority of the recruits gained control of their fears, fired their weapons, and fought. Most did not desert, and later, many of them publicly exposed the few who did. Frank and Reaves attribute this eventual courage to the nearness of comrades in dense formations, and the recruits' "patriotic loyalty" (140) and strong moral commitment. Men on both sides ultimately felt surges of anger and superhuman power, and, Wiley's conclusions notwithstanding , killed without remorse. The authors provide an analysis of the soldiers' postbattle evaluations. They found that nearly 70 percent of them experienced a loss of morale because they felt that their generals had wasted an opportunity to win a great victory. The depression grew among the Union troops as they buried the decaying bodies and assessed the dreadful medical treatment of the wounded. However, this despondency, which also affected the Confederates, eventually dissipated, and the survivors boasted about their units' bravery and about the casualties they had inflicted on their respective enemy. The Union soldiers wrongly surmised that their foe was demoralized, and the Confederates rationalized their failure to destroy the Northern army as being due to its superior logistical support. Unlike the conclusions of Wiley, et al., and Stouffer, et al., about Civil War and World War II soldiers respectively, the authors find a fierce postbattle animosity among the former recruits towards those whom...