That Body of Brave Men: The U.S. Infantry and the Civil War in the West (review)

There were two types of regular soldier in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. The archetype was a veteran of the Mexican War or an Indian fighter hurriedly moved east to the Virginia theater of war. Mark W. Johnson introduces the second type: young men, with little or no prior military experience, who enlisted in the regulars after war's outbreak. Some 58,000 men enlisted in the U. S. Regulars during the Civil War (p. 716n.8), many in eleven new regiments organized in the Regular Army in 1861. Four of these regiments, the 15th, 16th, 18th, and 19th Infantry and Battery H, 5th Artillery (collectively known as the Regular Brigade), fought in the Western, or Trans-Appalachian, Theater, campaigning from Kentucky to Georgia between 1862 and 1864. Johnson chronicles the story of these men, enlisted and commissioned, and the few old soldiers who provided the leavening that made these regiments formidable fighting organizations. This is useful, since the host of volunteer regiments raised to fight the war has long overshadowed the role of the regulars in the Civil War.

The hallmark of these soldiers was volunteer enthusiasm tempered by regular professionalism. Overcoming their lack of military knowledge and chaotic early war planning which insured a chronic shortage of enlistees and officers, they proved to be among the very best soldiers in the Union army. Johnson convincingly outlines their role in the 1862 Battle of Stones River, which he describes as "one of the Regular Army's most significant feats of arms" (p. 245). In addition to battles, organizational, disciplinary, and logistical issues are all dealt with. The theories then current on the use of the regular army are detailed and operational aspects of the war in the west keep the narrative in context.

A graduate of the United States Military Academy, a master of arts and an assistant professor of military science, Johnson's service with the modern 15th Infantry piqued his curiosity about the role of these regulars in the Civil War.

After-action reports, strength reports, disciplinary records and other army records document the official side of these regiments' service, particularly their problems recruiting and their crushing casualties. Johnson also skillfully uses letters, diaries, manuscript collections, and period newspapers to portray both the regulars' soldierly qualities and their frequently unsoldierly frailties. Outlining how their strong discipline and superior training were the strong points of these soldiers, Johnson also shows how these qualities created conflicts with the thousands of volunteers in state regiments who fought alongside the regulars. No exaggerated claims for the regulars' prowess or value as soldiers are presented, however, and the author is frank about the factors that caused their ultimate withdrawal from the war.

This book is for the general reader, the enthusiast, and the scholar. Mark W. Johnson has succeeded in creating an illustrative history of the U.S. Army at war in the nineteenth century, a history of a portion the Regular Army in the Civil War, and a portrait of the forgotten soldiers who made up "That Brave Body of Men."