A Scientific Way of War: Antebellum Military Science, West Point, and the Origins of American Military Thought by Ian C. Hope (review)

Ian C. Hope’s thought-provoking A Scientific Way of War: Antebellum Military Science, West Point, and the Origins of American Military Thoughtassertively calls for a reexamination of antebellum West Point and, by extension, the doctrine and strategy of the pre–Civil War U.S. Army. Hope examines the army’s and the military academy’s early republic origins; in doing so, he advances that both institutions found their identity in the establishment of the Third System of national defense (1817), which created a network of masonry forts and an interlocking infrastructure system to deter an invasion by a foreign military force. Consequently, West Point instructors shaped a curriculum to fit the needs of this national defense construct. Influenced by the French military, the army’s professional officers became deeply immersed in mathematics and science as they increasingly perceived strategy and war as a science in itself.

This book is at its best when explaining the techniques of how this scientific approach and methodology were integrated into the West Point curriculum and into a wider conception of an American way of war. The military academy may not have taught strategy (movement of large armies and resources) specifically as part of its course of study, but it did inculcate in students a unique intellectual approach toward the use of military force; West Point catered the education of young officers accordingly. To wit, Hope introduces an insightful connection between European and American conceptualizations of war during this period. In essence, the military academy incorporated this imported scientific approach to war and fashioned it to American strategic realities, not only through giving its graduates the tools to make the Third System successful, but also by making all junior officers proficient in all of the army’s branches (infantry, artillery, cavalry, engineering, quartermaster, and so on). The various demands on an American army officer forced a necessary flexibility in his respective skill set. He was often required to serve in a variety of different geographic locations in a career that tasked him with a range of changing professional responsibilities. Therefore, Hope intimates that this “scientific” approach to war, indoctrinated by the academy’s curriculum, was as much about instilling a holistic approach to problem solving for young military professionals as it was about winning battles in a Napoleonic fashion.

While Hope does examine some of the national political dynamics that shaped West Point’s intellectual identity, he is less attentive to the social and cultural aspects that played a role as well. The U.S. Army’s contribution to internal improvements was influenced as much by the economics of Henry Clay’s American System and the market revolution (Robert P. Wettemann Jr.’s work on this topic is surprisingly absent from the bibliography) as by national defense requirements. Hope also only tangentially addresses the role of a growing identity of professionalism among the antebellum officer corps and its effect in shaping the army’s approach to war. And while Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini is clearly the bogeyman of this monograph, there is not much background offered on him, his ideas, or his broader influence on military thought in America, Europe, and around the world. Indeed, Jomini is only referenced in passing, not identifying what he actually thought, but only where his work was wrong or misused.

Regardless, this book is remarkably researched and cogently written, and it will make itself invaluable in the understanding of both the antebellum army and its officers’ education. Moreover, Hope’s final chapter, which examines West Point graduates applying their education during the Civil War, reopens the door to a much-needed conversation, and possible reevaluation, of the intellectual framework of the conflict’s military leadership.