The Civil War Letters of Colonel Charles F. Johnson, Invalid Corps (review)

Recent years have seen a proliferation of studies that examine the various manifestations of disability during and after wartime—physical, psychological, and material. By recovering a neglected history of disabled combat veterans through the unique and heretofore unseen correspondence of Colonel Charles F. Johnson, Invalid Corps, Fred Pelka makes a valuable contribution to this growing body of scholarship.

The Invalid Corps, we learn from Pelka's introduction, was a unique military unit organized in May 1863 to meet the Union Army's growing manpower needs. With more than twenty-four regiments of men, nearly all of whom were disabled by illness or by combat wounds, the Corps was at one point twice as large as the entire prewar U.S. Army. During four years of service, members of the Corps enforced the draft, guarded prisoners and vital outposts, protected rail lines and supply depots, served as military police, and escorted President Lincoln's body home to Illinois. After the war, officers of the Corps formed the nucleus of the new Freedman's Bureau.

Pelka's introductory essay does more than contextualize Johnson's correspondence to his family, his superiors, and his subordinates within a detailed history of the Corps. Informed by the field of disability studies—specifically, the view that "disability is an inevitable part of life and an integral facet of human diversity" (p. 40)—the essay illuminates the broader experience of disability during and after the Civil War, addressing such questions as how the nation responded to the human wreckage of the conflict and how members of the Corps themselves fought not only to restore the Union but also to retain their dignity as Americans and as human beings. Outstanding here is Pelka's focus on the distinctive uniform worn by the officers and enlisted men of the Corps: required by the War Department and intended to confer a deserved dignity of appearance, the outfit was "sky blue . . . with dark blue trimmings, cut like a cavalry jacket, to come well down on the abdomen" (pp. 14–15). The attire fell far short of achieving its stated purpose, we learn, largely because it drew attention to the "invalid" status of its wearer and was nearly impossible to keep clean in the field. "However 'becoming' the new outfit might have been," Pelka explains, "the men forced to wear it concluded that the army for which they had suffered and bled now deemed them unworthy of its standard uniform [of dark blue]" (p. 15). Scholars engaged in the study of material culture will welcome Pelka's attention to the very matériel—indeed, the very stuff—that helped to define the identity of the Corps and its individual members. Similarly, those who are engaged in the study of visual culture will appreciate the book's provocative images related to Johnson's life and the histories of the Civil War and the Invalid Corps. Surely these images functioned in complex ways alongside contemporary matériel to shape self- and public perceptions of disability generally, and the Corps in particular. This is an important project, therefore, one that inspires further research on disability both during and after war, and no less on the objects and images that inform experiences of disability regardless of time and place.

This book will appeal to scholarly and popular audiences alike. Researchers from a range of disciplines will find it a valuable resource for advancing current historiographies. Civil War enthusiasts will appreciate Pelka's recovery of a story that has, until now, remained at best a footnote in the broader narrative of the War between the States.