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The Civil War is often portrayed as the most brutal war in America's history, a premonition of twentieth-century slaughter and carnage. In challenging this view, Mark E. Neely, Jr., considers the war's destructiveness in a comparative context, revealing the sense of limits that guided the conduct of American soldiers and statesmen.
Neely begins by contrasting Civil War behavior with U.S. soldiers' experiences in the Mexican War of 1846. He examines Price's Raid in Missouri for evidence of deterioration in the restraints imposed by the customs of war; and in a brilliant analysis of Philip Sheridan's Shenandoah Valley campaign, he shows that the actions of U.S. cavalrymen were selective and controlled. The Mexican war of the 1860s between French imperial forces and republicans provided a new yardstick for brutality: Emperor Maximilian's infamous Black Decree threatened captured enemies with execution. Civil War battles, however, paled in comparison with the unrestrained warfare waged against the Plains Indians. Racial beliefs, Neely shows, were a major determinant of wartime behavior.
Destructive rhetoric was rampant in the congressional debate over the resolution to avenge the treatment of Union captives at Andersonville by deliberately starving and freezing to death Confederate prisoners of war. Nevertheless, to gauge the events of the war by the ferocity of its language of political hatred is a mistake, Neely argues. The modern overemphasis on violence in Civil War literature has led many scholars to go too far in drawing close analogies with the twentieth century's "total war" and the grim guerrilla struggles of Vietnam.
An intriguing new book...Neely argues forcefully and thoughtfully for a more realistic, less gory understanding of the great war...Whatever you think of Neely's arguments, you cannot reject them as poorly conceived or loosely defended. He is a thoughtful expert who delivers a book that you cannot read without transforming your view of the Civil War and its place in American history.
— Cameron McWhirter
Impressive and lively.
— David Waldstreicher
Using comparisons to other wars in other nations in the 19th and 20th centuries, Neely finds that the U.S. Civil War was not nearly as bloody as conventional wisdom (and much scholarly wisdom) has held.
— R. G. Lowe
A seminal work on a big issue, The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction should stir up much productive discussion.
— John Cimprich
Introduction: Destructiveness in the Civil War 1
1 The Mexican-American War: Republicanism and the Ethos of War 6
2 Price's Raid: Limited War in Missouri 41
3 Emperor Maximilian's Black Decree: War in the Tropics 72
4 The Shenandoah Valley: Sheridan and Scorched Earth 109
5 The Sand Creek Massacre: The Grand Burning of the Prairie 140
6 Avenging Andersonville: Retaliation and the Political Uses of Hatred 170
Conclusion: The Cult of Violence in Civil War History 198
Notes 221
Selected Bibliography 253
Acknowledgments 267
Illustration Sources 269
Index 271
Overview
The Civil War is often portrayed as the most brutal war in America's history, a premonition of twentieth-century slaughter and carnage. In challenging this view, Mark E. Neely, Jr., considers the war's destructiveness in a comparative context, revealing the sense of limits that guided the conduct of American soldiers and statesmen.
Neely begins by contrasting Civil War behavior with U.S. soldiers' experiences in the Mexican War of 1846. He examines Price's Raid in Missouri for ...