Editor's note: This review was
originally published in The Charger in the Fall of 1999.
| "Act well your part; there
all the honor lies. He who does something at the head of one
regiment will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a
hundred.”
-- A. Lincoln
|
It comes as no surprise to anyone
who reads about the Civil War that not every regimental colonel was
as heroic, wise or noble as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. For that
matter, not even Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain always was, although he
came pretty close. When the war broke out in 1861, armies were
raised in a hurry on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, and
commanding officers were appointed with sometimes only the most
meager qualifications. Many were political appointees in
state-raised units, more skilled at maneuvering in smoke-filled back
rooms than on the field of battle. In command of troops, some did
well, most did adequately, but many failed.
It’s reading just why they failed
that makes Thomas P. Lowry’s Tarnished Eagles: The Court-Martial of Fifty Union Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels (Stackpole Books,
Mechanicsburg, Pa. 1997) so interesting. Lowry has pored over every
Union court-martial record in the National Archives (there are over
100,000 of them) and produced this representative sampling of
military misadventure, misconduct and malfeasance at the highest
regimental level. He begins with an interesting overview of the
military justice system from Roman times to the American Revolution,
then up to the outbreak of the Civil War. He then groups his
courts-martial studies into five areas — cases involving
insubordination; conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman;
failure of leadership; cowardice; and miscellaneous.
Lowry emphasizes the constant
tension between the freedom of a citizen in a democracy, and the
unquestioning obedience (in that pre-Nuremberg and My Lai era)
thought necessary for an army officer. “A command is an order,”
Lowry writes, “not a suggestion or a basis for discussion. But
unquestioning obedience to a command is not a common trait in
Americans. The regular-army men had some familiarity with obedience
and authority.... The volunteer colonel, on the other hand, faced
challenges from below, from within, and from above. Below him were
roughly 900 enlisted men and junior officers, whose obedience he
needed and to whose needs he must attend. Within, he had his own
ambivalence about authority, mixed with various wishes for glory and
admiration. Above him, he had commanders whose orders might or might
not suit him.”
Some interesting patterns emerge as
one reads this fine book. New York and Pennsylvania were responsible
for a disproportionate number of court-martialed colonels, perhaps
because the strong political machines in those states produced more
politicized and, presumably, less qualified colonels. In quite a few
cases, criminal charges were concocted by ambitious or resentful
junior officers seeking to rid themselves of unpopular commanders.
Alcohol was a common theme in many courts-martial, with either the
accused colonel or the accusing junior officer having overindulged.
There were more courts-martial during winter months, when troops
tended to be encamped, with more opportunities to get into trouble.
Many of the most disputatious colonels, physician members of the
Roundtable will not be surprised to learn, were lawyers before
donning Union blue. Acquittal rates were over 50% throughout the
war, with many an accused colonel being cleared of all charges and
ordered to “resume his sword and his duties.”
One who was unexpectedly cleared of
charges was Col. David H. Williams of the 82nd Pennsylvania. During
the Peninsula Campaign in June 1862, Williams failed to post pickets
and, when Confederate troops infiltrated his lines, he allegedly
“became so much frightened as to give several orders countermanding
each other, and was so confused as to be unfit for duty.” A week
later, cowering behind a tree, he ordered his troops to open fire on
soldiers they recognized to be comrades of the 61st Pennsylvania.
His troops refused to fire. When Williams repeated his order, some
of his men yelled, “Come out from behind that tree, you damned
coward, and see for yourself!”
 |
George B.
McClellan, "who relished the admonitory and uplifting
possibilities of court-martial reviews."
|
Every court-martial verdict was
passed up the chain of command, and sometimes even all the way to
President Lincoln himself. A general reviewing a court-martial
verdict could confirm or reverse the verdict, or remand the case for
a new court-martial. Some of the best writing by a general reviewing
verdicts was by George B. McClellan when he led the Army of the
Potomac. McClellan was, Lowry writes, “a man who relished the
admonitory and uplifting possibilities of court-martial reviews.
Whether it was the wisest use of his time may be questioned, but he
was more than equal to the task of writing a court-martial review
that would stand any degree of literary scrutiny.”
Tempers often flared in wartime,
however, and the reader will find plenty of less-elevated discourse.
There were insults aplenty flung about, with Union officers accusing
colleagues of being anything from “a damned knave, a damned fool and
an illiterate whelp,” to “a miserable reptile,” to having “a
mouthful of tongue.” The reader will find taunts such as “General
Logan can kiss my ass,” “You damned Hungarian humbug!” and “I’ll
pull your nose on dress parade.” No less a personage than Gen. Henry
W. Halleck wrote of one Bavarian-born officer, “I would rather trust
my dinner to a hungry dog than give [a general’s star] to a foreign
adventurer of this stamp. I have not the least doubt he would take
pay on either side and fight on none.”
We all know about the best and
brightest of the Civil War; here’s the bottom of the barrel. Here
are examples of misconduct ranging from the most contemptible
cowardice, to the colonel who liked to have obscene ditties sung to
him, to another with a taste for “low and bawdy engravings,” to
thieves, brigands, liars and drunkards with eagles on their
shoulders. Not to mention the officer who confessed of a late-night
civilian visitor to his tent, “I felt of her bosoms.”
For a very readable and insightful
overview of Civil War-era military justice and an entertaining
glimpse into wartime folly and criminality, I highly recommend this
book.
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 Tarnished Eagles: The Court-Martial of Fifty Union Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels
by Thomas P. Lowry
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Civil War titles at the Roundtable Bookstore
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