Courage, ideology or both? This statue commemorates the charge of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment at Gettysburg on the second day of the battle. Ordered to counterattack to plug a breach in the Union line, the regiment began the charge with 262 men. It successfully contained the Confederate advance and helped save the Union position on Cemetery Ridge, but at a cost of 215 killed and wounded: a percentage loss of 82 percent. This is generally considered to be the highest percentage of casualties suffered by any Union regiment in a single battle during the entire Civil War.

Prof. Mark Grimsley
Autumn Quarter 1997

Office: 363 Dulles Hall

292-1855

E-mail: grimsley.1@osu.edu

Overview and Objectives

This course describes and analyzes the history of American military policy from the colonial period to the eve of the First World War. It focuses on the creation of American military institutions, the genesis of policy-making and maintenance of civilian control over that process, the interrelationship between foreign and military policy, the conduct of war, and the influence of American society upon the armed forces as social institutions.

Students will achieve an understanding of the main developments in American military history, the ways in which these developments reflected or shaped developments in general American history, and the main interpretations advanced by scholars who have studied this subject. They will also hone their skills at critical writing and analysis, and will gain greater insight into the way historians explore the human condition.

Texts

Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America., Revised and Expanded Edition. (Abbreviated in the syllabus as FTCD.)

Fred Anderson, A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War.

Gerald F. Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War.

James M. McPherson, What They Fought For, 1861-1865.

Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders.

These works can be purchased at SBX. They may also be available at Long's and the OSU Bookstore.

Enrollment

All students must be officially enrolled in the course by the end of the second full week of the quarter. No requests to add the course will be approved by the department chair after that time. Enrolling officially and on time is solely the responsibility of each student.

Make-up Exam Policy

If for any family or medical reason you find it absolutely necessary to miss an examination, you must provide written documentation to substantiate the request in order to take a make-up. Whenever possible, notify me in advance. Make-up exams are administered by the department at certain scheduled times during the quarter. If you take a make-up, it will be at one of these times.

Requirements

One mid-term (25%), one book review (30%), and final exam (30%). Participation in class discussions counts for the remaining 15%. Please bear in mind that I may conduct these discussions at any time.

Book reviews are due at the beginning of class on the date specified in the syllabus. Late book reviews will be penalized one full letter grade for every day in which they are late.

Lecture Schedule

Week 1.

Introduction; administrative
Military history: What's the point?

Readings: FTCD, intro, ch. 1

Week 2.

Colonial America, 1607-1763
The Militia System

Native American Warfare
Wars for Empire

Readings: FTCD, ch. 2; Anderson, all.

Week 3.

Revolutionary America, 1763-1783
Anglo-American Tensions, 1763-1775

American Revolution - I.
American Revolution - II.

Readings: FTCD, ch. 3

Week 4.

American Revolution - III.
American Revolution - IV.

The New Republic, 1784-1815
Confederation Military Policy.

Readings: FTCD, chs. 3, 4

Week 5.

Federalist Military Policy
Origins of the War of 1812

Readings: FTCD, ch. 4

Midterm Exam (Wednesday, October 22)

Week 6.

The War of 1812 - I.
The War of 1812 - II.

An Expanding Republic, 1815-1860
The Military and the New Democracy - I.

Readings: FTCD, chs. 4, 5

Week 7.

The Military and the New Democracy - II.
The Military and the New Democracy - III.

The Mexican War - I.
The Mexican War - II.

Readings: FTCD, ch. 5

Week 8.

The Army on the Frontier, 1848-1861
The Crisis of the Union, 1861-1877

The Civil War - I.
The Civil War - II.

Readings: FTCD, chs. 5, 6; Linderman, all; McPherson, all.

Week 9.

The Civil War - III.
The Army and Emancipation

The Army and Reconstruction
Toward an Organizational Society, 1877-1914; Book Reviews Due (Wednesday, November 19)

Readings: FTCD, ch. 7.

Week 10.

The Indian Wars
Military Reforms - I.

Military Reforms - II.
The Spanish-American War.

Readings: FTCD, ch. 8; Roosevelt, all.

Week 11.

The Philippine War.
The Root Reforms

The New Navy
American Military Policy on the Eve of the First World War

Readings: FTCD, chs. 8, 9

The Final Exam will be held in the normal classroom on Tuesday, December 9, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:18 p.m.

Introduction

History 668.01 describes and analyzes the history of American military policy from the colonial period to the eve of the First World War. It focuses on the creation of American military institutions, the genesis of policy-making and maintenance of civilian control over that process, the inter-relationship between foreign and military policy, the conduct of war, and the influence of American society upon the armed forces as social institutions. It is an upper division course intended to be taught at the graduate student level. It is also an elective; I therefore assume that students have chosen to take it because they are interested and motivated to learn the material.

The course requires about 100 pages of reading per week--sometimes more, seldom less. If you accept this reality at the outset you will be all right. If you assume you can pick up everything from lecture or from a light skimming of the main text you will not do well. It's as simple as that. But don't assume that you can blow off the lectures, either. For one thing, paying attention to the lectures will help keep you on track, so that you don't overemphasize some issues while ignoring others. For another, good attendance helps generate a certain goodwill between instructor and student, because it more or less demonstrates that the student is trying. That goodwill can come in handy if you fall down on the mid-term and need a little extra help. Finally, there is almost always a strong positive correlation between good attendance and good course performance. So while lecture attendance is not required, it is strongly encouraged.

Office Hours

Similarly, I encourage you to take full advantage of my office hours and those of the teaching associate. As a practical matter, you may want to visit him in preference to myself, since he will be grading your examinations.

Examinations

The mid-terms and final are divided into two main parts: "identifications" and essays.

1. Identifications

Identification questions call upon the student to identify and give the significance of a given term. The identification portion of the answer should define the term and/or discuss its important features. The significance portion should link the term to one or more of the larger conceptual issues raised in the course. Example:

Alfred Thayer Mahan - professor at the U.S. Naval War College, prophet of seapower and author (among many other works) of The Influence of Seapower Upon History. Mahan's work laid stress on command of the seas as a key to national power and emphasized the creation of strong battle fleets as the means by which this might be achieved. Denigrated commerce-raiding and stressed the destruction of the enemy's main battle fleet as the most appropriate objective. Significance: Mahan was the foremost proponent of the ideas that underlay the creation of steam-powered, big gun steel navy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and a major example of the new military professionalization that occurred during this period.

Notice that this ID was answered in just four sentences. Try to be as succinct when you write your own. Too often students will include a great deal of extraneous information in their ID responses that improves their grade not a whit. Just as often they will fail to address the ID's significance; i.e., to place it in a larger context. Avoid making either mistake.

2. Essay

The identification portion of the test is concerned primarily with the student's understanding of the facts. By contrast, the essay is more concerned with the student's grasp of the overarching concepts and how these concepts organize and give meaning to the facts themselves. Students frequently assume that the essay is just another way for them to demonstrate what they know about the material that has been presented in class. This leads them to do a "memory dump," which can have unpleasant consequences and usually does, because an essay is intended to test your ability to think analytically and to explain your analysis on paper. This involves, in turn:

a. an ability to write clearly, so that the reader is not baffled by misspellings, grammatical faults, run-on sentences, etc.;

b. an ability to articulate a thesis; in other words, to orient the reader to the question that will be answered and to explain why the question is important;

c. an ability to prioritize. What issues are most important in answering the question? What is the most logical order in which to present them? What examples most clearly illustrate these critical issues?

d. an ability to avoid the irrelevant: everything you write should relate directly and explicitly to the question posed;

e. an ability to write an essay that is proportional to the time allowed for its completion. If you have 20 minutes to complete an essay, you must tailor your depth of coverage so that you cover the whole question in 20 minutes, without omitting important points or overemphasizing one point to the detriment of another.

Note: The exams will test you on the three additional books assigned in the course. For the midterm, you'll be tested on Fred Anderson's A People's Army ; for the final, Gerald Linderman's Embattled Courage, James M. McPherson's What They Fought For; and Theodore Roosevelt's The Rough Riders.

Book Reviews

1. Selection of Books

You must choose two books from the bibliography in the back of this packet, but you cannot choose books that are already part of the reading for the course. The books should be related in some way--chronologically, thematically, etc.--and you should examine the books in a comparative fashion.

2. Content

I expect your book reviews to conform more closely to those found in scholarly journals than to those in newspapers and general interest magazines. In newspapers and magazines, the main point of the review--besides telling what the book is about--is often to give the reader a sense of the work's style and dramatic qualities. Academic reviews, on the other hand, have a somewhat different agenda. Their purpose is fourfold: (1) to explain briefly what the book is about, (2) to analyze its thesis, (3) to offer a critical assessment of the book's strengths and weaknesses, and (4) to appraise its historical value. While this is not intended as a rigid formula, each of these points should be addressed in the course of your review.

1. What the Books Are About - Offer the reader a brief overview of the books' subject matter, but try to encapsulize each work within three or four paragraphs. Identify the major events and personalities examined, key concepts employed, etc., but do not summarize the books in detail.

2. Thesis - What are the authors' main arguments? What are they trying to demonstrate or refute? Do they reach similar or divergent conclusions?

3. Strengths and Weaknesses - What do you think of the authors' theses? Do they do a good job of proving it? What sources did they use--personal experience, unpublished government documents, private manuscript collections, published primary or secondary works? If the books deal extensively with non-English-speaking nations, did they consult sources written in the appropriate foreign languages? Do you think they addressed all the relevant issues or can you think of some that they ought to have examined but did not? What were the authors' qualifications for writing such books? Did they have a particular ax to grind? Is their writing style clear or is their prose convoluted and difficult to follow?

4. Historical Importance - How useful would an interested historian find the books to be? What makes you think so? Most especially, place the books within the context of one or more of the main themes and concepts discussed in the course.

These questions and issues are intended as examples of what your paper should cover. They are not a checklist. Some may be more relevant to the books you select than others while you may come up with other questions not mentioned here.

3. Format

Your review should be typed, double-spaced, and about eight pages in length. It should be written clearly and free of grammatical errors and misspellings. I AM NOT KIDDING.

On a separate cover sheet, give the review some sort of title and below it, place your name, the course number, and the date. The book's bibliographical data should appear at the top of the review: author, title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, number of pages. For example:

Christopher Duffy, The Military Experience in the Age of Reason. New York: Atheneum, 1988. Pp. xi, 446.

In instances where you quote directly from the works under review, a parenthetical citation [e.g., (Duffy, 242)] is appropriate. If other works are quoted, give the full citation in a footnote [e.g., Christopher Duffy, The Military Experience in the Age of Reason (New York: Atheneum, 1988), 242.] When in doubt, consult an appropriate reference work. One of the best is Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (5th ed., Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1987). It sells for about $7.95 in paperback and is readily available.

In the past, I have received a number of book reviews that do not meet the above criteria, with dire consequences for the student.

Possible Book Review Pairings

The list below offers just some of the many possibilities for comparative book reviews. For other books, see the extensive bibliographies at the end of Chapters 1-9 of For the Common Defense. You are not limited to these possibilities. However, the two books you suggest must offer equally good opportunities for comparison, and you must clear the books with me beforehand.

American Sea Power

Harold and Margaret Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 1776-1918 (1939).
Kenneth J. Hagan, This People's Navy (1991).

Colonial Wars: General

Howard H. Peckham, The Colonial Wars, 1689-1763 (1964).
Ian K. Steele, Warpaths: Invasions of North America (1994).

King Philip's War

Douglas E. Leach, Flintlock and Tomahawk: New England in King Philip's War (1958)
Russell Bourne, The Red King's Rebellion: Racial Politics in New England, 1675-1678 (1989).

Colonial Anglo-American Tensions

Douglas E. Leach, Roots of Conflict: British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677-1763 (1986).
John W. Shy, Toward Lexington: The Role of the British Army in the Coming of the American Revolution (1965).

Colonial Wars: War and Society

Harold E. Selesky, War and Society in Colonial Connecticut (1990).
James Titus, The Old Dominion at War: Society, Politics, and Warfare in Late Colonial Virginia (1991).

War of Independence: General

Piers Mackesy, The War for America, 1775-1783 (1964).
Don Higginbotham, The War for American Independence (1971).

War of Independence: African American Participation

Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (1961).
Sylvia R. Frey, Water From the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age (1992).

War of Independence: Logistics

R. Arthur Bowler, Logistics and the Failure of the British Army in America, 1775-1783 (1975).
E. Wayne Carp, To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775-1783 (1984).

Origins of American Military Policy: General

Richard H. Kohn, Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783-1802 (1975).
James Kirby Martin and Mark E. Lender, A Respectable Army: The Military Origins of the Republic, 1763-1789 (1982).

Naval Officership

Christopher McKee, A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794-1815 (1991).
Peter Karsten, The Naval Aristocracy (1972).

Origins of American Military Policy

Lawrence D. Cress, Citizens in Arms: The Army and Militia in American Society to the War of 1812 (1982).
Theodore Crackel, Mr. Jefferson's Army (1987).

War of 1812

Don Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (1989).
J.C.A. Stagg, Mr. Madison's War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783-1830 (1983).

Navy Social History

Harold D. Langley, Social Reform in the United States Navy, 1798-1862 (1967).
James E. Valle, Rocks and Shoals: Disciplinary Policies in the United States Navy from 1800 to 1861 (1980).

Mexican War: Social Aspects

Robert W. Johannsen, To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (1985).
James M. McCaffrey, Army of Manifest Destiny: The American Soldier in the Mexican War, 1846-1848 (1992).

Civil War: Occupied Territories

Stephen V. Ash, When the Yankees Came: Conflict and Chaos in the Occupied South, 1861-1865 (1995).
Daniel E. Sutherland, Seasons of War: The Ordeal of a Virginia Community, 1861-1865 (1995).

Civil War: Total War

Charles Royster, The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans (1991).
Mark Grimsley, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865 (1995).

Civil War: George B. McClellan

Warren W. Hassler, Jr., General George B. McClellan: Shield of the Union (1957)
Stephen W. Sears, George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon (1988)

Civil War: William T. Sherman
John F. Marszalek, Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order (1992).
Michael Fellman, Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman (1995).

Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant

William S. McFeely, Grant (1981).
Brooks D. Simpson, "Let Us Have Peace": Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).

Civil War: Tactics

Paddy Griffith, Civil War Battle Tactics (1989).
Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson, Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (1982).

Civil War: Winning and Losing

David H. Donald, ed., Why the North Won the Civil War (1962).
Richard E. Beringer et al., Why the South Lost the Civil War (1986).

Civil War: Medical Aspects

George W. Adams, Doctors in Blue: The Medical History of the Union Army in the Civil War (1952).
H. H. Cunningham, Doctors in Gray: The Confederate Medical Service(1958).

Civil War: Blockade

Robert M. Browning, Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron During the Civil War (1993).
Steven A. Wise, Lifeline of the Confederacy: The Blockade Runners (1987).

Civil War: Command and Strategy

T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (1952)
Steven E. Woodworth, Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West (1990)

Civil War: Military Culture

Richard McMurry, Two Great Rebel Armies (1986).
Michael C.C. Adams, Our Masters the Rebels: A Speculation on Union Military Failure in the East, 1861-1865 (1978) [reprinted as Fighting For Defeat].

Civil War: The Common Soldier

Earl J. Hess, The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat (1997)
Larry J. Daniel, Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee: A Portrait of Life in a Confederate Army (1991)

Civil War: Draft

Albert B. Moore, Conflict and Conscription in the Confederacy (1924).
John Geary, We Need Men (1990).

Civil War: African American Participation

Dudley Taylor Cornish, The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 (1956).
Joseph T. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers (1989).

The Frontier Army, 1865-1890: General

Robert M. Utley, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891 (1973).
Robert Wooster, The Military and United States Indian Policy, 1865-1903 (1988).

The Frontier Army, 1865-1890: Command Personalities

Robert C. Athearn, William Tecumseh Sherman and the Settlement of the West (1956).
Paul Andrew Hutton, Phil Sheridan and His Army (1985).

The Frontier Army, 1865-1890: Custer

Robert M. Utley, Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier (1988).
Louise Barnett, Touched By Fire: The Life, Death, and Mythic Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer (1996).

The Frontier Army, 1865-1890: Social Aspects

Don Rickey, Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay (1963).
Sherry L. Smith, The View From Officer's Row: Army Perceptions of Western Indians (1990).

The Frontier Army, 1865-1890: African American Participation

William H. Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Negro Cavalry in the West (1966)
Marvin E. Fletcher, The Black Soldier and Officer in the United States Army, 1891-1917 (1974).

The Frontier Army, 1865-1890: Native Americans

Thomas W. Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue Soldiers: Indian Scouts and Auxiliaries with the U.S. Army 1860-1890 (1982)
Robert M. Utley, The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull (1993).

Military Reform: Military Education

Carol Reardon, Soldiers and Scholars: The US Army and the Uses of Military History, 1865-1920 (1990).
Perry D. Jamieson, Crossing the Deadly Ground: United States Army Tactics, 1865-1899 (1994).

Spanish-American War

Gerald F. Linderman, The Mirror of War: American Society and the Spanish-American War (1974).
David F. Trask, The War with Spain in 1898 (1981).

Philippine War: General

John Gates, Schoolbooks and Krags: The United States Army in the Philippines, 1898-1902 (1972).
Stuart C. Miller, "Benevolent Assimilation": The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903 (1982).

Philippine War: Operations

Brian M. Linn, The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899-1902 (1989).
Anthony May, Battle for Batangas: A Philippine Province at War (1991).

Naval Professionalism and Reform

Peter Karsten, The Naval Aristocracy (1972).
Ronald Spector, Professors of War: The Naval War College and the Development of the Naval Profession (1977).

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