History 767
Studies in Military History:
The American Experience, 1607-1914
Prof. Grimsley
363 Dulles Hall
292-1855
E-mail:
grimsley.1@osu.edu
Home
Page: http://www.cohums.ohio‑state.edu/history/people/grimsley.1
Overview
This graduate readings
course focuses on major themes in American military history between 1600 and
1914. These themes include soldier motivation, the development of American
military institutions, and whether there is such a thing as a characteristic
American way of war. The emphasis is on
preparation for the Ph.D. general examination.
Books are available at SBX.
Students are strongly encouraged to audit
(formally or informally) History 582.01, U.S. Military History to 1914.
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.
Requirements
One short book review (1,200 words); one final paper
(4,000-5,000 words) on a topic to be mutually agreed upon between the student
and myself. The review is due at the
beginning of class on Tuesday, October 23.
The final paper is due by close of business on Tuesday, December 4.
The book review is to be written on any of the required readings (aside from articles and book excerpts). It should conform to reviews published in refereed journals. See, for example, Book Reviewing in the AHR [American Historical Review] and Steven Stowe, "Thinking About Reviews," Journal of American History 78 (September 1991):591-595.
The final paper should be an historiographical essay. It may address the salient literature concerning a research issue in which the student is interested, or it may address the salient literature underlying a question likely to be asked in the Ph.D. general exam. Either way, the final paper should be firmly grounded in the American military experience between 1600 and 1914.
I encourage you to consult a good book on writing style--William Strunk's famous Elements of Style is available on the web. And you should definitely own and use Karen Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.
Schedule
Week 1.
The Colonial Experience: An
Overview
Required:
Don Higginbotham , “The Early
American Way of War: Reconnaissance and Appraisal,” William and Mary Quarterly,
3rd. Ser., Vol. 44, No. 2. (Apr., 1987), pp. 230-273. This article is available through J-STOR (www.jstor.org)
Supplemental:
John M. Ferling, A
Wilderness of Miseries: War and
Warriors in Early America (1980).
Week 2.
The American Way of War
Required:
Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War : A History of
United States Military Strategy and Policy (1973).
Supplemental:
Williamson Murray and Mark
Grimsley, “Introduction,” and Peter Maslowski, “To the Edge of Greatness: The United States, 1783-1865,” in Williamson
Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin Bernstein, eds., The Making of
Strategy: Rulers, States, and War
(1994).
Week 3. The Colonial Military Experience
Required:
Fred Anderson, Crucible of War : The Seven Years' War and
the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766
Supplemental:
James
Axtell, The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North
America (1985).
John E. Ferling, Struggle for a Continent: The Wars of Early America (1993).
Adam
J. Hirsch, “The Collision of Military Cultures in Seventeenth-Century New
England,” Journal of American History
74 (March 1988).
Douglas
E. Leach, Arms for Empire: A Military History of the British Colonies
in North America, 1607-1763 (1973).
Howard
H. Peckham, The Colonial Wars, 1689-1763
(1964).
William
Pencak, War, Politics, and Revolution
(1981).
Daniel
Richter, “War and
Culture: The Iroquois Experience,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series,
vol. 40 (1983).
Peter
E. Russell, “Redcoats
in the Wilderness: British Officers and
Irregular Warfare in Europe and America, 1740 to 1760,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, vol. 35 (October 1978).
Harold E. Selesky, War and Society in Colonial Connecticut
(1990).
Ian K. Steele, Betrayals:
Fort William Henry and the “Massacre” (1990).
James
Titus, The Old Dominion at War: Society, Politics, and Warfare in Late
Colonial Virginia (1991).
Week
4. The Revolutionary Military
Experience
Required:
John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed : Reflections on
the Military Struggle for American Independence (1976)
Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War : The
Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783 (1979)
Supplemental:
Thomas
C. Barrow, "The American Revolution as a Colonial War for Independence,"
William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd
Series, vol. 25 (July 1968).
Richard
Buel, Dear Liberty: Connecticut’s Mobilization for the
Revolutionary War (1981).
James
Kirby Martin and Mark E. Lender, A
Respectable Army: The Military
Origins of the Republic, 1763‑1789 (1982)
Don
Higginbotham, Daniel Morgan: Revolutionary Rifleman (1961)
_________,
The War for American Independence
(1978)
_________,
Reconsiderations on the Revolutionary War
(1978).
________,
War and Society in Revolutionary
America: The Wider Dimensions of
Conflict (1988).
Piers
Mackesy, The War for America, 1775-1783
(1964).
Robert
Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789
(1982).
Dave R.
Palmer, The Way of the Fox: American Strategy in the War for America
(1975).
Week 5.
The Rise of Military Professionalism
Required:
William B. Skelton, An American Profession of Arms: The Army
Officer Corps, 1784-1861 (1992).
Allan R. Millett, The
General (introduction to be handed out in class)
Supplemental:
Edward
M. Coffman, “The Long
Shadow of The Soldier and the State,”
Journal of Military History 55
(January 1991).
Samuel
P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State
(1956).
Christopher
McKee, A Gentlemanly and Honorable
Profession: The Creation of a U.S. Naval
Officer Corps, 1794-1815 (1991).
James
L. Morrison, Jr., “The Best School in the
World”: West Point, The Pre-Civil War
Years, 1835-1866 (1986).
Week 6.
The African American Military Experience
Required:
Sylvia R. Frey, Water
from the Rock: Black Resistance in a
Revolutionary Age (1991).
Joseph T. Glatthaar , Forged in Battle : The Civil War Alliance of
Black Soldiers and White Officers (1990).
Supplemental:
Ira Berlin et al., Slaves No More: Three Essays in
Interpretation (1992)
Dudley Taylor Cornish,
The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 (1956)
Merton Dilllon, Slavery Attacked (1988)
Louis Gerteis, From Contraband to Freedman (1973)
Noah Andre Trudeau, Like Men of
War: Black Troops in the Civil War,
1862-1865 (1998)
Week 7.
“Manifest Destiny”
Required: Readings
to be distributed in class.
Week 8.
The Civil War: Victory and
Defeat
Required:
Richard E. Beringer et al., Why the South Lost the Civil War (1986)
Gary W. Gallagher, The
Confederate War (1998).
Mark Grimsley, “Surviving
Military Revolution: The American Civil
War,” in MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, eds., The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050.
Supplemental:
Gabor S. Boritt, ed., Why
the Confederacy Lost (1990)
Mark Grimsley and Brooks D. Simpson, eds., The Collapse of the Confederacy (2001)
Week 9.
The Motivation of American Soldiers
Required:
Fred Anderson, A People's Army : Massachusetts Soldiers and
Society in the Seven Years' War (1984)
James M. McPherson, For
Cause and Comrades : Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997).
Mark Grimsley, “In Not So
Dubious Battle: The Motivations of
Civil War Soldiers,” Journal of Military
History 62 (January 1998): 175-188.
(Available on JSTOR)
Supplemental:
Earl
J. Hess, The Union Soldier in Battle:
Enduring the Ordeal of Combat (1997)
Gerald
F. Linderman, Embattled Courage: The
Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (1987)
John
A. Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic:
Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791-1794
(1984)
James M. McCaffrey, Army of Manifest Destiny: The American Soldier in the Mexican War,
1846-1848 (1992).
James
M. McPherson, What They Fought For,
1861-1865 (1994)
Reid
Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers: Their
Expectations and Their Experiences (1988)
Charles
Patrick Neimeyer, America Goes to
War: A Social History of the
Continental Army (1996).
Week 10.
Empire
Theodore Roosevelt, The
Rough Riders
Additional readings to be distributed.
Supplemental
Thomas
W. Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue Soldiers: Indian Scouts and Auxiliaries with the
U.S. Army 1860‑1890 (1982)
Thomas
C. Leonard, Above the Battle : War Making in America from Appomattox to Versailles
(1977)
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).
Stuart
C. Miller, "Benevolent
Assimilation": The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899‑1903
(1982).
Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter
Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century America (1992) [Part I only]
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