Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 135

BOOK REVIEWS

captures the martial spirit that animated so many
Americans from the Revolution to the Civil War.
To make his argument, Herrera exploits thousands
of unpublished letters and manuscripts gleaned from
dozens of archives around the country. Preferring contemporary letters and accounts to later memoirs and
reminiscences, he captures the “unrehearsed and unembellished” thoughts of several generations of American
soldiers. From these he deduces a common multigenerational ideology that provided “order and gave greater
meaning” to their soldiering. Unlike scholars who take a
more sociological approach, such as Samuel Watson and
Robert Wettemann, Herrera adopts an almost pointillist
method. He carefully marshals his evidence point by
point, alternating color and contrast to paint a portrait
of early American soldiers.
The author builds his “military ethos of republicanism” through five overlapped topics: virtue, legitimacy,
self-governance, national mission, and fame and honor.
I found the chapter on self-governance, entitled “Free
Men in Uniform: Soldierly Self-Governance,” the most
stimulating and central to his argument. Here, he describes how the individualism of liberalism somewhat
fitfully reconciles itself to the hierarchical and communal demands of military service. American soldiers
did this chiefly through an insistence on voluntarism
and negotiations over the terms and conditions of
military service. For example, the near-universal militia
system gradually evolved into a more voluntary and
self-governing collection of militia units, where many
had the characteristics and exclusivity of social or
political clubs. Similarly, the volunteer soldiers enlisted
as “a contractual agreement freely entered into by the
soldiers and the government.” American soldiers took
these contracts seriously and expected their leaders to
do so as well.
Yet, Herrera links self-governance to the communal
responsibility of citizenship. He observes that to these
men, “bearing arms was the right and the responsibility
of the virtuous citizen.” Thus, the other chapters on virtue, legitimacy, national mission, and honor combine to
shape the self-governing individual into a soldier willing
to risk death. This martial spirit sustained these men
through ferocious battles in the Mexican and Civil Wars.
Indeed, the common “military ethos of republicanism”
or “shared civic-martial culture” contributed to the long
and bloody ordeal of the war for the Union.
MILITARY REVIEW  November-December 2015

While regular soldiers from colonial times onward
have lamented the preoccupation with individual rights
and often have complained about the indiscipline of
volunteers and the militia, American military leaders
adapted to the style of leadership needed to inspire
the American citizen-soldier. Schofield’s “Definition of
Discipline,” originating from the general’s experience in
the Civil War, is still memorized by West Point’s plebes
today. Our modern professional army remains imbued
with many of the same values that inspired the largely
volunteer soldiers two hundred years ago. Today’s citizen-soldiers still fight for “liberty and the republic.”
Donald B. Co