Synopses & Reviews
Starting with the decision by patriot leaders to create a corps of officers who were gentlemen and a body of soldiers who were not, Caroline Cox examines the great gap that existed in the conditions of service of soldiers and officers in the Continental army. She looks particularly at disparities between soldiers' and officers' living conditions, punishments, medical care, burial, and treatment as prisoners of war. Using pension records, memoirs, and contemporary correspondence, Cox illuminates not only the persistence of hierarchy in Revolutionary America but also the ways in which soldiers contested their low status.
Intriguingly, Cox notes that even as the army reinforced the lines of social hierarchy in many ways, it also united soldiers and officers by promoting similar conceptions of personal honor and the meaning of rank. In fact, she argues, the army fostered social mobility by encouraging ambitious men to separate themselves from the lowest levels of society and giving them the means to enact that separation. At a time when existing social arrangements were increasingly challenged by war and by political rhetoric that embraced the equal rights of men, Cox shows that change crept slowly into American military life.
Review
"
A Proper Sense of Honor depicts the Continental Army's officers and men as being united not only in a common struggle for liberty, but also in their shared understanding and acceptance of conceptions of personal honor and status. . . . It stands as an original and frequently engrossing contribution to the social history of that army."
-- Army History
Review
"[Illuminates] the cultural and political assumptions of those Americans who did not or could not leave written accounts of their experiences and beliefs. . . . Challenges the image of the American Revolution as an engine of social and political change that liberated Americans from Old World conventions and constraints."
William and Mary Quarterly
Review
"A very important study of the Continental Army's social organization. . . . Effectively bridges 18th-century military and civilian societies to produce a better view of Revolutionary War America. Highly recommended."
-- Choice
Synopsis
Cox examines the conditions of living and dying as experienced by soldiers and officers in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. She shows that the Army was an organization that both reinforced order and rank but also offered social mobility.
Synopsis
"[Illuminates] the cultural and political assumptions of those Americans who did not or could not leave written accounts of their experiences and beliefs. . . . Challenges the image of the American Revolution as an engine of social and political change that liberated Americans from Old World conventions and constraints."
William and Mary Quarterly "A very important study of the Continental Army's social organization. . . . Effectively bridges 18th-century military and civilian societies to produce a better view of Revolutionary War America. Highly recommended."
-- Choice "A Proper Sense of Honor depicts the Continental Army's officers and men as being united not only in a common struggle for liberty, but also in their shared understanding and acceptance of conceptions of personal honor and status. . . . It stands as an original and frequently engrossing contribution to the social history of that army."
-- Army History
About the Author
Caroline Cox is assistant professor of history at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.