Synopses & Reviews
"[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 A Proper Sense of Honor brings us closer to the inner life of the Continental Army than any previous book.
On Point This is an intriguing, logically organized, and well-written book.
Fred Anderson, University of Colorado at Boulder This is an excellent study, highly original in its approach.
Don Higginbotham, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A well-crafted study. . . . Cox provides a vast amount of useful and fascinating information.
Journal of American History This is a very good book indeed. Cox's writing is concise and graceful throughout, her organization is admirably clear, and her argument is compelling.
American Historical Review
Review
A Proper Sense of Honor brings us closer to the inner life of the Continental Army than any previous book.
On Point
Review
This is a very good book indeed. Cox's writing is concise and graceful throughout, her organization is admirably clear, and her argument is compelling.
American Historical Review
Review
This is an excellent study, highly original in its approach.
Don Higginbotham, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Review
A well-crafted study. . . . Cox provides a vast amount of useful and fascinating information.
Journal of American History
Review
A Proper Sense of Honor brings us closer to the inner life of the Continental Army than any previous book.
On Point
Review
This is an intriguing, logically organized, and well-written book.
Fred Anderson, University of Colorado at Boulder
Synopsis
This book examines the decision of the Revolutionary leadership to create a gentlemanly officer corps and the effects of the decision as the Continental Army's ranks came to be made up of society's poorest men. The differing standard of physical treatment for soldiers and officers in punishment, sickness, and death is the prism through which Caroline Cox studies social relations both within the army and between it and the larger society. The army was an organization that both reinforced order and rank but also offered some social mobility.
About the Author
Caroline Cox is associate professor of history at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.
Table of Contents
ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
1 Take the Length of Every Soldier: Servants, Sons, and Gentlemen of the Continental Army
2 A Proper Sense of Honor: Educating Officers and Soldiers
3 Necessary and Excusable Measures: The Policy and Practice of Punishment
4 Oh the Groans of the Sick: Health, Status, and Military Medicine
5 The Last Duty to the Dead: Death and Burial in the Continental Army
6 Onspeakable Sufrings Such As No Man Can Tell: Status and the Treatment of Prisoners of War
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index