I eagerly await the Super Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas Chiefs. Such patience is worth waiting for those who remember the 2008-2009 Chiefs season. I am holding my breath by reading Noah Andre Trudeau’s Like Men of War. His work follows the combat of various USCTs. I am only in the first couple of chapters, but it is succinct and provides a detailed description of the fighting. I look forward to reading about the battle of New Market Heights.
During my doctorate program at Liberty University, I took a few courses related to early American history and the American Revolutionary War. In the early American colonies, the people who settled in Boston or New Amsterdam did not have large armies overseeing their protection. Pro-Catholic supporters of Great Britain fled to Maryland. Small towns that scoured the early colonies established small militias to protect them from native raids. There was no need for standing armies in the colonies. Furthermore, such a small population was already suspicious of large armies with much bloodshed overcoming Great Britain and Europe during the 17th century. This bloodshed resulted from the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War. Large armies caused devastation to many of the innocent inhabitants living in these spaces. Despite good intentions, Oliver Cromwell had a bad reputation for making himself a dictator after the Civil Wars of Great Britain. There was also the introduction of Enlightened philosophies under Voltaire and Rosseau.
George Whitefield, a leader of America’s Great Awakening, began giving political sermons during the French and Indian War, calling it a “just war.” He said, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” Even though Whitefield supported the war against the French, its conditions must be just and religious. These qualifications also influenced American thinking based upon the thousands that came to see him preach. So, a mixed pot of destruction, enlightenment, and the Great Awakening were consequential to American thinking about militaries and war. Colonists had a volunteer force and were happy with their separation from Europe. Therefore, were early colonists against war or simply against professional armies. This advent of philosophical debate, religion, and events certainly impacted those living in the colonies, but did the colonists separate the two ideas? It would be interesting to read about how these colonists viewed warfare altogether, if it should be strictly a last resort, or if they were simply against the professionalization of standing armies.
Finally, I began working on P.C. Headley’s The Life and Campaigns of General U. S. Grant. It is excellent thus far, but it was published in 1866 and has no footnotes. He seemed to have access to some of the reports and correspondence later published in the Official Records. I am curious if anyone knows more about this work or its author. He was a reverend and historical writer, but did he have any known connections to veterans of the Civil War? I am still looking for those answers, but anyone interested in his work can find it available online.
Kidd, Thomas S. George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.
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