A Proper Sense of Honor: Service and Sacrifice in George Washington's Army - Hardcover

Cox, Caroline

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080782884X ISBN 13: 9780807828847

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Caroline Cox is associate professor of history at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.

From the Inside Flap

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080782884X
• ISBN 13: 9780807828847
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368