This War Ain’t Over: Fighting the Civil War in New Deal America by Nina Silber (original) (raw)

2019, Journal of Southern History

View related articles View Crossmark data usually correctly-that they would not face serious hardship. The allure of cash remained fundamental later in the war. According to Marvel, this was the primary motivation for veterans to reenlist in 1863, and it also explains the influx of 1864 recruits, who were either too young, too old, or otherwise unsuitable for the field. Military service could, alternatively, be a boon, have little effect, or worsen the financial lot of Union soldiers. Marvel contends that "hundreds of thousands … had entered the army without skills, had learned nothing useful during their service, and faced an increasingly demanding job market" (226). He observes that many veterans pursued the awarding of a pension because of their impoverishment. Ultimately, he notes that the participants' ideological statements should be regarded as suspect given the general contempt, in the period, for admissions of economic incentive. In the postwar context, veterans were reluctant to discuss the role of money in their decision to serve, since the surging bounties that had once enticed men now appeared to be greed that tarnished the system. Lincoln's Mercenaries is fluidly written and convincing. It should appeal to academics and enthusiasts alike. Some may bristle at the book's title, but in Marvel's view, the term "mercenaries" aptly describes men who could earn more cash as Federals than they could otherwise. He encourages a reappraisal of the Civil War soldier, situating the Union Army within American military history, observing that material inducements were likewise critical for the Continental Army in the War of Independence and remain so in the all-volunteer force of today. The author's research introduces several promising avenues that merit further exploration. He notes that financially driven men sometimes lacked the will to fight, offering the prospect of studying whether the profit motive impacted combat performance. This inquiry could be extended to determine whether that factor also bore upon a soldier's conduct between battles. In 1984, historian John A. Lynn theorized the existence of three types of motivation: initial, combat, and sustaining. Marvel has written persuasively that economics had a major influence on the first type, and it remains for scholars to apply this line of inquiry to the others.