Booknotes: Rites of Retaliation

New Arrival:
• Rites of Retaliation: Civilization, Soldiers, and Campaigns in the American Civil War by Lorien Foote (UNC Press, 2021).

It's striking how many contemporary Civil War observers, even those with the best classical education and further knowledge of western military history, could so often deem the actions of the other side as the most infamous in recorded history. Sure, one can understand the partisan passions and hyperbolic propaganda impulses of the time, but it's still a bit odd. However, when it came to their own actions, "Union and Confederate politicians, military commanders, everyday soldiers, and civilians claimed their approach to the conflict was civilized, in keeping with centuries of military tradition meant to restrain violence and preserve national honor."

From the description: "One hallmark of civilized warfare was a highly ritualized approach to retaliation. This ritual provided a forum to accuse the enemy of excessive behavior, to negotiate redress according to the laws of war, and to appeal to the judgment of other civilized nations." Lorien Foote's new study Rites of Retaliation: Civilization, Soldiers, and Campaigns in the American Civil War examines those rituals. Rather than attempt to cover the entire breadth of the conflict, Foote understandably narrows her approach to a more localized geography (the Union Department of the South's area of operations) where the actions of both sides were emblematic of the retaliation rituals she find most significant.

While Foote's chosen boundaries of study (the sea islands and coastal counties of South Carolina, Georgia, and North Florida) do not possess within them the scale of guerrilla warfare that would permit strong insights into an aspect of the war involving other sanctioned 'rites of retaliation' of primary significance, they certainly do address many others. More from the description: "As the war progressed, Northerners and Southerners feared they were losing their essential identity as civilized, and the attention to retaliation grew more intense. When Black soldiers joined the Union army in campaigns in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, raiding plantations and liberating enslaved people, Confederates argued the war had become a servile insurrection. And when Confederates massacred Black troops after battle, killed white Union foragers after capture, and used prisoners of war as human shields, Federals thought their enemy raised the black flag and embraced savagery."

Rites of Retaliation "sheds light on how Americans fought over what it meant to be civilized and who should be extended the protections of a civilized world." This book also reminds us how useful a comprehensive history of the Department of the South might be. Apparently, one was in the works, but I've yet to encounter any update over the many years that have passed since I first read about it.