Booknotes: United States Military Justice in the Civil War

New Arrival:

• United States Military Justice in the Civil War: Court-Martial Practices and Administration by R. Gregory Lande (McFarland, 2024).

Opposing Civil War armies were filled with individualistic and often unruly volunteers loath to give up their hard-won rights and protections under the nation's unique republican system of government in order to become European-style military automatons. In order to instill and maintain discipline, it was necessary to develop a military justice system that balanced societal expectations of civil rights with the collective needs of the military. Opinions vary as to how well that necessary compromise was addressed in the Union Army. From the description: "While some scholars have criticized the Union military courts as arbitrary and excessively harsh, others have defended it as a necessary means of maintaining order in the face of unprecedented challenges faced by the Union."

R. Gregory Lande's United States Military Justice in the Civil War: Court-Martial Practices and Administration draws on "extensive primary research" to present a "compelling narrative based on a statistical analysis of 5,000 Union military trials, court records, historical legal publications, and insights from contemporary historians." "Offering a balanced perspective on the struggle between maintaining discipline and protecting the legal rights of service members," Instead of taking the more common approach and focusing on the U.S. Army system of justice, Lande's fresh overview takes in account all branches of the service. His book "analyzes the relationship between alcohol misuse and misconduct, covers the differing approaches to sexual misconduct across the services, and exposes the uneven and sometimes unfair application of military justice."

In addition to chapters covering alcohol's influences and various violence-related offenses, chapters addressing prosecutions over unauthorized absences and the category of "subordinate military crimes" [defined as "theft, forgery, consequential criticisms, malingering, gambling, and medical malfeasance"] are also included.