Book News: Shattered Courage

How Civil War soldiers reacted to battlefield combat has always been a part of prolific military historian Earl Hess's wide range of scholarly interests. His 1997 study The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat heavily influenced our modern understanding of the ways in which Civil War soldiers experienced fighting and learned to cope with its many physical and psychological horrors and trials.

Next year's Shattered Courage: Soldiers Who Refused to Fight in the American Civil War (UP of Kansas, March 2026) marks a return to that area of study with a major examination of "those men who tried but failed to meet the test of battle in the Civil War." Soldier behaviors and reactions ranging from courage and cowardice to complete surrender have received noteworthy attention in a number of recent works, among them those from Lesley Gordon, David Silkenat, and the late Peter Carmichael, but Hess's upcoming volume aims to provide "the first comprehensive account of soldiers who refused to fight in the midst of combat."

Employing groundbreaking statistical analysis and "decades of research," Hess "charts the limits on combat morale" and is "the first historian to identify combat defaulters from personal accounts and official reports and to then examine their service records to discover what happened to them in the military system." The author's work also traces how both comrades and the army system in general reacted to and dealt with the phenomenon. I have to admit that I've never come across the term "combat defaulter" before (perhaps Hess coined it himself). Such men are described as being "(f)ar from heroes but not deserters," with most willing to try again the test of combat.

Review - "American Civil War Amphibious Tactics" by Ron Field

[American Civil War Amphibious Tactics (Elite, 262) by Ron Field, illustrated by Steve Noon (Osprey Publishing, 2025). Softcover, photos, illustrations, original color art, notes, select bibliography, index. Pp. 64. ISBN:978-1-4728-6316-4. $21]

Everyone can agree with the proposition that U.S. Army-Navy combined operations conducted along both the southern coastline and the continent's strategic inland waterways contributed mightily to Union victory during the Civil War. That significance makes the topic highly appropriate for inclusion in Osprey Publishing's Elite series, which traces "(t)he history of military forces, artifacts, personalities and techniques of warfare." All of those elements are prominently displayed in Ron Field's American Civil War Amphibious Tactics.

Of course, Civil War amphibious operations collectively constitute a very broad topic that can only be selectively addressed in a 64-page study. Field, a frequent Osprey contributor, nevertheless offers readers of all backgrounds a consistently interesting short narrative that touches upon a number of important campaigns and smaller operations. Along the way, Field's writing identifies a number of key military and civilian figures involved as well as specialized equipment and methodologies employed during troop landings on beaches and riverbanks. Given the vast disparity between the war's opposing sides when it came to their respective amphibious capabilities, it's understandable that the topic is addressed entirely from the Union perspective within this limited space, but it is nevertheless the case that Confederate-led combined operations efforts, which did achieve some noteworthy successes during the war, merit at least some recognition.

Amphibious operations summarized in the text include a selection of early-war events in eastern North Carolina between initial Union success at Hatteras Inlet in August 1861 and the fall of New Bern in March 1862. Smaller inland incursions that followed Union occupation of most of North Carolina's coastline are additionally described, those 1862-64 events serving as lenses through which to discuss the presence and actions of lesser-known specialized units such as the First New York Marine Artillery and the Naval Battalion of the 13th New York Heavy Artillery. Though most of the book focuses on coastal operations, the volume also touches upon the Mississippi Marine Brigade's raiding and counter-guerrilla activities in the Mississippi River Valley from 1862-64. Once it became clear that remaining heavily fortified cities and harbors in North and South Carolina could not be captured by direct naval attack alone (that recognition following the dismal failure of the grand ironclad assault on Charleston Harbor in April 1863), a Fleet Brigade of sailors and marines was formed to support shore attacks. Participation in the failed boat assault against Fort Sumter on September 8, 1863 and the campaign against Fort Fisher (December 1864-January 1865) are recounted in the book as examples of that formation's activities.

The above narrative takes pains to direct attention (within the main text as well as in photos and their captions) toward the experiences and signal achievements of numerous officers and men who might otherwise have received little exposure in the literature. It is also worthy of note that the text is accompanied by copious embedded source notes, that very welcome feature being a new, or at least relatively recent, development among Osprey titles (at least in this reviewer's admittedly limited sampling). Steve Noon's color artwork consists of vivid depictions of amphibious warfare action scenes and combat imagery as well as uniform and equipment details.

A selection of essential ships, weaponry, and equipment are featured in the book. The contributions of Norman Wiard designs, which include a multi-use 12-lb. boat howitzer that could be flexibly attached to a launch and a shallow-draft double-ender troop transport vessel (likely modeled after existing ferry boat designs) specially created for amphibious operations, are prominently displayed at many different places in the book. Methods for getting fighting men from their transports to the shore (obviously a key step in all amphibious warfare endeavors) are also described, one being the stringing together of a long line of troop-loaded surfboats behind a swift-moving steamship, the angular momentum created upon casting off the tow line helping carry the small boats to the target beach at speed.

This volume, a fine addition to Osprey Publishing's Elite series, provides readers of all backgrounds a strong introductory-level window into Union amphibious landing and support operations during the Civil War.