Punitive War: Confederate Guerrillas and Union Reprisals
The issue of Confederate guerrilla or irregular operations and Union responses to them has been the subject of increasing study by historians. Books by such scholars as Mark Neely, Mark Grimsley, and Stephen Ash have offered differing conclusions and interpretations of the impact and extent of Federal countermeasures to the complex topic. In short, these scholars and others have wrestled with how “hard” or “punitive” the Civil War was and the extent guerrilla activities contributed to it. Clay Mountcastle, a United States Army officer, argues that Rebel guerrilla operations are central to an explanation for the destruction wrought by Union armies on Southern civilians’ homes, farms and livelihoods. In his words, “enough evidence exists to establish a credible cause-and-effect relationship between Southern guerrillas and the Union’s espousal of punitive war that exceeds other explanations for the change.” The author initiates his study with an examination of the antebellum Regular Army’s response to guerrillas, particularly in the Seminole and Mexican wars. In both conflicts, the army resorted to the destruction of villages and the punishment of alleged supporters of the irregulars. While the methods varied between the Seminoles and Mexicans, the frustration and anger engendered by enemy forays caused American troops to blame noncombatants. In Mountcastle’s judgment, the experience of these previous conflicts “failed to prepare the United States for the difficulties of guerrilla warfare in the Civil War.” When the conflict began with the firing on Fort Sumter, few Americans, North or South, foresaw the abyss of death and destruction into which the nation slid for four years. Within the confines of conventional warfare, argues Mountcastle, guerrilla operations hardened the nature of the conflict and led directly to the Union army’s adoption of “punitive warfare.” This policy originated not in Washington, D.C., but in the field, where Federal officers and enlisted men were victimized by Rebel partisans and irregulars. The leading advocates of punishing Southern civilians were Henry W. Halleck, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman and Philip H. Sheridan. Mountcastle examines guerrilla activities and Union responses in Missouri, along the Mississippi River, in Georgia and the Carolinas, and in Virginia. The author asserts that punitive war began in the viciously divided Missouri and moved eastward, culminating in Sherman’s “March to the Sea” and Sheridan’s burning of the Shenandoah Valley. It was the experiences of these four renowned Union generals in the West that they brought with them to the East. The author thoroughly discusses Federal officers’ and men’s views on their implementation of punitive war on Southern civilians and the moral dilemma of their actions. He also provides specific examples of the destruction of homes, mills, barns and even villages. He bases his book on commendable research in manuscript collections, published primary sources and recent scholarship. The author writes well, and the narrative flows. Punitive War offers a solid account and a reasonable interpretation. Its portrayal of Sheridan’s countermeasures along the Blue Ridge suffers, however, by faulty conclusions and overstatements. For example, Mountcastle attributes Sheridan’s destruction in the Shenandoah Valley more to John Mosby’s and other partisans’ raids than to the clear strategy of Grant and Sheridan. Furthermore, he clearly overstates the destruction in Loudoun and Fauquier counties by Wesley Merritt’s cavalrymen in November and December 1864. The Yankees did not, as the author states, “lay waste to two entire counties.” In fact, the burning centered upon, ironically, primarily Unionist sympathizers and Quakers in Loudoun Valley and barely touched Fauquier County. This book is surely worth a reading. The author has based the study on solid research and presents arguments worthy of debate. Punitive War is recommended, despite some flaws. Jeffry D. Wert
Jeffry D. Wert is a retired Pennsylvania high school teacher. He is the author of eight books on the Civil War, including his recent Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A Biography of J.E.B. Stuart.
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Illustrated, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 202 pp. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, 2009, $29.95 plus shipping.