Book Review: Wars Civil and Great: The American Experience in the Civil War and World War I

Wars Civil and Great: The American Experience in the Civil War and World War I. Edited by David J. Silbey and Kanisorn Wongrichanalai. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 2023. Softcover. 304pp. $24.95.

Reviewed by Christopher L. Kolakowski

Before 1941, the two largest wars the United States fought in were the Civil War (1861-1865) and the First World War (1914-1918). They occurred 50 years apart, which meant that the children and grandchildren of Civil War veterans served in Europe. Both conflicts also both involved national mobilizations only exceeded by the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II. The Civil War cast a shadow over U.S. involvement in the First World War from many standpoints, a fact noted then and now.

Editors David J. Silbey and Kanisorn Wongrichanalai correctly suspected that reviewing both conflicts together might prove an illuminating exercise. This collection of essays was assembled by the editors as “a beginning comparison,” (p. 9) looking to deepen contextualization and understanding of the First World War (called the Great War throughout) and the Civil War by a side-by-side look at the two conflicts. The editors have assembled a qualified group of academics to relate the conflicts through a variety of lenses. (One is Kathleen Logothetis Thompson, who was once a writer for Emerging Civil War.)

The book’s essays focus on high command (Lincoln/McClellan and Wilson/Pershing), presidential wartime leadership, African American soldiers’ service and civil rights, loyalty and sedition, medicine, soldiers’ mental trauma, trench warfare, and veterans’ experiences. An afterword compares the memoirs of U.S. Grant and John J. Pershing as reflections of their authors and times of writing.

The editors allowed the contributors a free hand in their essays, and it shows; some took a survey approach to their subject, while others opted to be more analytical. The trench warfare essay goes right into the common linkage between the siege of Petersburg and the Western Front, exploring where that association breaks down. It was also interesting to see the influences, or sometimes lack thereof, of the Civil War experience on senior leaders, mental trauma, medicine, or veteran affairs.

As one examines this book, three things stand out. First is the impressive breadth of topics it covers. Second is that of ten entries (eight essays, the editors’ introduction, and the afterward), the two editors write all or part of four of them. The limited number of contributors is surprising, given the broad range of the subject matter offered and therefore the potential for additional essayists. Lastly, one wishes for some discussion of intervening conflicts in the West and against Spain, which provided important institutional transitions for the U.S. Army and the United States more generally. Some essays allude to this period, but many do not.

In the end, the editors achieve their objective. This study is a useful first step in exploring the value of comparing the two conflicts, and provides much for consideration. It will no doubt spur further scholarship and inquiry.

The reviewer works as a historian in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. He is the author of six books on the American Civil War and World War II in the Pacific and China-Burma-India Theaters, a contributor to Emerging Civil War, and a reviewer and contributor to the Air Force Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs. The views contained herein are his own.