The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784-1898

Military historians are, quite rightly, concerned with war, but the Army does not simply cease to exist between the treaty ending one conflict and the opening guns of the next. The people who made up the "garrison world" during the peacetime intervals between the War for Independence and the Spanish-American War are the subject of this book. These were men collected mostly from the streets of Northern cities. Although the occasional Indian war made headlines, the unrelenting labor of building and maintaining frontier outposts occupied most of their days. Drawing on diaries, letters, and other primary documents, this text recreates the harsh, often lonely, garrison life. The author pays special attention to the roles of women and children, as well as black Americans, and to the development of military professionalism.… (more)