A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut's Civil War (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War) - Hardcover

Gordon, Lesley J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807157309 ISBN 13: 9780807157305

Publisher: LSU Press, 2014

Synopsis

A Broken Regiment recounts the tragic history of one of the Civil War's most ill-fated Union military units. Organized in the late summer of 1862, the 16th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry was unprepared for battle a month later, when it entered the fight at Antietam. The results were catastrophic: nearly a quarter of the men were killed or wounded, and Connecticut's 16th panicked and fled the field. In the years that followed, the regiment participated in minor skirmishes before surrendering en masse in North Carolina in 1864. Most of its members spent months in southern prison camps, including the notorious Andersonville stockade, where disease and starvation took the lives of over one hundred members of the unit.

The struggles of the 16th led survivors to reflect on the true nature of their military experience during and after the war, and questions of cowardice and courage, patriotism and purpose, were often foremost in their thoughts. Over time, competing stories emerged of who they were, why they endured what they did, and how they should be remembered. By the end of the century, their collective recollections reshaped this troubling and traumatic past, and the "unfortunate regiment" emerged as "The Brave Sixteenth," their individual memories and accounts altered to fit the more heroic contours of the Union victory.

The product of over a decade of research, Lesley J. Gordon's A Broken Regiment illuminates this unit's complex history amid the interplay of various, and often competing, voices. The result is a fascinating and heartrending story of one regiment's wartime and postwar struggles.

About this title

About the Author

Lesley J. Gordon is professor of history at Akron University, author of General George E. Pickett in Life and Legend, and coeditor of Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and Their Wives.

Lesley J. Gordon is professor of history at Akron University, author of General George E. Pickett in Life and Legend, and coeditor of Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and Their Wives.

Review

''This insightful and well-written narrative is a welcome addition to a crowded field and deserves a wide reading.''--Journal of Military History

''Gordon's assertion of the validity and value of the regimental history--and the evidence of what she has achieved through judicious use of such source material--will be encouraging. Too long spoiled for choice by the sheer embarrassment of recorded riches that the Civil War provided, many historians have turned up their nose at what was right under it. A Broken Regiment shows us how much we may have missed.''--American Nineteenth Century History

''A Broken Regiment is a good read. It is also a finely wrought examination of the relationships between men, war, and history. Gordon has made a valuable contribution to our understanding of Civil War soldiers and the importance they attached to securing their place in our national memory.''--Connecticut History Review

''Drawing on an incredibly rich source base, Gordon highlights such key themes as soldierly motivations for fighting, attitudes toward political questions, perceptions of group identity, and the process of collective memory-making. At once a micro-history and a biography of a whole unit, A Broken Regiment offers a new trajectory for future studies of Civil War regiments. . . . Readers will be impressed with the depth of research, the sophistication of analysis, and the readability of the author's prose.''Civil War History

''In A Broken Regiment, Dr. Lesley Gordon has mastered the art of writing a regimental history. She has conducted years of in-depth manuscript material, traveled far and wide, and written a very detailed study of a Civil War regiment that experienced the conflict differently from many of their peers. This book shows that not every regiment experienced the 'glories of war.' Rather the Sixteenth Connecticut experienced war at its worse and left an interesting tale to be told. Dr. Lesley Gordon s A Broken Regiment is regimental history at its best.''--Civil War Book Review

''A Broken Regiment is an insightful, deeply researched and informative account of the unit's war encounters. Gordon demonstrates here just how effectively executed a regimental history can be, both as a good story worth telling and as a vehicle for addressing broader questions about the war and those who experienced it.'' --America's Civil War

Edition details

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0807157309
• ISBN 13: 9780807157305
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 408