Because Ideas Matter...
The faculty and staff of Butler University's College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences presents
Recommended Readings
Long, Obstinate, and Bloody: The Battle
of Guilford Courthouse
by Lawrence A. Babits & Joshua Howard, University of North
Carolina Press, 2009
Reviewed by George Geib
In recent years we've seen a number of new
approaches to the history of combat, called by some a "new military
history." The old emphasis upon great commanders and heroic
incidents has slipped away. It's been replaced by the dynamics of
small units, the sociology of recruitment and training, the
psychology of violent combat, the role of military medicine, and a
careful attention to the memories and the points of view of the
authors of our surviving documents. Babits and Howard offer a good
example in their study of the American revolutionary battle of
Guilford Courthouse in North Caroline, 15 March 1781. The battle is
a good choice. In earlier studies it featured two famous
commanders, Nathaniel Greene and Lord Cornwallis, and a famous
artillery fire incident. It was extensively documented by
participants, many of whom were common soldiers writing later
pension applications. It was fought in at least four very distinct
stages, involving identifiable soldiers, companies and small
regiments. Causalities were high. Leadership, morale, and violence
itself can be studied in detail. And the battle decided control of
much of the American South in the War for Independence. The
conflict is better known than the hype on the dust jacket suggests,
but the new military history is here at its best.
- George Geib is Professor of History at Butler University.