Book Review: "This Republic of Suffering"

Drew Gilpin FaustThis Republic of SufferingKnopfJan. 8, 2008368 pages

Six-hundred and twenty-thousand Americans died in the Civil War. That is more than the American death toll in all other wars between the Revolutionary War and the Korean War. Based on the percentage of our population, if the war was fought today, there would be 6 million deaths, certainly an irreparable loss to the nation. In her new book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, Harvard President and Lincoln Professor of History Drew Gilpin Faust writes about these tragic losses of life.

The book is divided into eight chapters, each one dealing with a different aspect of death in the war: Dying, Killing, Burying, Naming, Realizing, Believing and Doubting, Accounting, and Numbering. Each chapter contains a unique perspective on death, each one taking into account the political, emotional and mental consequences of loss. The most interesting chapter is perhaps the most brutal: "Killing."

As the chapter's title suggests, "Killing" deals with the literal act of killing fellow Americans in the course of battle. Even though the majority of the war's casualties were unrelated to combat, hundreds of thousands were killed or killed others on battlefields across the United States. One section of note deals with the experience of African-American soldiers fighting for the United States. Faust writes of atrocities (such as the massacre of surrendering black troops at Fort Pillow) perpetrated by rebels against the buffalo soldiers and of the acts of revenge by African-Americans, motivated by the shame and anger from slavery. According to Faust, many saw fighting and killing as the only way to finally gain freedom from the white oppressors. Faust uses a quote from a young African-American solider that is indicative of the general feeling that, "Those who would be free must strike the blow."

The final section of the chapter deals with how men came to terms with their grisly work in the aftermath of a battle. Some wept while others hardened their hearts. Faust details how these men attempted to come to terms with their actions. Although fascinating, and perhaps due to this fascination, the chapter is highly disturbing. Faust shows the ways in which many soldiers overcame their initial aversion to killing. According to her, many were motivated to seek vengeance for the deaths of their comrades. She also deals with the horrifying fact, that as in all wars, some came to enjoy combat.

She quotes a soldier who wrote that, "To fire at a person who is firing at you is somehow wonderfully consolatory and sustaining; more than that, it is exciting and produces in you the so-called joy of battle." The chapter entitled "Naming," is also one of the most succesfful chapter, which deals with the identification of the dead. As Faust provides excellent imagery, writing, "Men thrown by the hundreds into burial trenches; solders stripped of every identifying object before being abandoned on the field, bloated corpses hurried into hastily dug graves; nameless victims of dysentery or typhoid interred beside military hospitals; men blown to pieces by artillery shells; bodies hidden by woods or ravines, left to the depredations of hogs and wolves or time: the disposition of the Civil War dead made an accurate accounting of the fallen impossible." Despite the difficulties, people tried desperately to find out the fate of their loved ones. Pushed by the cataclysm of the war, the United States government for the first time created a system of military cemeteries.

Despite numerous insights, a well thought out structure, and clear, enjoyable writing, Faust's book is not quite perfect. She glosses over the general American perception of these deaths, how they justified them and how they came to terms with them collectively, as a nation.

She hints at that collective response, writing, "...by the end of the century the Dead had become the vehicle for a unifying national project of memorialization. Civil War death and the Civil War dead belonged to the whole nation." Instead of devoting only a few meager paragraphs near the end of her book to this national response, a more extensive review of the issue would have given the analysis of the death toll, more depth. Also, despite a few passing remarks, Faust almost completely ignores the thousands of men who died from disease rather than in combat. Health-related deaths were such a large part of the total death count that it seems irresponsible to not discuss them in a more detailed manner.

Aside from these flaws, however, Faust's account of death in the Civil War is quite enjoyable. Well written and insightful, it deals with a subject that most authors shy away from. Yet with an inventive overall structure, she manages to not only approach the matter of death respectfully, but also succeeds in honoring those 620,000.