2
Juvenile Port-Folio, and Literary Miscellany
. I am grateful to John Resch. I first encountered this story in his excellent history,
Suffering Soldiers
, 84â85.
3
Kohn,
Eagle and Sword
, 19.
4
William H. Glasson,
Federal Military Pensions in the United States
, 18â23.
5
Cunliffe,
Soldiers and Civilians
, 181.
6
Cress,
Citizens in Arms
, 71.
7
Resch,
Suffering Soldiers
, 77.
9
G. Kurt Piehler,
Remembering War the American Way
, 22.
10
Resch,
Suffering Soldiers
, 69, 71.
11
Thucydides,
The Peloponnesian War
, 94.
12
Purcell,
Sealed with Blood
, 6.
14
Piehler,
Remembering War
, 12, 23, 26â27.
15
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
A Historical Discourse, Delivered Before the Citizens of Concord, 12th September, 1835, on the Second Centennial Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town
, 35, 36.
16
Resch,
Suffering Soldiers
, 83.
17
Robert W. Johannsen,
To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination
, 40, 43.
19
Resch,
Suffering Soldiers
, 88â89.
20
L. Scott Philyaw, “A Slave for Every Soldier: The Strange History of Virginia's Forgotten Recruitment Act of 1 January 1781.”
21
Harold M. Hyman summarized, “All these and other land-grant policies separated military veterans from the mass of a society's citizenry, and rewarded for particular public services a special segment of the public which, like Ulysses returning home war-weary but victorious, it was wise to placate.” Hyman,
American Singularity: The 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the 1862 Homestead and Morill Acts, and the 1944 GI Bill
, 22.
22
Resch,
Suffering Soldiers
, Chapter 4, quote on 121.
23
Ibid., Chapter 5; Glasson,
Federal Military Pensions
, Chapter 3.
24
Glasson,
Federal Military Pensions
, 108â119.
25
James W. Oberly,
Sixty Million Acres: American Veterans and the Public Lands Before the Civil War
, 161.
26
Theda Skocpol,
Protecting Soldiers and Mothers
, 103â104.
27
David W. Blight,
Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
, 4, 64.
28
Walt Whitman, “Ashes of Soldiers,” originally “Hymn of Dead Soldiers,” in
Drum-Taps
, republished in
Civil War Poetry and Prose
, by Whitman.
29
Drew Gilpin Faust,
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
, 66.
30
Ibid., 80. The young Holmes suffered wounds but survived Antietam and many other battles with the 20th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Despite all of his other distinctions and contributions for a long lifetime, he never forgot these experiences.
32
Faust,
This Republic
, 103; Piehler,
Remembering War
, 40â41.
33
James F. Russling, “National Cemeteries,” 322. Also quoted in Faust,
This Republic
, 232â233.
34
Faust,
This Republic
, 236; Piehler,
Remembering War
, 51.
35
I quote here from the text in Garry Wills,
Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America
, 263.
37
Blight,
Race and Reunion
, 76.
38
Piehler,
Remembering War
, 57â58. In the spring of 1865, a group of black Charlestonians, freedmen, gathered to celebrate the end of the war and the liberation it marked for them. An African American unit, the 21st United States Colored Infantry, was the first Union force to enter Charleston. This city where the war had begun was now in ruins, with most white citizens having fled the advancing Union troops. These black citizens of Charleston reburied some Union prisoners who had died during captivity in a local prison and been placed in a mass grave. They gathered to remember and to celebrate on May 1, and a black children's choir sang the “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Speeches, prayers, and a picnic followed. This was the first memorial day. It would not be sustained in memory as such, as the meaning of the war evolved to ignore slavery as a cause and black soldiers as participants. David Blight, “Forgetting Why We Remember,”
New York Times
, May 30, 2011.
39
Oliver Wendell Holmes, “âThe Soldier's Faith': Address by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Delivered on Memorial Day, May 30, 1895, at a Meeting Called by the Graduating Class of Harvard University.”
40
Blight,
Race and Reunion
, 72.
41
Faust,
This Republic
, 248â249; Piehler,
Remembering War
, 61.
42
Holmes, “âIn Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched with Fire': Address by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Delivered on Memorial Day, May 30, 1884, at Keene, NH.”
43
For discussion of the lost cause, see Blight,
Race and Reunion
, Chapter 8; Lee quote from p. 190.
44
Piehler,
Remembering War
, 53.
45
Stuart C. McConnell,
Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865â1900
, 152, 153.
46
Skocpol,
Protecting Soldiers
, 102; Glasson,
Federal Military Pensions
, 274.
47
For benefits, see Glasson,
Federal Military Pensions
, 145; and Piehler,
Remembering War
, 88â91.
48
See George L. Mosse,
Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars
, Introduction and passim
.
For a discussion of the Somme on July 1, 1916, see John Keegan,
The Face of Battle
, Chapter 4.
49
D. Clayton James and Anne Sharp Wells,
America and the Great War, 1914â1920
, 44.
50
Keene,
Doughboys
, 43, 49.
51
Piehler,
Remembering War
, 94â99.
52
See G. Kurt Piehler, “The War Dead and the Gold Star: American Commemoration of the First World War,” Chapter 9 in
Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity
, edited by John R. Gillis.
53
Robert M. Poole,
On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery
, Chapter 8; Harding quote on p. 158.
54
Lisa M. Budreau,
Bodies of War: World War I and the Politics of Commemoration in America, 1919â1933
, provides a rich and comprehensive study of the politics of remembrance. For the American Battle Monuments Commission, see her Chapter 13 as well as Part 3. See also Piehler,
Remembering War
, 98â100.
55
Budreau,
Bodies of War
, Chapter 14; Keene,
Doughboys
, 155â158; Piehler,
Remembering War
, 4, 111â114.
56
Roger Daniels,
The Bonus March: An Episode of the Great Depression
, Chapter 2; Keene,
Doughboys
, 170â171.
57
Text of President Coolidge's message,
New York Times
, May 16, 1924; Kathleen J. Frydl,
The GI Bill
, 51, 52.
58
Daniels,
Bonus March
, 36.
59
Keene,
Doughboys
, 170â174.
60
The fullest account and analysis are Daniels,
Bonus March
. See also Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen,
The Bonus Army: An American Epic
.
61
Daniels,
Bonus March
, 239.
62
See ibid., Chapter 9; Keene,
Doughboys
, 198â204 with quote from Roosevelt at American Legion convention on p. 200; and Frydl,
GI Bill
, 53.
CHAPTER 3
1
Studs Terkel,
“The Good War,”
frontispiece.
2
Eugene Secunda and Terence P.Moran,
Selling War to America: From the Spanish American War to the Global War on Terror
, 56.
3
Letter from Russell Weigley to George Q. Flynn, July 9, 1991, in
The Draft, 1940â1973
, by Flynn, 1.
7
During the war Americans produced 5,777 merchant ships, 1,556 naval vessels, 299,293 aircraft, 6.5 million rifles, 634,569 jeeps, 88,410 tanks, and 40 billion bullets. The war spurred the economy even as the economy enabled the war. In 1941 US automakers produced nearly 4 million automobiles. In 1942 they manufactured 223,000 autos before the plants were totally diverted to military production. And most of the cars produced in 1942 were purchased by the military. By 1944 war production was 40 percent of the gross national product. Good descriptions of the
wartime economic mobilization are in Harold G. Vatter,
The U.S. Economy in World War II
, esp. Chapter 1; and Alan S. Milward,
War, Economy, and Society, 1939â1945
, esp. Chapter 3. See also the summary in David M. Kennedy,
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929â1945
, 655.
8
Flynn,
The Draft, 1940â1973
, 61.
9
Ibid., 78, McNair quote on 77.
10
William L. O'Neill,
A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II
, 321.
11
William M. McBride,
Technological Change and the United States Navy, 1865â1945
, 210.
12
Millett,
Semper Fidelis
, 391.
13
Adrian R. Lewis,
The American Culture of War: The History of U.S. Military Force from World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom
, 62.
15
Lee Kennett,
G.I.: The American Soldier in World War II
, 31.
16
Robert Leckie,
Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific
, 4.
17
Flynn,
The Draft, 1940â1973
, 86.
18
Douglas L. Kriner and Francis X. Shen,
The Casualty Gap: The Causes and Consequences of American Wartime Inequalities
.
20
Dartmouth Alumni Magazine
, November 1941; Pearson speech in
Dartmouth Alumni Magazine
, June 1942; Pearson letter to parents, published in
Manchester (NH) Union
, March 15, 1944;
Dartmouth Alumni Magazine
, May 1944.
21
Lewis A. Erenberg and Susan E. Hirsch, “Swing Goes to War: Glenn Miller and the Popular Music of World War II,” in
The War in American Culture: Society and Consciousness During World War II
, 144.
23
Flynn,
The Draft, 1940â1973
, 43.
24
Hershey quotes in ibid., 44.
25
Michael Cullen Green,
Black Yanks in the Pacific: Race in the Making of American Military Empire After World War II
, 9.
27
Ulysses Lee,
The Employment of Negro Troops
, 661.
28
Kenneth D. Rose,
Myth and the Greatest Generation: A Social History of Americans in World War II
, 53â54.
29
Robert R. Palmer, quoted in Lewis,
American Culture of War,
62.
30
Kennett,
G.I.
, 91; Kennedy,
Freedom from Fear
, 713â714.
32
William Manchester, “The Bloodiest Battle of All,”
New York Times
, June 14, 1987.
34
Gerald F. Linderman,
The World Within War: America's Combat Experience in World War II
, 348.
36
K. Rose,
Myth and the Greatest Generation
, 64.
37
Erenberg and Hirsch, “Swing Goes to War,” in
War in American Culture
, 161.
38
Quoted in Lewis,
American Culture of War
, 41.
40
Dominic Tierney,
How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War
, 163.
41
K. Rose,
Myth and the Greatest Generation
, 212.
42
Tierney,
How We Fight
, 163.
43
John W. Dower,
War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War
, 37.
45
Kennett,
G.I.
, 187, 184.
46
Dower,
War Without Mercy
, 34â35. An interesting recent perspective on this is from a French historian who describes how the Americans did not demonize the Germans as much as they did the Japanese. Olivier Wieviorka,
Normandy: The Landings to the Liberation of Paris
. See, for example, pp. 54â56.