Caroline Cox. A Proper Sense of Honor: Service and Sacrifice in George Washington’s Army.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. xxii + 338 pp. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN
978-0-8078-2884-7.
Reviewed by Scott N. Hendrix (Department of History, University of Pittsburgh)
Published on H-War (December, 2005)
Embodied Honor
Caroline Cox’s A Proper Sense of Honor: Service and
Sacrifice in George Washington’s Army is an interesting
work, though it is not necessarily the work promised the
reader in either the preface or introduction. A Proper
Sense of Honor follows, partially, the historiographical
path broken by Charles Royster and Charles Neimeyer,
with the author attempting to explore the motivations
for joining and serving in the Continental Army of the
American Revolution.[1] Beyond this, Cox also attempts
to describe the Continental Line’s conditions of service
and the differing worlds of its officers and enlisted men.
A Proper Sense of Honor therefore also complements some
of the recent work on the British Army in North America, such as Stephen Brumwell’s Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas, 1755-1763 (2002). The bibliography and endnotes indicate that A Proper Sense of
Honor represent the fruits of significant primary source
research, and the author’s writing smoothly conveys her
ideas to her readers.
punishment, and other hands on dealing with the human
body. The author argues that examining evidence of this
type will allows us to “depart from the written historical
record and learn something of the values of the people
who could not write…. [and] also about the values that
those who could write rarely articulated” (pp. x-xi).
After suggesting this intriguing methodology however, the author seems to drop this approach, and offers
a more straightforward, though still interesting, look at
the corporate culture of the Continental Line. Her introductory chapter considers the formation of the Continental Army in 1775-1776. Cox discusses the rapid decline, in the rebelling colonies, of popular interest in actually fighting the war, and the resulting (and in retrospect, seemingly inevitable) decision to raise an army
like the “provincials”: the long-service regiments that
had been raised during the wars with the French from
the poor and marginalized men of the colonies, those
who, incidentally, would seem to have the least stake in
In her preface, Cox promises the reader a work that the outcome of the American Revolution. Here, and reuses the treatment of the human body as an analytical peatedly elsewhere,Cox rightly notes the importance of
tool, arguing that “the treatment of people’s bodies â? ¦ the regular British Army as a model for the Continentells us something about the status of the individuals tal Line. She goes on to argue that the fundamental orinvolved, the power arrangement that surrounds them, ganizational principle of the Continental Army was, as
their value to public policy, and whether the individual in all European-style armies, the “unthinking decision to
or others contested that value” (p. xi). She suggests that divide the army into officers who were gentlemen and
we look for the record of the treatment of the physical soldiers who were not” (p. 2). This distinction, and the
body in public spectacles such as parades and funerals, observation that gentlemen were expected to have a “reas well as in treatment in the literal sense, in the care fined sense of personal honor,” indicate a second, and also
offered by physicians, the handling of corpses, corporal potentially interesting, organizational theme for A Proper
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Sense of Honor (p. 28).
does not make this connection explicit. She also seems to
underplay the connections that could be drawn between
The second chapter of Cox’s work is entitled “A this differential treatment and the theme of honor introProper Sense of Honor: Educating Officers and Soldiers,” duced in chapters 1 and 2.
which suggests that the author considered it central to
her work. Chapter 2 begins by detailing some of the ways
A Proper Sense of Honor closes with a brief concluin which the Continental Army continually schooled sion that outlines the treatment of Revolutionary War
both officers and enlisted soldiers in the importance of veterans. Cox argues that most enlisted veterans sunk
honor, and by doing so, seems, for a time, to continue back to the level of their initial, and usually lowly, social
the themes of the first chapter. In the first part of this status, and notes that they were largely ignored and unchapter the author discusses the centrality of honor to celebrated by America until after the war of 1812. This
the life of the soldier, though Cox notes that “honor” had somewhat elegiac finish reinforces a perhaps unintended
very different meanings for the officer and the enlisted impression that Cox views the enlisted men of the Consoldier. She argues that honor was something that could tinental Line not as veterans but as victims. The conbe “possessed, given, or received” (p. 38), and by doing clusion, in fact, reads more like an epilogue; a real conso Cox properly emphasizes the external components of clusion, which restated the themes of the treatment of
honor, the importance of reputation as a component of the body and the centrality of honor, and tied these to
the officer’s sense of honor, and that respect, given and the topics of chapters 2 through 6, would have greatly
received, was crucial to the officers’ sense of self-worth. strengthened A Proper Sense of Honor. Sadly, its lack
The author notes the importance of the example of con- leaves the reader with a sense of incompleteness, sigduct set by British officers for the officers of the Conti- nificantly weakens what would otherwise be a strong
nental Line. Caroline Cox’s most important, and almost work, and rather mutes the effect of the points the aucertainly correct, argument is that, to the leaders of the thor wished to make.
Continental Army, who were no doubt following the exNonetheless, Cox is to be applauded for her efforts to
ample of the British Army, “a proper sense of honor” was
demonstrate
the importance of the concept of honor and
the essential qualification necessary to be a successful ofthe role of the gentleman to the organization and life of
ficer, and that by and large, most members of the Conthe Continental Army. Beyond this, she has much useful
tinental Line accepted this idea. Unfortunately Cox then
seems to lose her focus on honor, and never quite regains information to offer. She is also to be commended for the
it for the remainder of her book. She finishes chapter 2 manner in which she seats the practices of the Continenwith a comparison of the lifestyle of the officers and en- tal Line in the customs and traditions of the British Army,
listed soldiers; that of the common soldiers, needless to and of the larger eighteenth-century military world. Together with those of Royster and Neimeyer, Cox’s work
say, was much inferior to that of their officers.
helps to expand our understanding of the Continental
The remaining chapters of A Proper Sense of Honor Line, and, with her emphasis on the role of the gentlecontinue this theme, examining the way in which the man and the ideology of personal honor, might possibly
fundamental division of status between officers and en- change the way in which we view colonial society during
listed soldiers played out in the Continental Army. Chap- the Revolutionary Era as well.[2] While A Proper Sense of
ter 3 addresses punishment, chapter 4, health care, chap- Honor is unlikely to appeal to the general reader, it is
ter 5, death and burial, and chapter 6, the treatment of recommended for students of the American Revolution,
prisoners of war. Cox details the unsurprising and ex- and of eighteenth-century military history, and it should
pected differences in the treatment in each of these cate- be made part of the collection of research libraries. Its
gories accorded to officers who were gentlemen and en- reasonable price of $37.50 should help make it generally
listed soldiers who were decidedly not; officers, of course, accessible.
received treatment far superior to that accorded the rank
Notes
and file. These chapters, while offering valuable documentation of the different military worlds which the of[1]. Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War:
ficers and other ranks of the Continental Line inhabited, The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783
are unlikely to surprise those familiar with eighteenth- (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,
century armies. While the topics of these chapters would 1979); Charles Neimeyer, America Goes to War: A Social
also seem to be in line with the author’s stated inten- History of the Continental Army (New York: New York
tion of analyzing the treatment of the physical body, Cox University Press, 1996).
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[2]. For a discussion of honor outside of the military
arena during the early republic era, see Joanne B. Free-
man, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
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Citation: Scott N. Hendrix. Review of Cox, Caroline, A Proper Sense of Honor: Service and Sacrifice in George Washington’s Army. H-War, H-Net Reviews. December, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11003
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