num_pages: 368
description: Starting with the decision by patriot leaders to create a corps of officers who were gentlemen and a body of soldiers who were not Caroline Cox examines the great gap that existed in the conditions of service of soldiers and officers in the Continental army. She looks particularly at disparities between soldiers' and officers' living conditions punishments medical care burial and treatment as prisoners of war. Using pension records memoirs and contemporary correspondence Cox illuminates not only the persistence of hierarchy in Revolutionary America but also the ways in which soldiers contested their low status.Intriguingly Cox notes that even as the army reinforced the lines of social hierarchy in many ways it also united soldiers and officers by promoting similar conceptions of personal honor and the meaning of rank. In fact she argues the army fostered social mobility by encouraging ambitious men to separate themselves from the lowest levels of society and giving them the means to enact that separation. At a time when existing social arrangements were increasingly challenged by war and by political rhetoric that embraced the equal rights of men Cox shows that change crept slowly into American military life.&lt;!--copy for pb Armies are the product of the societies that create them. In 1775 when patriot leaders formed the Continental army they were informed by their own experiences and their knowledge of the British army. Thus the Continental Congress created a corps of officers who were gentlemen and a body of soldiers who were not. Caroline Cox shows that following this decision a great gap existed in the conditions of service between soldiers and officers of the Continental army. Her study of daily military life punishment and military justice medical care and burial rituals illuminates the social world of the Continental army and shows how every aspect of life reinforced the distinctions of rank. At a time when existing social arrangements were increasingly challenged by war and political rhetoric that embraced the equal rights of men Cox shows that change crept slowly into American military life.--&gt;
language: English
title: A Proper Sense of Honor: Service and Sacrifice in George Washington's Army
publisher: The University of North Carolina Press