The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction, Brief Review

Mark E. Neely's The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction has provided a much needed challenge to Civil War studies. The book's central argument is that the Civil War was not as destructive as most historians would have you believe. By comparing the Civil War to other nineteenth century conflicts (The Mexican War, Mexican Civil War, and the Plains Indian Wars), Neely effectively argued that there were limits to the destructiveness of this war. Unlike the Civil War those other wars could properly be labeled as orgies of violence. What made these other wars more destructive than the Civil War? In a word; race. Race played was a factor in the level of destructiveness and unbridled violence that were characteristic of those other wars. In the Mexican War, Americans were fighting Mexicans who were deemed an inferior race. The same can be said of the U.S. Army's image of their Native American foes during the Plains Indian Wars of the latter half of the 1800s. In the Civil War white Americans were fighting other white Americans, which meant that both sides were more inclined to follow the rules of civilized warfare. There were few instances during the Civil War in which military forces strayed from those rules of engagement. When confronting Confederate irregular or guerrilla forces (often seen as beasts in the shape of humans) regular Union forces would often resort to less than reputable means to combat those forces.

Neely also counters the arguments that the sheer number of deaths during the Civil War (about 620,000) is proof positive of the destructiveness of the war. It is his contention that the other war that he examined actually resulted in more battlefield casualties. Most of the dead of the Civil War died as a result of disease and infection.

Anybody interested in the Civil War should read this book. Neely has offered up an important revision of the history of the Civil War that may eventually become essential reading for any student of the war.