39 pages • 1 hour read
James M. McphersonFor Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1997A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “A Band of Brothers”
Continuing to look for reasons Civil War soldiers stayed in the war, McPherson further analyzes the concept of honor. He says soldiers write often of courage, bravery, and valor, but, since the three words mean the same thing, McPherson says they are writing of the mark of honor (77).
Soldiers also write of dishonor. One of the common fears of Civil War soldiers is to be seen as a coward. This fear drives them to fight. Many of them would rather fight sick than be seen as a coward:
To avoid the taint of cowardice, many genuinely sick soldiers did go into battle on one leg, so to speak. A corporal in the 24th Michigan wrote in his diary during the battle of Fredericksburg: ‘Feel quite sick. If it were not for being called a Sneak and a coward I would not be in the ranks today’ (79).
McPherson explains this fear of cowardice in several ways. One is that many regiments are made up of men from the same town, and these men all write letters home. A soldier who is seen as a coward can never go home for the shame he will carry: “Fighting soldiers did not hesitate to name skulkers in their letters home. ‘I am sorry to say that Norman Hart is a D—n coward,’ wrote a private in the 10th Wisconsin after Stones River” (80).
Soldiers also take pride in their symbols, namely, the flags of regiment, state, and the army they fight for. McPherson lists examples of soldiers dying in order to take back a stolen flag; he also recounts the shame soldiers feel if their flag is taken, which is why they go to such great lengths to get it back. Entire regiments can be shamed if they perform poorly in battle.
Finally, McPherson says that soldiers fight for each other. He mentions primary group cohesion, a psychological term for the bond men feel in battle. Soldiers in a unit look out for one another. They protect each other, and out of that protection grows the trust and brotherhood that keeps them together. By protecting each other, they protect their own interests.
Chapter 6 Analysis
The ideas and notions of soldiery are caught up in masculinity. Men fight because they don’t want to be shamed in the eyes of their fellow soldiers. They take pride in their regiment, their state, their country, but that pride comes first on a personal level: they cannot be proud of their regiment if they have not fought for it, if they have not defended it with their lives. McPherson writes:
Few soldiers with ‘any pride of manhood in them’ could bear the shame of such contempt. ‘I cannot boast of much pluck,’ wrote a private in the 39th Ohio after his first battle, ‘but I have got my full share of pride and could die before I could disgrace the name I bear’” (78).
This idea of the defense of the way of life they hold dear is what drives soldiers. When soldiers protect one another, they form the bonds of brotherhood. This bond forms for several reasons. One is that they are facing death together. Another primary group cohesion, in which men find ways they are the same and use that sameness to form bonds. A third is that they are protecting one another. Out of that protection comes an instinct to keep each other safe, and out of that instinct comes the understanding that their brothers are keeping them safe: “If any member of the group ‘plays off,’” McPherson writes, “or succumbs to ‘cannon fever’ during combat, he not only dangers his own and the others’ survival but he also courts their contempt” (85).
The shame of running from a battle is the shame of abandoning those who would protect them. The bonds are formed over flags, over geography, over proximity, but the shame is the same: it comes from abandoning the ideas that bring a group together, and since McPherson is looking for causes, he finds the honor of brotherhood and the fear of shame to be some of the strongest causes that keep men fighting.
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By James M. Mcpherson
