Race and Gender at War

Writing American Military History

Edited by Lesley J. Gordon and Andrew Huebner

University of Alabama Press

Fresh perspectives on the implications of gender and race in US military history from a diverse group of scholars in the field of war and society

Race and Gender at War is a collection of essays that illuminates ways that race and gender have persistently shaped the military history of the United States.

Editors Lesley J. Gordon and Andrew J. Huebner showcase historians with varied research agendas in the field of “war and society,” a fertile area of inquiry that shares space (and often overlaps) with operational studies inside the broader field of military history. Chronicling more than 150 years of American history, the essays in this volume demonstrate that the tensions and injustices surrounding race, gender, and the military remain relevant and controversial, and continue to roil American politics, society, and culture to this day.

Spanning the two centuries from the 1830s to the present, the collection examines topics such as Choctaw Natives who served in the Confederate Army, the trailblazing but fraught experiences of Black servicemen from the Civil War through World War I, the hypersexualized images of World War II servicemen, and the varied and mutable roles of women in the armed services. Utilizing diverse methodologies, the book examines how these factors influenced everything from military policy to civilian experiences, encompassing topics like martial rhetoric, citizenship, propaganda, and patriotism.

CONTRIBUTORS

Kevin Adams / Amanda Bellows / Kari L. Boyd-Weisenberger / Michele Curran Cornell / Lesley J. Gordon / Andrew J. Huebner / Gregory Mixon / Caroline Wood Newhall / Heather Marie Stur / Patrick T. Troester / Chad L. Williams / Fay A. Yarbrough

Each essay in this collection contributes something distinctive, from method—legal history, quantitative history, synopsis, local/biographical—to argument and conclusions.’
—Samuel J. Watson, author of Peacekeepers and Conquerors: The Army Officer Corps on the American Frontier, 1821—1846

‘Path-breaking military historians Lesley Gordon and Andrew Huebner offer a buffet of approaches, questions, and topics in support of a fundamental claim: ‘The United States military has long carried race and gender to war.’ This smart and compelling collection makes that case, and in so doing demonstrates the vitality of ‘war and society’ military history and its centrality to the broader field. A must-read for military history and beyond.’
— Beth Bailey, coeditor of Managing Sex in the U.S. Military: Gender, Identity, and Behavior

‘This exciting and important collection sheds new light on how race and gender have shaped U.S. military history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The essays offer fresh insights into the military service of Native Americans, African Americans, women, and LGBTQ troops in different conflicts. The surprising connections across the chapters will be of interest to scholars of war and society.’
—Matthew F. Delmont is author of Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad

Race and Gender at War offers a compelling selection of essays that take the ‘pulse’ of the field while analyzing injustice-ridden, groundbreaking events that have refined the military experience and the American nation at large.’
—Susannah J. Ural, Williams Chair for Abraham Lincoln Civil War Studies, Mississippi State University

Lesley J. Gordon holds the Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History at the University of Alabama. Her publications include General George E. Pickett in Life and Legend, Inside the Confederate Nation: Essays in Honor of Emory M. Thomas, and A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut’s Civil War.

Andrew J. Huebner is professor of history at the University of Alabama. He is author of Love and Death in the Great War, The Warrior Image: Soldiers in American Culture from the Second World War to the Vietnam Era, and coauthor of The Unfinished Nation.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Lesley J. Gordon and Andrew J. Huebner

1. “Let Us Be Men and Texas Will Triumph”: Race, Gender, and Nation in the Texas Revolution

Patrick T. Troester

2. Red Soldiers in Gray: Enlisting Confederate Choctaw Soldiers in the American Civil War

Fay A. Yarbrough

3. African American Military Service and Citizenship in Late Nineteenth-Century America

Amanda Bellows

4. “It Is Not the Policy nor the Interest of the South to Destroy the Negro”: Black Prisoners of War and the Intersection of Race, Property, and Law in the Confederacy

Caroline Wood Newhall

5. Race and Region in Post–Civil War US Army Recruiting

Kevin Adams

6. Robert Brown Elliott: Assistant Adjutant General, National Guard, South Carolina

Gregory Mixon

7. “A Class of People Far Superior”: White Soldiers, Civilians, and Perceptions of Race and Class in the Spanish-American War

Kari L. Boyd-Weisenberger

8. The Problem with Wolves: American Servicemen’s Sexuality across the Two World Wars

Michele Curran Cornell

9. Gender, Sexual Orientation, and the US Military

Heather Marie Stur

Epilogue: African Americans, World War I, and the Boundaries of Military History