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I might as well confess frankly that I am fascinated by William A. Ganoe’s The History of the United States Army. Therefore, if you feel it necessary, discount by a percentage for enthusiasm what I may say. These will still remain solid, incontestable merits. This is the first history of our army ever to have been written; and it has been written with a strong story sense, so that it reads like a story. It covers in a single volume the whole period from 1775 to 1923. Dates have been placed in the margin, and reference to sources are omitted so as not to interrupt the reader. There is a chronological account of a soldier’s life in the American Revolution, and the first picture of the period of military decadence after the Revolution. The truth about General von Steuben seems to have been arrived at for the first time. What the army did and did not do in the War of 1812 is told. There is a good picture of the life of the soldier in peace times, when he becomes the nation’s most important builder. The view of the Civil War is somewhat new and certainly impartial. For the first time, this book gives us a complete account of our Indian wars in chronological shape.
I think there is a great deal of truth in the assertion that one cannot know American history without having read this book. Much that has heretofore been withheld from general knowledge is told for the first time. And there are picturesque matters which are far from being affairs of general knowledge—for example, the fact that the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad was due to the army and army training, or the fact that General Winfield Scott, single-handed, saved the country three times from war.
Who is William A. Ganoe? A West Pointer commissioned in the regular army in 1907 who has served in Cuba, Hawaii, and various parts of the United States. He was instructor, and afterward assistant professor of English, and finally adjutant for four years at West Point. He was in command of a company in the first series of training camps when we entered the war, and head of a board of officers formed to edit the Infantry Drill Regulations after the war. He is now head of the military history section at the U. S. Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He has written for the Atlantic Monthly (“Ruggs—R.O.T.C.”), Scribner’s, and the Yale Review. He has, of course, had access to various records and historical confirmations not available to the non-army writer.
A History of the United States Navy had already been written by Edgar Stanton Maclay, and readers will welcome Mr. Maclay’s A History of American Privateers, which truly supplements the earlier work. For during the Revolution the number of privateers was about four times that of regular naval vessels; and the part played by the privateer in the War of 1812 has never been minimized by any historian. From before the Revolution to after the War of 1812 hundreds of respected men made their livings—and their fortunes—by sailing as licensed pirates with full powers to capture any ships of unfriendly countries. Men who were unable to go bought shares in the privateers and often, when a rich prize was captured, reaped an incredible dividend. So slight was the difference in practice between privateering and plain piracy, so enormous was the profit in both, that it is not surprising to learn that every once in a while a privateersman, having waited in vain for a “lawful” prey, attacked a ship of his own nation, or any first comer. The classic instance is that of Captain Kidd, sent out as a privateersman, hung as a pirate.
It goes without saying that Mr. Maclay’s book is romantic; it couldn’t be anything else. Its interest is equally the interest of authentic history and daring adventure; its value always that of fact. There are plenty of books giving the history of our merchant marine; Mr. Maclay had done a history of the navy; here he has filled the gap between by telling what is perhaps the most exciting story of the three.