A Richly Documented and Meticulously Researched study of Two Volunteer Regiments

Although the Industrial Revolution has vastly increased the lethality of combat, even compared to the bloody battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), the dominant values of American society during the Civil War regarding honor, manliness, chivalry, and valor were still very much mired in the Medieval world. When the untried armies clashed in Virginia and Tennessee in 1861, questions of cowardice and courage were uppermost in the minds of officers, enlisted men and the public.

Dread Danger is a richly documented and meticulously researched study of two volunteer regiments: on the Union side the 11th New York “Fire Zouaves,” recruited from New York City firemen, and the Confederate 2nd Texas Infantry.

Zouaves were a unit of French light infantry originally recruited from the Kabyle Berber people of Algeria in the 1830s. Colorfully outfitted in baggy trousers, an embroidered short jacket and a fez, they earned a reputation as fierce fighters, and their distinctive drill and kit were widely imitated by 19th century armies. The New York Fire Zouaves were organized by Elmer Ellsworth (1837-1861) a friend of Abraham Lincoln, and the first Union officer killed in the Civil War. He was shot by an innkeeper in Alexandria, Virginia on May 24, 1861, after he tore down a Confederate flag. Ellsworth thought that firemen would make ideal soldiers, but in service they proved too unruly to adapt to Army life. At the first battle of Bull Run, on July 21, 1861, the unit broke and fled from the desperate fight on Henry House Hill. Deeply demoralized and disgraced, the unit never really recovered and was eventually disbanded.

The New York Daily Tribune wrote: “The Fire Zouaves were just about the worst men in the army, the most reckless in their behavior, the least amenable to discipline, the most discontented and complaining, the first to run from the field, and the loudest braggarts after they had left it.” (p. 101).

The 2nd Texas Infantry was raised with some difficulty from the counties around Houston and Galveston, since sons of the Texan white slaveholding elite, raised on horseback, much preferred to serve in the more prestigious (and less lethal) cavalry. Nevertheless, the son of Sam Houston, Sam Jr. (1843-1894,) enrolled as a simple private. At the battle of Shiloh, Tennessee (April 6-7, 1862) under the command of West Point graduate Colonel John C. Moore (1824-1910), the Texans mistook an approaching Union unit as friendly, and suffered devastating casualties. Sam Houston, Jr. was wounded and captured.

At the second battle of Corinth, Mississippi (October 4, 1862) the regiment took heavy losses assaulting a fortified position, Battery Robinett, where its Colonel, William P. Rogers (1819-1862) a veteran of the Mexican War, was killed in action. Filled out with conscripts, the greatly reduced regiment served at the Siege of Vicksburg, becoming part of the force of 29,495 men that surrendered on July 4, 1863. Reorganized after a prisoner exchange, it served out the remainder of the war in Texas.

Dread Danger will be read with delight by students of the American Civil War. The author, Lesley J. Gordon is Professor of Southern History at the University of Alabama. Her previous publications include General George E. Pickett (1998) and A Broken Regiment: the 16th Connecticut’s Civil War (2014).

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Our Reviewer: Mike Markowitz is an historian and wargame designer. He writes a monthly column for CoinWeek.Com and is a member of the ADBC (Association of Dedicated Byzantine Collectors). His previous reviews in modern history include To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923-1940, Comrades Betrayed: Jewish World War I Veterans under Hitler, Rome – City in Terror: The Nazi Occupation 1943–44, A Raid on the Red Sea: The Israeli Capture of the Karine A, Strike from the Sea: The Development and Deployment of Strategic Cruise Missiles since 1934, 100 Greatest Battles, Battle for the Island Kingdom, Abraham Lincoln and the Bible, From Ironclads to Dreadnoughts: The Development of the German Battleship, 1864-1918, Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City, The Demon of Unrest, Next War: Reimagining How We Fight, Habsburg Sons: Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Army, Hitler's Atomic Bomb, The Dark Path: The Structure of War and the Rise of the West, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War, Operation Title: Sink the Tirpitz, A Light in the Northern Sea, A Street in Arnhem, British Naval Gun Mountings, and The Indian Rebellion, 1857-1859.

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Note: Dread Danger is also available in paperback & e-editions.

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