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Court-Martial: How Military Justice Has Shaped America from the Revolution to 9/11 and Beyond, by Chris Bray
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A timely, provocative account of how military justice has shaped American society since the nation’s beginnings.
Historian and former soldier Chris Bray tells the sweeping story of military justice from the earliest days of the republic to contemporary arguments over using military courts to try foreign terrorists or soldiers accused of sexual assault. Stretching from the American Revolution to 9/11, Court-Martial recounts the stories of famous American court-martials, including those involving President Andrew Jackson, General William Tecumseh Sherman, Lieutenant Jackie Robinson, and Private Eddie Slovik. Bray explores how encounters of freed slaves with the military justice system during the Civil War anticipated the civil rights movement, and he explains how the Uniform Code of Military Justice came about after World War II.
With a great eye for narrative, Bray hones in on the human elements of these stories, from Revolutionary-era militiamen demanding the right to participate in political speech as citizens, to black soldiers risking their lives during the Civil War to demand fair pay, to the struggles over the court-martial of Lieutenant William Calley and the events of My Lai during the Vietnam War. Throughout, Bray presents readers with these unvarnished voices and his own perceptive commentary.
Military justice may be separate from civilian justice, but it is thoroughly entwined with American society. As Bray reminds us, the history of American military justice is inextricably the history of America, and Court-Martial powerfully documents the many ways that the separate justice system of the armed forces has served as a proxy for America’s ongoing arguments over equality, privacy, discrimination, security, and liberty.
- Sales Rank: #552618 in Books
- Published on: 2016-05-17
- Released on: 2016-05-17
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.60" h x 1.40" w x 6.50" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 416 pages
Review
"Don't be scared away from a topic that you fear would be as dry as a bowl of shredded wheat. Bray's book has a cogency that will floor those in the justice field, written with verve and immediacy that will captivate the novice. A brilliant read that entertains as well as illuminates." (Joseph D'Alessandris, Leatherneck)
“[Chris] Bray, a former sergeant turned military historian, helps put the lie to the idea that law is a recent arrival on the battlefield. He rightly sees law as a weapon that has powerfully shaped the way America has fought its wars, from the Revolution to the present day.” (John Fabian Witt - Wall Street Journal)
“[An] impressively researched, well-written, and thoroughly entertaining account of military justice in U.S. history. . . . What one repeatedly sees in Court-Martial is a military justice system which, for all its shortcomings, has played an integral role in helping America discover its best self.” (Mike Fischer - Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
“An absorbing chronicle of American justice, short of legalese, that will provide grist for discussion in both civilian and military contexts.” (Library Journal, starred review)
“In his first book, a former infantry sergeant-turned-historian surveys more than 200 years of the administration of American military justice. . . . A thoroughly impressive debut.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
“Bray, a historian and former U.S. Army infantry sergeant, explores a neglected aspect of American legal and social history . . . in this persuasive study of the relationship of military courts-martial to broader social questions.” (Publishers Weekly)
“With a sharp eye and a dry wit, Chris Bray gives us a page-turning tour of court-martial cases that reveal the fundamental questions, values, and debates that have shaped American history. A fantastic book.” (Lorien L. Foote, author of The Gentlemen and the Roughs)
“Chris Bray has written a fascinating book about the role of military justice in American history. Drawing on his experience as a soldier and his training as a historian, Bray offers a lively and compelling account of how military decisions have shaped American law and life from the Founding Era to the War on Terror. This is a story that every American should know and understand.”” (Jonathan W. White, author of Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln)
From the Author
This book tells big, dramatic stories about the history of the American military. You'll read about the gun battle between black soldiers and white police officers in Houston during World War I, and the mass trials and hurried group execution that followed. You'll get the story of the captured Sioux warriors who were tried by a military commission during the Civil War, men on trial for their lives who didn't speak English and didn't know they were on trial -- until after they were sentenced to death for killing unprotected settlers. And you'll learn about the desperation of the Modoc warriors who ambushed unarmed American soldiers who had come to negotiate with them, another event that led to a flawed trial and the hurried construction of shared gallows.
These are just a few examples of the events I describe. My goal with this book was to ground serious history and a careful exploration of ideas with real storytelling. I put events and people in the foreground.
Alongside stories of the way military courts addressed military conflicts and served the political purposes of the armed forces, you'll read about the way that larger social and political conflicts reached into the world of the armed forces and changed the way military discipline worked.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, for example, flogging was a centerpiece of the way the U.S. Navy disciplined ordinary sailors. When Congress banned naval flogging in 1850, their decision reflected an entirely unrelated controversy: Abolitionists took up brutal navy punishments as a way of attacking slavery, drawing a connection between forms of harsh physical coercion. When Congress voted, the roll call in both houses broke down along sectional lines: Northerners mostly voted to ban naval flogging, while Southerners -- offended by the presence of abolitionists in the debate -- voted against the ban. The American debate over slavery changed the way the navy could discipline its personnel at sea.
For another example, consider dueling. The Articles of War forbade both dueling and a range of associated offenses -- like serving as a second, or challenging another soldier to duel. During the Civil War, the War Department in the North issued regulations expanding the meaning of a "duel" to mean any challenge to fight between any soldiers, including privates.
But the gentlemen officers who served on courts-martial refused to consider a challenge between privates to be part of a "duel." They arrived believing that only gentlemen could actually duel, and only if they went through the correct ritual forms like the appointment of a second. Mere privates and sergeants, not being gentlemen, couldn't challenge each other to duel -- they could only challenge each other to fight to the death, which didn't count. They acquitted defendants who were charged with dueling but lacked the necessary social status to actually participate in the social ritual of the duel, and it didn't matter that War Department regulations said something different. Social knowledge trumped legal regulations.
These are the kinds of stories you'll read in this book. I hope you'll enjoy them, and I hope you'll find some American history that will be new to you. Thanks for reading.
About the Author
Chris Bray, a former infantry sergeant in the United States Army, holds a PhD in history from UCLA. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He lives in Los Angeles.
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Push your jaw back up and keep reading
By Hafharhrhr Amalmahay
Wow. How has no one covered this unbelievably rich vein of US history like this before? In example after astonishing example, Chris Bray writes of a parallel American universe few people today probably have much of an inkling of. As popular and pervasive as is the criminal justice system in popular television and crime books, just as obscure, mystifyingly, has been military justice. Well it's high time to lift the veil. It's a fun, if often deadly serious, ride. And if you think military justice is just about the military, well think again.
First of all we have a wonderfully enlightening account of just what a militia meant from the colonial era - how basically all citizens were expected to be soldiers at a moment's notice. So in the beginning, military justice was not something that could just happen to professional soldiers - it was something of genuine concern to everyone who might inadvertently get caught up in its snare. Being an American meant potentially being a soldier, and if you needed reminding of that, imagine as a private citizen getting hauled up in front of a court-martial, and it would be something you would not forget again. If you ever wondered why we discarded the militia system in favor of a standing army, well, this books makes it painfully obvious.
Throughout the first half probably the most incredible thing is just how messy and haphazard was the application of "justice" in the army and navy. Justice in fact was pretty much beside the point, secondary to other considerations, like winning wars, maintaining discipline, complicated notions of social honor, political expediency, nepotism, and the sheer testosterone of military commanders. Justice happened, if at all, around the edges and through the cracks of courts-martial, as the command structure, the officers, and the enlisted found other ways of meting it out with hazing, social shuns, blatant disregard for orders. The author presents this complex social fabric and the myriad cross-purposes with wonderful sympathy and clarity, and a healthy dose of ironic grins at all the absurd contradictions. "Like watching a man trying to run in two directions at once." Or how about this one: "It was an age of - We're going to war, if anyone wants to jump in." He really seems to relish the messy absurdity of it all, and the sentiment is contagious. I mean, how can you help but laugh at the account of august personages like Thomas Hart Benton and Col. John C. Fremont getting into a courtroom battle of staredowns and dirty looks, only to have it closely followed and analyzed in the nation's press? Terrific stuff.
High comedy, yet deadly serious. Over and over we see how military trials have been used for whatever goal their powerful prosecutors had personally set themselves, for motives high and low. From petty commanders to overreaching colonels, generals to Presidents - the temptations to declare emergency powers and overrule civilian law in order to use the far more loosely defined and malleable military codes has been set loose throughout history. Scary, sobering, yes, but what's even more fascinating are the ways individuals and civilian institutions managed to push back.
Yet through it all the message gets hammered home: the military reflected and often presaged upheavals in American life, oftentimes years or decades ahead of the rest of society. Jackie Robinson resigned his commission in disgust from the military, having successfully beaten a charge related to his refusal to give up a seat on an army base bus to a white person. This about 20 before Rosa Parks was celebrated for a similar civilian episode. Who knew? Under the more intense pressure and strain of armed service and wartime, things can come to a head in acute ways. It's like American society at large, but in a pressure cooker.
What really comes home is how the military, it's laws, it's unwritten codes of honor and social understandings, are woven into the fabric of American life and history in such a surprising and relevant way. And our current debate on the use of tribunals and the questions of treating non-combatants as soldiers, well this could hardly be more relevant, and to understand the huge pitfalls this entails, well, there is no better understanding to be had of that other than this book. I've read history but not been a big military history fan. This might be changing.
Terribly important, and wonderfully well written.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Great New Angle on US History - New Facts, New Perspectives - READ THIS BOOK
By Tim Rohde
I just finished this book. I couldn't put it down. It's FASCINATING.
The author really knows how to bring history to life. It's a gripping read about people in conflict. That's part of what makes it great. But an even larger part is that Chris Bray, the author, really knows how to communicating the essence of the American experience through these stories.
And it's EXCELLENT original scholarship from primary sources many of which nobody touched since they were stored away! US history buffs, there are FACTS in this book that you never read before. And stories that are just plain gripping.
This book is about government and individual power in a system where government is "of the people, by the people and for the people." Our country started without a standing army. Armed citizens, organized into militias, WERE the military. Because of this, the history of the court martial is the history of how we define our relationship to power - ON ALL SIDES OF THOSE POWER RELATIONSHIP. The early part of this book is the BEST ILLUSTRATION I'VE EVER READ of the unique aspects of American individual rights and limited government.
It also displays changes in our reliance on social norms and reason vs laws, rules and procedures.
Because we have a citizen military even to this day, military justice deals with all of the many issues of class, race, gender, gender-preference, citizen's rights, government's rights, etc. But it's military justice, so it comes at everything from an entirely new angle than you typically read in history.
This book is like a whole new mirror on America placed at a different angle than anything that has come before.
I can't say enough good things about it. Buy it and read every word. And be prepared to expand your perspective on American history.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Great read
By Brittany R
I purchased this for a college course, surprisingly it was an awesome read! It made my class much more enjoyable. The book was also in prefect condition.
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