| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Dennis J. Ringle. Life in Mr. Lincoln's Navy. Annapolis, MD.: Naval Institute Press. 1998. Pp. xvi, 202. $32.95.

It has now been over fifty years since Bell Irvin Wiley laid the groundwork for the study of the Civil War soldier in his masterful work, The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy (1943). When Wiley completed The Life of Billy Yank (1952), these two works offered historians a solid foundation to explore further the social side of the Civil War. Since the publication of these two books, many articles and studies have extended our knowledge of the wartime experiences of the soldiers on both sides of the conflict. Yet, despite the tremendous amount of literature available, similar scholarship on the U.S. Navy has been lacking. Dennis J. Ringle has written a long overdue study that strives to correct this shortcoming. 1

Ringle arranged his book topically and begins by examining the important antebellum social conditions and reform movements that affected the navy. He follows this with a discussion of the navy's recruiting difficulties and the use of African Americans during the war. The latter topic bears special mention because the navy, despite lingering prejudice, offered opportunities to blacks. Although these men faced discrimination, they received the same clothing, food, and pay, lived in the same quarters, and fought and died alongside their shipmates. They won a share of equality and upward mobility not necessarily available to them ashore. Making up twenty percent of the manpower of the navy, they clearly made an important contribution. . . .

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