Difference between revisions of "The Smell of Battle, the Taste of Siege"

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The Smell of Battle, the Taste of Siege: Sensory History of the Civil War. Oxford University Press, 2014.

In Mark Smith’s book The Smell of Battle, the Taste of Siege: Sensory History of the Civil War, he provides a history of the Civil War through a new analytical framework by focusing on key events of the war and how they were influenced and affected by particular senses. Smith examines how the sensory impacts of the battles and the war at large impacted soldiers and civilians, especially in how it deviated from their typical sensory environments from before the war. In compelling and easy to read language, each chapter focuses on a different event and particular sense. The key events include the bombing of Fort Sumter, the First Battle of Bull Run, Gettysburg, the siege of Vicksburg, and the sinking of the H.L. Hunley. These familiar events are presented through a new lens, offering nuanced interpretations of how those involved were being affected. However, Smith makes sure to note that while some senses may have been more affected than others, the Civil War was overwhelming and completely pervasive for all the senses. It had a lasting, revolutionary impact on the sensory landscapes and memories of those involved in the war efforts, both from the north and the south, and forced many to question and reassess their notions of what constituted truth through the senses.

Smith begins his analysis with the preview to the War and the battle at Fort Sumter and the rising tension and subsequent onslaught of sound to Charlestonians. The noise involved in the altercation stood in direct opposition to the carefully controlled noise levels the city previously enforced at the urging of the genteel elite. The next event he discusses is the First Bull Run, which is analyzed through the sense of sight. During this battle, the lack of consistency in army uniform colors, both northern and southern, served to bring pause to many soldiers and officers, lest they accidentally open fire on their own comrades. Not knowing friend or foe from what people were wearing, as well as the disorientation caused by the heat, dirt, and smoke, caused much confusion regarding if their eyes could be believed. This disbelief was in direct opposition to the battle strategy laid out that did not account for the potential and unprecedented visual or sensory confusion for new soldiers.

The third event that assaulted the senses and affected the general atmosphere was the smell associated with the disastrous Battle of Gettysburg. While Gettysburg eventually ended and the immediate sensory overload from the battle itself dissipated, the local residents experienced their own sensory disruption in the form of the stench from the bodies that lingered for almost three months. The total encompassment of the smell of dead, rotting corpses is often overlooked as an experience of war, due to the mediums through which we interpret events, such as texts or photographs. Remembering an event through a purely visual medium eliminates the larger sensory context of the photo or text. Smith’s nuanced description goes beyond the soldiers’ experiences and the tactical integrity of the battles, and cuts to the basic human experience that was had by all present.

The Siege of Vicksburg and the chapter about the Hunley cover taste and touch, two senses often overlooked and historically associated with the class and refinement. Each chapter attempted to showed how even white affluence and privilege could be reduced to the level of poor white and the enslaved, either through what elite whites were reduced to eating during the siege or their physical proximity to each other while working. Those elite in Vicksburg who so valued their elevated taste and how it set them apart from lower classes and the enslaved were eventually eating the same as everyone else. Through this, Smith showed how the boundaries of class and what was acceptable, through the food people consumed in this case, are social constructs that could be pushed to the limit. Smith also argues that the white soldiers in the H.L. Hunley were pushed to social extremes through the sense of touch. The hard manual labor of operating the submarine that they were doing required intimately close proximity to others, which Smith likens to the station and experience of most enslaved people.

While each of these events focused on a particular sensory element, Smith makes sure to emphasize that the War was overwhelming to each of the senses, and no sense is experienced in a vacuum. Investigating the events through the sensory experiences they produced made the horrors and impact much more immediate, and demonstrated just how much was at stake for both sides. Smith concludes by examining William Tecumsah Sherman’s March to the Sea. Sherman’s march was an act of total war, which was a total sensory revolution for all involved. The Civil War changed the nation in myriad ways, but it also redefined people’s sensory expectations and how they interacted with their own senses, particularly in the South. Ultimately, Sherman understood that defeating Southerners as a whole equaled overwhelming their senses and equating the War with their own individual suffering.

This book presents key events from the Civil War from a fresh perspective, underscoring the human experience of the war on a more nuanced and personal level than other texts that focus purely on battle strategies and the like. Smith provides a glimpse into the true nature of war in a way that is impossible to replicate, especially in a reenactment. Smith’s research also shows how sensorial disorientation affected battle strategies both in theory and practice. This reader would have liked to see more analysis in the Hunley chapter in regards to Smith’s comparison between what the eight-person Hunley crew experienced and the experience of enslaved people during their trans-Atlantic journeys. This comparison is briefly mentioned and Smith does not provide much additional context or explanation, making the comparison seem like too far of a stretch, especially in terms of magnitude. Otherwise, this shorter work, just over 150 pages, provides an overview of how incorporating sensory analysis can enable new understandings of past experiences and provides an excellent model and starting point for historians looking to incorporate sensory analysis into their narratives.