Overview

Historical accounts of major events have almost always relied upon what those who were there witnessed. Nowhere is this truer than in the nerve-shattering chaos of warfare, where sight seems to confer objective truth and acts as the basis of reconstruction. In The Smell of Battle, the Taste of Siege, historian Mark M. Smith considers how all five senses, including sight, shaped the experience of the Civil War and thus its memory, exploring its full sensory impact on everyone from the soldiers on the field to the civilians waiting at home. From the eardrum-shattering barrage of shells announcing the outbreak of war at Fort Sumter; to the stench produced by the corpses lying in the mid-summer sun at Gettysburg; to the siege of Vicksburg, once a center of Southern culinary aesthetics and starved into submission, Smith recreates how Civil War was felt and lived. Relying on first-hand accounts, Smith focuses on specific senses, one for each event, offering a wholly new perspective. At Bull Run, the similarities between the colors of the Union and Confederate uniforms created concern over what later would be called ""friendly fire"" and helped decide the outcome of the first major battle, simply because no one was quite sure they could believe their eyes. He evokes what it might have felt like to be in the HL Hunley submarine, in which eight men worked cheek by jowl in near-total darkness in a space 48 inches high, 42 inches wide. Often argued to be the first ""total war,"" the Civil War overwhelmed the senses because of its unprecedented nature and scope, rendering sight less reliable and, Smith shows, forcefully engaging the nonvisual senses. Sherman's March was little less than a full-blown assault on Southern sense and sensibility, leaving nothing untouched and no one unaffected. Unique, compelling, and fascinating, The Smell of Battle, The Taste of Siege, offers readers way to experience the Civil War with fresh eyes.

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Reviews

Many Americans experienced their Civil War as a cacophony of exploding shells, the sight of burning buildings, the stench of rotting corpses, the taste of spoiled rations in the armies or mule meat in starving cities under siege, and the touch of unwashed bodies crowded in small spaces. A pioneer in the field of 'sensory history, ' Mark Smith re-creates these unpleasant experiences as closely as possible through the medium of the printed word. --James McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Many Americans experienced their Civil War as a cacophony of exploding shells, the sight of burning buildings, the stench of rotting corpses, the taste of spoiled rations in the armies or mule meat in starving cities under siege, and the touch of unwashed bodies crowded in small spaces. A pioneer in the field of 'sensory history, ' Mark Smith re-creates these unpleasant experiences as closely as possible through the medium of the printed word. --James McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom, winner of the Pulitzer Prize Recovering the human experience of the Civil War is difficult with even the best literary sources-which makes Mark M. Smith's exploration of the conflict's sensory landscape especially valuable. From the cramped interior of the submarine Hunley to the grim living conditions among the besieged population of Vicksburg, Smith brings readers into a world of sights, smells, and sounds that add texture to our understanding of the nation's transformative trauma. --Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Union War Smith, one of the most imaginative and creative of historians of the United States and a pioneer in the History of the Senses, evokes the immediacy of war, calling forth the feelings of battle by eliciting the use of the senses. More than an eye-witness account, this book arouses the ear, the taste, the feel, and the smell of war. Smith fuses overwhelming sights as they mingle with discordant sounds, rancid tastes, foul odors, and close feel. No mere intellectual exercise, this study presents a sensory perspective on Civil War history as it was experienced and shows how the senses affect war's outcomes. Introducing the senses as forces and factors relevant to making war and to the suffering caused by battle, Smith has written a work that is an essential contribution to the study of the Civil War and to war in general. --Orville Vernon Burton, author The Age of Lincoln.. . this book is a vital first step in making sense of the Civil War's sensate past. It will sharpen historians' sensibilities of how combatants processed 'the smells of battle, the tastes of sieges, the traumatic pain of injury, the sights of engagement, and the sounds of strife, loss, and victory.' It will encourage historians to subject other events to similar analysis - 'to turn up the volume, to make the whiffs smell, the caresses touch.' --John David Smith, Chronicle Review Even for jaded Civil War readers who think they have explored the war from every conceivable angle, this is fresh material compellingly explored. ... Mr. Smith is onto something original and important, and his relentless intensity, rigorous attention to detail and dazzling vocabulary make for a beguiling, if occasionally numbing, read. - Wall Street Journal Eminently readable... The Smell of Battle is an unconventional history of the Civil War, written with special attention to olfaction, touch, taste, sight, and hearing. It joins other recent histories of the war - Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War; Michael C.C. Adams' Living Hell: The Dark Side of the Civil War - in trying to represent the war's massive levels of death and disruption so that 21st-century readers will really feel the history, deep in their bones. ...Sensory history, The Smell of Battle makes clear, is more than just an exercise in providing colorful detail... A book like Smith's, which tries to put reports of sights, sounds, and tastes in context, is a powerful argument for the importance of reading original historical sources while trying to understand the social mores of the time. --Slate Historians often ask readers to imagine the intense sights, sounds, and smells of battle. Smith goes one step further and explores how such sensory assaults affect the conduct of war itself... Smith gets into these gritty details by narrating some of the most important encounters of the American Civil War: the noise of the shelling of Fort Sumter; the confusion caused by the proliferation of different uniforms and badges at the First Battle of Bull Run; the stench of death at Gettysburg, which lingered from July to October; the hunger caused by the siege of Vicksburg; and the claustrophobic conditions faced by the crew of a crude Confederate submarine. --Foreign Affairs

Read this book for an original methodology that encourages readers to consider the influence of the confusions of battle, the noise of shells, and the stench of death. Smith describes some of the key encounters of the civil war, including the Battle of Bull Run and Gettysburg, in terms of assaults on the senses and shows how that affected outcomes. Books of the year 2014, War on the Rocks Historians often ask readers to imagine the intense sights, sounds, and smells of battle. Smith goes one step further and explores how such sensory assaults affect the conduct of war itself. Lawrence D. Freedman, Books of the year 2014, Foreign Affairs

Historians often ask readers to imagine the intense sights, sounds, and smells of battle. Smith goes one step further and explores how such sensory assaults affect the conduct of war itself. * Lawrence D. Freedman, Books of the year 2014, Foreign Affairs * Read this book for an original methodology that encourages readers to consider the influence of the confusions of battle, the noise of shells, and the stench of death. Smith describes some of the key encounters of the civil war, including the Battle of Bull Run and Gettysburg, in terms of assaults on the senses and shows how that affected outcomes. * Books of the year 2014, War on the Rocks * Smiths choice of episodes is inspiring. Perhaps not evident from the last two chapters titles, themes are introduced with playful language, his enjoyment in writing this volume evident throughout ... I would be surprised if this book does not change historical accounts of warfare. The twentieth century brought total war to greater numbers of civilians of many other nations, but historians have yet to write the sort of total history, which adequately conveys the full meaning of such collective trauma. Yet again, Smith has provided us with a model. * Jonathan Reinarz, University of Birmingham, The American Historical Review *

Author Information

Mark M. Smith is Carolina Distinguished Professor of History at the University of South Carolina and author or editor of a dozen books, including Sensing the Past: Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History and How Race Is Made: Slavery, the Senses, and Segregation.

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