High-Bounty Men in the Army of the Potomac
Reclaiming Their Honor
What People are Saying
Reviews and Endorsements for High-Bounty Men in the Army of the Potomac
Selected for 2024 Top Ten (January 31, 2025)
Civil War Books and Authors
"Edwin Rutan's High-Bounty Men in the Army of the Potomac is a thoughtful, compassionate, and convincing exploration of the perceptions and realities commonly attached to the men comprising the massive body of late-war Union recruits ... [T]ruly groundbreaking... This exceptionally fine book truly allows the late-war volunteers of the Army of the Potomac to reclaim service honors unjustifiably withheld for far too long."
Earl J. Hess
Professor Emeritus,
Lincoln Memorial University
“Through expert use of statistical data, blended with astute deployment of a variety of other sources of information, Edwin P. Rutan II convincingly offers us a brand-new interpretation of the men who joined the Union army during the last half of the Civil War. It is a positive and balanced portrayal of these ‘late-war’ soldiers that turns the traditional view of them on its head.
His book also reflects importantly on unit effectiveness, the relationship between the central, state, and local governments in creating and maintaining the Union army, and the persistence of soldiers to endure campaign and battle in America’s worst war to date. This is a much-needed analysis of a vital cohort of troops who were instrumental in saving the Union in 1865, and it is a brilliant addition to Civil War soldier studies."
The Civil War Monitor
(September 18, 2024)
“High-Bounty Men breaks new ground ... It demonstrates convincingly that the late-war regiments did not greatly differ from earlier recruits in their combat effectiveness, and that they were, in fact, central to winning the War in the East."
John G. Selby
Author of Meade: The Price of Command 1863–1865
"Not since Ulysses S. Grant penned his memoirs have the ‘high-bounty’ volunteers of the Army of the Potomac had such a defender as Edwin Rutan II. Using sophisticated statistical analysis, numerous first-person accounts, and new categories for rating ‘combat effectiveness,’ Rutan compels students of the Civil War to question long-held assumptions about the fighting value of the hundreds of thousands of men who carried the Union armies to victory in the last two years of the war."
William Marvel
Author of Lincoln’s Mercenaries: Economic Motivation among Union Soldiers during the Civil War
“For three decades now, progressively deeper research into the Civil War has been dismantling myths spawned by the participants themselves and perpetuated by historians whose portrayal of that epic saga tended more to soaring eloquence than scholarly examination. Combining a chronicler’s craft with a lawyer’s expertise in the evaluation of evidence, Ed Rutan has credibly quashed an indictment against late-war Union volunteers that originated in high-level excuse-making 160 years ago.”