Military Men of Feeling: Emotion, Touch, and Masculinity in the Crimean War

Focusing on representations of soldiers' experiences of touch and emotion, this monograph combines the work of well known writers - including Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Yonge - with previously unstudied writing and craft produced by British soldiers in the Crimean War (1854-56). This conflict was pivotal in shaping British attitudes to military masculinity. A range of media enabled unprecedented public engagement with the progress and infamous "blunders" of the conflict. Soldiers and civilians reflected on appropriate behaviour across ranks, forms of heroism, the physicalsuffering of the troops, administrative management and the need for army reform. The book considers how the military man of feeling contributes to the rethinking of gender roles, class and military hierarchy in the mid-nineteenth century, and how this figure was used in campaigns for reform.