For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War 9780195124996

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Why Men

Fought In The Civil War

— General John A. Wickham, commander of

the

famous 101st

Airborne Division in the 1970s and subsequently Army Chief of Staff, once visited Antietam battlefield. Gazing at Bloody Lane where, in 1862, several Union assaults were brutally repulsed before they finally broke through, he marveled, "You couldn't get American soldiers today to make an attack like that."

Why

did those

men

risk their lives,

over and over again, through countless

bloody battles and four long, awful years?

Why did

the conventional

wisdom

—

that

become increasingly cynical and disillusioned as war progresses not hold soldiers

—

true in the Civil It is

fight

—

War? why

to this question

that

did they

James M. McPherson, America's

War historian, now turns He shows that, contrary to

preeminent Civil his attention.

what many

scholars believe, the soldiers

of the Civil

War remained

powerfully

convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the

conflict.

Motivated

by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these

men

wrote frequently of their

firm belief in the cause for which they fought: the principles of liberty, freedom,

and patriotism. Soldiers on both harkened back to the Founding Fathers and the ideals of the American Revolution. They fought to defend their justice,

sides

—

Union "the best Government ever made" or the Confederate states, where their very homes

country, either the

—

and families were under siege. And they fought to defend their honor and manhood. "I should not lik to go home with the name of a couhard," one Massachusetts private wrote, and another private from Ohio said, "My wife would sooner hear of my death than after three years of

my disgrace." Even

bloody

battles,

more

than half of the Union soldiers reenlisted voluntarily.

and

my

"While duty

country demands

calls

my

me

here

services

I

should be willing to make the sacrifice," one man wrote to his protesting parents.

And love

another soldier said simply,

my

"I still

country."

McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private

FOR CAUSE and

COMRADES

Books by James The Struggle for Equality:

M.

Abolitionists

Mcpherson

and the Negro

in the Civil

War

and Reconstruction (1964)

The Negro's

Civil

War:

How American War for

the

Negroes Felt and Acted During the

Union (1965)

Marching Toward Freedom: The Negro

The

Abolitionist Legacy:

From Reconstruction

Ordeal by Fire: The Civil Battle

War and

the

to the

War

(1967)

NAACP

(1975)

Reconstruction (1982)

Cry of Freedom: The Civil

Abraham Lincoln and

War Era

(1988)

Second American Revolution (1991)

What They Fought

Drawn with

in the Civil

For,

1861-1865 (1994)

the Sword: Reflections on the

American Civil War (1996)

and

COMMA -

Why Men Fought the Civil Wa r

In

James M. McPherson

New York Oxford Oxford University Press 1997

Oxford University Press

New York

Oxford

Athens

Buenos Aires Delhi

Kuala

Bangkok

Auckland

Florence

Hong Kong

Lumpur

Madras

Mexico City

Istanbul

Copyright

©

Karachi

Melbourne

Toronto

and associated companies Berlin

Salaam

es

Singapore

Paris

Tokyo

Taipei

Dar

Madrid

Nairobi

Bombay

Bogota

Cape Town

Calcutta

in

Ibadan

1997 by Oxford University Press,

Inc.

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

198 Madison Avenue,

Oxford

is

New

York,

New

York 10016

a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

All rights reserved.

No

part of this publication

may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,

without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McPherson, James M. For cause and comrades:

why men

fought in the Civil

War

James M. McPherson. p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references

(p.)

and index.

ISBN 0-19-509023-3 1.

2.

United States.

Army— History—Civil

Confederate States of America.

United States

Army

War, 1861-1865.

— Biography.

— Psychology— History— 19th

century.

Combat

— Psychological aspects— History— 19th L492.3.M38

973.7—dc20

1

aspects.

century.

1997

96-24760

35798642

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper

United

4.

States— History— Civil War, 1861-1865— Psychological 5.

Soldiers

3.

I.

Title.

To

Luther Osborn Private, Corporal,

and Sergeant, Co. B,

93rd

New

York

Volunteer Infantry,

1862-63 and Lieutenant, Co.

Captain, Co.

G

H

22nd U.S. Colored Infantry, 1863-65 and

to

JESSE BEECHER Private, Co. E 112th

New

York

Volunteer Infantry,

1862-65

PREFACE

Harriet Beecher Stowe insisted that she did not God did. I cannot make the same claim for

Tom's Cabin;

would be close wrote

it.

power

than

this book. It

War

articulated their motives for fighting far above

add or

detract. Their

uncensored

and more candid explanations

fuller fight

They

to

to the truth, however, to say that Civil

write Uncle

we have

used such sources

letters

and

soldiers

my

for their decisions to enlist

Three million

How

and

Many

historians have

to explore the thoughts, emotions,

and actions of

for soldiers in

any other war.

these men. But none has read their diaries and letters with the

questions about

poor

diaries provide

why

they fought as

I

soldiers fought in the

same

have done.

Union and Confederate armies.

does an historian discover and analyze the thoughts and feelings

Modern pollsters claim a margin of error of no more than 4 percent when questioning a sample of one thousand of three million people?

people to analyze the opinions

of, say,

one hundred million

voters.

But

they do so by selecting a representative sample that stands as an exact

epitome of the whole. soldiers, is

nor can

I

I

cannot construct such a sample of Civil

submit a questionnaire

to select a quasi-representative

diaries

to

them. The best

group of soldiers whose

I

War

can do

letters or

have survived and read those documents with a discerning eye

V

i

i

PREFACE

i

answering the

toward

representative"

mean

I

representativeness.

posed

questions

a sample that

My

in

this

comes

By

book.

"quasi-

as close as possible to

sample consists of 1,076

soldiers:

647 Union

and 429 Confederate. This proportion of 40 percent Confederates overrepresents the actual 29 percent of

were Confederates, but

all

Civil

War

seems desirable

this overrepresentation

who

soldiers

in or-

der to broaden the base for generalizations about Southern soldiers.

The average age (25.8 years)

is

enlistment of Union soldiers in the sample

at

identical with the average age at enlistment for

all

Union soldiers, while the samples median age of 23.9 years at enlistment is almost the same as the median for all Union soldiers (23.5). The average and median ages of the Confederate sample at the time of enlistment were 26.5 and 24.2 respectively. In the Union sample 1

men were

29 percent of the

married

when

they joined the army, which

conforms almost exactly with the estimate of 30 percent of

War

soldiers in the only study of the marital status of Civil

that

am

I

aware

of.

2

all

Union

soldiers

Reflecting the mobilization of a larger proportion

of the eligible white male population into the Confederate than into

the Union army, 36 percent of the Confederate sample were married. Soldiers in both samples hailed from the various states in roughly the

same proportions

as did

sachusetts, Michigan,

New

all

white soldiers. In the Union sample Mas-

and Iowa are somewhat overrepresented and

York and the border states underrepresented, while in the Con-

federate sample South Carolina

is

overrepresented and Tennessee un-

derrepresented. (See Appendix.) Three percent of the Union sample

fought in the navy, compared with about

Of

personnel. try,

1 1

the

5

percent of actual Union

Union army sample, 82 percent served

percent in the cavalry, 6 percent in the

in the engineers,

which

slightly

service.

Of

the Confederate

and 2 percent

underrepresents the cavalry.

Confederate sample, only one-half of

which may underrepresent even

artillery,

in the infan-

1

the

percent were in the navy,

that tiny branch of the Confederate

army sample 78 percent were

percent cavalry, and 7 percent

Of

artillery,

which conforms

infantry, 15

closely to the

actual percentages in these branches.

With respect branch of

to age, marital status, geographical distribution,

and

service, therefore, the samples are fairly representative. In

other respects, however, they are not. By definition the 10 or 12 per-

cent of

Union the

all

white soldiers

who were

illiterate are

not represented. Black

soldiers and sailors are radically underrepresented: 1 percent of Union sample were blacks compared with almost 9 percent of all

Preface Union personnel. (Note, however, were

diers

x

some 70 pereent of black solUnion and Confederate samples,

that

In both the

illiterate.)

i

foreign-born soldiers are substantially underrepresented. In the Union

sample only 9 percent of the

24 percent of

Union

all

men were

born abroad compared with

and even

soldiers. Unskilled

skilled laborers

are underrepresented in both samples. Nonslaveholding farmers are

underrepresented one-third of

Indeed, while about

Confederate soldiers belonged to slaveholding families,

all

more than two-thirds of the sample whose slaveholding

slightly is

the Confederate sample.

in

known

Men

did so.

and white-collar occupations are

of professional

Union sample. Officers

equally overrepresented in the

status

are overrepre-

sented in both samples. While some 10 percent of Civil

War

soldiers

served as officers for at least half of their time in the army, 47 percent

and 35 percent of the Union sample did

of the Confederate sample so.

Both samples are also skewed toward those who volunteered

1861-62 and therefore contain disproportionately few

Union

or those

tutes,

who

soldiers

enlisted in

in

draftees, substi-

1863-64

for large

bounties.

The dle

biases in the sample toward native-born soldiers from the mid-

and upper classes who enlisted

These their

were more

soldiers

early in the

war are unavoidable.

likely to write letters or

descendants were more

to

likely

preserve

keep

The purpose

of this

diers for fighting.

I

book

am

is

may

to explain the motives of Civil

did their best to avoid combat. did the real fighting.

best

way

to tell

who

What

fought

But

is

in

one

turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

less interested in the

who

and

them than were

working-class, foreign-born, black, or slaveless soldiers. crucial respect these biases

diaries

My is

War

motives of skulkers

samples are

sol-

who

skewed toward those

the evidence for that assertion?

to look at casualty figures.

The

The

fighting

regiments were those with the highest casualties; the fighting soldiers

were those most were

soldiers

likely to get killed.

killed or mortally

percent of the soldiers in

wounded. Some this fate,

Two selves;

While

wounded

in

5

percent of

all

Union

combat, a startling 17

the Union sample were

11 or 12 percent of

all

killed or mortally

Confederate soldiers suffered

compared with 29 percent of the Confederate sample. possible

both

explanations for this

may be

right.

First,

phenomenon

sample probably did a disproportionate amount of the ond, the families and

been more

suggest them-

the groups overrepresented in the

descendants of

men

fighting. Sec-

killed in action

likely to preserve their letters for posterity

may have

than the families

Preface

x

and descendants of those who were not

and

War

diaries of these 1,076 Civil

generations to

tell

us

why

killed. In

any event, the

letters

speak to us across the

soldiers

they fought.

From such writings I have come to know these men better than I know most of my living acquaintances, for in their personal letters

moment

written in a time of crisis that might end their lives at any

we do

they revealed more of their inner selves than

everyday

lives.

many

my

of

These

and

letters

diaries

questions about what they fought

with the fear and stress of combat, and

in our

normal

me

answer

have enabled

why

to

how they coped War armies could

for,

Civil

sustain a far higher level of casualties than any other armies in Ameri-

can history and keep on

fighting.

This book challenges some of the conventional wisdom about the

motives and mentalite of Civil tions that differ to take

why

soldiers.

from those of other

my word

story of

who

War

historians.

some

offers

they fought as

much

as possible in the I

why

is

Only one-seventh of an iceberg

and actions presented

ment by in

my

a soldier

words of the

the

men

is

visible

above the waters

and opinions

quoted herein,

my

at least six

research. For every state-

more

lie

below the surface

notecards.

In 1993

delivered the Walter C. Fleming Lectures at Louisiana

I

State University.

These three lectures were published the following

year in a small book entitled

book focused on the and Union

What They Fought

political

For,

1861-1865. That

and ideological issues that Confederate

soldiers perceived to

be

at stake in the war.

For Cause and

Comrades incorporates these themes of the Cause for which soldiers professed to fight but goes well full

tell

in the following pages represents only the ice-

the evidence accumulated in

tip of

I

have proceeded on the "iceberg

surface. Likewise the evidence for soldiers' motivations

berg

interpreta-

do not expect readers

I

alone for these interpretations. That

did the fighting. In doing so

principle."

It

range of causes

enormous

stresses

Although familiarly

I

beyond them

Civil

War

to analyze the

why they fought and how they coped with

the

and emotions of combat.

have come to know these soldiers and their families

by name, few of them were famous people, and

to scatter

hundreds of different names over these pages would overwhelm and confuse the reader. Thus

by his rank, regiment,

I

state,

have normally identified a quoted soldier

and branch of

service.

Unless otherwise

indicated, such references are to infantry units: for example, a captain in the 51st

New

York, a private in the 33rd Virginia, a sergeant in the

Preface 8th

Readers interested

Illinois Cavalry.

and

in the

names

x

in

nanus

the

i

of these soldiers

or identities of the recipients of their letters will

find this information in the endnotes.

While most clear in

soldiers could

make

meaning quite

their

their

grammar, punctuation, and capitalization did not always con-

spelling,

form

War

Civil

words on paper, and many wrote vigorous, colorful prose,

to the rules.

Because

their departures

from these rules some-

times reveal insights into their personalities, education, or state of

mind when

writing,

I

have quoted their words exactly as they wrote

them, without the intrusive

few cases, where

it

[sic] to

was necessary

indicate their mistakes. In a very

for clarity,

I

have

silently corrected

punctuation or have added the correct spelling of a word in brackets. In other cases,

when such words

as don't or can't appear as dont or

cant, they are not typographical errors.

know

times mixed them up.

championship

spelling that

I

can assure the reader that

I

I

the difference between there and their, though soldiers some-

know how

And

as the

runner-up

in eighth grade,

to spell

I

in the

such words as separate and

they appear as seperate and alter they are not printer's,

soldiers

nor are the

Freeborn County

can also assure the reader

many

my

altar,

so

when

mistakes or the

other misspelled words in the letters of

whose orthography was often

delightfully original

and

creative.

L

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I

could not

many

people.

have written

As always with

this

a

book without the help of

work of

history, libraries

a great

and curators

of manuscript collections are essential to research. Individuals facilitated

my

out for having rendered services above and beyond the

Richard

J.

Sommers,

archivist of the

Missouri Historical Society in

call of duty:

United States Military History

Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; Peter at the

who

research are too numerous to name, though a few stand

St.

Michel and

his staff

who gave me access move into a new build-

Louis,

to the Society's collections during a distracting

Paul Romaine, curator of the Gilder-Lehrman Collection, and

ing;

Lori Gilbert, curatorial assistant at the Pierpont-Morgan Library in

New and to

York City, which houses

diaries, for special efforts to

make some

of this material available

me; John H. Rhodehamel, curator of American History

Huntington Library to

this rich collection of soldiers' letters

in

San Marino,

an important collection of

Henneman, History versity,

California,

letters before

it

who

at

the

arranged access

was cataloged; and John

Bibliographer at Firestone Library, Princeton Uni-

for obtaining the microfilm set of the Library of Congress's

collection of soldiers' letters

Dozens of other

and

diaries.

skilled professionals at the following institutions

x

i

Acknowledgments

v

also provided courteous

and

Club

efficient service: the Filson

Historical

Society in Louisville; the Department of Special Collections at Fire-

stone Library, Princeton University; the Hill Memorial Library at Louisi-

ana State University; the Huntington Library; the cal Library in Springfield; the

Illinois State Histori-

Kentucky Historical Society

in Frankfort;

the Lincoln Shrine at the Albert K. Smiley Library in Redlands, California; the

Maryland Historical Society

Minnesota His-

in Baltimore; the

Missouri in

torical Society in St. Paul; the State Historical Society of

Columbia; the

Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond; the Ohio His-

torical Society in

Columbus; the Perkins Library

Southern Historical Collection

Tennessee State Library

at

Duke

at the University of

University; the

North Carolina; the

in Nashville; the Virginia Historical Society in

Richmond; the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison; and the Woodruff Library of

Emory

University in Atlanta.

Despite the numerous published volumes of soldiers' ries I

letters or dia-

held by the Firestone Library and the Huntington Library, where

did most of the research for this book, even these outstanding reposi-

tories

do not possess several volumes that turned out

portant material. For those volumes

I

lagher of Pennsylvania State University, private Civil

Gary this

War

also helped

libraries that

me

book. Professor

I

know

who has one of the finest Many conversations with

of.

some of the themes treated in Ohio State University also with me. Other friends and scholars whose

clarify

and

refine

Mark Grimsley

shared sources and ideas

to contain im-

turned to Professor Gary Gal-

of

conversations or correspondence have proved valuable are: Peter

Carmichael, John Whiteclay Chambers

III,

Eric T. Dean, Earl

J.

S.

Hess,

Frances H. Kennedy, John Lynn, Louis Masur, Reid Mitchell, James I.

"Bud" Robertson, Richard I

Rollins,

and John

E. Talbott.

did most of the research and writing of this book during three

sabbatical leaves from Princeton University, two of as a Fellow at the

Huntington

them

in residence

Library. For financial support during

those leaves and during an additional

summer

I

am

indebted to the

Seaver Institute and the R. Stanton Avery Fund, administered through the Huntington Library; the Rollins and Davis Funds, administered

through the Department of History

at

Princeton University; and the

Princeton University Committee on Research in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Martin Ridge and Robert C. Ritchie, directors of

research respectively at the Huntington Library during

my

two fellow-

ship years at that wonderful institution, provided a congenial atmo-

sphere for research and writing. They were ably seconded by the De-

Acknowledgments partment

Headers'

of

Huntington

Serviees

and

the

x v

heads

respective

the

of

1987 and 1995-96, Robert Middlekauff and Robert

in

Skotheim.

Many

collections of soldiers' letters or diaries remain

m

private

hands, usually in the possession of descendants. Other collections

were

in respositories that

did not

I

visit personally.

I

who have

the generosity of the following individuals

am

Indebti

me

shared with

copies of materials in these collections (in a few cases these col lee tions

were subsequently published): Samuel Abernethy, Michael

lard,

Don

Allison,

Wyndham

Al-

Anderson, Joanie Betley, Kermit Bird,

Louis Bross, Betty Burchell, Lauren

Cook

Burgess, O. Vernon Burton,

Charles A. Coit, David G. Colwell, Janet Coryell, Mrs. John D'Arcy,

Georges Denzene, F.

J.

M. "Mac" Dobie, Mary Marvin Dunlop, Robert

Engs, John Campbell Farmer, James B. Futrell, Rusty Gaillard,

Joseph G. Glatthaar, Richard Gottlieb, Robert N. Grant, Norman Halliday, J.

Roderick Heller, David Holquist, Robert W. Ikard, James W.

Johnston, Kent D. Koons, Charles LaRocca, Connie Leitnaker, Henry

C. Lind, Francis MacNutt, Louis Mahan, Miller, Stanley

Don

Melvin, Gerald

J.

Robert Miller, Morton R. Milsner, John A. Morrow,

Jeanne E. Murray, Mary Obert Norris, Bernard A. Olsen, Edward O. Parry,

Sanford Pentecost, Lewis

Warren

Platten, Steven Poling,

Robbins, Hal

Saffell,

V

Perry, Victor Petreshene,

Mary June W.

Randall, Susan E. Richter, Allan

Christian G. Samito, Frances Saunders, Jeffry

Scheuer, John Wellington

Hope Simpson, Ann and David Thomas,

Van and James Tomlinson, W Thornton, Waterman, Zack WaRichard W Barbara Wampole, Thomas Leland

Sally

Jerry

Hoosier,

Walling,

ters,

the late Warren Wilkinson, Ruth and

Guy Woodward, and

Earl

M. Wright. For the past twenty years

I

Sheldon Meyer, history editor herded

five of

my books,

have enjoyed a creative partnership with at

Oxford University Press, who has shep-

including this one, through the publication pro-

me produce this volume has also been the most important person in my life for the past forty years, my wife Patricia. In addition to enriching my life every day, she cess.

The person most instrumental

in helping

has been a superb research assistant, having read almost as diers' letters

serves to be

Princeton,

July 1996

and

diaries as

named

I

a co-author of For

New Jersey

many

sol-

have. Along with those soldiers, she de-

Cause and Comrades.

James M. McPherson

.

CONTENTS

War

Is

2.

We were

in

3.

Anxious for the Fray

This

1

4. If

3

Earnest

Flinched

l

Crusade

a

I

1

4

3

Was Ruined

4 6

What Makes Brave Soldiers

5.

religion

6.

A Band of Brothers

7 7

7.

On the Altar of My Country

9

8.

The Cause of liberty

9.

Slavery must be cleaned Out

is

we know

1

VENGEANCE WILL BE OUR MOTTO

1

.

12.

We Are

Supported at Home

The Same Holy Cause

Appendix Table Table

1

.

2.

4

1

lO.

That

6 2

Geographical Distribution of Confederate Soldiers Geographical Distribution of White

Union

Soldiers

l

l

7

l

3

1

1

4 8

l

6 3

1

7 9

1

7 9

1

8

Contents Table

3.

Occupations of Confederate Soldiers

8

Table

4.

Occupations of White Union Soldiers

8 2

A

Note on Sources

1

8 3

Abbreviations in Notes

8 7

Notes

8 9

Index

2 3 3

FOR CAUSE

Chapter

1

THIS WAR

IS 1

CRUSADE

The

origins of

of 1976 first

On

of

I

this

book go back many

years. In the spring

took several Princeton students to Gettysburg for the

what became many tours of

this occasion,

as

on subsequent

that

memorable

we

visits,

battlefield.

finished the day by

walking the ground over which "Pickett's charge" took place

we

climax of the battle. As twilight,

under

knowing

artillery

asked in awe:

strolled across the

that those

and then

What made

at the

peaceful

almost every step of the way, students

men do it? What motivated them to What caused them to go forward despite

these

fire?

the high odds against coming out safely?

my

fields in

13,000 Confederate soldiers had come

rifle fire

advance into that wall of

open

I

found that

I

could not give

students a satisfactory answer. But the question planted the seed

of a book.

Another experience tered the seed.

the four Civil

later that

The day

War

same bicentennial year

my

Thanksgiving

of 1976 wa-

cousin and

I

visited

battlefields near Fredericksburg, Virginia.

As we

after

stood at the Bloody Angle of Spotsylvania on that crisp

with no other living creature in sight except a

hawk

fall

afternoon,

soaring high over-

head, the contrast between this pastoral scene and what happened on the

same spot 112 years

earlier struck

me

with a painful intensity.

For Cause and Comrades

4

Wave

wave of Union attacks against entrenched Confederates

after

May

during eighteen hours of ferocious fighting in the rain on 1864, had

mud

the

and

thousands of

left

and wounded men trampled

killed

and muck. Soldiers on both sides had leaped on the parapets

down

fired

enemy with bayoneted

at the

comrades below, hurling each empty gun

down when I

handed up from

rifles

spear before firing the

like a

next one until they were shot

or bayoneted themselves.

expect to be fully believed

tell

Union

Spotsylvania," wrote a

believe

my

officer,

what

"because

myself" had he not been there.

it

1

What

cousin, he asked in wonder:

As

my

With

reply.

My

"I

never

saw of the horrors of

I

should be loath to

I

recounted

this story to

possessed those

men? How

I

could they sacrifice themselves in that way? Again

with

12,

into

was not

I

satisfied

determination to find an answer deepened.

that cousin

who

share a great-great-grandfather

I

fought in

the Civil War. This man, Jesse Beecher, emigrated from England in

1857 and became a prosperous wheelwright village. In

an upstate

and family

1

12th

New York. What moved him

tradition testify to a sense of duty

to

name he bestowed on

Henry Ward Beecher, Beecher fought his

York

do so? His obitu-

and gratitude

country that had given him opportunity. Another clue the

New

1862, at the age of thirty-seven and with eight children, he

enlisted in the ary

in

in

born in the United States:

his first child

after the

to the

provided by

is

famous antislavery clergyman. Jesse

South Carolina,

Virginia,

and North Carolina. After

regiment broke through Confederate defenses in the successful

attack at Fort Fisher on January 15,

North Carolina, and

What

is

1865, he died in Wilmington,

buried there in the national military cemetery.

motivated him to give the

last full

measure of devotion

adopted country? Unfortunately, none of his help resolve this question. But

him suggest

My initial

many

letters

Civil

grappling with the question of Civil

this puzzle at the time.

War

from other soldiers

after his tour in

A veteran who

soldiers." In

not a cause.

The

all

his

Vietnam "the

prevailing attitude was:

War

also

a student of the

Vietnam experience he had 'belief structure' as the

soldier fought for his

head down, stay out of trouble, get out willingness of Civil

soldiers' motiva-

became

met only one American "who had the same

War

War

Vietnam War. Others

Vietnam was awestruck by the dedication of

soldiers in that earlier conflict. In

Civil

like

possible answers.

tion occurred during the aftermath of the

probed

for his

has survived to

letters

do your time alive."

How

.

own .

.

survival,

keep your

different

was the

soldiers to court death in a conflict

whose

This

was

casualty rate

Vietnam.

War

is

a

5

several times greater than for

find that kind of devotion

"I

Crusade

.

.

.

American

soldiers in

When

mystifying."

General

John A. Wickham, who commanded the famous 101st Airborne sion in the 1970s

Antietam

ited

several

and subsequently rose

battlefield in the

Union

Army Chief

to

1980s he gazed

at

is:

Why Why

he marveled.

not? That did Civil

were somehow

vis-

breaking

finally

through. "You couldn't get American soldiers today to like that,"

Staff

ol

Bloody Lane where-

had been repulsed before

assaults

Divi-

make an

attack

2

probably the wrong question. The right question

is

War

soldiers

less precious to

do it? It was not because their lives them than ours to us. Nor was it be-

cause they lived in a more violent culture that took fighting and dying

more than we

for granted

do.

And

it

was not because they were pro-

fessional soldiers or coerced conscripts; soldiers

most Union and Confederate

were neither long-term regulars nor

unteers from civilian

life

and communities from which they sprang

wartime

draftees, but

whose values remained rooted to

arms and

to

vol-

homes

in the

which they

longed to return. They did not fight for money. The pay was poor

and unreliable; the

large enlistment bounties received

families

them up

made economic

to give

life itself

up

by some Union

war were exceptional; most volunteers and

soldiers late in the

sacrifices

when

war that

in this

as all the rest of the

wars

killed

this

What prompted

they enlisted.

several of the best years of their lives

almost as

—indeed,

many American

to give

soldiers

country has fought combined?

human

enabled them to overcome that most basic of

their

instincts

What

—

self-

preservation?

This

a vital question in

is

all

wars, for without such sacrificial be-

havior by soldiers, armies could not fight. ied

American

that

G.I.s in

compels a

man

World War

II

to risk his life

put

it

Two this

day after

psychiatrists

way: "What day, to

who

is

stud-

the force

endure the con-

... the steady loss of friends? man to make him act so irrationally?" De novelist and Civil War veteran John

stant tension, the fear of death

What can

.

possess a rational

Eighty years earlier the Forest asked the

preservation

is

first

.

W

same question and offered an

the

.

implicit answer. "Self-

law of nature," he wrote in summing up his

combat experience. "The man who does not dread to die or to be mutilated is a lunatic. The man who, dreading these things, still faces

them for

the sake of duty

and honor

is

a hero."

3

Duty and honor were indeed powerful motivating to be, for

some other

traditional reasons that have

forces.

caused

They had

men

to fight

For Cause and Comrades

6

armies had

in organized

little

relevance in the Civil War. Religious

fanaticism and ethnic hatreds played almost no role. Discipline was

War

notoriously lax in Civil

volunteer regiments. Training was minimal

by modern standards. The coercive power of the state was

flaccid.

Subordination and unquestioning obedience to orders were alien to

most democratic and

this ties.

men.

Union and Confederate armies mobilized three

Yet the

How

individualistic of nineteenth-century socie-

did they do

it?

What made

these

[i.e.,

man

Union

to enlist: "patriotism,

political or ideological conviction], ambition, per-

sonal courage, love of adventure,

list

million

fight?

war none other than Abraham Lincoln enu-

In the middle of the

merated several motives that might induce a political bias

men

no

soldier less literate but

want of employment." In 1864 a than Lincoln compiled his

less lucid

of motives in a letter to his father: "A soldier has but one thing in

view,

and that

is

two

halve a likeing for

and the prayers of one of the

who won

fight the Battles of his

country with oner [honor],

his Brothers in arms,

and the Blessings of God

all

his friends at

home." Nearly half

a century later

genuine heroes, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,

Civil War's

Round Top and

the medal of honor for his defense of Little

earned immortality in Michael Shaara's novel The Killer Angels and

Ted Turners movie Gettysburg,

bond

And men, is

tried to explain the willingness of

"Simple manhood, force of discipline, pride,

to face bullets:

of comradeship

the officer

is

—'Here

is Bill;

will

I

go or stay where he does.'

so absorbed by the sense of responsibility for his

for his cause, or for the fight that the

overcome by the

men

love, or

instinct of honor."

.

.

instinct to seek safety

.

4

De Forest, and the soldier son of a dirt own way outlined the themes that will be analyzed Many soldiers did indeed fight bravely for country, duty,

Lincoln, Chamberlain,

farmer each in his in this book.

honor, and the right. In retrospect almost

all

soldiers

believed that they had done so. But in practice, to avoid fighting

when

bullets

began coming too

on both sides

many had found ways close.

During the war

many regiments about half of the men did The rest were known, in Civil War slang, as skulkers, sneaks, beats, stragglers, or coffee-coolers. They "played off" (shirked) or played sick when battle loomed. They seemed to melt away when the lead started flying, to reappear next day with tight

a consensus existed that in

most of the

real fighting.

smiles and stories about having been separated from the regiment in the confusion.

Some

deserted for good.

of the time. Others got

what combat

Some

really

soldiers called

were sick much

"bombproof" jobs

War

This behind the

a safe distance

lines

Crusade

a

Is

7

— headquarters

quartermaster

clerk,

sergeant, wagon-train guard, teamster, hospital attendant, and the

Even the best regiments contained

how many men we have on wrote a captain

fight,"

New

in

my company"

"shirk

all

duty

York, by the

men

60

the

in

men

thirty

who

the

were

1 1

and how few we can

end of the Seven Days

I

tell

.

The

.

.

.

.

to let

for

.

in

men

the 33rd

company

of

was nearly

as

battles "in our

rest of the brigade

you these things

of miserable beings there

get into a

Connecticut Cavalry. "Twenty or

1st

were "miserable excuses

they can." According to a corporal

in line.

bad as ours. ...

number

if

rolls

like.

"Strange

their quota of sneaks

you know what

a large

in the army. In case of a battle

is

these stragglers are the very ones to start a panic." After the battle of

Fredericksburg, a disgusted private in the 9th later killed in action)

named our

Legion.

.

.

.

New

York (who was

wrote his brother that "the sneaks

When

you read of the number of

in the

army

are

men engaged on

out at least one third as never having struck a blow." 5

side, strike

The Confederate army had

the

same problem.

A

private in the

crack 21st Mississippi thought that in such a regiment "there should

be no sloth nor sluggard, no whimperer nor complainer," but regrettably the regiment contained "an absolutely fearful

The

creatures."

fighting

was done by the

cluding himself of course) like

men

without

murmur

number

of these

truly dedicated soldiers (in-

who had endured "privations and suffering ... & this class is sufficiently

or complaint

strong to carry this war through to a glorious end but this good con-

duct can not efface the shameless acts of the other

Some skulking.

soldiers

A

class."

6

admitted to seeking a bombproof position or to

quartermaster sergeant in the 149th

sister that

he could have been promoted

post) "but

I

prefer staying where

bullets don't exactly suit

my

I

New

York told his

to orderly sergeant (a

combat

am, besides you know, those Rebel

fancy." After his regiment distinguished

Lookout Mountain on November 24, 1863, he wrote home that "while the battle was going on I wished myself in the company"

itself at

but "when the I

wounded began

was not compelled

to

to

come

in,

I

congratulated myself that

be where the bullets flew so thick." The diary

entries of a private in the 101st

New

York candidly described his be-

havior at the second battle of Bull Run. August 29, 1862:

about three miles and fought tery

the all

and we skidadled then

wood

all

I

all

day they marched us up

fell

out and kept out

all

"Marched

to

day

Reb

Laid in

night with 5 or 6 others." August 30: "Laid in the

day while the

rest

were

fighting."

7

bat-

woods

For Cause and Comrades

8

Helping a wounded comrade

A

escape further fighting.

was

to the rear

a favorite device to

private in the 53rd Virginia narrated his

actions during the battle of Malvern Hill on July

awful thing to be in a battle where the balls

he wrote

was wounded and

him out we

started with

I

an

"It is

flying as thick as hail,"

is

saw dudley on the

to his wife. "I

1862:

1,

battlefield

soon after he

got to a place

where they

did not have such a good chance to hit us and dudley stayed there

went

a

and come to Two months

further on

little

men under

the banks."

Army

Sharpsburg.

"I

Not

to

soldier confessed

far

&

hope and

I

trust

I

battle

may come

to

hot here

thank god

be outdone by the Virginians, a North Carolina private

keep out of the War here as there

We

fell

out safe in the

with Lee's army assured his wife in 1864 that "there

chance

who

stragglers

of Northern Virginia fought at

was not up with them the day of the

have escaped so

end."

was crouded with

it

same

was one of the thousands of Confederate

that he

out of the ranks before the

I

and

a ditch

later the

I

is

there for

is

can cross the branch and keep out of

good a

as

if it

Gets too

8

it."

Many of the derogatory comments about sneaks and stragglers came from officers and men of upper- and middle-class background. They had enlisted early in the war from motives in their own eyes at least of duty, honor, and patriotism. They looked down on the con-

—

—

scripts,

men who had been

drafted or had

soldier in the 21st Mississippi

who denounced

and bounty

substitutes,

enlisted for money.

The

the sluggards and complainers in his regiment as "creatures raised a

who had attended Princeton. The captain in the 1st Connecticut Cavalry who deplored the "miserable excuses ... for men" who "shirk all duty" was a prosperous farmer's son who had left Yale to enlist. With remarkable unanimity, fighting soldiers of middle-class origins commented in their letters home that "it isn't the brawling, fighting man at home that little

above

the

was

brutes"

planter's

a

son

stands the bullets whistle the best." "Roughs that are always ready for street fighting are

cowards on the open battle

a single fist fighting bulley

a general thing those at

home

here that have the least

fear.

bully as they term

it

at

field." "I don't

but what he makes a cowardly

.

.

.

He

Cronan] was a

board on the back with the word coward.

The

at all

sort of street

skulked out of the fight and

afterwards was court marshaled and sentenced to wear

thought would not fight

of

"As

that are naturally timid are the ones [Patrick

home.

know

soldier."

.

fought the best."

.

.

...

Others that

a it

wide

was

9

harvest of draftees, substitutes, and bounty

men who came

— War

This into the

among

men

Union army

a

Crusade

mid- 1863 had a particularly poor reputation

after

wounded

&

New

who won

York,

at Chancellorsville,

received after the

been sent here are

1863. "Nearly

and are miserable

substitutes

have no interest

the medal of honor

was shocked by the

draft in

first

and are without patriotism or honor," he wrote to

in the

in

all

quality of that have

surly rough fellows

August 1863. "They

cause and you would be surprised to

them and the

notice the difference between

old veterans

endured the hardships and borne the brunt of the years."

are no

play out as soon as they are able." The twice-

colonel of the 61st

performance

men he

two

men

wrote a Massachusetts private. "Most of them came out

just to get the bounty,

seem

9

the volunteers of 1861 and 1862. "The big bounty

at all,"

for his

Is

who have

battles for the last

10

Perhaps these comments should be discounted because of class or ethnic bias.

The

Army

fighting reputation of the Irish Brigade in the

of the

Potomac and the Louisiana Tigers

Virginia

—both

composed mainly

in the

Army

of Northern

of working-class Irish-Americans

should give one pause. At the same time, however,

true that a

is

it

number of conscripts, substitutes, and (in the Union army) bounty men came from the ranks of small farmers and unskilled laborers. So did a disproportionate number of deserters in both armies. And studies of American soldiers in World War II and Korea found disproportionate

combat performance cation.

11

to correlate positively

with social class and edu-

So perhaps the similar observations of

Civil

War

soldiers

should not be entirely discounted.

The grumbling and grousing

of

many

soldiers should not be con-

fused with skulking. Soldiers' letters and diaries are

and suffering of

plaints about the hardships

geant in the 89th

New

around

tack, facing death in bullets

go where or do as

I

am

in the

with com-

army

A

ser-

York sarcastically described to his wife the

glory of soldiering: "Laying

body-lice, cant hear from

life

filled

my a

in the dirt

and

and mud,

eat

shells,

living

on hard-

up by wood-ticks and

Love and loved ones once a month, cant

mind

were determined and effective

ter."

Yet

soldiers;

most of these complainers

many

reenlisted

when

their

terms expired. Griping has been the privilege of American soldiers in all

wars; the biggest war of

who complained

all

was no exception. An

Illinois soldier

of acute homesickness and almost died of diarrhea

wrote to his fiancee that

"a soldiers life

is

a dogs life at best.

have a decided preference for the quiet pursuits of a citizens that of the excitement hardship

and danger of

a soldiers

life."

... life

I

to

Yet he

For Cause and comrades

1

reenlisted in 1864, married his fiancee during his reenlistment fur-

arm

lough, lost an

and returned

at the battle of Jonesboro,

regiment as a lieutenant after recovery to finish out the war. in the

all"

I

A corporal

4th Louisiana wrote in his diary in 1863 that he was "weary, so

weary with but

to his

this soldier's life"

suppose that

—which he

and

and

"heartily sick

must make up my mind

I

did, to the bitter end.

12

to

tired of the war,

go through with

After a forced

march of

it

fifty

miles in two and one-half days, a soldier in the 72nd Pennsylvania

wrote to his father: "O what deep heartfelt curses did

I

repeatedly

hear heaped upon the generals, the war, the country, the rebels, and everything else." Yet this was one of the regiments that broke the back of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg

and broke through the Confederate

mule-shoe salient

A

home

folks at

at Spotsylvania.

soldiers will fight like bull dogs is

when

a soldiers privilege to grumble."

Why this

Massachusetts officer warned the

not to take such grousing at face value, "for these same

many

did so

book seeks

them

of

to answer. It

it

comes

and

to the scratch,

it

13

fight like bulldogs?

That

is

the question

does so by going to the writings of the

men who did the fighting. A great abundance of such sources exists. One could start with the hundreds of memoirs by soldiers who survived the war, including such classics as "Co. Aytch" by Confederate

infantryman

Sam Watkins and Hard Tack and

leryman John

Most

Billings.

Coffee by

Union

artil-

of these accounts were written in the last

quarter of the nineteenth century by old soldiers looking back on the

most intense experience of

their lives.

The memoirs shaded

into an-

other genre, regimental histories, most of which also appeared during

those same decades and were usually written by a veteran of the regi-

ment who drew

freely

on the reminiscences and

rades.

Another category of first-hand accounts

many

soldiers wrote for publication in their

fine

hometown newspapers modern editions; Some examples are Hard Marching Every Day by Wilbur Fisk of the

2nd Vermont and

On

the Altar of

Freedom by James Gooding,

soldier in the 54th Massachusetts. Still another genre diaries or journals that soldiers rewrote after the war;

teen

The Rebel

and "improved"

two well-known examples are William

Yell

and

the

is

a black

the wartime

for publication

Heartsill's Four-

Army and John Haley's Yankee Hurrah: The Civil War Journal of a

Hundred and 91 Days

Maine

com-

consists of letters that

of these have been reprinted in

during the war.

two

letters of his

in the Confederate

Volunteer.

Such sources

offer valuable insights into the

minds and

experi-

War

This

War

ences of Civil for penetrating

Crusade

a

Is

Numerous

soldiers.

1

1

drawn on them

scholars have

accounts of the war from the perspective of the ranks.

But these memoirs, regimental

newspaper

histories,

written diaries are not the sources for this book.

and

letters,

They

re-

from

suffer

a

they were written for publication. Their authors con-

critical defect:

sciously or subconsciously constructed their narratives with a public

audience in mind. Accounts written after the war present an addi-

problem of potential distortion by

tional

In

all

such writings the temptation

one's motives

and

and behavior,

sources worthless;

filter

memory

or hindsight.

and courageous actions

and cowardly. That does not make these

they were

if

standards to

faulty

powerful to put the best face on

to highlight noble

to gloss over the ignoble

critical

is

out

all

we had we could

some

them

subject

to

of the distortion and construct a

partly credible interpretation of soldiers' motivations.

But these sources are not

all

we

we have

have. Indeed,

a great

wealth of evidence that enables us to get closer to what Civil soldiers really thought

and experienced than

for

War

almost any other war.

This evidence consists of the personal letters written by soldiers during the

war

members, sweethearts, and friends, and the unsome of them kept during their service. Literally

to family

revised diaries that

thousands of collections of state

and

and

soldiers' letters or diaries are accessible in

local historical societies, in university

descendants

in the possession of

Hundreds

available.

who

and research

libraries,

make them

are willing to

been pub-

of letter collections or diaries have

lished in books or state historical journals edited according to (more or less) critical standards.

These are

rich

and

in

armies were the most

some ways almost unique

War More than 90

sources. Civil

literate in history to that time.

percent of white Union soldiers and more than 80 percent of Confederate soldiers to families first

ings,

were

and

literate,

friends.

and most of them wrote frequent

Many

of

letters

them were away from home for the way to describe thoughts, feel-

time; their letters were the only

and experiences

to loved ones.

Of

course, letters to a wife or

parent or sibling were written for an 'audience. " Even a diary was often intended to be read by others. Although the soldier fore have

been tempted

to

actions or to avoid mentioning unpleasant and letters

and

diaries

tion then or later.

Having read

at least

there-

motives and

awkward

facts, these

were nevertheless more candid and

immediacy of experience than anything the

may

own

put the best face on his

far closer to the

soldiers wrote for publica-

25,000 personal

letters

from

1

For Cause and Comrades

2

soldiers

and 249

diaries,

I

am

convinced that these documents bring

us closer to the real thoughts and emotions of those

men

than any

other kind of surviving evidence. I

stated that these letters

are there vastly

and

diaries

more of them than

for

were almost unique. Not only any previous war, but in con-

with twentieth-century wars, Civil

trast

soldiers' letters to

War

armies did not subject

censorship or discourage the keeping of diaries. Sol-

were therefore uniquely blunt and detailed about im-

diers' letters

portant matters that probably would not pass a censor: morale, rela-

between

tions

politics

and men,

officers

of marches

details

and

battles,

and ideology and war aims, and other matters. This candor

enables the historian to peer farther into the minds and souls of Civil

War soldiers than of those One caveat is in order, diers

found

ence

to those

difficult if

it

who had

in

any other war.

War

however. As in other wars, Civil

sol-

not impossible to depict their combat experi-

not shared

"I can't

it.

describe a battle to you,"

wrote a young officer in the 35th North Carolina to his mother after Antietam. "No one can imagine anything 14

one." thing.

Union

soldiers

echoed

like

it

unless he has been in

"A

this sentiment:

You can have no conception of

battle

a horrid

who have

"Those

horrors."

its

is

not had the experience of battle cannot imagin what a sensation

does produce." "Of course the fight but

I

will not tell

But despite the tle," as

I saw a great many hard them ever." 15

difficulty of describing

a Massachusetts private put

diers tried anyway.

attitudes

16

And even more

and emotions and

stay in the army,

it

to explain

to fight.

chapters that follow.

I

"my

day of

sights the

feelings while in bat-

after his first battle,

of

them discussed

what motivated them

some

my

sol-

a range of to enlist, to

These are the themes explored

have borrowed part of

it

in the

conceptual frame-

work from John A. Lynn, an historian of the armies of the French Revolution. Lynn posited three categories: initial motivation; sustaining motivation;

reasons

them

why men

in the

third focuses

and combat motivation. The

enlisted; the

army and kept the army on what nerved them

between motives

the bullets start flying, but an

exist,

and

place. This

could not exist

book

will

extreme danger

interrelated.

if it

army could not

had not come

and the

in battle.

17

There may be a wide

for enlistment in the first place

when

it

consists of the

in existence over time;

to face

These categories are separate but gulf

first

second concerns the factors that kept

and

fight

if it

feelings

did not

into being in the

argue for a closer relationship

among

first

these three

War

This

War

Is

a

Crusade

1

3

some scholarship on comhat motivation posits for that and other wars. The exhaustive studies by social scientists of American soldiers in World War II, for example, categories for Civil

found

relationship

little

men when

soldiers than

between the rather vague patriotism of many

they enlisted (or were drafted) and the "primary group co-

hesion" that was their main sustenance in battle. (See Chapter for Civil

War

soldiers the

7.) Vel

group cohesion and peer pressure that were

powerful factors in combat motivation were not unrelated to the complex mixture of patriotism, ideology, concepts of duty, honor,

and community or peer pressure first

place.

And

that

prompted them

manhood,

to enlist in the

while the coercive structures of army and state were

key factors in sustaining the existence of the Union and Confederate armies by 1864, these factors could not have operated without the

consensual support of the soldiers themselves and the communities

from which they came. "I

am

sick of war," wrote a Confederate officer to his wife in 1863,

—

and of "the separation from the dearest objects of

life"

But "were the contest again just commenced

willingly

it

again for the sake of

children's]

wrote to as

I

want

am to

liberty."

his

.

.

.

I

undergo

our country's independence and [our

wife that he had to fight

home

his family.

At about the same time a Pennsylvania it

with

my

much oh how much

dear wife and children

have a more religious feeling, that

this

officer

out to the end because, "sick

of this war and bloodshed [and] as

be

would

war

is

.

.

.

every day

I

I

a crusade for the good

... I [cannot] bear to think of what my we were to permit this hell-begotten conspiracy

of mankind.

children would

be

to destroy this

if

country."

18

These convictions had caused the two men, and thousands

of others, to volunteer

and

fight against

each other

remained more powerful than coercion and discipline held the armies together in 1864.

in

1861. They

as the glue that

Chapter

WE WERE

IN

2

EARNEST

One

of the phrases often used to describe the American Civil War is The Brothers' War. This imagery has both symbolic and literal meanings. The Union was a marriage con-

summated

but by 1858

in 1776,

One

house divided.

it

had become,

in Lincoln's words, a

part of this troubled family decided to set

up

for

themselves in 1861 because they feared that Father Abraham might

them

deprive

most treasured possessions.

of their

This breakup sometimes forced

members

of the

same

biological

family to choose opposite sides. James and John Welsh grew up as brothers in Virginia's

Shenandoah

where he became

nois,

When

Southern states

a in

independent nation and wrote

to

John back

Valley. In

1853 James moved

Republican and voted for Lincoln

on the American

in Virginia that "Jeff

he was "very

Illi-

response to Lincoln's election formed an fired

much

flag,

James Welsh

Davis and his crew of pirates"

had committed "treason and nothing more nor grily that

to

in 1860.

pained to find

.

.

less." .

that

John replied anI

have a brother

who would advocate sending men here to butcher his own friends and relations. ... I have always opposed secession but I shall vote for it today because also 1

4

told

I

James

don't intend to submit to black Republican rule." John that

by becoming a Republican he had forsworn

I

We Were "home, mother,

Stars

Stung by

and

this charge,

would

a brother of his

...

we

our cradle to

brother

rise in

be dashed

byword and the principles of

a

ground

to the

forever."

or spoke to each other again.

The two

John enlisted

James fought

killed at Gettysburg;

if

he

our might shall

be

wiped from the face of the earth

shall find ourselves

and our name become

was

have to

the glorious

independent nation and demand that law must and

respected or

will

We

flag.

lor

;ill

that he never

down

to tear

would

I

dare to raise a hand to destroy that as a free

hand

we have been taught from strike down my own

Stripes, a flag that

look on with pride.

to sacrifice

James responded

"raise a

5

1

and brothers and are willing

father,

the dear nigger."

dreamed

Earnest

In

brothers never wrote

27th Virginia and

in the

78th

in the

marched

Illinois,

through Georgia with Sherman, and survived the war.

As South Carolina seceded on December

government

free

1

20, 1860,

Commander

Charles Steedman of the United States navy returned to American shores with his ship and publicly affirmed his loyalty to the Union.

His statement would have attracted

attention had

Steedman not

been a native of South Carolina. His brother James,

a low-country

wrote Charles an icy

planter,

my "a

veins

.

.

my

.

my

letter: "I felt that

blood was cold

Brother a Traitor to his Mother County

the bones of his Father, Mother,

lie

little

.

.

in

where

.

& many dear relatives." How

could

Brother in whose veins flows the same blood, Southern, true South-

ern

.

.

.

ever allow Northern principles to contaminate his pure soul"?

The answer, James at sea

which had

thought, must left

him

lie

in Charles's six

and deny us the

fanatics to interfere with our domestic affairs"

keep our slaves

"to

was

peace

in

"we

really going on,

all

months' absence

ignorant of the determination of "those

&

quietness."

Once Charles

right

learned what

expect you to do your duty to your God,

your State, and Truth." But Charles had a different view of his duty.

He

expressed his intention to fight for

his state. "I

am

as

know no North

I

as

...

all

that

rising to the

armed

and army did

last

is

30

my

for

duty to

—

flag

years." Charles

&

was

in the attacks

on Charleston

2

Steedman could have resigned federate

know

—but not

Union man

rank of captain and commanding

Union warships on blockade duty and Fisher.

I

have served for the

I

good as his word,

and Fort

Truth

have always been," he wrote, "a

or South

country under which

God and

forces.

Hundreds

his

commission and joined the Con-

of his fellow officers in the U.S. navy

just that. Their actions underlined a vital truth about

the American Civil War: during

its first

year

all

of those

who

enlisted

1

For Cause and Comrades

6

and fought on one side or the other chose of most soldiers

and

to

do

The same was

so.

true

during the war's second year. Together

sailors

these volunteers of 1861 and 1862 constituted the overwhelming ma-

men

genuine fighting

jority of

during the war. Without their willing

consent there would have been no Union and Confederate armies,

no

The powerful

Civil War.

Steedman brothers toward

convictions that propelled the Welsh and fratricide

many

motivated

of those volun-

teers as well.

The

initial

impulse came from what the French

swept North and South

a patriotic furor that

call rage militaire

weeks

alike in the

—

after

the attack on Fort Sumter. Northern cities and towns erupted overnight into volcanoes of oratory and recruiting

on

.

.

.

be in the a

"The heather

is

who had been born during George knew what a popular excitement can men, women, and children, seem to

wrote a Harvard professor

fire,"

Washington's presidency. be.

rallies.

The whole

"I

never

population,

streets with

Union

favors

young man who enlisted on April

tains high,

and

flags." In

15, 1861, "the feeling

and thousands of men are offering

hundreds only are required."

3

New York

City,

wrote

runs moun-

their services

where

Diarists recorded the rage militaire in

Philadelphia. April 20: "A wild state of excitement." April 22: "Every-

one

saw, with the exception of two or three Democrats,

I

is filled

with

rage and resentment." April 30: "The city seems to be full of soldiers,

most every other man

in the street

is

in

some kind

of uniform."

4

From Oberlin College on April 20 a student wrote to his brother that "WAR! and volunteers are only topics of conversation or thought. The lessons today have been a mere form. I cannot study. I cannot sleep, ter

I

cannot work." In Wooster, Ohio, a twenty-one-year-old carpen-

wrote in his diary on April 16: "The president's war proclamation

has been issued which causes no lage.

I

went

to

work ...

by the war news that

I

in the

was unable

noon. Hearing that Spink .

.

.

put

&

still

excitement throughout the

vil-

to

resume

my

labors in the after-

Shelby had opened a recruiting office

down my name." Two

percent above par,

little

morning but became so much excited

I

days later he reported "war fever 80

raising, received a dispatch

from Col. that our

5

company was accepted. Hurrah." Little wonder that Ohio's governor wired which had given coln's April

his state a

the

War Department,

quota of thirteen regiments under Lin-

15 call for troops, that "without seriously repressing the

ardor of the people,

I

can hardly stop short of twenty." The same was

true of other Northern states, for the sentiments expressed by an

I

Hi-

We Were

Earnest

In

1

were widely shared: "My heart

nois farmer in a letter to his fiancee

burns with indignation" against "armed rebels and country and their country's peaceful, quiet

home

My

flag."

my own,

of

have concluded to volunteer

always shall," but

was

"I

to

their

hope "has always been

for a

traitors

with you as a companion," but

in the service of

step will caus you pain and sorrow

7

know.

I

my

...

country. I

.

.

love you

.

still

"I

This

and

cant stay behind, no, no." They never married; he

killed in action in 1863.

6

In the seven cotton states that seceded before April 1861 the fires

of martial enthusiasm had spread for

months without

benefit of the

spark of Fort Sumter that kindled the flame of Northern patriotism.

Sumter and Lincoln's

Fort

South states of

call for troops

ignited the crucial upper

North Carolina, and Tennessee (along with

Virginia,

Arkansas) to the same white-hot incandescence. In Richmond a huge

crowd marched

to the state capitol,

lowered the American

flag,

and

ran up the Confederate stars and bars. Everyone "seemed to be perfectly frantic with delight,"

wrote a participant.

"I

never in

my

life

witnessed such excitement." In Goldsboro, North Carolina, a corre-

spondent of the Times of London watched "an excited mob" with "flushed faces, wild eyes, screaming mouths, hurrahing for Jeff Davis'

and

Southern Confederacy.'

'the

"7

In Charlottesville an eighteen-year-

old student at the University of Virginia wrote in his diary on April 17:

"No studying about.

go.'

"

My company

From

Nashville a

of anywhere but long, for "the

South."

The flared

rose

The news

amid huzzas and shouts.

oc'lk all

today.

scum

new War."

of the

.

.

.

War!' 'War!' War!' was on placards

called at 4:45. All

was excitement and

recruit wrote that "nothing else

He

is

talked

did not expect the fighting to last

North cannot face the

chivalric spirit of the

8

rage militaire of April

up again

and

tional

War

was

of Va.'s secession reached here about 10

fell,

and

May

it

Enlistments also

often in inverse proportion to the fortunes of war. Addi-

Northern volunteers flocked

rout at Bull

1861 eventually cooled. But

at later points of crisis in the war.

Run

in July 1861

and

to the colors after the humiliating

after the setback of the

Seven Days

June and July 1862. Another wave of Southerners enlisted in response to Union invasions and Confederate defeats in the early

in

months of 1862.

Most

A

of these volunteers professed patriotic motives for enlisting.

young clerk

in the

lumber business

in

parents' consent before he joined up, but

Massachusetts sought his

whether they consented or

1

For Cause and Comrades

8

not

"I

am

...

going.

I

am

not laboring under any 'sea

was, but a duty which everyone ought to perform,

—

as

fit,'

I

once

love of country."

Although "decidedly homesick," a nineteen-year-old Indiana farm boy

who

was determined

enlisted in July 1861

to stick

out "to aid

it

country in her desperate struggle against oppression and 9

against Rebels and Traitors."

A

twenty-four-year-old clerk in a small

Michigan town defied the wishes of both in

August 1861, trying

quired

and parents

me

but

complications. "The

distroid

is

10

.

.

They admitwas

to enlist so thare

farmer from Michigan had no such

will

not borrow eny trouble about

with plasure."

my mind

August 1861,

and we

.

but their plea was that thare was

Government must be

sister after enlisting in

goverment

men

had made up

I

An unmarried

no stoping me."

to enlist

to explain that "the state of the country" re-

ted that our country needed

anuff without

Do

his wife

true patriots to sustain her government.

"all

my

slavery,

sustained," he wrote to his

for "if the

union

up the

is split

be a Rewind [ruined] nation.

me

if I

dy in the batle

was

In August 1862 he

feild

.

.

.

[do so]

I

killed at the battle of

Baton

Rouge.

Many Union

soldiers explained in

moved them

victions that

to enlist.

more depth the

ideological con-

Lincoln had said in his inaugural

address that secession was "the essence of anarchy" for

defied the

it

Constitution and the rule of law. Union volunteers echoed these

words. "This contest

not the North against South," wrote a young

is

Philadelphia printer six days before he enlisted.

An

against anarchy, law against disorder."

war and secretary of

brigadier general during the pacifist wife in April

than anarchy

&

revolution for

suffer rebels to go

no end

An

to

it

&

1861 that

on with

in a short

immigrant working

father

back

in

the Unionists

fifty

time

years

this

written

to

told his

one year

the government should

or order."

in the 3rd

New

Jersey. "If

West might want others might want to follow

the South secede," he wrote, "the .

.

.

German

states.

be another form of a constitution wrote and

who would obey

.

.

.

after

There it

was

1

it?"

Union volunteers invoked the legacy of the Founding had inherited

it

for

we would be without any law

country would be as bad as the

would have

war

rose to

in a Philadelphia textile mill explained to his

England why he had enlisted let

If

who

work with impunity there would be

to seperate next Presidential Election

and

—

government

is

state after

better to have

"it is

their

"It

Indiana lawyer

a nation sanctified

heroic generation of 1776.

If

by the blood and

Fathers.

They

sacrifice of that

disunion destroyed this nation, the gen-

We Were eration of 1861

"Our

liberty.

Earnest

In

made

we their children arc to save who had opposed his enlistment

this country,

in the 12th Ohio, leaving her and two small children behind.

...

things that were but are not

in the 10th

as the

now

first

Civil

war

of

what value

second war

"this

... by which we

consider equally as holy

I

12

few Union volunteers mentioned the slavery issue when

who

did were outspoken in their determina-

power" and

tion to destroy the "slave

to cleanse the restored

they considered a mockery of American ideals of

evil

main purpose of

wicked

"this

An Ohio

"will

The

liberty.

—

—

slavery

our

o'er

fair

believed in June 1861 that the war

artillery officer

not be ended until the subject of slavery

settled. It

Union of

an Iowa volunteer, was

rebellion," wrote

secure the extension of that blighting curse

land."

be house, family

gained those liberties and privileges"

threatened by "this monstrous rebellion."

they enlisted. But those

"to

will

any country," wrote a recruit

a calamity to

"is

Wisconsin, but

Relatively

an

'our

If

and our Country be numbered among the

institutions prove a failure

and friends?"

9

would prove unworthy of the heritage of republican

fathers

wrote a young lawyer to his wife

it,"

1

is

and forever

finally

has been a great curse to this country."

A

Massachusetts

mother in November own households already but one way [to win the war]

infantry captain, a Harvard graduate, wrote to his

1861 that "Slavery has brought death into our in

its

wicked

and that

is

rebellion.

.

emancipation.

streets of Charleston,

.

.

There

...

I

is

want

to sing

'J

onn Brown'

and ram red-hot abolitionism down

ing throats at the point of the bayonet."

Some Confederate

in the

their unwill-

13

volunteers did indeed avow the defense of slav-

ery as a motive for enlisting.

A

young

joined the cavalry could not understand

Virginia schoolteacher

why

who

his father, a substantial

farmer and slaveowner, held out so long for preservation of the Union

when

reports in Southern newspapers

administration would "use slavery." After

all,

its

institutions of the South,

.

.

better!

of

a moral

is

endure

Ham

evil.' "

all

No

clear that the Lincoln for the

abolishment of

which involves the value of four

leading the

fair

billions

true Southerner could hesitate. "Better, far

the horrors of

owning farmer enlisted firesides

it

Lincoln himself "has declared that one of the pecu-

liar .

made

utmost endeavors

civil

war than

to see the

daughters of the South to the

dusky sons

altar."

in the 13th Georgia because "our

our land and negroes and even the virtue of our

A

slave-

homes our fair

ones

is

told his slaveholding rela-

at stake,"

while a young Kentucky physician

tives that

he would join the Confederate forces "who are battling

for

For Cause and Comrades

2

and

their rights

Tennessee are

North

and

.

.

in

which Kentucky,

and

Virginia,

interested" as the lower South. "The vandals of the

are determined to destroy slavery.

.

choose

I

an institution

for

[as]

to fight for

.

.

We

.

must

all fight, 14

southern rights and southern liberty"

This pairing of slavery and liberty as the twin goals for which Confederates fought appeared in castically put

making

it,

many

"the perfect liberty they sigh for"

slaves of other people." Lincoln

point. Referring to the leaders of the

whom owned that

we

groes?"

slaves,

sar-

"the liberty of

is

was not the

to

first

make

this

American Revolution, most of

Samuel Johnson had asked

hear the loudest yelps for liberty

15

As Lincoln

volunteers' letters.

"How

in 1775:

among

is

it

the drivers of ne-

That question had struck an exposed nerve among many

Americans of Thomas

who

Jefferson's generation,

felt

embarrassed by

the paradox of fighting for liberty while holding other people in slavery. Little of

Some

such feeling seems

to

have troubled Confederates in 1861.

dealt with the paradox by denying that

planter's son of aristocratic bearing

who

it

existed.

dity.

•

.

.

for

I

We

one

am

fighting for the

lowcountry

enlisted in a South Carolina

regiment dismissed the rhetoric about the rights of nonsense;

A

man

as "simple

maintenance of no such absur-

are appealing to chartered rights.

.

.

.

insulting to

It is

common sense of race [to say that we] are battling for an common to all humanity. Every reflecting child will the darkey who waits on him & laugh at the idea of such an

the English

abstract right

glance at

'abstract right.'

" 16

But most Southern volunteers believed they were fighting erty as well as slavery.

"Our cause," wrote one

most verbatim by many, our side."

A

farmer

who

"is

in

for lib-

words repeated

the sacred one of Liberty, and

God

and therefore "any

and property

man

in the

South would rather die battling

erty,

than submit to the base usurpations of a northern tyrant."

who

on

enlisted in the 26th Tennessee insisted that

"life liberty

of three brothers

is

al-

[i.e.,

slaves] are at stake"

for civil

and

political lib17

One

enlisted in a South Carolina artillery battery

must be made for African slavery or it is forever The Confederate states were united by the institution of "slava bond of union stronger than any which holds the north to-

believed that "a stand lost."

ery!,]

gether," wrote the

second brother. Therefore, added the

South's "glorious cause of Liberty" was sure to triumph.

planter

who

married one of Mary Todd Lincoln's

officer in the 4th

"What would we

Alabama be,"

to fight for "Liberty

sisters

the

third,

A

wealthy

became an

and Independence."

he asked his wife, "without our

liberty?

.

.

.

We Were

Earnest

In

2

1

[We] would prefer Death a thousand times to recognizing once a Black Republican ruler

.

.

.

he

altho'

my

is

brother

1

in law."

Southern recruits waxed more eloquent about their intention fight against slavery

than for

it

—

that

is,

against their

own enslavement

by the North. "Sooner than submit to Northern

slavery,

prefer

I

death," wrote a slaveowning officer in the 20th South Carolina.

son of a Mississippi planter dashed off a

rushed

"No

to enlist:

was the

alternative

is left

word of Confederate

favorite

to

The he

letter to his father as

but war or slavery." Subjugation recruits to describe their fate

the South remained in the Union or was forced back into

"If

it.

if

we

should suffer ourselves to be subjugated by the tyrannical government of the North," wrote a private in the 56th Virginia to his wife, "our

property would

all

&

most abject bondage heart"

must "respond

days of

76 &

Gettysburg.

&

be confuscated ...

say give

utter

our people reduced to the

degradation."

Thus

me

Liberty or give

me

Southern

"every

to the language of the great Patrick

Henry

He met

death."

in the

death

at

19

common among

This invocation of the Founding Fathers was as

Confederate volunteers as among their Union counterparts

—

for

an

opposite purpose. Just as the American Patriots of 1776 had seceded

from the tyrannical British empire, so the Southern

Patriots of 1861

seceded from the tyrannical Yankee empire. Our Fathers "severed the

bonds of oppression once," wrote recruit,

freemen

"now [we] still."

for the

a twenty-year-old

South Carolina

second time throw off the yoke and be

The American Revolution

established "Liberty and free-

dom in this western world," wrote a Texas we are "now enlisted in The Holy Cause

cavalryman

in

1861, and

of Liberty and Indepen-

dence' again." 20

For Union and Confederate volunteers alike, abstract symbols or

concepts such as country,

flag,

Constitution,

liberty,

and legacy of the

Revolution figured prominently in their explanations of listed.

why

they en-

For Confederate soldiers a more concrete, visceral, and perhaps

more powerful motive

also

came

hearth against an invading enemy. drive in

humans

into play:

The

defense of

home and

territorial instinct is a

potent

as well as in other animals. Studies of the will of

armies to fight have found defense of the homeland to be one of 21 "When a Southron's home is combat motivations. threatened," wrote a lawyer who organized an Alabama infantry com-

the strongest of

pany, "the spirit of resistance

is

irrepressible."

our firesides and property," reiterated

We

are "fighting for

many Confederate

volunteers, to

For Cause and Comrades

2 2

defend our homes against "vandal enemies" and "drive them from the soil

polluted by their footsteps.

inch of

south

I

...

with the Hessians

soil

will die in

am

I

determined

defending the country where

hold dear and sacred."

to dispute every

they shall invade the sunny

e'er

doth dwell that

all

I

22

Several Confederate enlistees echoed Southern propaganda about

A

the rapacious designs of Yankee invaders.

from the camp of the 6th Georgia

his wife

be "glorious" to die

"in

months land.

indeed engaging in

he was

later

in

defence of innocent

June 1861 that

women

girls 8c

who from

fangs of the lecherous Northern hirelings, stated, are

Georgia planter wrote to

the accounts here

&

this strife, for 'beauty

killed far

from Georgia,

would

it

from the

booty.'

"

Fifteen

Sharpsburg, Mary-

at

23

As residents of the tended

first

state to experience invasion, Virginians

about

to express the strongest convictions

this matter.

Union-

ism had persisted longer in the state of James Madison and John Marshall

than in the lower South. Like Robert E. Lee, a good

many

Virgin-

ians such as a twenty-year-old graduate of the University of Virginia

had vowed not listed

when

to fight "unless

his state

would become

be

it

seceded because

a battleground.

A

had moved west and had enlisted be in the front rank of the

who now

invading foe their

unholy tread."

"I

went from

enlisting

right,

"I

...

would

"I

would be to

my

if

and

my

my

diaries with

I

have got just

native state with

... my duty

up

life if

need be

to slavery 8c wrong."

Many Northern men found

such phrases as

three-months regiment reenlists

duty to go";

.

.

I

must

in the

—

to give

all

duty was pervasive in Victorian America.

performed but a simple duty

opposed

give

brigade that marches against the

first

filled their letters

and inclinations

feelings

myself

"it

9th Mississippi could scarcely

in the

24

a sense of duty";

for three years

sacrifice "personal

hour of danger";

a duty to

my

The English-born son putting

down

this

in

country and

.in this battle for freedom

8c

25

the language of duty essential to per-

suade reluctant parents or wives to sanction their decision to

his father "was so

en-

became clear that Virginia commonwealth who

pollute the sacred soil of

The consciousness of Union volunteers

it

He

native of the

wait for his unit to be sent to Virginia: to

defence of Virginia."

in

of a farmer in upstate

much opposed

to

my

awful rebellion," but

New

York was

going to do "I

my

ought to and

enlist.

sorry that

duty towards I

must"

fight

/

We Were & Freedom"

for the "rights

of

In

Earnest

2 3

Boston Brahmin, having completed his junior year to his father that

"it

of a

Harvard, insisted

at

every one's duty to enlist,

is

The son

"our adopted Country."

he possibly can,

if

much as other people's? ... If you arc not willing to send your sons why should others be willing to send the A recruit in the 1th Michigan wrote to his fiancee, who had pleaded and why

not mine as

is it

1

with him not to to

me

country?"

me

prompts

.

.

.

while your happiness

my

go

to

country

Jenny what would friends be

next

friends

"No Jenny

enlist:

as life duty

me

to

as dear

is

home and

first if

had no

I

26

Victorians understood duty to be a binding moral obligation involving reciprocity: one had a duty to defend the flag under tion

one had

my

plans,

lived.

"My

country had a

whose protec-

demand on me which made

all

hopes and expectations of minor conse-

calculations,

quence," wrote a schoolteacher two weeks after mustering into the

64th Ohio.

A

Kentucky physician explained

Union army:

the

"I

know no reason why

duty as any man, as life.

.

.

My

.

to his sister

why he

should not be as subject

I

have had the protection of government

I

home

absence from

Lida and the children

.

.

.

is,

and

me."

May

A

lieutenant in a

1861 that

not enlist for a longer period than three months unless

what he

did, fighting for

dying in Libby prison.

A duty.

I

would

two years

good many Confederate image

I

sister. "I

stay at

is

to

Gettysburg and

To shirk duty

is

a

lives."

Honor was by wives

a violation

honorable death to a

life," a sergeant in the

dis-

24th Mississippi told his

much reather be numbered amongst the slain than home for it will be a brand upon their name as

southren

country

precisely

be disgraced by public shame.

would alwas prefer

graceful and shameful

at

is

speak of honor: one's public reputa-

in the eyes of his peers.

sweet but

is

captured

until

my

That

soldiers also cited the obligations of

likely to

of conscience; to suffer dishonor "Life

enlist for life."

"I will

2

But they were more

tion, one's

to

my

of course, a source of grief to

family, impelled

needs me, in which event

all

but an all-absorbing, all-engrossing sense

three-months Pennsylvania regiment wrote in

of duty, alike to country

joined

those that long as a

28

primarily a masculine concept, not always appreciated

who sometimes

felt that a

man's duty

to his family

was more

important than pride in his reputation. Several married Confederate volunteers therefore found

it

necessary to lecture their wives and

daughters on the finer points of the male code of honor. Even though

For Cause and Comrades

2 4

he was thirty-nine years old and father of several daughters, a South Carolina planter

compelled

felt

November 1861.

the South Carolina sea islands in

graced

if

staid at

I

he explained

one bearing family

one daughter.

to

involved.

is

"I

... A man who

late thirties, told his wife that

my

will not offer

An

8c

of

me when

should not have figured in

I

dis-

There

family.

no

is

up

his life

.

.

.

does

Arkansas planter, also in his

"on your account

ashamed

children would be

spoken of

would be

our freedom. The honor of our

&

that of

could not bear the idea of not being in this war.

my

"I

revolutionary ancestors,"

stand alone in

left to fight for

dishonor to his wife and children."

I

my

home, and unworthy of

my name

Union capture of

to enlist after the

my

would

I

children feel that

in after times this

war

is

29 it."

Honor and duty were not incompatible; indeed some Confederate same breath. "No man now has a

volunteers mentioned both in the right to stay at

home," a forty-two-year-old planter admonished

who had opposed

wife,

patriotism and, aye, honour calls

who

joined an

him

to

back

spectator?

.

Alabama

to the field."

.

"How can you ask me to remain at home an idle honor, my duty, your reputation & that of my darcall me forth "when our bleeding country needs the

My

30

services of every man."

substratum of truth underlies the stereotype of the antebellum

South

as a society with a

profound sense of honor (public reputation)

while Yankees were driven by conscience

God). Like

The

all

letters of

and

its

ashemed I

Union

"I

to

perform

in this life.

.

.

soldiers also bristled with references to

honor

God

memory.

"I

should be ashamed

I

my

should

be able to say that

my name

.

reality.

of their Father." "If

want

branded

grant that

.

.

my

.

I

life

of myself

alive,

fought willingly for

I

my

then have

come home

if

chrildren

and

my

didnt do

live to

be

country and

"We all of us have a duty to now bound up with the Army.

as coward."

My

honor

children

is

may never

blush for their father's

"31

Among

Confederates the emphasis on honor occurred most often

in the letters of upper-class soldiers

and

officers. In the

such sentiments ranged more broadly across the social lic

compact with

private

oversimplifies a

it

whould sooner loose

not have

(a

complex

stereotypes, however,

opposite, shame:

something."

old,

Another planter

cavalry regiment rebuked his wife for urging

out. .

ling little boy"

A

him

his

45th Tennessee. "Duty,

his enlistment in the

prominence did intensify the potential

for

Union army

scale.

But pub-

shame and dishonor

one stayed out of the army. Charles Francis Adams,

Jr.,

if

the great-

We Were

Earnest

In

2 5

grandson and grandson of America's second and

while Charles

affairs

Court of

went

Sr.

James and took

St.

London

to

as

sixth presidents, re-

home

manage

family

American Minister

to the

jected the wishes of his father that he stay at

to

son Henry with him as secretary. "For

his

years our family has talked of slavery and of the South, and been

prominent

words," wrote Charles

in the contest of

who had run for vice president on the Free now that it has come to blows ... it seems that in after years we should have it to say

Jr.

Soil ticket in 1848, to

me

-

to his father,

"and

almost disgraceful

them

that of

not one

all

[of your sons] stood in arms for that government with which our family

history

is

With

so closely connected."

or without his father's blessing,

Charles intended to enlist "in this great struggle

government and

He went

says."

and emerged

show

to

in as a lieutenant in the

"I

would prefer

He went and

general,

go into

to

in the course of part."

first to

The Ohio Republican

1865.

it,

than to

At the other end of the

must

A

if I

knew

social scale, adoptive

Minnesota. Only

your country.

your people were loyal to their .

selves

.

.

.

.

.

and us?"

He

April

be killed

to die or it

without taking

new

to his wife

five of nearly

Red Wing

Why

32

Americans

also felt

why he

two hundred

area were Scandi-

don't

you do anything

You have often spoken of how

country and to the party of free-

Are you too cowardly or too indifferent

to

defend your-

enlisted (and eventually rose to the rank of colonel)

because "the honor of our nation stake."

was

of the United States.

navians, he noted. "People began to ask,

dom.

fell in

it

was twice wounded and breveted major

thus far enlisted from the

for the defense of

I

through and after

Swedish immigrant explained

enlist in the 3rd

men who had

live

became president

the pull of honor.

Massachusetts Cavalry

1st

Richmond when

enter

[even]

it

it

leader Rutherford B. Hayes declared that

in as a major,

later

to sustain the

means what

5th Massachusetts Cavalry, a black

as colonel of the

regiment that was the

...

that in this matter our family

[i.e.,

Swedish-Americans] was

at

33

Duty and honor were Victorian America.

closely linked to concepts of masculinity in

Boyhood was

a time of preparation for the tests

and responsibilities of manhood. And there could be no sterner test than war. It quite literally separated men from boys. The letters and diaries of ties as

to

Union and Confederate volunteers

well as those in their teens

prove one's self a man:

preserve

my manhood and

"I

— let

—those

in their thir-

are full of references to the

determined

honor

alike

to stand

up

to

come what may" (20th

need

duty and Illinois).

For Cause and Comrades

2 6

"I

would be

man

than a

less

my

of duty at

any way

in

if

I

short of the discharge

fell

country's call" (8th Missouri Confederate).

wardly feel that

want

I

North Carolina). 34

"I

ought

"It

have a Husband that Pennsylvania).

go and do

to

Anyone who

sylvania Cavalry).

my

to

—

Man"

as a

( 1

really in-

6th Penn-

no part of a man" (4th

"is

be a consolation to know that you

man enough

is

part

home

stays

"I

to fight for his

Country" (62nd

have acted the part of a man" (3rd Virginia Cavalry).

Anyone who cannot stand the hardships and dangers "had better pack his knapsack and gow home to his mother" (2nd Michigan, killed at Williamsburg).

Two

35

versions of

manhood competed

in the Victorian era: the hard-

man among men, and the soSome soldiers found that the them from one kind of man to the other, better

drinking, gambling, whoring two-fisted

son or husband.

ber, responsible, dutiful

army transformed kind.

The wild

habits of a Baltimore youth, son of a respectable baker,

mother

had driven

his

determined

to enlist in the

gaged

in a battle,

to a sickbed.

In a

sudden

fit

of remorse

should

at

some time be

and there have an end put

to

my

disgraceful career."

To

hope

that

I

worthless and

army sobered him up,

his surprise the

"I

en-

incul-

cated a sense of responsibility, taught him self-respect, promoted him to sergeant,

and "made

a

man

of me."

36

Southern soldiers affected a more boastful Northerners, test of

who tended

manhood. "There

is

style of masculinity

man

in the

Southern army," wrote a

"who does not

in his heart believe that

not a

lieutenant in the 4th Virginia,

he can whip three Yankees, he would consider to

count on whipping a

than

worry about whether they would pass the

to

less

it

beneath his manhood

number." This assertion hints

at

another

motive for enlistment in both South and North: the quest for adventure, for excitement, for the glory to

and returning home

as heroes to

vision has existed at the outset of

be

won by

"whipping" the

enemy

an adoring populace. This romantic

many

wars.

marched

It

to the

Marne

with the youth of France, Germany, and Britain in 1914. Americans sailed off to the "splendid little war" with Spain in

adventure and Civil War,

many

glory.

The foremost student

volunteers was the desire for adventure

battle."

...

898

in search of

of soldiers in the

.

.

American

dominant urge of

Bell Irvin Wiley, maintained that "the

citement, the lure of far places

1

.

the prevailing ex-

the glory and excitement of

37

There

is

indeed evidence in

eral volunteers linked the

soldiers' letters for these motives. Sev-

themes of adventure and

glory to concepts

We were of

manhood and

honor.

A

In

Earnest

2 7

"How when reading the account of soldiers' man, and now the opportunity has offered."

Pennsylvania cavalry recruit declared:

often in boyhood's young days lives

have

The son

longed to be a

I

of a South Carolina planter really did

"Southron" inspired by Sir Walter Scott.

am

"I

fit

the stereotype of a

blessing old Sir Walter

when

Scott daily," he wrote soon after enlisting, "for teaching me,

young,

how

to fight for."

A wound

not dim his romantic ardor. tress,"

&

to rate knighly honour,

such a State

"I

he wrote a month

am

from

and song

New York

state

knight in a beleagured for-

like a

his father in

was quite young, and listened with pleasure

1

a soldier: that childish wish has

later this soldier died at

A

can

I

down by

farmer's son

862 of the time "when

to hear

I

you sing Old Ken-

how would like to now come to pass." Two years

tucky Boys, and other war songs; and thought

become

so long as

passed

also inspired visions of glory.

reminded

Manassas did

"& must not pass out with the

later,

women & the sick, when the castle is to be stormed, put on my harness & wield my blade." Heroic tales oral tradition

me

our noble ancestry for giving

at the first battle of

I

Andersonville after being captured at Spotsyl-

vania.

Many

others also discovered that the

been exaggerated. enlist in the 12th

A

twenty-year-old planter's son

North Carolina wrote

that "the excitement, the activity, vating.

I

would

his

"I

its

Forks on April

end 1,

—but was

1865.

A

am

sick

killed in

home" never came home

and

left

college to

capti-

however, and in

and

tired of the service

abominable war ended."

who had

to "immortalise

—he was

off,

one of the

Georgia soldier

he enlisted that he intended

who

war had

and the novelty are perfectly

give almost anything to have this

almost saw

glory of

mother from training camp

have a glorious time." The novelty wore

February 1863 he wrote home: I

romance and

last battles, at

myself before

A

Five

when come

told his wife

killed at Fishers Hill.

He

I

lawyer im-

pelled by patriotic rather than romantic motives helped recruit the

14th his

New

mother

Jersey and in

enlisting. "If

It is

into the service as

all

his patriotism)

he

will

too preposterous to think of."

of Winchester.

He

wrote

killed

to

from is

at

be most emphatically mis-

The younger brother

two years

stayed

later in the third battle

39

members and friends their motives for enmore volunteers mentioned patriotism and ideology than

In explaining to family far

major.

to discourage his eighteen-year-old brother

home; the older brother was

listing,

its

he expects fun and excitement (which between us

the bottom of taken.

1862

went

For Cause and Comrades

2 8

we

adventure and excitement. Should historian of the

American army

soldiers' letters

from that war

ture"

was "sometimes masked

take

them

at face value?

Mexican War maintains

in the

"a desire for personal glory

An

that in

and adven-

in the rhetoric of patriotism."

40

It is

not

how he knows this. In any event, perhaps the same was true for Civil War volunteers. And perhaps also the many references to duty, honor, and manhood were only a glorified way of describing community and peer pressure that made a young man a demasculinized paclear

riah

if

he failed

Some

to enlist.

On

much.

soldiers admitted as

the

first

anniversary of his

enlistment a private in the 72nd Indiana confessed to his parents that "I

enlisted for

what

I

couldent

tell. I

...

of a Volunteer was.

life

did

In fact

I

it

without reflecting what the

done

be doing."

just to

it

A

captain in another Indiana regiment, disgusted with the large

number

of "beats" in his company, wrote sourly that "they

to

whenever there

anything to do.

is

.

.

all

pretend

be

ill

Nine tenths of them enlisted

.

because somebody else was going, and the other tenth was

just

ashamed

home." 41

to stay at

But the historian must be careful not

We

the lines of soldiers' letters. duty, honor, country,

and

was impossible

young bank clerk cause "we must

in

all

for

them

were merely "masking" other motives.

many

volunteers were mixed in a

to disentangle in their

Massachusetts enlisted in the

make

much between who spoke of

cannot know that those

liberty

For that matter, the motives of that

to read too

sacrifices for the sake of the

way

own minds. A

fall

of 1861 be-

government that

has protected us for so long" but also because "the fact has long been

coming over me his country

that

I

am

living

would make him

"a

an aimless

good useful

kind of motive did not necessarily

understand

how

mask

life"

man

and

that to fight for

in this world."

the other.

It is

42

One

impossible to

the huge volunteer armies of the Civil

War

could

have come into existence and sustained such heavy casualties over four years unless

many

of these volunteers really

meant what they

said

about a willingness to die for the cause.

Genuinely committed soldiers viewed that commitment with clear

and resolute

eye.

enlisted in the 20th

New one duty

An

New

abolitionist farmer in his late thirties

York,

and whose son

later joined the

York and was killed in action, wrote in December 1861:

enlists to

be a soldier with any

my humble

opinion

may have indulged

is

in will

that

he

less

will

melt away

a

who

120th "If

any

motive than a pure sense of

be disapointed

like a frost

any dream he

under the influence

We Were of the June sun.

what

is

.

.

before them."

Let

.

A

all

Earnest

In

come

in

2 9

welcome but let them know homes r soldier

year after he went to war, a

I

the 24th Mississippi posed a rhetorical question to his fiancee:

in

"Why am

I

here

was

noval and exciting that

and subjected myself

it I

merely that

my

turned

I

to the untold trials

and the feareful dangers of the

all

and threatened our subjugation."

in

Scenes

home camp life

the delights of

and privations of

battle field?"

here because a numerous and powerful try

might be an actor

back on

No, he answered,

"I

am

enemy has invaded our coun-

On

the

first

anniversary of his

enlistment a soldier in the 36th Pennsylvania wrote of himself and his

"When we enlisted in this war, we did no idle thing, we were in earnest. One year has passed away, and all the fancied romance of campaign life has proved itself to be stern reality to us, yet we are messmates:

still

is

in earnest, ready for another year of harder, bloodier work,

necessary to crush this wicked rebellion."

These

soldiers

and hundreds of thousands

encountered bloody work. stress of

combat?

How

if

such

43

like

them soon enough

did they stand up to the fear and

CHAPTER

3

ANXIOUS FOR THE

judge from

To

their

were "spoiling

soldiers

clamored

for a

chance

expression denoting any

correspondence early in the war, most for a fight.''

Rebel and Yankee

to "see the elephant''

awesome but

—

"Our boys

exciting experience.

An

are dieing for a fight," wrote a recruit in the 8th Georgia.

Crazy

Men

37th North Carolina told his wife that "our

in the

Meet

to

Union Virginia

Company

and they cannot go home with out soldiers

and have

2nd Rhode Island

are allmost

were no

"We

less eager.

are

is all

a fite." all

anxious to get in 1

impatient to get into

a brush with the rebels," wrote a lieutenant in the in

June 1861.

A

private in the 10th

Wisconsin

cized "our donothing Generals" for "not leading us forward.

came not

for the paltry

to Battle."

Orders

&

ing feeling,

ana

I

to

we want

pay but to Fight. All

move toward

took off

my

cap

&

the

enemy

"filled

gave one loud

is

me

yell,"

"We pushed on anxious for the fray." 2 1861 many soldiers on both sides shared with

to

.

.

criti.

We

be led on

with an excit-

wrote an Indi-

private.

In

2nd Michigan chance 3

officer

the Enemy," while a lowly private in the 13th North

Carolina wrote to his father that "the to a battle

they

alike,

a contemporary

to

"a general fear that

do anything."

When

it

will all

a recruit in the

be over before we have a

the 36th Pennsylvania finally got

its

Anxious for the Fray chance

men

to fight, "the

cheered most

when

and appeared

lustily

A

almost besides themselves with enthusiasm." Mississippi reported similar zeal

3

action at last appeared immi-

was the most deafening

was made by one regiment

seemed

I

never

it

much

so

felt

be

private in the 25th

nent: "For almost an hour there

for the fight

to

1

as

yells that ever

mad

they was wild and

if

like facing the

canons."

3

This eagerness of green recruits for combat grew in part from their notions of manliness.

A Tennessee

anxious for a chance to

all

have

to fight."

As

"men want

the

A

Enemy know what

the

kind of

Illinois

be tried to see what they are made

to

manhood was on

Wisconsin captain was eager

into danger to see

72nd

in reply, a soldier in the

if

especially felt that their file.

let

Confederate explained that "we are

what they

are

made

of

&

if I

chance

would

in order to try myself."

rose to the rank of major

Wilderness.

The concern it

was dishonored.

was kept

A

had been on picket

them

to lead

A

lieuten-

who had some

men

say

regiment

killed leading his

who

at the

South Carolina cavalry

from the scene of

those

who had

to his wife.

A

we can

"have a

Manassas

fought there.

"I

—and

am I

felt

shame

heartily tired

have no show-

private in the 23rd

meet the Rebels

name

lost face;

whose company

officer

First

in the fight

that "the boys are anxious to

the bayonet" so that

to see the elephant.

while others were fighting

what they did

he wrote sourly

home

turned out to be a superb officer

and was

to the rear

far

when he encountered of hearing

He

honor also stimulated a desire

for

unit that

Ohio wrote

at the point of

as well as other regiments."

A

sergeant in the 70th Indiana, which spent the

of

its

first

twenty months

service guarding railroad bridges far to the rear, wrote in disgust

"we are not gaining

anxious to see a to

Officers

5

A

that

4

doubts about his manhood, "wanted to have a speedy engage-

initial

ing,"

of."

run."

ant in the 20th Massachusetts, a Harvard graduate

ment

they

before the rank and

trial

to "have a

men

wrote that

have the

name

little

much honor

of the elephant,

The boys are very and would jump for a chance here.

.

.

.

of at least one battle inscribed on the flag."

6

The sheer boredom of inactivity caused some men to crave the "We are dying with monotony and ennui," wrote

alternative of action. a

New

York soldier stationed in the Washington defenses where no

enemy had come within miles since his enlistment nine months earlier. "Camp life is so monotonous," wrote a South Carolina officer, which "accounts fight."

for the fact that Soldiers

grow extremely eager

Although serving as occupation troops

for a

in the endlessly fascinat-

For Cause and Comrades

3 2

New

ing city of

men"

Orleans, "nearly every officer and the majority of the

Connecticut "would prefer

in the 12th

with a

killed or

and guard mounting

drilling

ment

chance of being

fair

their luck."

.

.

regi-

beat for the Seventh Vermont

roll

we

hurrahed for ten minutes while

to start forward, they

.

stay here

wrote an officer of that

in peace,"

June 1862. "When the long

in

go up the river

to

wounded, rather than

sulked over

7

Morale was generally higher among

When

stationed in the rear.

front-line troops than those

Union 16th Corps garrisoned

part of the

Corinth, Mississippi, in 1863 while Grant's campaign against Vicks-

men

burg went forward two hundred miles to the south, the

camp

"lie in

the time with nothing to do but stand a dreary guard at

all

certain intervals," wrote a staff officer, so "they get greatly discon-

tented which frequently amounts to insubordination and turbulence,

and such fellows I

to

complain and whine and find

never saw." But the next year,

when

these same soldiers fought in

the front lines of Sherman's Atlanta campaign, where

beat

down

in red-hot rays

...

it

lie fill

mud,

they

body

lice

.

.

.

and

if

"the sun dont

if

and the

rains in fearful torrents,

ditches [trenches] in which they ticks,

with everything

fault

with water

lift

their

.

.

heads

covered with

.

six

inches from

the ground a sharp shooter sends a ball whizzing through their brains .

.

.

the

ing, less

men

are in better spirits, there

cussing officers, less wishing old

ment was

in 'hell,'

practice, than

I

with

less

seemed anxious to as eagerness,'

.

.

in

before."

trial

as soldiers

8

by combat was scarcely

World War

which Americans

II,

"The anticipation of

powerful excitement, which the "

the whole govern-

.

.

men

all

Combat

soldiers

getting into a

.

habitually refer

wrote two army psychiatrists during the war. "They

real,

.

concrete notions of what combat

Hollywood versions of

.

.

The men Their

is like.

their future ac-

combat, colored with vague ideas of being a hero.

are not at .

Abe and

enthusiasm than most previous wars,

are full of romanticized,

tivity in

grumbling, less swear-

very restless for combat and impatient of delay.

seldom have any

minds

War. Even

for the fray.

fight stimulates a

become

army

unbloodied troops for

to the Civil

entered

less

and every conceivable blasphemy, such

ever heard in the

The zeal of unique

is

.

.

.

They

prepared for the nightmare experiences in store for them. is

always a surprise and a shock, because there

is

no way

of preparing for the emotional impact short of actual experience."

Substitute Currier and Ives for Hollywood in this passage, and

9

it

Anxious for the Fray would serve

3 3

War

an accurate description of Civil

as

that

"Wee

good hart but

cannon

ball

and

how

idy

shells flew thick as hail."

Carolina wrote his father after the

A

it

was

"Mary

a

went

I

was

it

the bulets and

North

private in the 6th

Manassas: "Sutch a

battle of

first

of

his first battle

never want to get in another

I

mary you cant form any

offal [awful]

and

surprise

ar all big for a fight'' told his wife afterwards:

into the fight in

Many

soldiers.

them found their first experience of combat indeed a shock. An Ohio soldier who had written home before

day the booming of the cannon the ratling of the muskets you have

no idea how

was

it

have turned threw that old Book of yours and

I

looked at the pictures and read a thing what

10

was."

it

and immediately

A

artillery zip-zip-zip bullets

the business.

A

.

.

Oh

.

As soon

to

it

I

did not no any

.

.

We

.

hear amid

that

.

the matter

is

"killing

had

down

are lying

.

.

—

is

all

the roar of the

Whoopee now comes the end of the

this

man and

one

cutting off both

his legs shot off turned his

his brother

to his

head and

was dead, he takes

glory of war.

...

I

men's limbs torn from their bodies."

Once

am

sick of seeing

wonder

Whether

again.

it

that a

have seen

"I

dead

men and

11

they had seen the elephant, few Civil

ger to see

body

his pistol (a 6

killed himself." Little

Virginia private could write, after similar experiences, that

enough of the

in the dark,

speak to his brother, not knowing that he was dead.

he saw

as

Shooter) puts

what

The one

legs of his brother.

about half way

"We

from the enemy.

exploded nearby

shell

about war but

Texan penciled breathless diary entries during

after his first battle:

actually scared nearly to death.

world?"

little

War

soldiers

had passed

or not they

were ea-

this test of

"man-

hood" with "honor," their curiosity about the nature of battle was filled,

their ardor for a

many

alike, a great lar

words:

"I

hope

I

wish the

and ager

I

hope

who

I

will I

never be in another

have got a plenty."

head wrote

you the honest truth if

"I

... no man can

am

satisfied

after his first fight, against

he "got I

to see the

tell

me

with fighting.

the

it is

Elephant

Nathan Bedford

at last

and

to tell

dont care about seeing him very often any

there was eny fun in such

not the thing

When

after their first battle in simi-

enlisted in the 9th Indiana Cavalry in 1864 with visions of

Forrest's troopers, that

is

home

War was over." "You can never realize the severity of battle 12 A teenit may never be my lot to go into another one."

glory in his

more, for

brush with the enemy sated. Rebel and Yankee

soldiers wrote

any thing about war

ful-

braged up to be."

romance and

glory of

work

I

couldent see

it.

.

.

.

It

13

war dissolved

in the soldier's first

For Cause and Comrades

3 4

No

veterans solemnity replaced the recruit's eagerness.

battle, a

had been "more anxious ... bama, wrote

to get into a battle"

Manassas "has produced

change

a visible

than the 4th Ala-

190 casualties

a captain in that regiment, but

at First

You hear

in the regiment.

My own

outfit

much

less hilarity

of

best men." After the 26th Virginia's baptism of blood at Seven

its

and joyous songs.

romping fellows they were to

have come over them

fight,'

They

all.

14

A

it."

wanted

all

'to

get into a

veteran captain in the 1st Maryland (Confederate)

recruits to the regiment "think

have been in an engagement.

I

it

has vanished from

my

would be a disgrace never

which had spent almost two years

in the

Washington defenses without

May 1864

front as an infantry regiment, a sergeant "was

killed

move

to

awakened by the

ous cheering of the men." Nine brutal months

men

such romance

all

New York Heavy Artillery,

the 7th

received orders in

firing a shot in anger,

to

can appreciate their feeling and could

When

mind."

Gettysburg, that

at

once have expressed myself the same desire but now

astounding 291

same

compels them

until necessity

noted in 1863, a few months before he was killed

new

some

but a seriousness seems

Pt.

say they it,

lost

'the boys' are not the

Gloucester]

at

but they have had enough of

again to

"

mother that

Pines, a lieutenant told his

company has

later,

to the hilari-

after losing

and more than 500 wounded

an

in action, the

shattered remnant of the regiment indulged in "general noisy hilarity"

when ordered Long

to dull garrison

duty in Baltimore.

had replaced romance

after reality

15

in the soldiers'

view of

combat, the image conveyed by the press seemed unchanged. The "reports of

newspaper correspondents that the troops are

all

eager for

the fray,'" wrote a Minnesota sergeant to his wife in July 1862, are

"simply

all

'bosh.'

don't

I

know any

individual soldier

who

is

at all

anxious to be led, or driven, for that matter to another battle."

The

journalist

that "soldiers are clamorous to he led against

the

who reported enemy" commented

a Massachusetts sergeant in

"is

either a numb-skull, or else

and don't know how fellow."

few

shells

he has

.

.

.

November

1862,

never seen a 'grey back'

sound when they are bursting around a

Confederate veterans made the same point. "There are very

men

really eager for battle,

and

'spoiling for a fight,' at this stage

of the war," wrote a private in the 3rd Georgia to his sweetheart in

1863. "Perhaps you will think this a rather unchivalrous sentiment for a Southern soldier

with a cowardly

.

.

.

but

fear, that

let

me

explain that

we do

not fear the foe

would make us shrink from our duty

to

our

— Anxious for the Fray country, but

we have

5

-j

which the knowledge

that undefinable dread

erf

16

an unplesant task before us always occasions."

The experiences of G.I.s in World War II paralleled those of Civil War soldiers. Before their drop behind German lines on D-Day, men

When

Airborne Division were "gung-ho."

in the elite 101st

the

s

vors returned to England to prepare for their next mission, "the boys aren't as enthusiastic or anxious to get

Normandy. Nobody wants

it

over with as they were before 17

any more."

to fight

Yet fight they did,

The

again and again, sustained by grim determination and unit pride.

same was

many

true of

battle that they never

many more,

fought

which the

One

who

soldiers

said after their

who

but

to see another,

"All the

sustained by that sense of "duty to our country"

soldier in the 3rd Georgia expressed.

to get into

money

battle but

first

nevertheless

finds repeatedly in soldiers' letters the sentiment that

no desire

I

War

Civil

wanted

I

another

in the

but

fight,

if

duty

me

world would not hire

shall go cheerfully

when

I

am

don't care about being in another battle

calls

.

but

.

am

can

to." "I I

have

"I

ready to go."

go into another

to

ordered

.

I

have got

tell

you

to stand

my chance with all the rest and can do it with as much grace as any man in our company." 18 A soldier in the 2nd Iowa who had fought at I

Fort

Donelson and Shiloh was

for

it

My

for

is

when

war continued

restored," but so long as the

where than here

War &

"heartily sick of

look forward to the time with longing

and

Battles

I

peace will once more be

"I

do not wish

Countries Flag that

to

am

I

be else-

fighting."

Likewise a captain in the 46th North Carolina wrote after fighting in the Seven Days battles and at Antietam that

the war to close properly still

am

that

is,

Of

now

—but

on

drifting to the rear or finding their

ness to

in

and enlisted

in the

properly ended"

The

many

initial

combat

experi-

regiments, with the chaff

expressed the greatest eagerthe most are not always the

farm boy

who passed

for eighteen

25th Wisconsin. "Maybe they are more anxious

die for their country than

I

doubtful." In that regiment's ring of rifles

is

ways into bombproof noncombatant

Among them were some who had fight. "I find that men who talk

bravest," wrote a sixteen-year-old

war

19

soldiers felt this way.

ence produced a winnowing effect

duties.

until the

with Confederate independence. all

willing for

without acquiring any more glory

perfectly willing to keep

course not

would be

"I

on every

side.

am

but from what

first

action

"all at

I

know

of

them

I

to

am

once there came the

The ranks were broken and men supposed

For Cause and Comrades

3 6

to

be brave as lions dodged right and

enemy

out of pure fright with no

hard core of his regiment settled

men. But

while others fired their guns

left,

in sight."

This young soldier and the

down and became

effective fighting

and other regiments some shook themselves

in this

loose,

agreeing with the sentiments of a Missouri Confederate officer that "visionaries

am

may

enough

old fogie

on the

talk of dying gloriously

admit that

to

make me

sketches of fancy to

prefer

battle field

it

will require

it

to living."

A

.

.

.

want

"I

to get

I

some very

vivid

good many

men

pulled strings to get assigned to the quartermaster service or

other rear-echelon position.

but

somewhere where

I

some

can get

out of this hard fighting," wrote a North Carolina lieutenant in 1863.

"Some men have them."

to

why

easy positions

fill

shouldn't

Even after they had

seen the elephant and found

it

ugly,

most of the 1861-62 volunteers remained determined belief in duty, honor,

the

be one of

I

20

first

and country that had caused them

them

place held

But the

to the firing line.

however,

The

to fight.

to enlist in

no

fighters,

less

than the skulkers, had to cope with the battlefields most pervasive presence:

fear.

Because the conventions of masculinity equated admis-

sion of fear with cowardice, however,

confess what surely

felt.

Some

many soldiers were reluctant to War soldiers grasped intu-

Civil

and more acquired by experience, the modern understanding

itively,

that courage less, to

for

all

is

not the absence of fear but the mastery of

admit fear openly, even

it.

to family or close friends,

Neverthe-

came hard

them.

Some resorted to denial. "I never feel fear at all," wrote a roughhewn farmer in the 10th Virginia Cavalry to his wife. "I am getting so used

to the

A New

cannon

balls flying over

York captain boasted after his

feel the sickening anxiety so often

into battle."

me

.

21

A

private in the

.

first

that

as

it

battle that

may appear

been shooting birds parents that

"I

cool and no

"felt just as

in the

mind them."

"I

have yet to

men going home after his you who know

to

A New

Jersey soldier

more excited than

if

i

had

woods," while an Ohio corporal assured his

have been scared worse

home working on

don't

spoken of as affecting

.1 never once felt the sensation of fear."

claimed that he

I

22nd Wisconsin wrote

combat experience: "Strange

initial

my head

the farm."

many

a

time

when

I

was

at

22

Such bravado arouses suspicion

that these soldiers did protest too

Anxious for the Fray much. Others who feigned

more anxiety upon going dress the court as a

joked a good deal. excited by turns."

enemy

the

A to

be very

do

way

into his

.

.

A

Ohio

little

on the

men

battlefield,

A New York private

buggers for the next

23

joke and laugh just the same

This joking and laughing, of course, was

Much

so.

is

Whether these

unclear; in their writings

was gallows

of the bantering

quoted a messmate who had become com-

now

his business

killen' time.'

cook

as

up you lean

is 'to fat

are very

common

came up with

a variety

These solemn jokes

"24

Some

who were

soldiers

euphemisms

loath to admit fear

young lieutenant and booming of

my

"The feeling of fear did not enter

instead.

wrote an Alabama private; rather

"it

was a painful nervous

2nd North Carolina described

in the

artillery" as "fearful"

breast,"

anxiety."

A

"the musketry

but claimed that

"I

had no

fear

but was perfectly carried away by the excitement." George Whit-

man, Walt Whitman's brother and a sergeant

in the 51st

refused to use the F word but acknowledged that to a fellows nerves as the balls

was

flying

grew more candid

in admitting fear.

"it

A

New

was mighty

around pretty

But as time went on, soldiers who had proved fire

and

are to

seemed

told his wife that "as for fear there

in other places."

pany cook: "He says

at all

jolly

we

we

the greater seems the inclination to jest and merriment."

they gave no sign of doing

camp.

to form,

were

all

of discharging the buildup of nervous tension.

humor.

of

—

no

It

i'
,-

(Troy, Ala.,

1981), 62, 110-11. 35. Jacob Heffelfinger to Jennie Heffelfinger, Feb. 27,

dier

and His

Sister," ed.

William H. Walling session;

MHI;

James Stephens, James Beard

36.

W

R.

Florence C. McLaughlin,

May

to sisters,

Redding

to wife,

WPHM

a

Northern Sol-

60 (1977): 127;

29, 1862, Walling Papers, in private pos-

Diary, entry of

to brother

1862, in "'Dear

Correspondence Between

Sister Jennie' 'Dear Brother Jacob':

and

May

6,

SHS MO.

1864,

March

sister,

6,

1864, Beard Papers,

SHC

undated, early 1862, Redding Papers,

UNC. Edgar Embley to brother and

37.

MHI;

Nixon's diary entry of April

6, 1862, in

Diary of Liberty Independence Nixon," ed.

Embley

April 28, 1862,

sister,

"An Alabamian

Hugh

Letters,

at Shiloh:

The

C. Bailey, Alabama Review

11 (1958): 152.

"My Dear Daughters," July 15, 1864, in From Cannon's Mouth: The Civil War Letters of Alpheus S. Williams, ed. Milo Alpheus

38.

the

M. Quaife

S.

Williams to

1959), 330; Samuel Beardsley to Frederick Beardsley,

(Detroit,

MHI.

Sept. 12, 1861, Beardsley Papers,

Eldred Simkins to Eliza Trescott, Aug. 19, 1863, Simkins Papers,

39.

HEH;

Darius Starr to father, Oct. 15, 1862, Starr Papers,

40. the Sea:

Theodore Upson, diary entry of March 21, 1865,

The

Civil

War

Diaries

&

PLDU.

in

With Sherman

to

Reminiscences of Theodore F. Upson (Baton

Rouge, 1943), 159-60. 41.

The

For discussions of this phenomenon, see especially Bell Irvin Wiley,

Life of

Johnny Reb (Indianapolis, 1943), 180-84; Drew Gilpin Faust,

"Christian Soldiers:

The Meaning

of Revivalism in the Confederate Army,"

Journal of Southern History 53 (1987): 63-90; Larry the in

Army

Confederate armies before

Papers,

Daniel, Soldiering in

of Tennessee (Chapel Hill, 1991), 115-25. There had been revivals

had happened 42.

J.

this time,

but those of 1863-64 dwarfed what

earlier.

Elias Davis to Georgia Davis, Oct. 30, 1863,

SHC UNC;

John McGrath

to

March

9,

1864, Davis

Lavinia McGrath, June

12,

1864,

McGrath Papers, HML LSU; Mathew A. Dunn to wife, Aug. 22, 1864, in "Mathew Andrew Dunn Letters," 125. 43. Chancey Welton to parents, May 30, 1864, Welton Papers, SHC UNC; Stephen P. Chase, Diary, entry of March 31, 1865, MHI. 44. Stouffer et

al.,

The American

Soldier,

II:

175.

2

NOTES TO PAGES 77-81

8

CHAPTER 1.

Samuel

2.

Joseph Kirkland,

6.

A BAND OF BROTHERS

Men

L. A. Marshall,

(New

Against Fire

The Captain of Company

lon A. Carter to Emily Carter (wife), Dec. 4,

K

(Chicago, 1891), 42; So-

George H. Cadman

to Esther

MHI;

1862, Carter Papers,

Harry Lewis to mother, July 20, 1862, Lewis Papers, 3.

York, 1947), 150.

Cadman, Oct.

2,

SHC UNC. 1862,

Cadman

Papers,

SHC UNC. Edward Spencer

4.

to

Jennie Spencer, Jan. 15, 1863, Saxton Family Col-

HEH; Duncan Thompson

Civil

to mother, undated, early 1863, Thompson MHI; Elijah Petty to wife, May 1, 1863, Journey to Pleasant Hill: The War Letters of Captain Elijah P. Petty (San Antonio, 1982), 207.

5.

Charles Coit to family, Dec. 29, 1861, March 15, 1862, Coit Papers,

lection,

Papers,

GLC PML; Wilson

MHI;

Jacob Heffelfinger, Diary, entry of June 27, 1862,

to brother, Feb.

19,

Peter

1862, "Peter Wilson in the Civil War," IJH 40

(1942): 269. 6.

Jesse

W Reid

to wife,

Aug. 27, 1861, in Jesse

W

Reid, History of the

Fourth Regiment of S.C. Volunteers (Greenville, S.C., 1891), 40; Oscar L. Jackson, diary entry of April 28, 1862, in The Colonel's Diary, ed. David

Jackson (Sharon, 7.

John

W

Barnes to uncle, Dec. 19, 1862, Barnes Papers,

seph D. Thompson

From

Shiloh:

G.

8.

to

Mary Thompson,

PLDU;

Jo-

April 10, 1862, in "The Battle of

Dimmit Thompson,"

the Letters and Diary of Joseph

THQ

Biel,

P.

1922), 56.

Pa.,

ed.

John

18 (1958): 271.

Royal Potter, Diary, entry of Dec. 14, 1862, Potter Papers, in private

M. Campbell to family, Oct. 22, 1863, Campbell Papers, in M. Ellison to Camilla Ellison, July 4, 1862, in "Joseph M. Ellison: War Letters," ed. Calvin J. Billman, GHQ 48 (1964): possession; John

private possession; Joseph

233. 9.

Samuel

J.

Alexander to mother,

William H. Wykoff

to

Richard

May

1862, Alexander Papers,

3,

Parry, Jan. 26,

1862, Wykoff

MHI;

Letters, in private

Shaw to mother, Aug. 12, 1862, in Blue-Eyed Child of War Letters of Robert Gould Shaw, ed. Russell Duncan

possession;

Fortune:

The

(Athens,

Civil

Ga., 1992), 231.

Franklin

10.

WHS;

William Reeder

Thomson 11.

Howard

to father,

John Lewis

T

Thomas

to brother

to parents,

and

Dec.

sister, Jan. 8, 3,

May

14,

Howard

1863, Reeder Papers,

June 30, 1861, Thomson Papers, to wife,

1863,

MHI;

9,

Aug.

Ruffin

SHC UNC.

1863, Lewis Leigh Collection,

Taylor to Antoinette Taylor, Feb.

Papers,

7,

MHI;

1862, Taylor Papers,

OHS. 12.

Harvey

from H.

J.

Grantham,

J.

Hightower

to

Martha Hightower, April

7,

1863, in "Letters

Hightower, a Confederate Soldier, 1861-1864," ed.

GHQ

40 (1956): 183; Richard M.

Saffell to

Samuel

Dewey

W

Saffell, Feb.

Notes to Pages 81-86

9

2

1862, Saffell Papers, in private possession; Henry Clay Pardee to lather,

18,

March

28, 1862, Pardee Papers,

Edward M. Burrus

13.

LSU; Edward Pippey

to

PLDU.

to father, Jan.

1864, Burrus Papers,

28,

Benjamin Pippey, Dec.

i

IML

1862, Pippey Papers,

2,

PLDU. Richard Holmes, Acts of War: The Behavior of

14.

Men

York, 1985), 141; Gerald Linderman, Embattled Courage:

Combat

in the

American Civil War (New York, 1987),

in Battle

(New

The Experience of

esp. chap. 8: "Unravel-

ing Convictions." 15.

War

Is

Charles H. Brewster to mother, June

War

Over: The Civil

Letters of Charles

Blight (Amherst, 1992), 313; John T.

Timmerman 16.

John

Diary, entry of 17.

24,

11, 1864, Fisk Papers,

LC.

George W. McMillen

1864,

to "Sister Sue," Jan.

Virginia History 32 (1971): 183;

from

15, 1864, in "Letters

Samuel

a Civil

(1928): 518; Eli S. Ricker to

War

ward G. Longacre,

Cause,

MN 1,

1864, in "Civil

War

Merrill to Emily Merrill, June 13,

Mary Smith,

Jan. 8, 1865, in

SCHM

S.

"

MVHR

14

'We Left a Black

Ricker, 1865," ed. Ed-

82 (1981): 214.

Charles B. Haydon, diary entry of April 13, 1862, in For Country,

&

Leader:

The

Civil

War Journal

of Charles B. Haydon, ed. Stephen

Sears (Boston, 1993), 221; James Anderson to family,

derson Papers, 19.

HS; Wilbur Fisk

Officer," ed. A. T. Volwiler,

Trace in South Carolina': Letters of Corporal Eli

W

Aug. 19, 1864,

to wife,

Washington McMillen and Jefferson O. McMillen," West

Letters of George

18.

This Cruel

Harvey Brewster, ed. David W.

Timmerman

March

Diary, entry of

May

When

1864, in

MHI.

Papers, Gillis,

2,

James

May

9,

1863, An-

WHS. E. Glazier to

Annie Monroe, Dec. 27, 1862, Glazier Papers,

HEH. 20. Tristim L. Skinner to Eliza Skinner, Oct. 3,

SHC UNC; William SHC UNC.

L.

Saunders

to "Florida,"

1861, Skinner Papers,

Dec. 30, 1862, Saunders Pa-

pers,

21. Willie Root, Diary, entry of Sept. 25,

1864,

MHI; Harvey Reid to War Letters

Libbie Reid, Oct. 9, 1863, in The View from Headquarters: Civil of Harvey Reid (Madison, 1965), 99. 22.

Abner Dunham

Abner Dunham,"

ed.

Dec. 21, 1863,

to parents,

in "Civil

War

Letters of

Mildred Throne, IJH 53 (1955): 320-21. Reenlistments

took place during the winter of 1863-64 even though the terms of some

1861 regiments 23.

still

had up

Walt Whitman

to ten

months

to run.

to mother, April 10, 1864, in

Dresser: Letters Written to His

ing the Civil War, ed. Richard

Mother from

M. Cucke (New

24.

Paul Oliver to "Quita," Nov.

25.

The

8,

Whitman, The Wound

the Hospitals in

Washington Dur-

York, 1949), 163-64.

1864, Oliver Papers,

FLPU.

principal studies that developed the primary group cohesion the-

2

Notes to Pages 86-88

1

Men

are Marshall,

sis

ion Quarterly

American

12

280-315; and Samuel A. Stouffer

(1948):

Soldier, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1949), esp. vol.

made

math. Other works that have

Roy

analysis are

phia, 1945); York,

J.

R. Grinker

War (London,

Psychological Factors in

Man

Groups

in the

World War

in

American Army,"

in his

York,

Ellis,

A

Study of

The Sharp End: The

Edward

1980);

Shils,

"Primary

Center and Periphery: Essays in Sociol-

ogy (Chicago, 1950), 384-402; Stanford Gregory,

Cohesion and Disintegration

scription of

Spirit:

1978); John Keegan, The Face of Battle

(New

II

The

After-

Motivation: The Behavior of Soldiers

1976); Holmes, Acts of War; John

York,

Fighting

al.,

Its

Men Under Stress (PhiladelReflections on Men in Battle (New

Frank M. Richardson, Fighting

in Battle (Boston, 1982);

et

Combat and

Spiegel,

Warriors:

Combat

Kellett,

II:

the concept an important part of their

and John R

Glenn Gray, The

Anthony

1959);

(New

Edward Shils and Morris Janowitz, "CoWehrmacht in World War II," Public Opin-

Against Fire;

hesion and Disintegration in the

Jr.,

"Toward a Situated De-

the American Army,"

in

Armed

Forces and Society 3 (1977): 463-73; and Larry H. Ingraham and Frederick J.

Manning, "Cohesion:

armed unit

forces

Who

Needs

The opposition

(1981): 2-12. is

based

on the

in part

What

It,

to accepting

New

Military Review 61 in the

American

belief that their presence in a military

would undermine the cohesion necessary

the front-page story in the

It?"

Is

homosexuals

combat

for

York Times, April

effectiveness; see

1993.

1,

26.

Holmes, Acts of War, 291; Grinker and Spiegel,

27.

Ellis,

Men Under

Stress,

45.

(New

The Sharp End, 315; William Manchester, Goodbye Darkness

York, 1987), 451.

28.

John O. Collins

McClellan 29.

to wife,

"Mag," Nov.

to

James

T

2,

Thompson

Dec. 16, 1861, Collins Papers,

1864, McClellan Papers, to

mother and

OHS.

March

sisters,

Georgia Boy with 'Stonewall' Jackson: The Letters of James son,"

VMHB

70 (1962): 322; Frank Batchelor

to

VHS; Abram

26,

1862, in "A

Thomas Thomp-

George Turner, Oct. 29,

Two of Terry's Texas Edmund Patterson, diary entry of Oct. 25, 1862, War Journal of Edmund DeWitt Patterson (Chapel

1862, Batchelor-Turner Letters 1861-1864, Written by

Rangers (Austin, 1961), 32; in

Yankee Rebel: The Civil

Hill, 1966), 41, 73.

30.

Nathan Buck

31.

Thomas

HEH;

Saxton Collection,

Delos Van Deusen to Henrietta Van Deusen, Jan.

sen Papers,

Army

to sister, July 9, 1864,

HEH;

Letters

32.

1,

1863, Van Deu-

Oliver N. Norton to "Cousin L.," July 18, 1862, in Norton,

1861-1865 (Chicago, 1903),

James

HEH.

Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Smith, Aug. 8, 1862, Smith Papers,

E. Glazier to

104.

Annie G. Monroe, Oct. 24, 1862, Glazier Papers,

HEH. 33.

Charles

SHC UNC;

Woodward Hutson

Henry

L.

Abbott

to father,

to father,

May

March

13, 1862,

17,

Hutson Papers,

1862, in Fallen Leaves:

Notes to Pages 88-93 The

War

Civil

Letters of

Major Henry Livermore Abbott,

Edward A. Acton

Scott (Kent, Ohio, 1991), 107;

34.

PMHB

Letters] of

1

to

16,

His Wife,

89 (1965): 20.

Charles

SHC UNC;

Mary Acton, June

to

1

Robert Garth

ed.

Edward A. Acton

1862, in "'Dear Mollie': Letters of Captain 1862,"

2

Woodward Hutson

Thaddeus Capron

Aug. 16, 1862, Hutson

to father,

to family, April 26, 1862, in

Ps\

"War Diary [and

Thaddeus H. Capron, 1861-1865," Journal of the Illinois HistoriHenry Kyd Douglas to "Cousin Tippie," Nov. 20,

cal Society 12 (1919): 348;

1864, Douglas Papers, 35. 36.

Reich

Shils

PLDU.

and Janowitz, "Cohesion and Disintegration

Omar Bartov, Hitler's Army: (New York, 1991), 6, 33, 104.

Chapter 1.

et

Combat and

Its

II:

Nazis,

in the

Wehrmacht."

and War

in the Third

On the Altar of My Country

7.

Samuel A. Stouffer

1949), vol.

Soldiers,

The American

al.,

2 vols. (Princeton,

Soldier,

Aftermath, 169; Elmar Dinter, Hero or Coward:

Pressures Facing the Soldier in Battle, trans, from

German by

Hughes

Tricia

(London, 1985), 177. 2.

John

Ellis,

The Sharp End: The Fighting

York, 1980), 322; Stouffer et 3.

al.,

The American

Man

Soldier,

World War II:

The Bloodiest Year

(New

II

107-8, 150.

Man (New

Charles C. Moskos, The American Enlisted

148; Ronald Spector, After Tet:

in

York,

1970),

Vietnam (New York,

in

1992), 71. 4.

Moskos, The American Enlisted Man, 135-36, 147; Frank M. Richard-

son, Fighting Spirit:

A

Study of Psychological Factors in

War (London,

1978),

12. 5.

Bell Irvin Wiley,

The

Yank

Life of Billy

(Indianapolis,

1952), 39-40.

See also Wiley, The Life of Johnny Reb (Indianapolis, 1943), 309. 6.

Pete Maslowski, "A Study of Morale in Civil

Affairs 34 (1970): 123; Fred A.

Bailey, Class

eration (Chapel Hill, 1987), 78; 7.

The

James G. Theaker

Civil

War

New

The

to brother,

Yorker,

Aug.

Silver, 8.

unteers: Letters

to sister,

10, 1863,

Quote

18, 1992, p. 31.

Through One Man's Eyes:

A. Moore, diary entry of Jan. 28, a

Confederate Private," ed. James

from

March

W.

J.

6,

1864, in Ted Barclay, Liberty Hall Vol-

the Stonewall Brigade, ed. Charles

bridge, Va., 1992), 131; William

9.

May

Louisiana Historical Quarterly 39 (1956): 312.

Ted Barclay

of Major

Soldiers," Military

Experiences of a Belmont County Volunteer, ed. Paul E. Rieger

(Mount Vernon, Ohio, 1974), 49; Robert 1862, in "Robert A. Moore: The Diary of

W

War

and Tennessee's Confederate Gen-

Mims, C.S.A.,"

J.

Mims

AHQ

Gustave Paul Cluseret, Armee

W. Turner (Rock-

to wife, Sept. 22, 1864, in "Letters

3 (1941): 223. et

democratie (Paris, 1869), 101-2, 20.

translated by Philip Katz. See also a statement by the

Comte de

Paris,

2

NOTES TO PAGES 93-96

2

1

who

served for a time on General George B. McClellan's

Sideman and

Belle Becker

War (New

in

York, 1960), 52-53.

The

10.

quoted

staff,

Friedman, eds., Europe Looks at the Civil

Lillian

War

Civil

Diary of Allen Morgan Geer, ed. Mary

Ann Anderson

(Denver, 1977), 142, 145, 147, 149.

Thomas W. Stephens

11.

Orendorff to William

War

Civil

Henry H. Howell

1986), 73;

111.,

This Regiment of Heroes:

New

124th

1864, in

Henry Orendorff,

Letters of

A

SHS MO; Henry

Diary, entry of Nov. 25, 1863,

Parlin, Feb. 4,

to

ed.

We

Are Sherman's Men: The

William M. Anderson (Macomb,

Emily Howell

Dec.

(sister),

1864, in

7,

Compilation of Primary Materials Pertaining

York State Volunteers, ed. Charles

J.

LaRocca (Montgomery,

to the

N.Y.,

1991), 230.

Thomas

12.

HEH;

Kilby Smith to Eliza Smith, Feb.

Nelson Chapin

to wife,

March

6,

(New

Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, 2 vols.

13.

Command (New

531; John Keegan, The Mask of Webster's

14.

New

World Dictionary, Third College Edition (New

Republican Party Before the Civil

See

MHI. 1885-86),

York,

in particular

War (New

II:

York, 1987), 191.

Men: The

1988), 670; Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free

15.

1863, Smith Papers,

4,

1864, Chapin Papers,

York,

Ideology of the

York, 1970), 4.

Avery Craven, The Growth of Southern Nationalism,

1848-1861 (Baton Rouge, 1953), and John McCardell, The Idea of a South1830-1 860 (New York, 1979). ern Nation .

.

.

William B. Coleman to parents, Jan.

16.

1862,

19,

Coleman

Letters,

War Collection, TSL; William Preston Johnston to wife, Aug. 24, 1862, "A War Letter from William Johnston," ed. Arthur Marvin Shaw, Journal

Civil in

of Mississippi History 4 (1942): 44; H. Christopher Kendrick to father and

June

sister,

1863, Kendrick Papers,

2,

George

17.

W

Dawson

Letters of Capt. Geo. torical

SHC UNC.

to wife, April 26,

W Dawson,

William C.

18.

"War Diary of

W

HML

"One Year

at

War:

C.S.A.," ed. H. Riley Bock, Missouri His-

Review 73 (1979): 194; John N. Shealy

1862, Shealy Papers,

1862, in

Eugenia Shealy, June 27,

to

LSU.

Porter, diary entries of Feb. 8,

1863, Aug.

2,

1862, in

C. Porter," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 11 (1952): 309,

299.

John

19.

Civil

War

W Cotton

to

Letters of John

Mariah Cotton, Aug.

3,

1862, in Yours Till Death:

W. Cotton (University, Ala., 1951), 14; George K.

SHC UNC;

Miller to Celestina

McCann,

Andrew

Margaret White, Jan. 11, 1863, White Papers,

20.

J.

White

Sept.

15,

1863, Miller Papers,

PLDU.

Mary Collins, April 28, 1862, Collins Papers, VHS; Gordon to Mary Gordon, June 17, 1862, Gordon Papers, SHC

John Collins

George Loyall

UNC;

to

to

Charles Minor Blackford to Susan Leigh Blackford, Dec. (no day)

1862, quoted in William C.

Wickham,

Lee Blackford (New York, 1947), 144.

in Letters

from

Lee's

Army, ed. Susan

Notes to Pages 960-100 James

21.

copy

J.

Womack,

Museum

in the

Diary, entry of Feb.

May

HML

1862, Pugh-Williams Papers,

4,

James West Smith, diary

22.

WLEU;

entries of

3

1

1862, privately printed

18,

Richmond; William H. Davis

of the Confederacy,

mother, June 23, 1862, Davis Papers,

2

to

Richard Pugh to Mary Pugh,

LSU. June 2 and

"A Cor

15, 1863,

'

erate Soldiers Diary: Vicksburg in 1863," Southwest Review 28 (1943): 304,

312.

FLPU; 01War Letters of

Paul A. Oliver to mother, Sept. 27, 1862, Oliver Papers,

23.

ney Andrus

to

Mary Andrus

(wife), Nov. 9, 1862, in

Shannon (Urbana,

Sergeant Olney Andrus, ed. Fred A.

Edwin

24.

The

E. Harris to Margaret Harris,

June

Civil

111.,

1947), 25-26.

1862, Harris Papers,

16,

GLC PML. Du Pree to wife, Jan. 31, 1864, in The War-Time Letters of C. Du Pree, C.S.A. 1864-1865 (Fayetteville, Ark., 1953), un-

25. T. C.

T

Captain

paged; Joseph Branch O'Bryan to

Edward M. Burrus

26.

HML

LSU; Harry Lewis

UNC. Emphasis

sister,

to mother,

to

mother, Aug.

9,

14, 1862,

1862, Harry Lewis Papers,

27. William H. Davis to mother, June 23,

F.

Burrus Family Papers,

SHC

added.

(emphasis added); Samuel Letters of S.

TSL.

July 9, 1863, O'Bryan Papers,

June

Tenney,

A

F.

Tenneo

to Alice

WLEU

1862, Davis Papers,

Toomer, Jan.

18, 1862, in

Soldier of the Third Georgia Regiment,"

"War

GHQ

57

(1973): 280. 28. Alexander Swift Pendleton to William N. Pendleton, Feb. 25, 1862, in

"The Valley Campaign of 1862 as Revealed

ton," ed.

Sandie Pendle-

W G. Bean, VMHB 78 (1970): 332.

John

29.

in Letters of

B. Jones, diary entry of

Diary, ed. Earl

Schenck Miers (New

29, 1863, in

A

Rebel

War

Clerk's

York, 1958), 181; H. C. Medford, diary

1864, in "The Diary of H. C. Medford, Confederate

entries of April 4, 8, Soldier, 1864," ed.

March

Rebecca

W Smith and Marion Mullins, SHQ 34

(1930):

211, 220; Frederick Bartleson to Kate Bartleson, Feb. 26, 1864, in The Brothers'

War, ed. Annette Taper (New York, 1988), 187. Paul A. Oliver to

30.

Richard try Is in

son, ed.

S.

Thompson

Sam

to sister

Oliver, Jan. 2,

&

FLPU;

1863, Oliver Papers,

brother, Jan. 14, 1863, in

While

Danger: The Life and Letters of Lieutenant Colonel Richard

My S.

Coun-

Thomp-

Gerry Harder Poriss and Ralph G. Poriss (Hamilton, N.Y., 1994),

40-41. 31.

Civil

John Brobst

War

to

Mary

Englesby,

March (no

Letters of a Wisconsin Volunteer, ed.

day) 1863, in Well, Mary:

Margaret B. Roth (Madison,

1960), 15; James Glazier to parents, Jan. 11, Feb.

HEH;

A. D. Pratt to Mr. Murdock, Feb. 16, 1863,

32. Joseph H. Griner to Sophia

ward, "The Civil

War

5,

1862, Glazier Papers,

Murdock

Papers,

Griner, Jan. 3, 1863, in Daniel

of a Pennsylvania Trooper,"

liam Henry Wykoff to Richard R. Parry,

May

PMHB

27,

ISHL.

H. Wood-

87 (1963): 51; Wil-

1862, Wykoff Letters, in

2

NOTES TO PAGES

4

1

George Lowe

private possession;

Papers,

HEH;

Nelson Chapin

Ernest Hemingway,

33. Fussell,

OO- 05 1

to Elizabeth

Lowe, Sept.

Farewell to

Arms (New

figures for both

enlisted

men

became

officers

only; the is

18,

1862,

Chapin Papers,

to wife, Oct. 19, 1863,

The Great War and Modern Memory (New These

34.

A

1

Lowe MHI.

York, 1929), 191; Paul

York, 1975), 21-22.

Confederate and Union soldiers are based on

number

of post-conscription

men

in the

sample who

too small for meaningful comparisons.

For a sampling of this scholarship, see Bailey, Class and Tennessee's

35.

Confederate Generation; Stephen E. Ambrose, "Yeoman Discontent in the Confederacy,"

CWH 8 (1962):

259-68; Paul D. Escott, "Southern Yeomen and the

Confederacy," South Atlantic Quarterly 77 (1978); Steven Hahn, The Roots of

Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Up-

1850-1890 (New York, 1983); Wayne K. Durrill, War of Another Kind: Southern Community in the Great Rebellion (New York, 1990); Armstead

country,

A

Robinson, "Bitter Fruits of Bondage: Slavery's Demise and the Collapse of the

Confederacy" (unpublished manuscript); Frank in the

L.

Klement, The Copperheads

Middle West (Chicago, 1960); Iver Bernstein, The

Riots: Their Significance for

War (New York,

American Society and

New

Hanna, "The Boston Draft Riot,"

Sterling, "Civil

Northern

C.

War

W Reese

Zimmerman PLDU;

Papers,

Civil

to

CWH

1990); William

111.,

36 (1990): 262-73; and Robert E.

Draft Resistance in the Middle West" (Ph.D. dissertation,

Illinois University,

John

36.

Age of the

Politics in the

1990); Grace Palladino, Another Civil War: Labor, Capital, and

the State in the Anthracite Regions of Pennsylvania (Urbana, F.

York City Draft

1974).

to wife,

May

PLDU; James 1863, Zimmerman in "A German Im-

26, 1863, Reese Papers,

Adeline Zimmerman, April 13, Aug.

5,

Valentin Bechler to wife, Sept. 17, 1862,

migrant in the Union Army: Selected Letters of Valentin Bechler," Journal of

American Studies 4 (1971): 160.

Chapter 1.

Roy

8.

The Cause of Liberty

The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 9 vols. 1953-1955), VII: 23; Dunbar Rowland, ed., Jefferson

Basler, ed.,

P.

(New Brunswick,

N.J.,

Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers,

and Speeches, 10

vols. (Jackson,

Miss., 1923), V: 202. 2.

MD

Eugene Blackford HS;

to mother, Feb. 22, 1862,

Gordon-Blackford Papers,

James E. Paton, diary entry of July 4, 1862, in "Civil

War

Journal

Wade Hampton Whitley, Register of the KenEdmund D. Patterson, diary entry of Yankee Rebel: The Civil War Journal of Edmund DeWitt

of James E. Paton," ed. Mrs.

tucky Historical Society 61 (1963): 228; July 4,

1863, in

John G. Barrett (Chapel

Patterson, ed. 3.

an

James

Officer":

Griffin to Leila Griffin,

A

Military

Hill,

March

1966), 119. 17, 1862, in "A

and Social History of James

Gentleman and

B. Griffin's Civil

War, ed.

Notes to Pages 106-108 McArthur and O. Vernon Burton (New York, 1996), to Andrew J. Proffit, May 10, 1862, Proffit Family

Judith N.

C. Proffit

UNC; William SHC UNC. 4. Edmund

Fleming

to

Georgia Fleming, July

May

9,

1

5

172; William

Papers,

SHC

1863, Fleming Papers,

13,

March

D. Patterson, diary entry of

Randal McGavock, diary entry of

14;

2

20, 1862, in Yankee

h

1862, in Pen and Sword: The Life

and Journals of Randal W. McGavock, ed. Jack Allen (Nashville, 1959), 624. 5. Noah Dixon Walker to father, Feb. 10, 1863, Noah D. Walker Papers,

MD

HS; Joseph Mothershead

W

6.

H. Williams

TSL; James H. Stanley

tion,

SHC UNC; Pleas B. Papers, SHC UNC.

The

Civil

21,

War

Collec-

7,

1863, Henry Wells

1861, Lunsford Yan-

FCHS; James

B. Griffin to

1862, in McArthur and Burton, eds., "A

Officer," 163, 221.

Edgeworth Bird

8.

1862, Civil

Stanley, Feb. 28, 1862, Stanley Papers,

1861, Yandell Papers,

May

Leila Griffin, Feb. 26,

Letters:

Mary

TSL.

13, 1862,

19,

to Sally Yandell, April 22,

Jr.,

dell, Jr., to father, April 22,

Gentleman and an

to

June

May

Clark to Henry H. Wells, Aug.

Lunsford Yandell,

7.

Diary, entry of

Susan Williams,

to

to Sallie Bird,

War

Aug.

8,

28, 1863, in

The Granite Farm

Correspondence of Edgeworth and Sallie Bird, ed. John

Rozier (Athens, Ga., 1988), 132, 135; Richard Lewis to mother, Feb. 9, April

Camp

1864, in

14,

Life of a Confederate

Boy

.

.

.

Letters Written by Lieut.

Richard Lewis (Charleston, S.C., 1883), 82, 92.

Richard Henry Watkins to Mary Watkins, Dec. 20, 1861, Watkins Pa-

9.

VA HS; Edward O. Guerrant to father, Feb. 15, FCHS; John Thomas Jones to Edmund Walter Jones,

pers,

10.

William Calder

11.

John B. Evans

12.

The

Edmund

SHC UNC.

Jones Papers,

Papers,

1865, Guerrant Papers, Jan. 20, 1861,

to mother,

June 26, 1863, Calder Papers,

to Mollie Evans,

SHC UNC.

June 28, 1863, Jan. 22, 1865, Evans

PLDU. William Nugent

Civil

War

Eleanor Nugent, Sept.

to

7,

My Dear Nellie:

1863, in

Letters of William L. Nugent, ed. William M. Cash and Lucy

Somerville Howarth (Jackson, Miss., 1977), 132; Elias Davis to Mrs. R. L.

SHC UNC.

Lathan, Dec. 10, 1863, Davis Papers, 13.

Welsh

War

Henry to

L.

Stone to

mother and

father, Feb.

wife, Jan. 26,

14.

W

SHC UNC; SHC UNC. 15.

W

Henry

Edward

K.

Burgwyn

G. Bean,

VMHB

Graves,

to father,

March Feb.

8,

Civil

59 (1951): 410;

15, 1863,

GLC PML. Graves Papers,

1863, Burgwyn Papers,

Porter Alexander to Bessie Alexander, July 26, 1863, Alexan-

SHC UNC;

Simkins Papers,

I.

KHS; John

"A House Divided: The

Tillotson to wife, Sept. 24, 1862, Tillotson Papers,

Hilton Graves to Charles

der Papers,

1863, Stone Papers,

1863, in

Letters of a Virginia Family," ed.

George

13,

HEH.

Eldred Simkins to Eliza Trescott, Jan. 27, 1865,

2

Notes to Pages 109-12

6

1

George Hamill

16.

Bradshaw

sion; Jonas

March

Diary, n.d. (probably

Nancy Bradshaw,

to

1862), in private posses-

Bradshaw Papers,

April 29, 1862,

PLDU. John G. Keyton

17.

SHC UNC; 18.

to

Hilbert,

Nov. 30,

1861, Keyton Papers,

Proffitt,

April

1864, Proffitt Papers,

Chauncey Cooke

The

in Blue:

Mary Louisa

to

PLDU; Samuel Walsh Letters of

Thomas

Chauncey H. Cooke," Key, C.S.A.,

].

Wirt Armistead Cate (Chapel Henrietta Garner, Jan.

and Robert

(1921): 67.

5

Two

].

Soldiers:

The Cam-

Campbell, U.S.A., ed.

1938), 70; William Wakefield Garner to

Hill,

1864, in "Letters of an Arkansas Confederate Sol-

2,

7,

Letter," ed. Elizabeth

19.

WMH

D. D. McBrien, Arkansas Historical Quarterly 2 (1943): 282; Allen

D. Candler to wife, July

War

1864, in "A Badger Boy

10,

Key, diary entry of April 10, 1864, in

paign Diaries of Thomas

dier," ed.

May

to parents,

11,

By the end

1864, in "Watch on the Chattahoochee:

Hulsey Marshall,

of 1864, however,

GHQ 43

A

Civil

(1959): 428.

when Confederate

began

officials

some

discuss the possibility of arming slaves to fight for the South,

who

expressed a willingness to accept the emancipation of those

to

soldiers

fought. See

pp. 171-72.

MNHS;

20. Jasper N. Searles to family, Nov. 27, 1861, Searles Papers,

Chapman,

Horatio D.

diary entry of Sept. 19, 1863, in Civil

—

War

Diary

Diary of a Forty-Niner (Hartford, 1929), 35; Joseph Fardell to parents, July 11, 1863, Fardell Papers,

21.

MO

Benjamin Stevenson

HS.

to wife, July 5,

1863, in Letters from the

Army

(Cincinnati, 1884), 243. 22.

Colors:

Leander Stem

The

ter of the S.

Army

tler,

to

Amanda Stem, Dec.

15,

1862, in "Stand by the

Letters of Leander Stem," ed. John T. Hubbell, Regis-

May

8,

to

John

1861, in "The Second Michigan Volunteer Infantry Joins

of the Potomac: Letters of Philo H. Gallup," ed. Chester

M. Des-

Michigan History 41 (1957): 388.

23.

March Oct.

War

Kentucky Historical Society 73 (1975): 408; Philo H. Gallup

Gallup,

the

Civil

3,

24.

Ephraim 30, 1864,

1862,

S.

Holloway

Chaney

Thomas

to

Margaret Holloway, June

OHS;

Holloway Papers, Papers,

MN

Josiah

Chaney

14, July 11, 1862, to

Melissa Chaney,

HS.

Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Smith, Aug. 25,

Kilby Smith to Eliza Smith, Oct.

7,

1863, Smith Papers,

1862,

HEH;

Thomas

Basler, ed.,

Collected Works of Lincoln, IV: 268. 25.

Dan G.

Porter to Maria Lewis, July 24,

1862, in "The Civil

War

Andrew Lewis and His Daughter," ed. Michael Barton, WPMH 40 (1977): 389; Delos Van Deusen to Henrietta Van Deusen, Dec. 23, 1862, Van Deusen Papers, HEH; John Beatty, diary entry of July 3, 1862, Letters of Captain

in

Memoirs of a Volunteer, 1861-1865 (1879; rpt., 26. James H. Goodnow to Samuel Goodnow,

Papers,

LC; Samuel Evans

to father, Sept.

13,

New

York, 1946), 115.

Jan.

11,

1863,

Goodnow

1863, Evans Family Papers,

NOTES TO PAGES 113-17 OHS.

am

I

1

7

indebted to Professor Robert Engs of the University of Pennsylva-

nia for providing

me

with information about the Evans Papers.

Phebe

27. Josiah Perry to

Goodyear

2

to

Perry,

Oct.

3,

1862, Perry Papers, ISML; Robert

Sarah Goodyear, Feb. 14, 1863, Goodyear Letters,

MHI.

sometime

in the

28. William H. H. Ibbetson, Diary, undated entry

of 1863-64,

ISHL; Robert

McMahan,

T.

winter

Diary, entry of Sept. 3, 1863,

SHS

MO. George H. Cadman

29. pers,

to Esther

Cadman, March

Cadman

1864,

6,

Pa-

SHC UNC. Welsh

Peter

30.

Prendergast, June

Mary Welsh,

to

Letters of Peter Welsh,

(New

Richard

Feb.

1863, Peter Welsh to Patrick

3,

1863, in Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil

1,

York, 1986), 65-66, 102;

Edmund

May

English to mother,

27,

HEH.

1862, English Papers,

40-41.

in Battle (rpt., Westport, Conn., 1977),

31.

John Dollard, Fear

32.

John Dooley, undated diary entry but apparently July

War Journal,

Dooley Confederate Soldier: His

ed. Joseph T.

3,

from a Sharpshooter: The Civil War

1863, in John

Durkin (George-

town, D.C., 1945), 104-5; William B. Greene, diary entry of Letters

War

Laurence Frederick Kohl and Margaret Cosse

ed.

May

Letters of Private

1864,

6,

William B.

Greene, ed. William H. Hastings (Belleville, Wis., 1993), 203.

Morris to wife, Aug.

33. William G.

UNC;

Edwin Payne

to

Kim Hudson, May

Henry Crydenwise

34.

SHS MO;

WLEU;

Henry Warren Howe,

ISHL.

25, June 19, 1863, Payne Papers,

1863, Crydenwise Papers,

parents, July 9,

to

diary entry of

SHC

1862, Morris Papers,

19,

Robert Gooding to brother, April 13, 1862, Gooding Papers,

May

26, 1863, in Passages

from

Henry Warren Howe, Consisting of Diary and Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865 (Lowell, Mass., 1899), 48. the Life of

James

35.

Augusta Hallock, Jan.

Bell to

Henry H. Perry

to mother,

John W. Geary

36.

War: The Civil

War

to

Aug.

Mary

Letters,

14, 1864, in private possession.

Geary, Aug. 22, 1863, in

Letters of John

versity Park, Pa., 1995), 110;

MHI; James

P.

Douglas's Texas Battery,

Douglas

A

Politician

White Geary, ed. William Alan

William E.

CSA,

HEH;

1863, Bell Papers,

14,

Dunn

to Sallie

Goes

to sister, April 2, 1863,

White Douglas,

ed. Lucia Rutherford

to

Blair (Uni-

Dunn

Sept. 14, 1864, in

Douglas (Waco, 1966),

132. 37.

Fifth

James H. Leonard

Mary Sheldon, Aug.

Wisconsin Volunteer," ed. R. G. Plumb,

Chapter 1.

to

9.

WMH 3

H. D. Medford, Confederate

SHQ

(1919): 54.

Slavery Must Be Cleaned Out

Harvey C. Medford, diary entry of April

ion Mullins,

15, 1861, in "Letters of a

Soldier, 1864," ed.

34 (1930): 220.

8,

1864, in "The Diary of

Rebecca

W Smith and Mar-

2

NOTES TO PAGES

8

1

Bell

2.

Letters of

May

Fox,

The

Wiley,

Irvin

Chauncey Cooke

Life

Doe Cooke,

to

March

1861,

Regiment," ed. James

1

of Billy Yank (Indianapolis,

"A Badger Boy

WMH 4 (1920):

1952),

40;

in Blue:

The

212; Walter Poor to George

New

1862, in "A Yankee Soldier in a

1,

New

Heslin,

J.

17-2

Jan. 6, 1863, in

Chauncey H. Cooke," 15,

1

York

York Historical Society Quarterly Bulle-

50 (1966): 115, 126-27.

tin

George

3.

HEH;

W

John A.

Lowe

to

Elizabeth Lowe, Jan.

18,

Gillis, Diary,

entry of July 4, 1862,

MN

Dec.

sett to family,

1,

1861, in

From

Bull

Run

1862,

Lowe

Papers,

HS; Edward H. Bas-

Bristow Station, ed.

to

M. H.

Bassett (St. Paul, 1962), 12.

Oliver

4. ters

W Norton

"Cousin

to

L.," Jan. 28,

19, 1862,

Crydenwise Papers,

Walter Q. Gresham

Army

1862, in Norton,

1861-1865 (Chicago, 1903), 43; Henry M. Crydenwise

to parents,

Let-

Aug.

WLEU.

Gresham, March 24, 1862, Gresham PaHanna McCord, March 11, Dec. 15, 1863, in "Letters Home: Camp and Campaign Life of a Union Artilleryman," ed. Ruth K. Lynn, typescript in Earl Hess Collection, MHI; John Geary to Mary Geary, Jan. 28, 1863, in A Politician Goes to War: The Civil War Letters of 5.

pers,

to Tillie

LC; Simeon McCord

to

W

John White Geary,

ed. William

Alan Blair (University Park,

1995),

Pa.,

86-

87. 6.

HEH; Is

Thomas

Kilby Smith to Helen Smith, Sept. 15, 1862, Smith Papers,

Charles Brewster to mother, March

Over: The Civil

War Letters

4,

When

1862, in

This Cruel

of Charles Harvey Brewster, ed. David

W

War

Blight

(Amherst, 1992), 92. 7.

as ed.

John C. Buchanan

Viewed by

a

Sophia Buchanan, Oct.

to

Michigan

Civil

War

John C. Buchanan,"

George M. Blackburn, Michigan History 47 (1963): 79-80; Franklin

Howard 8.

and

to brother

sister,

March

29, 1862,

Charles Wills to family, April 16,

1862, in

Army

Life of

an

Howard

Papers,

B.

WHS.

1862, Wills to brother, Feb. 25,

Illinois Soldier: Letters

Wills (Washington, 1906), 83, 158; 9,

"The Negro

17, 1861, in

Soldier: Letters of

and Diary of the Late Charles to Susan Andrews, Sept.

Henry Andrews

1862, Andrews Papers, ISHL. 9.

George Lowe

Stephen O. Himoe

to Elizabeth to wife,

Lowe, Aug.

June 26, 1862,

in

Lowe

17, 1862,

Papers,

HEH;

"An Army Surgeon's Letters

to

His Wife," ed. Luther M. Kuhns, Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association 7 (1914):

311-12; Thomas Kilby Smith

23, 28, 1862, Smith Papers, 10.

Union

Officer: L.

sota History 11.

HEH.

Charles E. Perkins to Whiting Haskell, Aug.

MHI; Lucius Hubbard F.

to Eliza Smith, July

Mary Hubbard, Sept. Hubbard and the Civil War," to

3,

8,

ed.

1862, Perkins Papers,

1862, in "Letters of a

N. B. Martin, Minne-

35 (1957): 314-15.

Arthur B. Carpenter to parents, Dec.

Bright, "Yankees in

Arms: The

Civil

War

5,

1861, quoted in

Thomas

R.

CWH

19

as a Personal Experience,"

NOTES TO PAGES 12 1-25

1862,

Herman

1973): 202;

(Sept.

2

9

19 and 21,

Dellinger, Diary, entries of July

F.

1

HEH. William

12.

PLDU; HEH.

T.

Charles

Darius

13.

Pippey to Benjamin Pippey, July 31, 1862, Pippey Papers,

entry of Feb.

Diary,

Starr,

Thomas W. Stephens, "

RHSP

29, 1862,

PLDU;

1863, Starr Papers,

4,

Diary, entry of Jan. 14, 1863,

to Ellen Breck, Jan. 18, 1865, in

'Reynolds Battery,'

May

Wainwright, Diary, entries of Jan. 15 and

S.

SHS MO;

George Breck

"George Beck's Civil War Letters from the

22 (1944):

1

19-20.

MHI;

Alexander Caldwell to brother, Jan. 11, 1863, Caldwell Papers,

14.

Chaney

Josiah

to Melissa

MN

Chaney, Sept. 24, 1862, Chaney Papers,

John Q. A. Campbell,

Diary, entry of Oct. 28, 1862,

Henry Henney

16.

to family, late

WRHS.

Dec. 1862, Henney Papers,

MHI; Da-

MHI.

vid Nichol to father, Jan. 4, 1863, Nichol Papers,

W Beidelman

HS.

PLDU;

15. Constant Hanks to mother, April 20, 1863, Hanks Papers,

War Letters of George Washington Beidelman, ed. Catherine H. Vanderslice (New York, 1978), 116; George Cadman to Esther Cadman, May 9, 1863, Cadman George

17.

to father, Oct.

1862, in The Civil

1,

SHC UNC.

Papers,

18. Valentin

Bechler to wife, Nov. 11, 1862, in "A

German Immigrant

Union Army: Selected Letters of Valentin Bechler,"

the

Goodell and

P.

M.

A.

Taylor, Journal of American Studies 4 (1971): 161;

One

Flag

One Country and

Greenbacks a Month: Letters from a Civil

War

Private, ed.

Shank

Feb.

to family,

17,

Hunter (San Diego, 1980), Olney Andrus

19.

to

1863, in

Mary Andrus,

Walter Hubbell, Jan. 26, Feb.

20.

David

Jan. 26, 1863,

T

Massey

Massey

MHI; John Babb, 21.

John Vliet

HEH; Simeon McDermott 22.

of C.

F.

Jr.,

in

The

to

Royse

John Babb, Oct. 2,

War

Shank

J.

3,

Henry

David

1863, in

6,

P.

Hub-

FLPU.

Massey

to sister,

Ford to family, Ford Letters,

WLEU.

W Sweeny

Thomas

Royse Papers,

McDermott, McDermott Papers,

March

T

1862, Babb Papers,

to father, Feb. 14, 1863,

B. Boyd, diary entry of

Letters of Sergeant

1947), 29;

1863, Hubbell Papers,

MO HS; John W

Mr. Bodge, Feb.

to Isabella

Cyrus

7,

Civil

III,

to father, Feb. 23, 1863,

Papers,

to

Edna

John

Thirteen

59.

Olney Andrus, ed. Fred A. Shannon (Urbana, bell to

in

Robert C.

ed.

Papers,

PLDU; John

G.

WHS.

1863, in "The Civil

War

Diary

Boyd, Fifteenth Iowa Infantry," ed. Mildred Throne, I]H 50 (1952):

375. 23.

Chauncey

B.

Welton

ton to mother, Feb. 11, Papers, 24.

to

"Dear friends

1863, Welton

home," Jan.

March

20,

13, 1863,

Wel-

1863, Welton

SHC UNC. Chauncey

B.

Welton

to parents,

June

19, Oct. 13, 1864, to parents, Feb. 18, 1865,

25.

at

to uncle,

Marcus

15, 1863, to his father, Sept.

Welton Papers,

SHC UNC.

Spiegel to Caroline Spiegel, Jan. 25, April 27,

1863, Jan.

Notes to Pages 125-29

2 2

22, Feb. 12, 1864; address by Spiegel to his regiment, Feb. 22, 1863,

War Letters of Powers Soman (Kent, Ohio,

all

in

Your True Marcus: The Civil

a Jewish Colonel, ed. Frank L.

Byrne and Jean

1985), 226, 269, 315-16, 320,

244. 26. William H. Martin to

MHI; B.W. H.

Illustrated Collection,

John

27. pers,

F.

James Davidson,

May

24, 1863, Martin Papers,

Pasron to A. A. Shafer, March 24, 1863, Civil

Marquis

HEH; John

War Times

MHI. to

Neeta Haile, July 26, 1863, Neeta Marquis Pa-

R. Beatty to Laura Maxfield, Feb. 20, 1863, Beatty Papers,

MNHS. FCHS. MHI; Papers, FLPU. 1863, Civil War Times

28. Alfred Pirtle to sister, Aug. 3, Sept. 8, 1863, Pirtle Papers,

Aaron

29.

Symmes 30.

Benton

J.

B.

W. H. Pasron

1863, Nelson

Huson

1863, Benton Papers,

2,

McNutt

32. William

Kim Hudson, May

to

1863-1865: The

24, to

George Huson, Jan. 22,

HEH.

to A. F. Scott,

Keeler to

F.

March

to A. A. Shafer,

MHI; Hiram Weatherby Papers,

Edwin Payne

Joseph G.

Florida,

March

Stillwell to mother, Feb. 21, 1863, Stillwell

Illustrated Collection,

31.

to father,

3,

1863, Payne Papers, ISHL;

June 23, 1863,

Anna

Keeler,

in private possession.

June 30, 1863,

Letters of Paymaster

in

Aboard the USS

William Frederick Keeler, ed.

Robert W. Daly (Annapolis, 1968), 59-60; James Theaker to 1863, in Through

One Man's

County Volunteer,

ed. Paul E. Rieger

33.

liam

J.

Thomas

W Stephens,

Eyes:

Tomlinson

to

The

War

Civil

(Mount Vernon, Ohio,

Diary, entry of

sister,

Oct. 19,

Experiences of a Belmont

June 15, 1864,

1974), 63.

SHS MO;

Wil-

Emily Tomlinson, Dec. 26, 1864, March 28, 1865, Tom-

linson Papers, in private possession. 34.

Charles

W

Singer to Christian Recorder, Sept. 18, 1864, published

in Christian Recorder, Oct. 8,

1864, reprinted in

Edwin

S.

Redkey, ed.,

A

Grand Army of Black Men: Letters from African-American Soldiers in the Union Army, 1861-1865 (New York, 1993), 214; Edgar Dinsmore to Carrie Drayton, 35.

May

29, 1865,

Dinsmore Papers, PLDU.

James Henry Hall

to Christian Recorder,

Recorder, Aug. 27, 1864, reprinted in Redkey,

A

Aug.

3,

1864, in Christian

Grand Army of Black Men,

205; Corporal John H. B. Payne, in a letter to the Christian Recorder, 24, 1864, reprinted in

Noah Andre Trudeau,

May

ed., Voices of the 55th: Letters

from the 55th Massachusetts Volunteers (Dayton, Ohio, 1996), 146; Diary of William B. Gould, quoted by his great-grandson William B. Gould

man

IV, chair-

of the National Labor Relations Board, in a speech to the Officers'

of the U.S.

Navy on Feb.

11, 1995,

and published

in a press release

Club

by the

NLRB. 36. William C.

MHI; Benjamin to

H. Reeder to parents, Dec. 23, 1863, Reeder Papers,

Jones to Lemuel Jones, March

Lemuel Jones, Feb.

12,

1864, Misc. Civil

War

9,

1864, William Jones

Letters,

FCHS; Thomas

Notes to Pages 129-34 Donahue

to

2 2

Almira Mitchell, July 31, 1864, Winchell Papers,

37. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, diary entries of Oct. 31, Dec. Artillery

GLC PML.

to mother,

Anne

26, 1863, Ely to

Aug. 15, 1863, Ely to mother and

William Tuckey Meredith

Mary Watson, May

to

28^'

90.

Dec.

sister,

FLPU;

1864, April 12, 1865, Ely Papers,

Ely, July 10,

An

1864, in

Man's Diary, ed. Carl Russell Fish (Madison, 1914), 265

Samuel Ely

38.

19,

1

Meredith Papers.

10, 1864,

FLPU.

Phineas Hager to Sabra Hager, March

40.

Chapter John

We Know

lO.

That

L. Barnett to sister, Nov.

Irby G. Scott to "Dear to

We Are Supported 17,

ed.

Henry McDaniel

"Some

WMH 3 Letters

2,

A

1863, in

Cycle of

Adams

Marcus Spiegel

3.

PMHB

War

War

Letters

37 (1941): 172;

PLDU;

Scott Papers,

in "Letters of a Fifth

With Unabated

in

from Confederate Jr.,

to

Battlefields

Henry Adams, II:

68;

1864, in "Jottings by the Way:

8,

A

71 (1947): 255.

to Caroline Spiegel, Feb.

True Marcus: The Civil

Home

2 vols. (Boston, 1920),

Letters,

Charles K. Mervine, diary entry of Jan. Sailor's Log— 1862 to 1864,"

Hager Pa-

(1919): 54.

(Monroe, Ga., 1977), 169-70; Charles Francis Adams, Aug.

at

Civil

IMH

Hester Felker, June 14, 1863,

to

Major Henry McDaniel's Love

Trust:

1862, in

James Barnett,

Ones at Home," Nov. 6, 1861, Mary Sheldon, Aug. 15, 1861,

Wisconsin Volunteer," ed. R. G. Plumb, 2.

July 14, 1864,

6,

by Dave Holmquist.

and Diary of John Lympus Barnett,"

James H. Leonard

SHS MO; WRHS.

1863, Gooding Papers,

4,

Diary, entries of Nov. 12, July 4, 1863,

pers, typescript copies supplied

1.

May

Robert Gooding to brother,

39.

John Q. A. Campbell

13, July 13,

Letters of a Jewish Colonel, ed.

1862, in Your

Frank

Byrne

L.

and Jean Powers Soman (Kent, Ohio, 1985), 37, 128, 129. Roger

4. ris

W

Little,

"Buddy Relations and Combat Performance,"

New Edmund

Janowitz, ed., The

York, 1964), 219;

Rebel:

The

Civil

War

in

Mor-

Changing Patterns of Organization (New Patterson, diary entry of Nov. 23, 1862, in Yankee

Military:

Journal of

Edmund DeWitt

Patterson (Chapel Hill,

1966), 83. 5.

Lila

Chunn

to Willie

Chunn, May

entry of Nov. 18, 1864, both quoted in

Confederate

fice:

Women

19, 1863,

Drew

and Emily Harris, diary

Gilpin Faust, "Altars of Sacri-

and the Narratives of War," Journal of American

History 76 (1990): 1222. 6.

Sophia Wight

to Levi

Reminiscences and Civil (Salt

in

the

Lake

City, 1970),

Wight, Nov. 16, 1862, Dec. Letters of Levi

Lamoni Wight,

5,

1863, in The

ed. Davis Bitton

S.WW to "My Dear Charley," undated, soon and dont delay': Letters from home 'Come

121-22, 142;

Edward G. Longacre,

Home

War "

Front, July 1861,"

PMHB

100 (1976): 400; Leokadia Bechler

Valentin Bechler, June 16, Sept. 13, 1862, in "A

German Immigrant

to

in the

Notes to Pages 134-38

2 2 2

Union Army: Selected Letters of Valentin Bechler," and

P.

A.

M.

Taylor, Journal of

Charles Wills to

7.

Hans Christian Heg of

Army

Jan. 22, 1863, in

sister,

Life of

an

Illinois Sol-

and Diary of the Late Charles Wills (Washington, 1906), 150;

Letters

dier,

ed. Robert C. Goodell

American Studies 4 (1971): 157, 159.

Thomas Adland,

to

Hans Christian Heg,

War

Feb. 15, 1863, in Civil

Letters

Theodore C. Blegen (Northfield, Minn., 1936),

ed.

220; Rufus Dawes, Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers (1890;

rpt.,

1962), 127.

Wilbur

8.

Richard

S.

LC; Duren Kelley

Fisk, Diary, entry of Feb. 14, 1864,

Kelley, Oct. 18, 1863, in

The War

Duren

Letters of

Emma

to

1862-1865,

F. Kelley

ed.

Offenberg and Robert Rue Parsonage (New York, 1967), 73.

Richard Watkins to Mary Watkins, Oct. 18, 1862, Watkins Papers,

9.

VHS. 10.

W

Ephraim

Holloway

1863, Holloway Papers, 11.

Thomas

OHS;

Papers,

Margaret Holloway, Dec. to

John

W

Collingwood

12),

to

7,

Collingwood Papers,

1862,

PLDU; Ephraim S. Holloway to Margaret Holloway, OHS; Tristrim L. Skinner to Eliza Skinner,

Champion

July 11, 1862,

Nov. 21, 1861,

SHC UNC.

R. Curtis Edgerton to Lydia Edgerton, April 21, 1862, Edgerton Pa-

pers,

HEH;

kins

Papers,

McGrath 14.

Richard Henry Watkins to Mary Watkins, Feb. 20, 1862, Wat-

VHS; John McGrath

Papers,

HML

to

McGrath,

Lavinia

Jan.

1863,

13,

LSU.

Edmondson to wife, Oct. 14, Edmondson 1861-1865, ed. Charles

James

James K.

K.

1862, in

War

Letters of Col.

W Turner (Vernon,

Va., 1978),

105; Ellison Capers to Lottie Capers, Dec. 9, 1862, Capers Papers,

PLDU;

Elisha Paxton to wife, Jan. 26, Oct. 25,

1862,

Memoir and Memorials

Elisha Franklin Paxton, ed. John G. Paxton

(New

York, 1905), 48, 68.

15.

Papers, 16.

pers,

Ladie Armstrong to James

T

Armstrong, April

17,

1862, Armstrong

The

Kilby Smith to Eliza Smith, Feb. 4, June 17, 1863, Smith Pa-

William L. Nugent to Eleanor Nugent, April 20, 1864, in Civil

War

Letters of

William

My Dear

L. Nugent, ed. William M. Cash and

Lucy Somerville Howarth (Jackson,

Miss., 1977), 168;

Hans Christian Heg

Gunild Heg, Aug. 25, 1862,

War Letters of Heg,

128.

17.

MO

Hillory Shifflet to

HS; Andrew

PLDU; James 18.

of

SHC UNC. Thomas

HEH;

Nellie:

12,

HEH.

to wife, undated, Oct. or Nov.

April 6, 1862, Skinner Papers,

1862, Taylor

Rebecca Collingwood, Aug.

Holloway Papers,

13.

April 23,

OHS.

Sydney Champion

Papers,

March

1863,

7,

W Holloway,

Taylor to Antoinette Taylor, Feb. 25, June

Joseph

1862 (misdated March 12.

to

Ephraim Holloway

30, 1864, Jan. 15, 1865,

S.

Quoted

J.

White

Watson

in Civil

Lemima to

Shifflet, Feb.

28, 1862, Shifflet Papers,

Margaret White, June

to wife, Oct. 5, 1862,

in Bessie Martin, Desertion of

to

13, 1862,

Watson

White Papers,

Papers,

VHS.

Alabama Troops from

the

Con-

Notes to Pages 138-42 Army (New York, War (New York,

federate

2 2 3

1932), 148. See also Ella Lonn, Desertion During

the Civil

1928), 12-14, and

Drew

Gilpin Faust, "Altars of

Sacrifice," 1224.

W.

19.

Shockley to Eliza Shockley, Jan.

S.

PLDU; John

Calvin Gruar to wife,

March

15,

1863, Shockley Papers,

20, 1864, Civil

War

Collection,

TSL.

Amory Allen to Delphany Allen, March 19, 1863, in "Civil War LetAmory K. Allen," IMH 31 (1935): 364; Royal Potter to wife, Oct. 19,

20. ters of

1862, Potter Papers, in private possession.

Catherine Buckingham to Roswell H. Lamson, June 29,

21.

FLPU. Henry Ackerman Smith

Lamson

1864, 22.

May

16,

Papers,

PLDU; Mortimer

to

June

wife,

Leggett to wife, Jan.

1862,

19,

Smith Papers,

1865, Leggett Papers, Lincoln

1,

Shrine, A. K. Smiley Public Library, Redlands, California.

Hans Christian Heg

23.

Letters of Heg, 206; Eldred

HEH; Bryan Grimes SHC UNC.

Grimes, Oct.

to Charlotte

Papers, pers,

Gunild Heg, April 25, 1863,

to

Bryan Grimes to Charlotte Grimes, Oct.

24.

SHC UNC; Years in the

James Connolly

Army

War

13,

Letters

1863, Grimes Pa-

8,

1863, Grimes Papers,

Mary Connolly, March

to

Cumberland: The

of the

in Civil

Simkins to Eliza Trescott, July 27, 1863, Simkins

2,

1863, in Three

and Diary of Major James

A. Connolly, ed. Paul Angle (Bloomington, Ind., 1962), 38; Joseph Colling-

wood The

Rebecca Collingwood, Aug. 25, 1861, Collingwood Papers,

to

HEH.

data on combat mortality of married soldiers varied for the Union and

Confederate samples.

Among

Confederates 38 percent of married

men and

only 26 percent of unmarried soldiers were killed; in the Union sample the

were 15 percent

figures

Eric

25.

J.

Leed,

for

married soldiers and 18 percent for single men.

No Man's

Land: Combat and Identity in World

War

I

(Cambridge, 1979), 110-11. Gerald

26. in the

F.

Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat

American Civil War (New York, 1987), 216, 218, 239.

27. Charles H. Brewster to mother,

War

Is

Over: The Civil

War

May

Letters of Charles

15,

in

MHI; James M.

From That

Kent Folmar (University, 28.

PLDU;

War

Letters of James

M.

W

28, 1863, Ni17, 1864,

Williams, ed. John

Ala., 1981), 146.

Robert A. McClellan to

sister,

May

13,

1863, McClellan Papers,

Joab Goodson to Nannie Clements, Aug. 18, 1863, in "The Letters

of Captain Joab Goodson, 1862-1864," ed.

view 10 (1957): 146-47; Peter

McDavid 29.

March

Williams to Elizabeth Williams, Oct.

Terrible Field: Civil

This Cruel

Harvey Brewster, ed. David

Blight (Amherst, 1992), 298; David Nichol to father,

chol Papers,

When

1864, in

Papers,

Abner

E.

McDavid

W

Stanley Hoole, Alabama Re-

to Nellie

McDavid, Aug.

15, 1863,

PLDU. McGarity

to Francinia

McGarity, March

6,

1865, in "Let-

Notes to Pages 142-49

2 2 4

ters of a

Confederate Surgeon: Dr. Abner Embry McGarity, 1862-1865," ed.

Edmund Cody 30. ters of

GHQ

Burnett,

Edward Acton

to

30 (1946): 62.

Mary Acton,

Captain Edward A. Acton

38; Alfred Lacey

West: The Civil

to

July 13, 1862, in

"

'Dear Molly': Let-

PMHB

His Wife, 1862,"

Hough to Mary Hough, July 3, 17, War Letters of Alfred Lacey Hough,

89 (1965): 37-

1864, in Soldier in the

Athearn

ed. Robert G.

(Philadelphia, 1957), 202, 206. 31.

32.

of

James Connolly

Army

the

to

Mary Connolly, Aug.

1864, in Three Years in

16,

of the Cumberland, 255—56.

Enos

Lewis

B.

"The

to parents, April 21, 1863, in

Civil

War

Letters

Enos Barret Lewis," Northwest Ohio Quarterly 57 (1985): 90. 33.

Seneca

"An Iowa Doctor

B. Thrall to wife, Nov. 15, 1862, in

in Blue:

Letters of Seneca B. Thrall, 1862-1864," ed. Mildred Throne, IJH 58 (1960):

War

109-10; Osiah Moser to wife, March 22, 1863, Civil 34. Charles

M. Coit

Charles Wills to 35. Wills,

John Herr 36.

War

sister,

Army

to family, Jan.

Life,

Mary

to

MO HS.

GLC PML;

153-54.

Life,

154; John Herr to Kate Herr, April (no day), 1864,

to mother, April 29, 1864,

John Brobst

1863, Coit Papers,

5,

Army

Feb. 7, 1863, in

Collection,

Herr Papers,

PLDU.

Englesby, Sept. 27, 1864, in Well, Mary: Civil

Letters of a Wisconsin Volunteer, ed.

Margaret B. Roth (Madison, 1960),

93; Robert Bowlin to David Powell, Aug. 11, 1863, Bowlin Papers, in private

possession. 37. Alexander Caldwell

MHI;

Bela

Zimmerman

to

brother,

to

March

7,

1863, Caldwell Papers,

Minnie Zimmerman, June

14, 1863,

Zimmerman

Letters, in private possession.

38.

John Brobst

Eugene Kingman

Mary

to

to

Englesby,

Charles Kingman, Aug.

Vintage 1861—1864: The Civil

War

Helene C. Phelan (Almond,

ed.

39.

John Rumpel

to father,

Diaries

to

27, 1865, in Well, Mary, 4,

and

144;

1863, in Tramping Out the Letters of

Eugene Kingman,

N.Y., 1983), 202.

Sept.

H. E. Rosenberger, Annals of Iowa, 3rd

cop

May

1863, in "Ohiowa Soldier," ed.

14, Ser.,

36 (1961): 129-30; James

Stall-

Catherine Varner, Oct. 31, 1863, in "Letters of James Stallcop to

Catherine Verner, Charlotte, Iowa,

1863-1865," North Dakota Historical

Quarterly 4 (1929-30): 122. 40. Constant

Amory

Hanks

K. Allen to

to

Mary Rose, Nov.

20, 1864,

Delphany Allen, Nov. 26, 1864,

Hanks

in "Civil

Papers,

War

PLDU;

Letters of

Allen," 383.

Chapter

1

1.

Vengeance will Be Our Motto

"Miss Virginia," July 26, 1861, Paine Papers, TSL.

1.

Hannibal Paine

2.

H. Christopher Kendrick

SHC UNC;

to

to sister,

Nov

19,

1861, Kendrick Papers,

Richard M. Saffell to Mrs. John Bogle, Nov. 24, 1861, Saffell

NOTES TO PAGES 149-52

SHC UNC.

1861, Winfield Papers, 3.

Edward

Ward

K.

to Sallie Winfield, Sept. 2,

John Q. Winfield

Letters, in private possession;

2 2 5

Ward

1864,

to sister, April 2,

Benjamin Batchelor to Julia Batchelor, Dec.

Two

Batchelor-Turner Letters 1861-1864, Written by

May

10, 1863, in

War

Letters of

Captain Elijah

P. Petty, ed.

W Montfort

Theodorick

bel Lawyer:

The

19,

Edwin H.

Samuel Ritchey

87, 292;

22, 1863,

D. Brown (San Antonio,

March 18, 1862, in "ReW. Montfort, 1861-1862," ed. Edwin H. Fay

(1965): 209;

to

Sarah Fay,

1863, in "This Infernal War": The Confederate

10,

Fay, ed. Bell Irvin Wiley (Austin, 1958), 329, to

286-

Margaret Harris, Nov. 25, 1862, Edwin E. Harris

GLC PML.

Papers,

6,

May

Pleasant Hill: The Civil

to Louisa Montfort,

GHQ 49

Jr.,

June 27, July

Letters of Sgt.

5.

Norman

Letters of Lt. Theodorick

Spencer Bidwell King, Sept.

to

1863, in

78-79, 223, 215.

1*982), 4.

Journey

2,

of Terry's Texas Rangers

(Austin, 1961), 3, 52-53; Elijah Petty to wife, Sept. 11, 1862, Elijah Petty to daughter,

GLC PML;

Papers,

1861, June

19,

H. Christopher Kendrick

1863, Simpson

June 28,

Home": The Wartime

Guy

Volunteers, ed.

undated, Kendrick to mother, June

Simpson

Taliaferro

Anna Simpson,

to

Letters of

R.

to father,

SHC UNC;

1863, Kendrick Papers,

to Caroline Miller,

July 27, 1863, in "Far, Far from

Dick and Tally Simpson, Third South Carolina

Everson and Edward H. Simpson,

(New

Jr.

York,

1994), 251, 261-62. 6.

Eugene Blackford

7.

Osmun

Colman

Mary

to

Gordon-Blackford Papers,

MD

L. Minor,

Latrobe Diary, entry of Dec. 16, 1862,

to sister, Sept. 29, 1863, in

from the Stonewall Brigade,

Letters

MD

HS; Thomas H.

Colman-Hayter Family Papers,

to parents, Oct. 5, 1863,

Ted Barclay

undated, probably Sept. 1864,

HS.

SHS MO;

Ted Barclay, Liberty Hall Volunteers:

ed. Charles

W. Turner (Rockbridge,

Va.,

1992), 107. 8.

W Simpson

Richard

to

Anna

from Home," 64; Edward M. Burrus Burrus Papers, Papers, 9.

LSU; John

10.

to parents, n.d. (late

Texana

in "Far,

Far

September 1862),

E. Collins to wife, Aug. 17, 1863, Collins

VHS. 8,

Sept. 14, 17, 1864, Simkins

HEH. George

Gracy 1

II,

W

Littlefield to Whitfield Harroll, Oct. 26,

"With Danger and Honor: George

W

G. Barrett (Chapel

Thomas

R.

Edmund Patterson, diary entry War Journal of Edmund DeWitt

1,

1861-1864,"

of Aug. 4, 1863, in Patterson, ed.

John

Hill, 1966), 128.

Roulhac

and Hamilton Family Papers, Pegram, Aug.

1863, in David

Littlefield

(1963): 139-40;

Yankee Rebel: The Civil

11.

Simpson, Aug. 22, 1861,

Eldred Simkins to Eliza Trescott, Aug.

Papers,

B.

HML

T

to mother,

March

SHC UNC;

13,

1864, Ruffin, Roulhac,

William R.

J.

Pegram

1864, Pegram-Johnson-Mclntosh Family Papers,

to Virginia

VHS.

Notes to Pages 153-56

2 2 6

Clark to

April 14, 1864, Clark Letters, Civil

sister,

War

TSL.

Hammontree

Louis Alexander

13.

in

V

Achilles

12.

Collection,

"The Hammontrees Fight the

to

James Hammontree, June

1864,

6,

War: Letters from the Fifth East Ten-

Civil

nessee Infantry," ed. Lewis A. Lawson, Lincoln Herald 78 (1976): 118; John D. Mitchell to Absalom B. Barner, June Letters from the Collection of Dr. William

Thomas

14.

T

Register of the Kentucky

Taylor to Antoinette Taylor, Oct. 16, 1861, Taylor Papers,

SHS MO;

William and Henry Crawford

15.

Delavan Arnold

in the Civil War, ed.

Gould Shaw The

to mother, April 21, 1862, in

A

brother and

sister,

13,

1862, in Blue-Eyed Child of For-

Gould Shaw,

Letters of Robert

1962), 22; Robert

ed. Russell

Duncan

(Ath-

1864, Tuttle to

19,

June 27, 1864, Tuttle Papers, MHI.

John Brobst

War

5,

Kalamazoo Volunteer

Thomas O. McConnell (Kalamazoo,

Annie Haggerty, Aug.

War

"Dear Friends," Aug.

1992), 235; Squire Tuttle to parents, June

ens, Ga.,

16.

to

Civil

to

SHS MO.

1864, Crawford Letters,

Civil

Hawn,"

Philander Draper to Edwin Draper, July 12, 1861, Draper-McClurg

Papers,

tune:

F.

War

297-98.

Historical Society 71 (1973):

OHS;

1862, in "Selected Civil

6,

to

Mary

May

Englesby,

20, July 11, 1864, in Well, Mary:

Letters of a Wisconsin Volunteer, ed.

Margaret B. Roth (Madison,

1960), 56-57, 75. 17.

Charles Wills to

Soldier, Letters

32;

sister,

Sept.

17,

1861, in

Army

Life of

an

Illinois

and Diary of the Late Charles Wills (Washington, DC, 1906), to Isabella McDermott, March 14, 1862, McDer-

John G. McDermott

mott Papers, pers,

MN

18.

Roper 19.

WHS;

John Beatty

Laura Beatty, July 30, 1864, Beatty Pa-

to

HS.

Ira

Payne

to sister,

.

bondale,

111.,

in "Civil

War

.

.":

The

1960),

1 1

1863, Payne Papers, ISHL; Samuel

1,

HEH.

1863, Roper Papers,

8,

Isaac Jackson to

of the Boys

March

to parents,

Aug.

Moses and Phebe Jackson,

Civil

War

July 13, 1863, in "Some

Letters of Isaac Jackson,

1862-1865 (Car-

M. Wise to John Wise, March 13, 1865, Black, Ohio HistorM. Wise," ed. Wilfred

1-12; George

Letters of George

W

Quarterly 46 (1957): 193.

ical

20.

John C. M. Baynes, Morale:

A

1967), 237; John Dollard, Fear in Battle 21.

Henry

P.

Andrews

to wife,

Study of Men and Courage (rpt.,

March

drews Papers, ISHL; Eugene Blackford Blackford Papers, 22.

War

Is

MD

York,

Westport, Conn., 1977), 38-39.

25, April 2,

to mother,

May

May

16,

1862, An-

20, 1862,

Gordon-

HS.

Charles H. Brewster to mother, Nov. Over: The Civil

(New

War

Letters of Charles

Blight (Amherst, 1992), 187; Rutherford B.

1,

1862, in

When

This Cruel

Harvey Brewster, ed. David

Hayes

W

to S. Birchard, Sept. 22,

1862, in Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, ed. Charles R. Williams, vol.

II:

1861-1865 (Columbus, 1922), 359.

Notes to Pages James

23.

Edmund

Bell to

George W.

PML;

2 2 7

Dec.

to sister,

HEH;

Papers,

Bell

MHI;

1862,

Uriah Parmelee to

PLDU.

Tillotson to wife, Feb.

Martin Lennon

56-60

Augusta Hallock, Jan. 21, 1863,

Halsey, Diary, entry of Dec. 23,

mother, Dec. 26, 1862, Parmelee Papers, 24.

1

5,

GLC

1863, Tillotson Papers,

and Extracts from

18, 1862, in "Letters

Annual Report of the Chief of (Albany, 1868), 725-26; John Pellett to James

the Diary of Captain Martin Lennon," in 5th

Bureau of Military

the

Statistics

May

25. Walter Carter to family,

Charles

J.

New

A

in Blue (rpt.,

May

to Crisey Legg,

LaRocca, This Regiment of Heroes:

Pertaining to the 124th

Four Brothers

10, 1863, in

Govemeer Legg

Austin, Tex., 1978), 264;

rials

MHI.

Dec. 29, 1862, Pellett Papers,

Pellett,

1862, in

16,

Compilation of Primary Mate-

York State Volunteers (Montgomery, N.Y.,

1991), 144.

Uriah Parmelee to Samuel Parmelee,

26. pers,

PLDU; Stephen M. Weld

to

May

21,

1863, Parmelee Pa-

War

mother, June 10, 1863, in

Diary and

Stephen Minot Weld 1861-1865 (Boston, 1979), 213.

Letters of

Rob Carter to father, July 14, 1863, in Four Brothers in Blue, 334; Cornelius Moore to Adeline Moore, July 21, 1863, in Cornie: The Civil War Letters of Lt. Cornelius C. Moore, ed. Gilbert C. Moore (n.p., 1989), 122. 27.

Rufus Dawes

28.

Wisconsin Volunteers

to

Mary Gates,

George Papers,

ents, Nov. 10, 18, 22, 1863,

Marcus Spiegel

29.

The

cus:

Civil

War

to

July 9, 1863, in Service with the Sixth

Madison, 1962), 185;

(rpt.,

Herbert George

J.

Caroline Spiegel, Jan.

8,

Letters of a Jewish Colonel, ed.

1863, in Your True Mar-

Frank

L.

Byrne and Jean

Powers Soman (Kent, Ohio, 1985), 128-29; Henry G. Ankeny 31, 1862, Jan. 6, 1863, in Kiss Josey for

Ana,

Calif., 1974),

Deloraine

30.

man Boys

Papers, .

.

HEH;

Papers,

L.

P.

Dec.

to wife,

Cox (Santa

A.

Chapman

to brothers

and

sisters, April 11,

1863, Chap-

Isaac Jackson to sister, June 28, 1863, in "Some of the

W Waldrop

to father, July 18, 1863,

to cousin,

Festerman

PLDU;

Letters of

M.

115-17.

William Walsh

32.

ed. Florence

108.

.",

Richard

31.

UNC; UNC.

P.

Me,

to par-

HEH.

William

3,

Wagner

to

SHC SHC

Waldrop Papers,

1863, Proffit Family Papers,

Caleb Hampton, Sept.

to F.

Aug.

8,

Nancy Wagner, Aug.

William F. Wagner, Confederate

Hampton

1863, Caleb 2, 4, 15,

Soldier, ed. Joe

1863, in

M. Hatley and

Linda B. Huffman (Wendell, N.Y., 1983), 61-63, 65. 33.

F.

John A. Barry

to sister,

34.

Daniel B. Sanford to

35.

John Euclid Magee,

Boyd, diary entry of July

Aug.

sister,

Diary, 7,

7,

1863, Barry Papers,

SHC UNC.

July 25, 1863, in private possession.

undated entry

in July 1862,

1862, in "The Civil

War

PLDU; Cyrus

Diary of C.

Fifteenth Iowa Infantry," ed. Mildred Throne, 1JH 50 (1952): 171;

Ankeny

to

Tina Ankeny, Sept. 13, 1862, in Kiss Josey for Me, 87.

F.

Boyd,

Henry G.

Notes to Pages

2 2 8

36.

James

Thomas 37.

T.

E. Glazier to parents, Jan.

60-64 1863, Glazier Papers,

16,

Taylor to Antoinette Taylor, July 15, 1863, Taylor Papers,

Charles Wills to

255; John

dier,

1

sister,

W. Hagan

June

6,

1864, in

Army

Amanda Hagan, May

to

Life of

18, July

Confederate Letters of John W. Hagan," ed. Bell

an

1,

1

Illinois Sol-

1864, in "The

GHQ

Wiley,

Irvin

HEH;

OHS.

38

(1954): 272; William A. Stephens to wife, July 22, 1864, in Chattahoochee

War Was

Valley Historical Society,

the Place:

A

Centennial Collection of Con-

federate Soldier Letters, Bulletin 5 (Columbus, Ga., 1961): 100. 38. in the

Thomas Connolly to Mary Connolly, Sept. 11, 1864, in Three Years Army of the Cumberland: The Letters and Diary of Major James A.

Connolly, ed. Paul Angle (Bloomington, Ind., 1962), 258; John H. Morse to

"Dear folks

home," Dec. 24, 1864,

at

in Civil

War: The Letters of John Hol-

hrook Morse, 1861-1865, ed. Bianca Morse Federico (Washington, 1975), 171. 39.

James

E. Glazier to

Annie Monroe, June

Glazier to Joseph Glazier, Aug. 40. der,

Lewis Foster

"A Teen- Age

to

3,

12, July 17, 1864,

HEH.

1864, Glazier Papers,

Amelia Clapper, Oct. 22, 1864,

in Charles

G.I. in the Civil War," Proceedings of the

Historical Association 52 (1954):

James E.

New

M. Sny-

York State

25-26; John M. Gould, diary entry of Dec.

31, 1864, in Gould, History of the First-Tenth-Twenty-Ninth

Maine Regiment

(Portland, 1871), 566.

41.

1865,

Henry St.

42.

St.

John Dixon,

SHC UNC.

John Dixon Papers,

David Thompson

son Papers,

SHC UNC;

Dec. 28, 1864, March 23,

Diary, entries of

to mother, Jan. 9, Feb.

James M. Wright

to

10,

1865, Samuel

Louisa

F.

Thomp-

Wright, Nov. 27,

1864, Wright Papers, in private possession.

Chapter 1.

12.

The Same Holy Cause

Charles Moran, The Anatomy of Courage (London, 1945), 61, 63-64.

Several studies contain useful analyses of psychiatric casualties in war: Kardiner,

The Traumatic Neuroses of War (New York, 1941); Frank M. Richard-

son, Fighting Spirit:

Peter G. Bourne,

mon, Combat 2.

Abram

A

Men,

Study of Psychological Factors in

Stress Reaction:

Henry D. McDaniel

War (London,

1978);

and Vietnam (Boston, 1970); and Zahava Solo-

Stress,

The Enduring

to

Toll of War

(New York,

1993).

Hester Felker, March 17, 1863, in With Un-

abated Trust: Major Henry McDaniel's Love Letters from Confederate Battlefields

(Monroe, Ga., 1977), 137-38.

Edmondson to wife, June 3, 1862, in War Letters of Col. Turner (Verona, Va., 1978), James K. Edmondson 1861-1865, ed. Charles 96-97; Irby G. Scott to "Dear Ones at Home," July 7, 1862, Scott Papers, PLDU; Tally Simpson to Anna Simpson, July 27, 1862, in "Far, Far from 3.

James

K.

W

Home": The Wartime

Letters of

Dick and Tally Simpson, Third South Carolina

NOTES TO PAGES 164-67 Volunteers,

Guy

ed.

2 2 9

Everson and Edward H. Simpson,

R.

(New

Jr.

York,

1994), 140.

Michael Murray Miller

4.

K.

to Elizabeth Miller, July

Murray and Warren W. Hassler,

185; Charles H. Brewster to

War

Cruel

Over: The Civil

Is

11,

"Gettysburg Farmer,"

Jr.,

in

CWH

3 (1957):

When

Mary

Brewster, July 9,

1862, in

War

Letters of Charles

Harvey Brewster, ed.

David W. Blight (Amherst, 1992), 164; Samuel Selden Partridge

Macomber, July

6,

1862, in "Civil

'Rochester Regiment,' Peter

5.

RHSP

"

Meador Wright

War

Letters of

Samuel

This

to Francis

S. Partridge of

the

22 (1944): 87-88.

to

Susan James Wright, Nov.

Henry

Papers, in private possession;

War

Fallen Leaves: The Civil

Robert

1862,

L.

Abbott

1862, Wright

8,

to father, Nov. 20,

1862, in

Major Henry Livermore Ahhott,

Letters of

ed.

Robert Garth Scott (Kent, Ohio, 1991), 143.

Holmes

6.

June 24, 1864,

Touched with

in

and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes,

Letters

Howe

Wolfe

to parents,

1861-1864,

Jr.,

Adams

(Cambridge, Mass., 1946), 149-50;

Adams, June

A

19, 1864, in

C. Ford (Boston, 1920),

II:

War

stress disorder in Civil

Cycle of Adams Letters, 2

War Mark De

Fire: Civil

ed.

Charles Francis

to

vols., ed.

Worthington

154. For a suggestive study of post-traumatic

"We

veterans, see Eric Dean,

and Destroyed: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and the

Will All be Lost

Civil War,"

CWH

37

(June 1991): 138-53.

MHI; WilReeder Papers, MHI; Peter Vredenburgh Papers, Mon-

Frederick Pettit to parents, June 13, 1864, Pettit Papers,

7.

liam C. H. Reeder to parents, June 27, 1864,

Vredenburgh

to

mouth County

"Dear Doctor," June 25, 1864,

New

Historical Society,

Jersey, typescript

copy supplied by

Bernard Olsen. Peter Watson,

8.

9.

War on

the

(New

York, 1978), 231.

Charles

W Wainwright,

chology

Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psy-

Diary, entry of

June

ick Lockley to Elizabeth Lockley, Aug. 7, 1864, Lockley

Patten to George

M. Macy, June

HEH; FrederPapers, HEH; H. L.

17, 1864,

29, 1864, in "Reports, Letters

Appertaining to the 20th Mass. Volunteer Infantry," Vol.

quoted

Library,

in

John

E. Talbott,

"Combat Trauma

in the

and Papers

Boston Public

I,

American

Civil

War," History Today 46 (March 1996): 45.

William

10.

to

"my dear

"Loved ones horn

to

at

to

James Casey, June

home," June

8,

30, 1864, William T.

Casey

Casey Papers, PLDU; Irby G. Scott

1864, Scott Papers,

PLDU; Thomas

1864, in "Letters of

Henry McGilbert Wagstaff,

Charles H. Brewster to mother,

11. Is

Casey

Harriet Strayhorn, July 18,

Strayhorn," ed.

War

T.

cousin," July 20, 1864,

NCHR

May

J.

to

Stray-

Thomas Jackson

13 (1936): 317.

15, 1864, in

When

This Cruel

Over, 298.

12. in Blue:

Chauncey Cooke

The

Letters of

to parents,

May

20, June 2, 1864, in

Chauncey H. Cooke,"

WMH 5

"A Badger Boy

(1921): 74, 82; George

NOTES TO PAGES 167-170

2 3

Knox Miller Weaver

May

to wife,

March

Letters Written on Sherman's

James

Henry Clay

"Georgia Through Kentucky Eyes:

in

James M. Merrill and

to Atlanta," ed.

Marshall, Filson Club Historical Quarterly 30 (1956): 332.

F.

Charles Wills to

13.

SHC UNC;

20, 1864, Miller Papers,

Aug. 14, 1864,

to Cornelia Wiley,

sister,

July

Army

1864, in

1,

an

Life of

Illinois Sol-

and Diary of the Late Charles Wills (Washington, 1906), 272. Hiram Smith Williams, diary entry of April 4, 1864, in This War So

dier, Letters

14.

Horrible:

The

Civil

War

Wynne

Diary of Hiram Smith Williams, ed. Lewis N.

and Robert A. Taylor (Tuscaloosa, 1993), 43-44. Gerald

15.

in the

Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat

F.

American

War (New York,

Civil

The Evolution

Battle:

1987), 2, 240; Leif Torkelsen, "Forged in

Union Voluntary Infantry

of Small Unit Cohesion in the

Regiments, 1861-1865" (Senior thesis, Princeton University, 1991),

Stephen A. Forbes

16.

ISHL; Abial Edwards

War

Anna": The Civil

Anna Conant, Dec.

to

William

Common

to

My

Dear

from Maine,

Emily Tomlinson, July

Papers, in private possession; William L. 22, 1863, in

1863, in "Dear Friend

16,

Soldier

ed. Beverly

Crothamel (Orono, Me., 1992), 71.

L.

Tomlinson

J.

5.

Frances Snow, Jan. 12, 1865, Forbes Papers,

Letters of a

Hayes Kallgren and James 17.

to

The

Nellie:

Nugent

War

Civil

to

Letters of

16, 1864,

Tomlinson

Eleanor Nugent, Nov.

William

L.

Nugent, ed.

William M. Cash and Lucy Somerville Howarth (Jackson, Miss., 1977), 148.

my

R.

B.

B. Hale, Oct. 15, 1864, in "For the

W. W. Ward,

David Thompson

SHC UNC; John Papers, WLEU. John Beatty

20.

Owen

L.

Joshua

L.

to brother

Chamberlain

to to

Alice Rains Trulock, In the

21.

Neal

Civil

1865, Samuel

and

sister,

March

7,

Thompson

1865, Beatty Papers,

12,

Dec.

16,

1864,

Joseph

Sydney

S.

F.

Hopper

bama and

Hill, 1992),

June

Georgia, ed.

1,

1865,

20,

1865,

9,

1865, in

Chamberlain and

Wright, Feb. 14, 1864, Wright Papers,

1,

to brother,

1864,

March

Letters by Confederates

diary entries of Aug. 8,

L.

MN

Papers,

225-27.

to mother, Sept. 23, 1864,

to wife,

James Crowder

Feb.

(father),

Hands of Providence: Joshua

to Bryant

Maides

Champion

Wartime

Joshua Chamberlain

Pa-

16, 1865, Ever-

Sarah Bristow Chamberlain, March

War (Chapel

Heendy

F.

PLDU;

Living:

4 (1945): 154, 161.

A. Everett to mother, Feb.

Chamberlain

American

Laura

to

Sarah D. B. Chamberlain to Joshua L. Chamberlain, Jan.

Joshua

22.

THQ

to mother, Feb. 25,

to Elizabeth Beatty, Jan.

HS; George Hopper

MHI;

Sake

9th Tennessee Cavalry, ed.

April 8, 1864, in "Letters of a Confederate Surgeon in the

1,

of Tennessee to His Wife,"

pers,

the

James

Rosenburg (Murfreesboro, 1992), 145; Urban G.

19.

ett

to

Country": The Diary of Col.

Owen, March

Army

W Ward

William

18.

of

Ray Mathis 1864, Feb.

Papers,

PLDU.

1864, in In the Land of the

13,

from the Chattahoochee Valley of Ala-

(Troy, Ala., 5,

Maides Papers, PLDU;

Champion

1865,

1981), 85;

Two

Soldiers:

Thomas

J.

Key,

The Campaign

Notes to Pages 17 1-74 Diaries of

Thomas

].

and Robert

1

Campbell, U.S.A. (Chapel

].

1938), 111, 187; T. B. Kelly to L. A. Honnoll, April 25, 1864, Honnoll

Hill,

WLEU.

Papers,

Nugent

23. William L.

Dear

Key, C.S.A.,

2 3

Eleanor Nugent, Aug.

to

8,

in

My

Thompson

Pa-

Dec. 26, 1864,

Nellie, 197, 229.

24. Joseph pers,

Thompson

to mother, Feb.

1865, Samuel

15,

SHC UNC.

25. William B. Bate to William H.

HEH;

Collection,

T

War

Walker, Jan. 19, 1864, Civil

Jackson Mississippian, reprinted in Montgomery Weekly

Mail, Sept. 9, 1863, in Robert

Durden, The Gray and the Black: The Con-

F.

federate Debate on Emancipation (Baton Rouge, 1972), 31-32. 26.

R.

Howard Browne

SHC UNC; pers,

to wife,

James Wingard

to

undated (Nov. 1864), Browne Papers,

Simon Wingard,

Jan. 4, 1865,

Wingard Pa-

PLDU. Ethan Pennell,

27.

Maides 28.

to mother, Feb. 18, 1865,

Thomas

The

Longstreet's Aide:

W. Cutrer

Goree

J.

MO

1865,

Diary, entry of April 8,

HS; Joseph

F.

Maides Papers, PLDU.

Mary Frances Goree Kittrell, Oct. 21, 1864, in War Letters of Major Thomas ]. Goree, ed. Thomas

to

Civil

(Charlottesville, 1995), 137; Robert Patrick, diary entry of Jan. 18,

1865, in Reluctant Rebel: The Secret Diary of Robert Patrick, 1861-1865, ed. Jay

F.

Taylor (Baton Rouge, 1959), 250; Richard

W

Corbin

to father,

Dec.

29, 1864, in Letters of a Confederate Officer to His Family in Europe (Paris, n.d.), 89.

29.

James Branch O'Bryan

to sister, Jan. 20, 1865,

O'Bryan Papers, TSL;

Walter Taylor to Bettie Saunders, Feb. 16, 1865, in Lee's Adjutant: The War-

Rockwood

time Letters of Colonel Walter Herron Taylor, 1861-1865, ed. R.

Tower (Columbia, 30. in

John

S.C., 1995), 223-24.

Hadley

V.

Love and War: The

Robertson,

IMH

Jr.,

to

Mary

Civil

J.

War

Hill, Feb. 24,

1863, in "An Indiana Soldier

Letters of John V. Hadley," ed.

59 (1963): 230; John D. Shank

to family,

James

March

I.

12,

One Flag One Country and Thirteen Greenbacks a Month: Letters from a Civil War Private, ed. Edna J. Shank Hunter (San Diego, 1980), 61, 68; Cornelius Moore to Adeline Moore, July 7, 1864, in Cornie: The Civil War Letters of Lt. Cornelius L. Moore, ed. Gilbert C. Moore (n.p.,

April 13, 1863, in

1989), 192.

John A.

31.

Gillis,

Henry Crydenwise

WLEU;

Diary, entries of Jan.

to parents, Jan.

John G. McDermott

Dermott Papers, 32. Josiah

to Isabella

M.

Favill, diary

1,

March

7,

17,

1864,

MN

HS;

1864, Crydenwise Papers,

McDermott, March

entry of Jan.

1909), 273; Bliss

diary entry of Nov. 8, 1864, in J.

June

10, 1864,

Mc-

WHS.

Officer (Chicago,

Loren

31,

Morse (Tahlequah,

War

Morse

1,

1864, in The Diary of a Young

to mother,

Diaries

and

Aug. 29, 1864, and

Letters of Bliss Morse, ed.

Okla., 1985), 150, 165.

NOTES TO PAGES 174-78

2 3 2

Edward Wightman

33.

tam

to

The

Fort Fisher:

1865 (Rutherford,

Fred Wightman, Aug. 28, 1864,

to

War

Civil

1983), 206;

N.J.,

in

From

Antie-

Edward King Wightman, 1862-

Letters of

Edmund English HEH.

undated

to mother,

(1864) and April 22, 1864, English Papers, 34.

London Daily News,

Organized 35.

Deusen

War

to Victory

Papers,

Barlow Papers,

HEH; John Berry to Samuel L. M. Barlow, HEH; Thomas N. Stevens to Carrie Stevens, .

.

.

M. Blackburn (Mt. to

The

Civil

War

Letters of

Thomas N.

Aug. 27, 1864, Sept. 19, 1864,

Stevens, ed.

Georg

Pleasant, Mich., 1984), 250.

John Hamer

James Love

MO

York, 1971), 141-42.

Delos Van Deusen to Henrietta Van Deusen, Aug. 21, 1864, Van

in "Dear Carrie"

36.

1864, quoted in Allan Nevins, The

Sept. 27,

(New

to Eveline

Hamer, Aug.

1864,

5,

Molly Wilson, Sept. 24, 1864, Feb.

HS; Benjamin Stevens

to mother,

Hamer

Papers,

MHI;

1865, Love Papers,

14,

1864, in "The Civil

Sept. 8,

War

Letters of an Iowa Family," ed. Richard N. Ellis, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series,

39 (1969): 585. 37.

Samuel

38.

Henry Kauffman

War

Letters

Harrison Diary,

J.

OHS.

Katherine Kreitzer, Oct. 15, 1864, in The Civil

to

(1862-1865) of Private Henry Kauffman,

ed.

David McCordick

(Lewiston, N.Y., 1991), 89. For studies of the soldier vote in 1864, see Oscar

O. Winther, "The Soldier Vote in the Election of 1864,"

Henry Benton, Voting

(1944): 440-58, and Josiah

Chapter of the Civil 39.

WLEU; 40.

War

Henry Crydenwise

to parents,

9,

Oct. 25,

Delos Lake to mother, July 12, Nov. Lowell to Josephine

W

York History 25

A

Forgotten

(Boston, 1915).

Shaw

E. Perkins, Oct. 17, 1864, in Life

Edward

New

in the Field:

1,

Lowell, Sept.

and

1864, Crydenwise Papers,

1864, Lake Papers, 1,

HEH.

1864, Lowell to Charles

Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, ed.

Emerson (Boston, 1907), 333, 362; Nathan Buck

to sister, July

HEH.

1864, Saxton Family Collection,

41. William B. Sniffen to mother, Oct. 18, 1864, Sniffen Papers,

John H. Morse

Chauncey

B.

to Belle

Welton

42. William Florida,

F.

to father, Oct.

Keeler to

1863-1865: The

W Daly (Annapolis, A New Canaan

Anna

1,

SHC UNC.

1864, Welton Papers,

Keeler, Nov. 9, 1864, in

Letters of Paymaster

William

Aboard the USS

F. Keeler, ed.

Robert

1968), 200; Justus Silliman to mother, Nov. 9, 1864, in

Private in the Civil War: Letters of Justus

Connecticut Volunteers, ed. Edward Marcus 43.

MHI;

Morse, Oct. 25, 1864, in The Letters of Morse, 155;

John N. Sherman

to parents, Feb. 10, 1865,

Silliman, 17th

1984), 83.

Sherman

9,

of General Robert McAllister, ed. James

Robertson,

Jr.

MHI; War Letters

Papers,

1865, in The Civil

Robert McAllister to Ellen McAllister, April I.

M.

(New Canaan,

(New Brunswick,

N.J., 1965), 608.

44.

Papers,

Ephraim

OHS.

S.

Holloway

to

John W. Holloway, Aug.

7,

1864, Holloway

5

NDEX

Adams, Charles Adams, Charles

Francis,

24-25

Francis,

Jr.,

Black soldiers

24-25,

underrepresented in sample,

Adams, Henry, 25, 132 Adrenalin, release of by fear and rage of battle, 39-43, 114

African-American

soldiers. See

Black

Confederate decision

American Revolution

of,

lack of

104-6, 110, 135

invoked by Union soldiers,

18-19, 104-5, 110-13, 135-36,

of,

8-9,

51, 101-2, 116, 168, 174

invoked by Confederate

soldiers, 21,

legacy

in Union army combat motivation

Bounty men,

Alexander, E. Porter, 108

of,

171-

to recruit,

72, 216n. 19

soldiers

legacy

viii-ix

Union soldiers toward, 126-28 ideological goals of, 127-28 massacres of, 152-53 attitude of white

132, 165

Bragg, Braxton, 97, 156, 160

Burgwyn, Henry, 108 Burnside, Ambrose, 160

175-76 Armistead, Lewis, 59-60

Capra, Frank, 92 Casey, Silas, 46

Banks, Nathaniel, Bartov,

Catton, Bruce, 185

1 1

Omar, 89

Battle fatigue. See

Chamberlain, Joshua Lawrence,

Combat

reaction

Champion, Sydney

S.,

Cleburne, Patrick, 171

Beecher, James, 127

Cluseret, Gustave Paul,

Beecher, Jesse, 4

Coercion

John, 10

65,

48

Beecher, Henry Ward, 4, 127

Billings,

6,

169-70

stress

as

means

to force

men

92-93 to fight,

49-52 2 3 3

NDEX

2 3 4

Cohesion of

men

Draftees

and combat

in unit,

lack of

motivation, 6, 13, 85-90, 91, 114, 131, 209-10n. 25

Drill

and reenlistment of Union veterans, 84, 209n. 22

and

46-48

training,

combat motive,

35-36

5, 6,

as motive for enlistment, 8, 13,

importance of

to soldiers,

51,

Duty as

Colors

84-85

22-

24, 28

Combat

sustaining motivation, 131

difficulty of describing, 12, 141

shock

persistence

30-32 ends eagerness, 33-36, 44-

eagerness of green soldiers of,

168-69

of,

for,

45

Eagerness for combat of green soldiers,

39-42

releases adrenalin,

Combat Civil

combat motivation, 8-9,

101-2, 116, 168, 174

33-35, 44

stress reaction

War

45,

soldiers'

experience

of,

43-

163-67

Election of 1864, in Union

and

soldier vote, 129, 146,

Emancipation of

Conscripts. See Draftees

Union

Copperheads

Union soldiers despise, 124, 142-46 and army morale, 1 56 and 1864 election, 176-77 Courage understanding

of,

36, 77,

importance of example of

officers,

soldiers'

30-32

change of attitude with experience,

slaves.

176-78

See also Slavery

soldiers favor, 19,

117-26,

128-30, 146 controversies about, 110, 120—21

Union 29

soldiers oppose, 120-24,

128-

Farragut, David G., 129

163

Fatalism

58-60

of soldiers,

relationship to honor, 77-84, 131

persistence

142, 168

of,

62-63 64—67

religion and,

Fear

Cowardice

soldiers' descriptions of,

soldiers' fear of

showing, 36, 77-82,

51

for,

36-38

38-39

and release of adrenalin, 39-43 post-combat nightmares, 43-44

131

punishments

yelling to relieve,

officers' fear of showing, 58-60 Cummings, William Thomas, 204n.

of death, 3

Custer, George A., 153

44-45

religion helps

overcome, 63-71

Fisk, Wilbur, 10

Foner, Eric, 94

Daniel, Larry

J.,

185

Foreign-born soldiers. See also Irish-

Americans

Davis, Jefferson, 104, 171

De

Forest,

John

W,

underrepresented in sample,

5

fear of, 5,

44-45

ideological convictions of, 113-14,

religion helps soldiers face,

premonitions

of,

63-70

70—71

Defense of homeland as

ix

and theme of honor, 25

Death

Confederate motive, 21-22, 29,

95-98, 102 Desertion, 137-38, 156, 162, 168-69 Discipline

ambivalent attitude of soldiers toward, 47-48, 61

144-45 Forrest,

Nathan Bedford,

33,

152-53

Fort Pillow massacre, 151, 152-53, 154

Fort

Sumter

firing on, stimulates rage militaire,

16-17 Foster, Stephen,

100

Frank, Joseph Allan, 186

Frederick the Great, 49, 61

6

1

NDEX Fremont, John

C, 93

and sustaining motivation, 90-94, 104-14, 131, 135

100

Fussell, Paul, 57,

2 3 5

definition of,

Glatthaar, Joseph

T, 185

relation to

94

combat motivation,

1

14-

16

Glory as motive for enlistment,

26-27

persistence

disillusionment with, 28-29, 33, 44

Gooding, James, 10

Gorman,

Willis,

Grant, Ulysses

Immigrant

60 94

S.,

of,

175-76

168, 170-73,

and Union reenlistments, 173-74 and 1864 election, 176-78 soldiers.

See Foreign-born

soldiers

1864 military campaign Vicksburg campaign

146, 165

of,

Irish-American soldiers,

and

158

of,

ideology,

9,

66

113-14

Graves, Robert, 58

Grimes, Bryan, 49

Jackson,

Thomas

J.

("Stonewall"), 136,

164

Thomas, 20

Haley, John, 10

Jefferson,

Hallock, Augusta, 71

Jimerson, Randall C., 185

Hammond,

Johnson, Samuel, 20

James, 154

Hardee, William, 46 Hayes, Rutherford

Johnston, Joseph E., 156 Jones, John, 98

156

B., 25, 37,

Heartsill, William, 10

Hemingway, Ernest, 100

Keegan, John, 94, 184

Henry, Patrick, 21

Kirkland, Richard, 151

Hess, Earl, 185

Holmes, Oliver Wendell,

Jr.,

49, 165

Homefront

Leadership

importance of support

for soldiers,

131-33, 155

and married

and combat motivation, 46,

53,

58—

61

soldiers,

133—40

estrangement between, and

Lee, Robert E.

soldiers,

140-47

defense of Virginia, 22 creates provost guards, 50

Honor as combat motive,

surrender at Appomattox, 117, 178 5, 6,

and Gettysburg campaign, 132, 150,

76

31,

as motive for enlistment, 8, 13,

23-

157

and Antietam campaign, 160

25, 76

and desire

to avoid the

dishonor of

cowardice, 77-82

and regimental and 84 competing ideals soldiers,

persistence

state pride,

83-

of, for

142,

3

married

Emancipation

Confederate soldiers on,

slavery,

theme

97

Hooker, Joseph, 156

of, in

Confederate ideology,

104-6, 114, 170-71

theme 168-70

and vengeance, 148 Bell,

and

20-21, 106-7, 171 1

134-40 of,

supports enlistment of slaves, 171-72 Liberty. See also Slavery;

sustaining motivation and,

Hood, John

Latrobe, Benjamin, 150

of, in

Union

ideology, 104-5,

110-114, 135, 175-76

and relationship

to slavery,

1 1

Lincoln, Abraham, 113

on motives

for enlistment, 6

election of in 1860, 14 Ideology. See also Patriotism; Slavery;

Emancipation as

motive for enlistment, 13, 18-21,

27-28

calls

out militia, 17

and slavery, 19, 20 on theme of constitutional 104, 112

liberty,

Index

2 3 6

Lincoln,

Abraham

North Carolina

{continued)

and emancipation, 121

and

Emancipation Proclamation

107—

of,

120-26

8,

83

state pride,

degree of patriotic motivation of soldiers from, 101

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, 109

Officers

reelection in 1864, and soldier vote,

176-78

129, 146, 162,

Lincoln,

overrepresented in sample,

and function of

Mary Todd, 20

coercion

discipline,

56-57 53-55 by enlisted men, 55-

drinking problems

Liquor

leadership qualities

form of liquid courage, 52-53,

criticisms of,

202n. 20

101

49-50

by,

Linderman, Gerald, 141, 168, 186

as

ix,

48

of, 52, of,

58

Longstreet, James, 150

importance of courage

Lowell, Charles Russell, 177

importance of honor, 137

in,

58-60

Lynn, John A., 12 Patriotism. See also Ideology

McClellan, George

176-

123, 156,

B.,

as motive for enlistment, 6, 8, 13,

17-18, 27-28

78

and sustaining motivation, 90, 94—

Madison, James, 22 Mail

102, 131

importance of in sustaining morale,

persistence

142, 168, 170-73,

and Union reenlistments, 173-74 and 1864 election, 176-78

Manchester, William, 86

Manhood and combat motivation, as

of,

175-76

132-33

6, 13, 31,

Peace Democrats. See Copperheads

76, 78

Pegram, William R.

motive for enlistment, 13, 25-26,

Pendleton, Alexander Swift ("Sandie"),

J.

("Willie"),

152

98

76

competing

ideals of for married

Pendleton, George, 176-77

134-40

Pickett,

soldiers,

persistence

of,

170

Married soldiers percentage

229n. See also

of, viii

and theme of honor, 23-24, 134-38 tension with wives, 111, 133-40 casualty rates

George

140, 223n. 24

of,

E., 3, 10,

115

Post-traumatic stress disorder, 44, 165, 6.

Combat

stress reaction

Promotion, ambition

for,

and combat

motivation, 52

Provost guards, as

Marshall, John, 22

file

closers,

50—

51

Marshall, S. L. A., 72, 77 Masculinity. See

Mauldin,

Bill,

Mitchell, Reid,

Manhood; Honor

Reaves, George A., 186

Rage

168

militaire, stimulates enlistment,

16-17

184-85

Morale

Religion

relation to victory

and

defeat,

155-62

Morgan, John Hunt, 107 Motivation three categories

helps soldiers face threat of death,

63-71, 76, 114 injunction against killing,

of,

12-13, 114-16,

131

self-defense rationale, religious revivals in

Nationalism. See Patriotism

Negro

soldiers. See

Black soldiers

71-72

just-war rationale, 72-73, 148

73-74

Confederate

armies, 75-76, 159, 207n. 41

Revenge. See Vengeance

Index Robertson, James L, Rosecrans, William

184

Jr.,

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 100, 127

160

S.,

2 3 7

Substitutes lack of

27

Scott, Sir Walter,

combat motivation,

8. 51,

101-2, 116, 168, 174 despised by volunteers, 143

Shaara, Michael, 6

Shaw, Robert Gould

on

48

discipline,

Taylor, Walter,

desire for vengeance, 153

death

of,

200n.

Turner, Ted, 6

stress reac-

Vallandigham, Clement L.

nominated

tion

Sheridan, Philip, Shenandoah Valley

campaign

of,

Sherman, William

70, 146, 161, 175 T.,

158

Union in

Ohio, 124,

soldiers despise, 145

146

1864 election, 176

Vengeance as

combat motive 148-53

for Confederates,

as

combat motive 153-55

for

berates skulkers, 49

destruction in South Carolina, 155 Skulkers, sneaks, and stragglers

Union

soldier,

Vietnam War

6—8

compared

avoid combat, 35-36, 78-79, 80,

116

to Civil

War, 4-5, 90-91,

168

coercion

erosion of home-front support

51

of,

dimensions

class

for governor of

144

soldier vote against,

march through Georgia, 15, 82 Atlanta campaign of, 32, 84, 146, 151, 160, 166-67

definition of,

72

5

Combat

Shell shock. See

1

Thomas, George, 160

on courage, 79

of,

103

for,

131

Slaveholding Confederate soldiers

overrepresented in sample,

Wakeman, Sarah

ix

strong ideological convictions

of,

101.

Watkins, Sam, 10

114 proslavery motivation Slavery. See also

defense

of,

of,

108-10

Emancipation

war

soldiers,

Welton, Chauncey, 124-25

soldiers, 19,

Whitman, George, 37, 84 Whitman, Walt, 37, 84-85 Wickham, John A., 5

and Confederate

issue,

and Union

110, 117-30, 146

Smith,

Edmund

Kirby,

Wiley, Bell Irvin, 91, 94, 117, 184, 189

156

World War

South Carolina soldiers from,

and degree of

patriotic

convictions, 101

Sherman's march through, 155 Spiegel,

Welsh, James, 14-15, 16

Welsh, John, 14-15, 16

19-21, 106-10, 171-72 as

Rosetta, 65

Washington, George, 49, 105

Marcus, 125

Steedman, Charles,

15, 16

Steedman, John, 15, 16 Stevens, Thaddeus, 126

II,

168

combat motivation 41-42 religion and, 63,

and

S. L.

in, 5, 9, 32, 35,

76

A. Marshall theses, 72, 77

primary group cohesion thesis, 86, 89,

and

90

ideology,

90-91, 114

_

from men on both sides. Civil War were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first

diaries

soldiers

time

in their lives. Significantly, their let-

were

also uncensored by military and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these ters

authorities

soldiers

words

tell

their

to create

own

stories in their

an account that

is

own both

deeply moving and far truer than most

books on war. Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson's Pulitzer Prize— winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New YorJ^ Times, called "history writing of the highest order." For Cause and Comrades deserves similar accolades, as McPherson's masterful prose and the soldiers' own words combine to create both an important book on an often overlooked aspect of our bloody Civil War and a powerfully moving account of the men who fought it.

About

the Author:

James M. McPherson Davis at

'86 Professor

is

the

George Henry

of American History

Princeton University, where he has

The author of eleven books on the Civil War era of American History, he won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1989 for Battle Cry of Freedom. taught since 1962.

Jacket design by Kathleen

M. Lynch

Jacket handlettering by Iskra Johnson ]ac\et photograph: Archive Photos

Advance Praise for James M. McPherson's For Cause and Comrades:

"A brilliant analysis of why they fought by a master of Civil War lore and history."

— C.Vann Woodward, Sterling Professor of History, Emeritus, Yale University

"McPherson uses the

and

letters

diaries

of more than a thousand men

to explore

how

about honor and manhood, pressure from home, and hatred

religion, ideology, notions

for the enemy contributed

to a quite

remarkable willingness

to sacrifice. Reflecting the

fruitful conjunction ofan important topic and the talents ofa major historian, this boo\

merits the widest possible readership."

— Gary W. Professor of History,

Tor Cause and Comrades foremost Civil

War

He

ta\es issue with other scholars

commitments of Civil War

that courage, honor, love

State University

adds to Professor James McPherson's luster as one of our

historians....

or dismiss the ideological

The Pennsylvania

Gallagher,

of

liberty

soldiers,

who downplay

and argues persuasively

and country had powerful meanings

in

North

and South.

— William Bovd Professor of Historv, Louisiana

90000

9

780195"090239"

ISBN 0-19-509023-3

J.

Cooper,

Jr.,

State University