"How did Civil War soldiers cope after the fighting ended?" Topic

"As the daughter of a military veteran, I have always had a different feeling and experience when talking about Civil War veterans when I am at work. I know the challenges my father (and my family) faced when he first retired and made the transition back into the civilian world, and I know it is difficult to try and understand the personal struggles of the men returning home after the American Civil War.

Southerners were forced to reconcile their life and sacrifice with an effort for independence that failed. Northerners were forced to weigh the sacrifice they made in their successful effort to preserve the Union. Soldiers from both sides were confronted with the home-front realities all soldiers returning from war face: loving families and communities, but few who could relate to what they experienced. Returning to their previous lives, whether on the farm or in the city, was the only option for most of the men. As with many veterans today, special groups were formed. This allowed the Civil War Veterans to talk to other men who had shared similar experiences and gone through a time that was truly inexplicable to those around them…"

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Armand

"In our youths our hearts with touched by fire." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Can't put it more eloquently.

My great great grandfather joined an Ohio regiment when he was 16. Fought in the Red River campaign and was discharged at 18. I always pondered how he coped with what he saw.

I would imagine that large numbers suffered from PTSD but we didnt know how to identify and help them.

In some ways we will never be able to calculate the true cost of that war.

SO, I hope secession over the chicken tariff of 1832 or whatever the latest pro-confederate "true" reason for the war was worth it.

I think of Joshua Chamberlain who suffered physical pain from multiple wound for decades after. His coping challenge was getting through the day.

I think of how gruesome the war was, and I have no doubt that PTSD was rampant, recognized by some but not understood or treatable.

Go West, young man.

How did they deal. For most the answer is probably not well. There is a danger though in projecting our 21st century experience back onto people of the 19th. Many of those who fought in the ACW had experienced some gruesome stuff even before they marched off for war.

Chamberlains cause of death was his civil war wounds. PTSD happens at a higher rate if you dont come from a traditional family. Since traditional families were in vouge back then, the rate should have been lower. Also, the frequency of combat was much lower than in modern battles.

Mildbill, I did say physical pain for Chamberlain. His pelvis wound at Petersburg was especially painful throughout his subsequent life, required surgeries, caused infections, left him with a limp. His other wounds were numerous, some may have involved fractures. But none as serious as the two broken hips and damage to the urethra and bladder. He was in chronic pain for 50 years, but tried not to show it. Those who had wounds that were not obvious, such as the loss of a limb, were not always given much sympathy. He had plenty of coping to do.

I believe the term for PTSD was called nostalgia back then. It sound strange now.

"How did Civil War soldiers cope after the fighting ended?"

Probably lots of alcohol…

Thanks

Armand

I've always suspected that part of the violence in the West was an aftereffect of the Civil War. After all, we taught 3,000,000 young men to kill, and then cut them loose. If even 1% liked it, that's 30,000 stone cold killers running around society.

I can recall reading somewhere that there were a whole lot of morphine addicts after the war.

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It was called Soldiers Heart in those days.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

BrianW, after the English Civil Wars there was a great increase in the number of highwaymen in the period 1660-1700, which may well have been the result of many men, particularly those who served as dragoons, becoming used to raiding and plundering to support themselves and the garrisons in which they served during the war and finding it the easiest way to live afterwards, when they had missed out on learning a trade. So your suggestion seems highly likely, IMO/

Thanks also…

Armand

Bruce Catton in the preface to his "Mr. Lincoln's Army" wrote:

"As a small boy I had known a number of these men in their old age; they were grave, dignified, and thoughtful, with long white beards and a general air of being pillars of the community. They lived in rural Michigan in the pre-automobile age, and for the most part they had never been fifty miles away from the farm or dusty village streets; yet once, ages ago, they had been everywhere and seen everything, and nothing that happened to them thereafter meant anything much. All that was real had taken place when they were young; everything after that had simply been a process of waiting for death, which did not frighten them much--they had seen it inflicted in the worst possible ways on boys who had not bargained for it, and they had enough of the old-fashioned religion to believe without any question that when they passed over they would simply be rejoining men and ways of living which they had known long ago."

Catton wrote a whole book about that (I think -- I've never been able to get through it) called Waiting for the Morning Train.

I can recall reading somewhere that there were a whole lot of morphine addicts after the war.

I had an older cousin who was wounded in WW2 and was hooked on morphine and through it to heroin. He finally committed suicide.

Scott, a famous Catton passage, and a memorable piece of writing. After many decades, I returned to Catton to re-read the trilogy and found myself just continuing on, like discovering an old friend.

In my family, it was refered to as the "Soldier's Blues."