A Soldier's Pastimes
A Soldier's Pastimes
A SOLDIER'S PASTIMES: AN OVERVIEW
Kevin Hillstrom
SPORTS
Kevin Hillstrom
MUSIC
Kevin Hillstrom
VICES
Kevin Hillstrom
A Soldier's Pastimes: An Overview
Civil War soldiers spent relatively little time in actual combat. Most of their days were spent either on the march or in camp, where tedious chores and mundane interactions were the norm. Encampments, however, were not bereft of color or excitement. To the contrary, the fiercely individualistic and restless souls who filled the ranks of both the Union and Confederate armies devised a variety of means by which to relieve the boredom of camp. These pastimes took dramatically different forms, depending on the background, orientation, and character of the individuals involved. For example, both religious study and gambling thrived in this environment.
For both Rebel and Yankee soldiers, the campfire served as the military equivalent of the family hearth or local tavern when it came to social interaction. With the rising of the moon, wrote one Union soldier from New York State, "[e]very tent becomes a little illuminated pyramid. Cooking-fires burn bright along the alleys. The boys lark, sing, shout, do all these merry things that make the entertainment of volunteer service" (Sutherland 1989, p. 13). In these circles, men sang ribald lyrics, shared tales of hunting exploits from their pre-Civil War existences, speculated about enemy troop movements, and spoke with pride and longing about wives, sweethearts, and children back home. Frequently, they engaged in these conversations while simultaneously playing a game of checkers or mending frayed socks, shirts, or pants.
Bible Studiers and Amateur Thespians
Civil War soldiers frequently whiled away the hours by joining with their fellows to pursue some interest or diversion. For example, primitive but entertaining theatrical productions and minstrel shows were organized in many regiments, and some of these shows were so ambitious and spirited that they attracted local civilians as well as fellow soldiers. Occasionally, thespians in the ranks even organized benefit performances, with the profits earmarked for poor civilians or seriously wounded soldiers.
A great many soldiers found both spiritual replenishment and fraternal nourishment through formal religious services. Regimental chaplains were the most visible and essential members of these organized gatherings, for they not only led worship services on Sundays but spent the rest of the week tending to the private spiritual needs of soldiers and comforting maimed or wounded troops. Some religiously inclined men, however, held prayer meetings or Bible study sessions even without the guidance of a chaplain. Their efforts to maintain their spiritual ties to God were actively encouraged by a host of nondenominational religious organizations such as the American Tract Society and the Bible Society of the Confederate States. The principal mandate of these organizations was to place Bibles, hymnals, moral tracts, and other spiritually uplifting or comforting reading materials into the hands of war-weary soldiers. These societies found a ready audience for their efforts, in both the Union and Confederacy, when outbreaks of evangelical revivalism rippled through the ranks of increasingly disillusioned and desperate soldiers.
Finally, energetic and ambitious soldiers in both the Union and Confederate ranks organized army chapters of fraternal societies and benevolent associations. Of these various societies and associations, the freemasons were probably most adept at expanding their membership in wartime. In fact, extensive freemason networks existed in both the Northern and Southern armies by the time the war drew to a close in the spring of 1865.
Literature and Letters
Another major recreational pastime among literate Civil War soldiers was reading, and a smattering of regiments, such as the 13th Massachusetts, even maintained their own modest libraries of classic literature. Aside from the Bible, which was by far the most popular book in both armies, the majority of reading material in Union and Confederate tents consisted of popular contemporary periodicals such as Harper's Weekly, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, and Southern Illustrated News or cheap and lurid novels of questionable literary merit. "Those reading materials that generally flooded an army were twenty-five cent thrillers, Beadle's famous 'Dime Novels,' and picture books offering 'spirited and spicy scenes,"' observed one Civil War historian. "While some field missionaries reported disgustingly that 'licentious books' and 'obscene pictures' were to be found in encampments, more men North and South simply read what was available. A Baptist missionary observed early in the war that 'the soldiers here are starving for reading matter. They will read anything"' (Robertson 1988, p. 84).
Civil War soldiers also spent a great deal of time poring over correspondence from loved ones back home. Notes from wives, children, parents, and friends were absolutely essential to the morale of countless soldiers on both sides of the conflict. "We can only pity the man who goes empty away from the little group assembled about the mail bag, and rejoice with him who strolls away with a letter near his heart," related one soldier (Catton 1996, p. 371). Indeed, soldiers read letters from home over and over again, and they jealously protected these fragile reminders of their prewar existence from the grime of camp and the elements as best they could. Rebel and Yankee soldiers also devoted a great deal of time to their own letter-writing, and many troops—from officers to newly arrived recruits—kept journals that documented their experiences in great detail.
Seeking Relief in Strange Places
Perhaps inevitably, given the loose, shambling quality of military discipline and the emotional need for a release from the grim business of war, practical jokes reached epidemic proportions in both the Union and Confederate armies. Some of these pranks were mild and unimaginative, such as hiding a fellow soldier's mess kit or rifle. But others were both clever and harrowing. For example, during wintertime pranksters occasionally covered the openings of chimneys with boards or other materials—creating clouds of black smoke guaranteed to chase a hut's coughing and angrily cursing inhabitants outside into the cold.
Soldiers sometimes even sought respite from the tedium of camp life or sentry duty through fraternization with enemy soldiers, with whom they felt a bond of shared experience. Evidence of this feeling of kinship is widely scattered throughout the letters and diaries of Civil War soldiers. "Although intercourse with the enemy was strictly forbidden," wrote one Pennsylvanian soldier, "the men were on the most friendly terms, amicably conversing and exchanging such commodities as coffee, sugar, tobacco, corn meal and newspapers" (Hays 1908, p. 271). Another Union soldier recounted similar tableaux—and emphasized that such fraternization was treated almost as standard operating procedure in some areas:
It was a singular sight to see the soldiers of two great hostile armies walking about unconcernedly within a few yards of each other with their bayonets sticking in the ground, bantering and joking together, exchanging the compliments of the day and even saluting officers of the opposing forces with as much ceremony, decorum, and respect as they did their own. The keenest sense of honor existed among the enlisted men of each side. It was no uncommon sight, when visiting the picket posts, to see an equal number of "graybacks" and "bluebellies" as they facetiously termed each other, enjoying a social game of euchre or seven-up and sometimes the great national game of draw poker, with army rations and sutler's delicacies as the stakes. (Hays 1908, p. 271)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Billings, John D. Hardtack and Coffee; or, The Unwritten Story of Army Life. Boston: G. M. Smith, 1887. Reprint, Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1982.
Catton, Bruce. The American Heritage New History of the Civil War, rev. ed. Ed. James M. McPherson. New York: Viking, 1996.
Davis, William C. Rebels and Yankees: The Fighting Men of the Civil War. New York: Smithmark Publishers, 1991.
Hays, Gilbert A. Under the Red Patch: Story of the Sixty-Third Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861–1864. Pittsburgh, PA: Sixty-Third Pennsylvania Volunteers Regimental Association, 1908.
Mitchell, Reid. Civil War Soldiers: Their Expectations and Their Experiences. New York: Viking, 1988.
Robertson, James I., Jr. Soldiers Blue and Gray. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.
Robertson, James I., Jr., and the editors of Time-Life Books. Tenting Tonight: The Soldier's Life. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1984.
Shannon, Fred A. "The Life of the Common Soldier in the Union Army, 1861–1865." In The Civil War Soldier: A Historical Reader, ed. Michael Barton and Larry M. Logue. New York: New York University Press, 2002.
Sutherland, Daniel E. The Expansion of Everyday Life, 1860–1876. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.
Wiley, Bell Irvin. The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy. Indianapolis, IN, and New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1943. Reprint, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.
Woodworth, Steven E. While God Is Marching on: The Religious World of Civil War Soldiers. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003.
Kevin Hillstrom
Sports
Throughout the Civil War, Yankee and Rebel troops alike turned to sports as one of the principal means of passing the interminable hours in camp. This was especially true during the warmer months. Many of the sporting contests held in army camps were individual in nature: shooting matches, footraces, wrestling matches, and boxing contests. But team sports, when they were organized, never lacked for willing participants. Moreover, team sports such as baseball, which was particularly popular in Union regiments, consistently attracted large audiences of soldiers who were more than happy to yell out encouragement—and pointed criticism.
Baseball, in fact, began as a gentlemen's team sport rather than a game for farmers, blue-collar workers, or urban immigrants. According to the Smithsonian Institution, baseball can be traced back to a group of well-to-do New Yorkers who met in a vacant lot in 1842 to play what quickly became a popular game. Other sources trace the game back to some upper-class young men from Philadelphia who crossed the Delaware in 1831 for regular games of what was called "two old cat" with teams from New Jersey (Kirsch 2003, p. 3). Within a few years there were other teams and organized leagues up and down the East Coast; Massachusetts players had their own distinctive set of rules. By 1861 there were at least 200 baseball clubs in the New York area (including northern New Jersey) alone. Baseball spread westward to Ohio and Kentucky by the late 1850s, but it remained a Northern team sport until after the Civil War; it did not interest the Southern aristocracy.
Baseball became a team sport for men of all classes when the Civil War began, when some of the well-off New York players came to Washington as Union soldiers. They discovered that some office clerks in the Treasury Department had already organized the Washington Base Ball Club, which had a team called the Washington Nationals. Soldiers and civilians quickly organized games, which the New Yorkers usually won. The games helped to break down class divisions, as players were valued for their skills rather than their social backgrounds. Officers played alongside enlisted men as equals rather than military superiors.
Supply shortages often necessitated a certain level of ingenuity when sporting contests were devised. Enterprising bowlers, for example, turned to cannonballs, while baseball equipment often consisted of little more than a farmer's fence rail (the bat) and a walnut or rock wrapped in fabric (the ball). In some cases rags were bundled together and tied with string to form a ball. The playing field was located wherever there was a patch of reasonably flat ground; in Washington the teams played on the grounds of the Capitol, on the Ellipse, or inside the forts surrounding Washington.
When armies wintered over, participation in outdoor sports dwindled except for the odd day when unseasonably warm or sunny weather prevailed. During these winter months, poker tables and chess and checkers boards became the primary fields of competition. One exception to this rule, however, was the popularity of snowball fights. Most of these battles were brief skirmishes featuring a few soldiers on either side. On occasion, however, snowball fights blossomed into full-blown conflicts between entire companies. In these instances, soldiers followed the orders of officers just as they did on real fields of battle, and prisoners were sometimes taken. When serious snowball fights developed, participants often "loaded" their snowballs with rocks, bullets, or chunks of ice. These projectiles caused painful injuries on numerous occasions, but their use was generally regarded as completely in keeping with the brawling spirit of the contest. As one participant in a snowball clash between two New Hampshire regiments recounted, "tents were wrecked, bones broken, eyes blacked, and teeth knocked out—all in fun" (Robertson 1984, p. 71).
In spite of the occasional sports-related injury, sports were considered psychologically beneficial to the troops. It is noteworthy that the U.S. Sanitary Commission wholeheartedly recommended sports and "gymnastic exercises" as ways to maintain morale in camp in their 1861 report (Harper's Weekly, August 24, 1861) on preserving soldiers' health.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kirsch, George B. Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime during the Civil War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Mitchell, Reid. Civil War Soldiers: Their Expectations and Their Experiences. New York: Viking, 1988.
Robertson, James I., Jr., and the editors of Time-Life Books. Tenting Tonight: The Soldier's Life. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1984.
Smithsonian Associates Civil War E-Mail Newsletter, 5 (10). "The 1860s—When Men Were Men and They Played Baseball in Washington." Available online at http://civilwarstudies.org/.
Sutherland, Daniel E. The Expansion of Everyday Life, 1860…1876. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.
U. S. Sanitary Commission. "Report of the U.S. Sanitary Commission: Rules for Preserving the Health of the Soldier." Harper's Weekly, August 24, 1861, p. 542.
Wiley, Bell Irvin. The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1943. Reprint, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.
Kevin Hillstrom
Music
As the Civil War progressed, music emerged as one of the primary means by which soldiers on both sides of the conflict passed the time and lifted their spirits. "Men left for war with a song on their lips," observed one scholar. "They sang while marching or waiting behind earthworks; they hummed melodies on the battlefield and in the guardhouse; music swelled from every nighttime bivouac" (Robertson 1988, p. 85). The music associated with the war, created in an era when singing in public was much more commonplace than it is today, provides a rich and evocative picture of the hopes, fears, and motivations of the common soldier. Many of the lyrics and melodies produced during—and inspired by—the war, in fact, continue to rank as among the most famous songs in American history.
Sentimental and Patriotic
Most Civil War songs that were popular among the infantry and artillery units—the companies that bore the brunt of the war's terror and destruction—were unabashedly maudlin in nature. To be sure, several songs with patriotic themes, such as "John Brown's Body," "Yankee Doodle," "Dixie," and "Battle Cry of Freedom," were quite popular. Other songs that struck a chord with soldiers and anxious loved ones alike directly addressed the brutal realities of war. For example, composer George F. Root's song "Just Before the Battle, Mother," includes the following lyrics: "Comrades brave are round me lying, / Filled with thoughts of home and God; / For well they know that on the morrow, / Some will sleep beneath the sod" (1863).
But if patriotic or otherwise war-themed songs were popular, so too were sentimental ones that celebrated the simple comforts of home or the lovely attributes of sweethearts, and, indeed, songs that dwelled on prewar life or imagined life after the war greatly outnumbered those devoted to military themes. Of the sentimental songs, "Home Sweet Home" was by far the most popular in both Union and Confederate camps. But the emotions it conjured up sometimes made commanders uneasy. In the winter of 1862–1863, for example, Union commanders forbade regimental bands with the Army of the Potomac from playing the song, for fear it would undermine the morale of homesick troops (Robertson 1984, p. 68).
Not surprisingly, separation from wives and sweethearts was a theme that repeated itself again and again in Civil War songs favored by soldiers. Popular Civil War songs with a wistfully romantic bent included "Lorena," "Annie Laurie," "All Quiet along the Potomac Tonight," "Annie of the Vale," "The Girl I Left Behind Me," "Her Bright Eyes Haunt Me Still," "Sweet Eve-lina," and "Juanita."Religion was another subject that drew soldiers in, and hymns emerged as popular expressions of Christian belief in both armies.
Soldiers who could play harmonica, fiddle, or banjo were highly prized at evening sing-alongs, and in some cases entire companies became emotionally invested in protecting the musical instruments possessed by these accompanists. Talented musicians in the ranks also became the cornerstones of organized dancing events and glee club performances. These bursts of merrymaking never failed to lift the spirits of tired and battle-worn men, and discerning military commanders actively encouraged song, dance, and music on the march or in camp. Confederate General Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) went so far as to bluntly assert that an army without music would be impossible.
Civil War Bands
Military bands sanctioned and supported by the War Departments in Washington and Richmond also served an important morale-boosting function. Military brass bands accompanied many companies into service during the opening months of the conflict, and as the war progressed company and regimental bands provided musical accompaniment for marching drills, evening concerts for soldiers (and sometimes civilians) at wintertime encampments, and even nights of musical escape for troops weary from a long day's march or battle.
The quality of many of these bands ranged from mediocre to poor, due to the difficulty of procuring instruments and a shortage of trained musicians. On occasion, even soldiers who were starved for entertainment voiced discontent with the quality of the music that band members coaxed from their instruments. One Mississippi soldier, for example, lamented that his regiment's band "has been practicing for more than a week but are not learning very fast. I think I am getting very tired of hearing the noise they make" (Moore 1959, p. 66).
Yet what the band members lacked in training and skill, they compensated for with enthusiasm and a keen understanding of the types of songs that could best rally and encourage the troops at the end of a tedious day of marching or during a cold snap in wintertime. Moreover, interspersed among the undistinguished company and regimental bands one could occasionally find groups of genuine skill and talent. Historian Bruce Catton (1996) noted that the 26th North Carolina Regimental Band was populated to a considerable extent by the sons of Moravian immigrants who had settled around Salem and nurtured a social culture that placed great emphasis on musical literacy and expression. These talented musicians were also dedicated soldiers, and at the Battle of Gettysburg they served as stretcher-bearers and assistants to field surgeons who were swathed from head to foot in blood and gore at the end of each day's fighting. Yet their greatest contribution to the regiment was as musicians. After the first bloody day of fighting at Gettysburg, the band performed a concert that reinvigorated flagging spirits throughout the regiment. "We … found the men much more cheerful than we were ourselves," remembered one band member. "We played for some time … and the men cheered us lustily" (Catton 1996, p. 356).
The songs and music of the Civil War also underscored the kinship that existed between the soldiers on both sides of the conflict. Songs like "Home Sweet Home" and "Annie Laurie" were equally popular with Rebel and Yankee soldiers, and on more than one occasion, band performances by soldiers from one army soothed the spirits not only of comrades, but also of the brave but homesick soldiers on the opposing front lines. In Soldiers Blue and Gray (1988), historian James I. Robertson Jr. recounts one of the most famous of these incidents. In December 1862 Union and Confed-erate forces gathered to face each other outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia. As evening fell over the land, bands from the two sides engaged in a sort of "battle of the bands," taking turns playing partisan favorites. The night air then became quiet for a time until a lone Union bugler played a mournful version of "Home Sweet Home" for the assembled armies. "As the sweet sounds rose and fell on the evening air," recalled one soldier from New Hampshire, "all listened intently, and I don't believe there was a dry eye in all those assembled thousands" (Robertson 1988, p. 85).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Catton, Bruce. The American Heritage New History of the Civil War, rev. ed. Ed. James M. McPherson. New York: Viking, 1996.
Mitcell, Reid. Civil War Soldiers: Their Expectations and Their Experiences. New York: Viking, 1988.
Moore, Robert. A Life for the Confederacy, ed. James W. Silver. Jackson, TN: McCowat-Mercer Press, 1959.
Robertson, James I., Jr. Soldiers Blue and Gray. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.
Robertson, James I., Jr., and the editors of Time-Life Books. Tenting Tonight: The Soldier's Life. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1984.
Root, George F. "Just Before the Battle, Mother." In The Bugle-Call. Chicago: Root & Cady, 1863.
Sutherland, Daniel E. The Expansion of Everyday Life, 1860–1876. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.
Wiley, Bell Irvin. The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1943. Reprint, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.
Kevin Hillstrom
Vices
Civil War soldiers generally had access to only a limited number of diversions to help them pass the time when they were not marching, fighting, or attending to camp chores. Reading, letter-writing, and conversation filled some of the long idle hours, but many in the ranks of both the Confederate and Union armies were illiterate. For these men—and also for many of the more educatedsoldiers—filling the long hours required more exciting diversions.
Of all the so-called "vices" that infiltrated the fabric of both Union and Confederate armies, gambling was the most flagrant and ubiquitous. Various card and dice games were particularly popular, but as countless letters and journal entries attest, Yankees and Rebels alike rushed to wager their meager salaries on just about anything they could think of, from footraces and boxing matches to cockfights and raffles. Companies that were located near small rivers and streams even organized high-stakes sailing races by fashioning small boats out of scraps of wood and paper. And when playing cards could not be acquired due to paper shortages or lack of funds, enterprising soldiers simply fashioned their own, sometimes decorating them with the likenesses of political leaders (Wiley 1943, p. 53).
Many soldiers who were unlucky or unskilled in games of chance found themselves bereft of funds within a few days—or even hours—of receiving their pay. As one Union soldier lamented in a letter to a friend, "[I was] only paid a week ago and have not a cent now, having bluffed away all that I did not send home. I don't think I will play poker any more" (quoted in Robertson 1984, p. 62). This state of affairs further exacerbated the problem of theft in some companies, as cash-strapped soldiers turned to thievery to compensate for their losses at the gaming tables.
Throwing Away Evidence of Sin
Much of this fixation on poker and other forms of gambling would have scandalized family members or churchgoing neighbors back home—a fact of which soldiers were well aware. Indeed, the prevailing view among good Christian folk of the Civil War era was that cards were "tools of the devil." This led many soldiers to engage in behavior that might have seemed comical, had it not been driven by the fear of death in battle. Poker-playing Yankees and Rebels became notorious for tossing decks of playing cards into the woods as they made their way to the field of battle. They did this to ensure that cards would not be among the personal effects returned to loved ones should they not survive the fighting.
The scene at the end of a pitched battle, however, was markedly different. As dusk fell over the land, survivors of the day's carnage could often be found back in the woods, searching out the cards they had discarded earlier that day so that they could celebrate their survival with a long night of poker.
Brawling and Drinking
Fistfights between soldiers—and occasional clashes between entire units of soldiers—also bedeviled army commanders in both the North and South. Boredom, testosterone, and ethnic pride all contributed to the frequency with which brawling erupted in Civil War camps. Some outfits (such as certain Irish contingents) became notorious for their pugnacious ways, and a few regiments became so riddled with brawling that their capacity for fighting the enemy came into question. The 7th Missouri, for example, once had 900 fights break out in a single day. This is a remarkable tally on its face, but it is even more stunning given the fact that the entire regiment only had 800 soldiers in its ranks by that time.
Another incitement to brawling—and insubordination in general—was alcohol. Army regulations placed significant restrictions on the consumption of liquor or other forms of alcohol by enlisted men, and even officers were supposed to practice restraint in this area. Troop movements and limited discretionary income further discouraged purchases of whiskey from sutlers or other merchants, and most camps experienced "dry spells" during which alcohol was virtually absent.
Most soldiers with a taste for whiskey, however, were not discriminating about the quality of the liquor they consumed. Some made their own liquor, fermenting pine boughs and other dubious materials in their goal to get drunk. Higher-grade alcohol, meanwhile, was obtained through foraging or clandestine purchase. And when troops did succeed in getting their hands on whiskey, they often overindulged.
Generals on both sides attempted to minimize the negative impact of alcohol abuse in their armies, but with limited success. Fines and various forms of corporal punishment simply did not provide sufficient deterrent to keep some soldiers from the bottle. At one point, Union General George B. McClellan (1826–1885) became so aggravated by the deleterious impact of whiskey on his troops that he opined that if he could somehow keep all liquor out of their hands "it would be worth 50,000 men to the armies of the United States" (Davis 1991, p. 154).
Rough Men and Rough Language
Army encampments were also typified by extensive and creative use of language of the foulest kind. Many of the men who wore the blue and gray were rough characters, and most enlisted men had little in the way of formal education. These factors, combined with the everyday frustrations and terrors of army life in a time of war, provided fertile soil for oaths of the most profane variety.
Alcohol on the Front
While soldiers engaged in periods of battle, most of their time was spent drilling, marching, and waiting for encounters with the enemy. During these lulls, some soldiers sought to fill their time with alcohol. As described in Confederate soldier William Stevenson's 1862 personal account Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army: Being a Narrative of Personal Adventures in the Infantry, Ordnance, Cavalry, Courier, and Hospital Services, the clandestine procurement and consumption of alcohol was a commonplace practice—as was turning a blind eye to it:
Our rations at this time were neither very lavishly given nor very choice in quality, yet there was no actual suffering. For the first month whisky was served, and the men were satisfied to work for the promise of forty cents a day extra pay and three drams. In the fifth week the drams were stopped, and the extra pay never began… while the whisky ration was continued, there was little drunkenness. The men were satisfied with the limited amount given, and the general health of all was good. When the spirit ration was stopped, illicit trade in the "cra-thur" was carried by Jews and peddlers, who hung around the camp a short distance out in the woods. The search after these traders by the authorities was so vigilant, that at last there was no whisky vended nearer than the little town of Covington, eight miles distant. This, however, did not deter the men from making frequent trips to this place after it. Various expedients were resorted to, in order to bring it inside of the guard-lines. Some stopped the tubes on their guns, and filled the barrel with liquor. The colonel, while passing a tent one day, saw one of the men elevate his gun and take a long pull at the muzzle. He called out, "Pat, what have you got in your gun? Whisky?" He answered—"Colonel, I was looking into the barrel of my gun to see whether she was clean" (pp. 45–46).
carly s. kaloustian
SOURCE: Stevenson, William G. Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army: Being a Narrative of Personal Adventures in the Infantry, Ordnance, Cavalry, Courier, and Hospital Services. New York: A. S. Barnes and Burr, 1862. Sources in U.S. History Online: Civil War. Gale. Available from http://galenet.galegroup.com/.
For many soldiers, the rough language swirling around them was no different than what they experienced back in the shipyards, factories, and stables that had employed them prior to the war. And the oaths they hurled at one another or at God were the same ones that they had uttered in the taverns they frequented back home.
But for soldiers who were dedicated Christians, educated professionals, or recruits fresh from isolated farms, the incessant foul language could be quite demoralizing. "Around me is the gibber of reckless men & I am compelled to listen day and night to their profanity, filthy talk, and vulgar songs," grumbled one Union recruit. "I have some conception how Lot felt in Sodom when he had to listen to and be cursed by the filthy conversation of the wicked" (Glatthaar 1985, p. 96). A Confederate soldier from Mississippi painted a similarly bleak picture, asserting that "oaths, blasphemies, imprecations, obscenity, are hourly heard ringing in your ears until your mind is almost filled with them" (Wiley and Milhollen 1959, p. 190).
Some officers became so upset by the steady streams of profanity that issued from all corners of camp that they threatened soldiers with fines for excessive swearing. These threats proved impossible to enforce, however, and within a matter of days—or sometimes hours—they were inevitably abandoned.
In the end, too, profanity was the least of a soldier's troubles, and many of the most pious Yankees and Rebels were willing to overlook a foul mouth if other, more noble, characteristics were also present in their fellow soldiers. "Every one of [my comrades] is as a brother to me," wrote one Massachusetts soldier after a year of deadly battles, exhausting marches, and lousy food. "It is true many of them are very profane and the demon whiskey is not refused by many of them but with all their faults I love them because they are brave, generous, intelligent, and noble-hearted" (McPherson 1997, p. 88).
"Horizontal Refreshments"
Many Civil War soldiers also engaged in sexual activity—sometimes known by the euphemism "horizontal refreshments"—with prostitutes. Some men were naturally inclined to pursue this option anyway to satisfy their sexual urges. Others had wives and sweethearts back home to whom they had promised fidelity, only to find that their self-discipline fell apart after weeks, months, or years of enforced abstinence.
Early in the Civil War, camp followers were the main focus for soldiers looking to satisfy their urges for sex. Some of these camp followers were unabashed prostitutes, others served as cooks or laundresses on at least a part-time basis. Virtually all of them were sought for sexual satisfaction at one time or another, irrespective of their appearance or age. "Almost all the women are given to whoredom & are the ugliest, sallowfaced, shaggy headed, bare footed dirty wretches you ever saw," complained one Alabama soldier (Sutherland 1989, p. 16). As the war progressed, however, and troop movements accelerated, many of the camp followers fell away. At that point, both Union and Confederate soldiers became more dependent on furloughs or clandestine encounters with women from nearby communities. According to one historian, "men encamped near large towns and cities naturally had the best opportunities to enjoy female companionship, whatever their choice in women. They could meet utterly respectable ladies at church socials, Sanitary Commission fairs, and other civilized occasions. If a man sought more than polite conversation, he headed for the fleshpots. Every town had them" (Sutherland 1989, p. 16).
By the final months of the war, prostitution in numerous cities in both the North and South had greatly increased to accommodate the demand from soldiers on leave. Union soldiers, in general, enjoyed more generous furloughs, and they provided a steady flow of income into the red-light districts of places such as Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and New York. The nation's capital, meanwhile, supported hundreds of bordellos. Down in the South, the capital city of Richmond also became a center of prostitution.
Many soldiers who engaged in sexual relations with prostitutes and other women during the Civil War rationalized their behavior away as a necessary and harmless release from the pressures of war. But syphilis, gonorrhea, and other sexually transmitted diseases ravaged many units. In one study of sexual activity during the Civil War, historian Thomas Lowry (1994) determined that fully one out of three of the men who died in Union and Confederate veterans' homes were killed by the latter stages of venereal disease. Some of these men were bachelors—but some were not. Thus, an unknown number of women and children must likewise have been ravaged by gonorrhea, syphilis, and a host of other sexually transmitted diseases long after the war was over.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Catton, Bruce. Reflections on the Civil War, ed. John Leekley. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981.
Davis, William C. Rebels and Yankees: The Fighting Men of the Civil War. New York: Smithmark Publishers, 1991.
Glatthaar, Joseph T. The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman's Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns. New York: New York University Press, 1985.
Hays, Gilbert Adams. Under the Red Patch: Story of the Sixty-Third Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861–1864. Pittsburgh, PA: Sixty-Third Pennsylvania Volunteers Regimental Association, 1908.
Lowry, Thomas P. The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Civil War. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994.
McPherson, James M. For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Mitchell, Reid. Civil War Soldiers: Their Expectations and Their Experiences. New York: Viking, 1988.
Robertson, James I., Jr. Soldiers Blue and Gray. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.
Robertson, James I., Jr., and the editors of Time-Life Books. Tenting Tonight: The Soldier's Life. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1984.
Shannon, Fred A. "The Life of the Common Soldier in the Union Army, 1861–1865." In The Civil War Soldier: A Historical Reader, ed. Michael Barton and Larry M. Logue. New York: New York University Press, 2002.
Sutherland, Daniel E. The Expansion of Everyday Life, 1860–1876. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.
Wiley, Bell Irvin. The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy. Indianapolis, IN, and New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1943. Reprint, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.
Wiley, Bell Irvin, and Hirst D. Milhollen. They Who Fought Here. New York: Macmillan, 1959.
Kevin Hillstrom