Civil War Essay

The Civil War. One of America’s bloodiest wars brought about many things and lead to the Reconstruction Era. The Civil War took many lives and separated the boys from the men, or in some cases it separated the soldiers from their families. I feel that the soldiers who fought in the war were affected by the Civil War because they had to fight in a war that lasted 4 years and cost over 620,000 soldiers their lives.
Soldiers were also exposed to poor methods of medical care and as a result, more soldiers died of disease than injuries. Last but not least, the soldiers’ sanity rested in the letters they received from home, and without them, it would have caused many soldiers to loose their minds.
A soldier named Joseph Jones wrote a letter to his wife Nancy that stated,” I still live in hopes of getting word from you. I am disappointed evry day in getting a letter if you lack of paper buy it if you lack of time to write take time if you lack of envelops and cannot get them send your letter without any. If you can’t get stamps send it anyhow. If you wil write often I wil be glad.” (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, “I Take up my Pen, page. 9)
As you can see, this quote clearly illustrated how much it meant to this soldier, a husband, to hear from his wife. At least this soldier made it back home to see his wife, family, and friends, unlike many other soldiers who were not as fortunate as Joseph, such as A. D. Clifton who we’ll talk about a little later. Because these soldiers were able to communicate with their loved ones any other way, these letters that they received were far more than just letters. They served as some sort of portal that ( depending on how detailed the letter was) made the recipient and the sender of the letter feel as if they were face to face and that made the soldiers as well as their families feel at ease and relaxed to hear that the other was okay. Like a mother who calls the parent(s) of their child`s play date, to make sure that their child is safe, is having fun, and etc. By doing so, they are assured that everything is fine and it determines what the outcome of the situation will be. That is how the soldiers` sanity rested in the letters they received.
Three million men fought in the Civil War. About a third of these soldiers were either wounded or died in battle. These soldiers were away from their families and homes for about four years and they endured many hardships. One of these hardships included poor medical care. Because medical knowledge and technology were so limited, doctors were unable to treat soldiers with diseases because they did not understand the causes of the infection. These same doctors also were not very big on hygiene either.
According to the History Alive textbook, “Medical care was shockingly poor during the Civil War. Doctors did not know what caused infections or how diseases spread.” “A North Carolina soldier wrote, “These Big Battles is not as bad as the fever.” He was right. More soldiers died of disease than from injuries.” (page. 124) They would operate on patients while wearing bloody and dirty clothes. They would also wipe the blood from their hands and surgical tools on their jackets and even dipped them in dirty water.
One soldier named, A. D. Clifton vividly describes his condition as he writes to his wife and family saying, “This eavaning receved your kind letter and and after carefully persueing its contents and with gratitude found that you were all well and doing well it gave me a great deel of satisfaction to here it I am well all but my arm the sore on my arme is nearly cured up but the riseing under my arme is swolen very mutch it is as large as your fist or near and gives me a great deel of paine…”- A.D. Clifton to his family, June 23, 1864 (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, “I Take up my Pen, page 11)
Could you imagine, not only are you fighting in a war, but while you`re writing to your family you are constantly reminded of the wound or injury you received and how that doctor could not treat it properly and as a result, you must walk off of the hospital bed more wounded and sick then you were when you walked in. Poor medical care caused more deaths than the war itself.
Another reason why I feel that the soldiers were affected the most by the Civil War is because of the affect of the war itself. ”Dear Mary you wrote int your letter that I should write wheather wee got plenty to eat or not: wee can make out on what wee get by bying things at a verry high prise: wee drew a pound of meal a day without beeing sifted and a pound of beef or1/3 of a pound of bacon that is all wee get only what wee by the meal is verry sorrow and indiffernt it makes verry bad bread Potatoes costs us six dollars a bushel an beans a dollar a peck and you no wee cant by maney at that prise as to other things they ar so high wee cant buy atall…” – Christian Epperly to his wife, Mary, August 19, 1863 (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, “I Take up my Pen, page. 19) This line from a letter written by Christian Epperly proves that not only was the food horrible, but the soldiers had pay for their meals and they did not receive a discount on the items they needed.
The war itself and the fact that the soldiers had to fight in it lead me to believe that they were indeed affected the most by the Civil War. As if the Civil War was not already destructive enough, new weapons were created. One was called the rifled musket.
The History Alive textbook best describes this weapon as, “unlike the old smoothbore musket, this gun had grooves on the inside of the barrel that caused the bullet to spin, allowing it to travel much faster, farther, and with greater accuracy.” (page. 124)
The tactics that were used during the Civil War were not any better. The General would instead of commanding all of the soldiers to spread out to make it harder for the enemy to shoot them, the soldiers were to charge at the enemy in a line or group which was foolish because the weapons they had were more accurate and deadly.
The conditions that the soldiers lived in were not any better either. The food, weather, sickness, and restlessness were few of the things that had great tolls on the soldiers. At times, the food was either stale, or bug infested and soldiers had to buy their own meals and were not given a discount on the items that they purchased.
The harsh weather conditions hit many soldiers very severely, especially those who did not have the appropriate clothing for the war, let alone the weather.
A Texas Cavalry officer, Gustave Cook, reported home in February 1863 that “the weather was most intensely cold…. and more suffering I never saw… one man was frozen to death and many were frostbitten. Among the rest your sweetheart has a pair of frostbitten feet and a finger.”(Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, “I Take up my Pen, page.29)
So in conclusion, these are the reasons that I feel that the soldiers who fought in the Civil War were in fact the most affected by the war, they were fighting in a war that lasted 4 years, their sanity rested in the letters that they received from their loved ones, and they were exposed to poor living conditions that caused more soldiers to die because of sickness than the number of soldiers who died in the war altogether.