Disease In The Civil War Essay

The Civil War is a harsh part of American history but the life of the soldiers was a real struggle. Most people know that the soldiers had a miserable life but it was far worse than people assume. Weapons weren’t easy to use, training was like starting from scratch and the camp life was miserable. Whether is was the North or the South, life wasn’t easy. Therefore, during the Civil War, the soldiers continued the courageous and daring fight in spite of poorly constructed weapons, labored training, and dreadful living conditions.

During the Civil War, they had to have many medicines, operations, and surgeries done to themselves or others in order to survive (Jenny Goellnitz, Paragraph 1). Some of these medicines we still use today. Medical technology and scientific knowledge have changed dramatically since the Civil War, but the basic principles of military health care remain the same. The deadliest thing that faced the Civil War soldier was disease. For every soldier who died in battle, two died from disease.

Killing. A horrible thing, indeed. But, widely misinterpreted. To most people, the first thing to come to mind would be a person making someone else die. This isn’t necessarily true. Killing is just causing death. For example, Ebola isn’t a person, yet it made people die. So did Dysentery, a disease in the Civil War that was nicknamed ‘Minister of death’. I’m sure you can guess why. So, what did kill more people in the Civil War? The numbers show that out of all the deaths, more happened off the battlefield than on it, specifically the diseases and medical practices.

Imagine being a soldier in the civil war young, scared, and homesick. Some were just young boys looking for adventure and money; they got a rude awakening when they started. The war was such a sombering experience that many soldiers deserted. They deserted because of family safety, poor conditions in the camps, and loss of faith and confidence in the cause. Such a large sum of soldiers were deserting that the government had to take action. They tried using the death penalty to lower the desertion rates, but they were inconsistent in their punishments. Over 20,000 soldiers deserted over the course of the Civil War for many diverse reasons, some were even captured by the government and executed.

Issues of war ripped through families, cities, and eventually, the entire country. By making the decision to go to the war, some would place the distinction of bravery on Cross. He, however, felt like a coward. For he had given in to the society around him and their pressures. Instead of following his heart and staying true to his morals, Cross took the easy way out. By fighting in the war, he avoided the criticism and ridicule which marred draft dodgers and the lifetime of embarrassment that was sure to follow.

Glory is widely valued throughout history and is treasured so that the notable individual’s legacies live on. In the context of the military there are two attributes of glory which is a virtue for each soldier; pride and honor. During the Civil War, the U.S. experienced itself fighting against each other to the death just to protect their way of life. An new core value for the Union developed, which was freedom. Freedom through the Emancipation Proclamation that were set to free all slaves.

During the Civil War, many soldiers were not in the best spirits and had a low morale. The reason for this was because of homesickness. Homesickness was a killer of soldiers that even confused some doctors who did not know what it was. Homesickness also worsened the thought that a soldier would die in battle and never see their loved one ever again. Soldiers wrote letters to their families to feel better however, nothing lifted their spirits, not even holidays. Doctors tried to find cures for homesickness and many doctors had different ways of curing homesickness, but only a few worked during the Civil War. That is why homesickness was the leading cause of low soldier morale during the Civil War.

During war, soldiers are sent out every day in order to fight for their countries. All of them would have the fear that each day was fought, it would be their last. This fear of losing their life caused people to

Through the eyes of Samuel Watkins, there are sights of horror, dismay, and affirmations for one’s beliefs. As sectional conflicts of the American Civil War, the views of death in common soldiers, are transforming Watkins’ accounts depict that most soldiers were prideful and willing to die for their side’s beliefs, however, at the end of the day these men are still dying. As the war grew on, so did the realizations of the horrors of battle. For the soldiers who were immersed with the realisms of battle day in and day out, there was a sense that death even more inevitable than ever before.

While most history books portray some soldiers as willing to fight for their rights, for whatever reason such as slavery, or unfair tariffs, what many fail to portray is the harsh reality of what soldiers felt. Soldiers wanted to go home after realizing just what the war cost them. Also, many soldiers were married as well, they and their wives could only wait for either the return of their husbands or the news that their life had been taken. What also didn’t help was the thought that they could be fighting their own relatives. Plenty of people at the time had differing views on the issues at the time, while some went for the sheer credibility of fighting for their thoughts and ideas, some went simply because they disagreed with their relatives. A manifold didn’t understand the reality that they may not die from disease or a gunshot, but they could be destroyed by the emotional weight of war. The person they could be fighting with could be struck by a bullet and they couldn’t stop to help them, they had to keep fighting. Some even had to watch their fallen brother die right in front of them, whether it was from disease or a gunshot, it tested soldier’s capability to cope with war. It took a toll on civilians as well. It was draining working for a cause that

The colonist did not always spread the diseases accidentally. Europeans arriving in the Americas had long been exposed to the diseases, attaining a measure of immunity, and thus were not as severely affected by them. Therefore, disease could be an effective technique as a biological. When the French and Indian War was happening, Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, the British commander in chief, suggested that they use smallpox to wipe out their Indian

What is different here, is that their pride is backed by religious faith. This “faith” in something greater than themselves, therefore, allowed troops to deal with the “real fear” of wartime. Looking closer at religious beliefs of the time, I have uncovered the excerpt in this text titled, Religion, Benevolent Organizations, and Union Sailors during the Civil War, by Michael Bennett. He stresses how during the Civil War, “Union soldiers regularly possessed access to the rudimentary articles of religious expression” insisting that “religious access not be lost to the evils of camp life and the despair of war” (Bennett 221). Having faith in God during such difficult times in the lives of Union gave them hope that they can conquer the horrors of war. As a result, faith was one of the driving forces behind a soldier’s ability to push their fighting efforts, in an attempt to better the country they loved, and for their families back home. However, I also found that faith served the purpose of granting troops an outlet to cope with the fear that they experienced during the Civil War. With a belief in God, soldiers felt as though they were protected from death or injury by a spiritual force. While fear was a common experience for most soldiers in battle, faith allowed them to press on so that they could preserve their most prized values, whether that be their homeland, or

The two authors, McPherson and Sheehan-Dean, expound upon many of the political reasons that drove men on both sides to enlist. Both authors point out that all the men in the beginning who joined the military were volunteers. This has great significance, when taking into consideration the fact that they fought out of their own free will. These shared beliefs by those in 1861, makes one question the specific reasons these men justified within their own minds, a motive of such great importance, that they would freely give up their entire existence to protect their interests. Patriotic duty could indicate a host of motivations connected to the reasons for why they endured such grinding hardship. One main aspect could have been the social pressure from society that was placed on those who enlisted, expressing a desire to fulfill a duty and responsibility in service of country. Many in a close community could question, or look down upon a man that was unwilling to stand up and protect his own family from harm’s way. Many of these soldiers could have thought the same, reasoning that, protecting their family, meant to fight for their country.

     The Union soldiers were not the only ones to demonstrate a willingness to take a stand, the Southerners also demonstrated a great willingness to go down fighting. The Confederates had beliefs that were opposing to that of the north, but the beliefs were just as strong. The South was taking quite a chance by fighting the civil war, given the fact that they had far less men than the North. The mere fact that the Southerners were willing to die for what they honestly believed were their rights, proves that they wanted to go down standing up.

Ronald Lee Emery, retired Staff Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps famous for his role in the movie Full Metal Jacket, once spoke about the call to battle saying, “It 's my firm conviction that when Uncle Sam calls, by God we go, and we do the best that we can.” This is a simple yet powerful quote that embodies the feeling of duty to his country that provokes ordinary citizens to leave their everyday lives behind them and join the cause to protect their country. People enlist in the armed forces for a multitude of reasons but one reoccurring reason is a feeling of duty towards protecting ones country and in the case of the civil war this was a widely spread concept. The Union and Confederate soldiers possessed deeply held ideological, political, and patriotic convictions, which were the major reasons they enlisted, fought, and remained in the ranks. McPherson claims these ideals that motivated soldiers to join the army were a combination of duty to country as well as ones comrades, personal honor, and patriotism. Furthermore he claims that ideology and images of manhood were just as important to soldier motivation as group cohesion was. McPherson’s main argument about what motivated soldiers during the war breaks down the motivations of Civil War soldiers into three categories, the initial motivation or enlistment, the “sustaining” motivation, and finally combat motivation. While different, these three motivations were all intertwined and if not strong enough could