The average Civil War soldier was a farm boy between 18 and 30 years of
age. He possessed little formal education; and by modern-day standards,
his military training was superficial. He was more fighter than soldier,
and he tended to scoff at military discipline and other formalities of
army service.
[Illustration: Posing for photographs to send home to loved ones was
a favorite pastime of Civil War soldiers. Typical servicemen of that
period were, from left to right: Pvt. George A. Stryker of New York,
Pvt. John W. Branch of the 12th Tennessee (C.S.A.), and Pvt. Philip
Carper of the 35th Virginia Cavalry.]
Several factors prompted his voluntary entrance into the army. Intense
patriotism, the determination to fight for one's particular cause, the
enticement of enlistment bounties, or the simple love of adventure were
all strong inducements. Many men, however, were drafted into service
when both sides resorted to conscription in 1862.
In that same year the North began organizing regiments of ex-slaves. The
first Negro regiment to perform conspicuous service was Col. Robert
Gould Shaw's 54th Massachusetts, which suffered heavy losses in a July
18, 1863, assault on Fort Wagner, S. C. In all, about 186,000 Negroes
became Federal soldiers. They served under white officers and often
suffered discrimination in such matters as pay and bounties. Yet they
proved courageous fighters in several of the battles in which they
participated.
Conversely, Confederate officials were slow to use slaves as Southern
soldiers. Many feared an uprising once the Negroes were given arms;
others opposed the use of slaves as soldiers on grounds that the Negro
was ill-prepared for such high responsibility. Not until March, 1865,
when the war was almost over, did the Confederate government authorize
the formation of Negro regiments. While some units were mustered into
service, none were sent into combat.
To become a soldier, a man normally joined a military company being
raised in his own locality. This company then went to a state training
camp and joined similar units preparing for war. At the completion of
basic training, ten companies were banded together as a regiment and
mustered into national service. Orders came soon thereafter assigning
the regiment to duty in the field.
[Illustration: Confederate winter quarters near Centreville, Va. The
huts were constructed of logs, mud, and wood slabs.]
The Federal private received $13 per month and a clothing allowance of
$42 annually. Customarily, his uniform was dark blue and consisted of a
kepi (a cap that slants toward the front), heavy wool coat, and lighter
colored trousers. His prescribed equipment included rifle, ammunition,
knapsack, blanket, haversack, canteen, bayonet, and cartridge box. The
Federal lived mostly in a tent, cooked his meals with his messmates, and
was personally responsible for the good condition of his equipment.
His Confederate counterpart was not so well provided. In addition to his
musket, he normally carried a blanket slung over one shoulder, canteen,
knife, and cartridge box. Gray was the color of the official Confederate
uniform. However, few of the soldiers were uniformly clad after the
first months of service. Many wore instead clothing taken from dead or
captured Federals, or made at home and dyed in a solution of walnut
hulls. The home-dyed uniform was light brown, or "butternut", in color.
Few tents existed in Confederate armies. Southern soldiers thus became
accustomed to camping in the open. The Confederate private received $11
monthly until 1864, when his pay was raised to $18 because of widespread
Southern inflation.
[Illustration: Photographer Timothy O'Sullivan captured this scene
near Rappahannock Station, Va., in March, 1864. In the foreground is
a sutler's tent. The fence marks the stockade of the 50th New York
Engineers.]
The Federal soldier received much better rations than did the
Confederate. His bread was a thick cracker called "hardtack", and many
jokes were made over its toughness. The Union soldier also received
meat, dried vegetables, coffee, sugar, and salt. The Confederate
soldier, unable to get coffee because of the blockade, learned to use
beans, rye, parched corn, and even acorns as substitutes. Rarely did
Southern troops have ample food. Personal accounts by Confederates often
reveal pitiful instances of widespread malnutrition in the ranks.
For recreation, each soldier was left to his own devices.
Letter-writing, reading, singing, card-playing, and sleeping were the
favorite pastimes of troops in camp. In winter men on both sides
constructed huts of logs and mud, or piled dirt against the sides of
their tents as insulation from the cold. Reveille normally sounded at 5
a.m. in summer and 6 a.m. in winter. "Taps", a melody first played in
1862, generally came between 10 and 11 p.m.
Fighting in the Civil War was generally savage, and guerrillas on both
sides often killed in cold blood. Yet when opposing armies were camped
close to one another, it was not at all uncommon for blue and gray
pickets to establish informal truces, swap newspapers, tobacco, and
coffee, and even to camp together. Sometimes this fraternization might
last through an entire winter. Even in battle, many soldiers on both
sides displayed great compassion--even to the extent of risking their
lives in order to help a stricken foe. Sergeant Richard Kirkland of
South Carolina was so overcome at the mounting Federal casualties during
the battle of Fredericksburg that he crawled out upon the battlefield
and voluntarily gave aid to dozens of wounded Northerners.
[Illustration: Noted Civil War artist Edwin Forbes sketched this
scene of Federal and Confederate pickets between the lines swapping
tobacco and coffee during a truce only they have declared.]
Yet army life of the 1860's had many and severe hardships. Improper diet
and insanitary conditions often prostrated half of a unit's membership.
Since filth abounded in every army, a soldier who did not have his share
of lice and fleas was a rare exception. Moreover, the fact that a
majority of the soldiers were from rural communities made them very
susceptible to such "city sicknesses" as measles, chicken pox, and small
pox. The death rate from these diseases were very high. In the Federal
armies, sickness and disease accounted for 7 of every 10 deaths. One
authority has estimated that among the Confederates three men perished
from disease for every man killed in battle. Small wonder that a Civil
War soldier once wrote his family from camp: "It scares a man to death
to get sick down here."
Soldiers suffered too because of the limited medical knowledge of that
day. Blood transfusions, X-rays, antibiotics, sterilization, vitamins,
vaccines, wonder drugs all came after the Civil War. No assured
treatment existed for typhoid fever, yellow fever, measles, or
pneumonia, and great uncertainty prevailed over the proper way to stop a
hemorrhage. Most bone fractures, and all wounds of the joint, meant
amputation. In the Korean conflict of the 1950's the chances of
surviving a wound were 50-1; in the Civil War the chances were only 7-1.
That men of blue and gray endured these miseries is proof enough of
their amazing capacity for hardships. Of greater importance to our
American heritage, however, was their courage and devotion to duty. It
shone forth on each side, and in every battle. Bell Irvin Wiley has
commented:
"The Civil War was in large degree a soldier's war. In that war the
determination, self-sufficiency, and endurance of the individual in the
ranks were of utmost importance. Officer casualties were heavy, and in
the hurly-burly of combat those who survived often were able to exercise
little control over their units. In the crucial, climactic stages of
battle the common soldiers were to a large extent on their own, and it
was often their courage and tenacity, individual and collective, that
ultimately decided the contest.... For it was these men and their kind
whose strength was the bedrock of their respective causes and whose
greatness made their war one of the most inspiring in the history of
embattled humanity."
[Illustration: Co. G, 93rd New York Infantry, posed for this
photograph at Bealeton, Va., in August, 1863. Note the drummer boy
near the left of the bottom row.]
[Illustration: Confederate troops on the march, as seen by Southern
artist Allen C. Redwood.]