Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126
Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127
War and dying were not new to American society in 1861. In fact, they were an inseparable part of the early American psyche from its colonization, to its Revolution, to its ruthless settlement of the West. However, it had never witnessed the carnage of war on such a grand scale before the bloody campaigns of Bull Run, Shiloh, and Antietam in the early phases of the Civil War. Earlier today, Henry pointed out that, after the war, Frederick Douglas tried to reignite the passions and principles of the Civil War in an effort to halt Jim Crow and “remember (it) as a moral struggle between Northern abolition…and Southern slavery”. However, historian Drew G. Faust notes how the damage done by the war so numbed the populaces of both sides that it became “the common ground on which North and South would ultimately reunite” (5). Faust argues that the destruction caused by the war and the desire of soldiers to die a “Good Death” largely tamed the political zeal and “secular language” that had triggered the war itself (37).
For much of her article “The Civil War Soldier and the Art of Dying”, Faust utilizes the last written correspondence of dying soldiers, the testaments by witnesses to fatally-wounded soldiers, and the condolence letters written by both friends and strangers to the families of those killed in action as primary sources. She argues that Civil War death became an “art”, following the tradition of the Ars Moriendi, offering a unique blend of patriotism and Christian sacrifice. Regardless of nationality or religion, wounded soldiers wished to die a “Good Death”, should it come to them (8). This kind of death required resilience in the face of fate that offered a sort of declaration of faith in God and love for family. “Bad Deaths” were those who were killed immediately in action, were denied a last testament on their deathbeds, or died “impertinent or unpardoned sinners”(29). It interests me that very few of the final testaments express passion for the fighting cause or hope for the war; most emphasize religious zeal over politics. Here, Faust argues that years of combat drained much of the political passion present on both sides amongst common soldiers, with spiritual concerns taking their place.
However, the lack of secular language brings me to some criticisms of Faust’s work. There are very little politics amongst Faust’s sources, but there is a total absence of race, ethnicity, or any sense of identity to differentiate between her subjects of interest. I have doubts that all soldiers had a homogenous view on what constituted “dying well” as a soldier. For example, African American soldiers in the war surely had different reasons to fight and die in the war than the typical regiments, but Faust ignores them as a group entirely. The same goes for immigrants fighting on both sides. Did they share the same principles and belief systems as all their comrades? What about non-slaveholding whites fighting for the South? The list goes on. While Faust makes an interesting argument that political rhetoric played little role in final testaments of dying soldiers, it seems as though patriotism, principles, and sacrifice for a higher cause were very prevalent on the minds of those who fought in the Civil War, even if many of them did not survive its entirety.