Home : America At War : The Civil War :North And South In The Civil War
The Civil War soldier belonged to an, eighty-five-year-old nation with no military tradition. He had never fought in a major war. Discipline went against his grain. Yet he quickly adjusted to his fellow man and learned to endure hardships, win battles when he could, and accept defeat stoically. He was sustained by a cause. The Southerner fought to be left alone, maintain his people's way of life, prevent race equality, and break the ties with Northern bankers whose high tariff policies would starve the South. In the North, the battle was to preserve the Union, stamp out secessionism, keep slavery from new Western lands, and teach the Rebels a lesson. Faith in his cause was of great importance to the fighting man, for the physical facts of army life in the 1860's were grim. Neither side was prepared for a war of any length. The lack of preparation showed in bad rations, unsuitable clothing, scarcity of standardized weapons, inadequate training, and a callous disregard for the soldier as an individual. As the war progressed, some of these evils were partially corrected. Northern soldiers began to get enough food, although its quality remained doubtful. Transportation tie-ups often kept the Rebels on short rations. Yankee uniforms were in plentiful supply but had been designed for cold-weather operations. In the steaming summers of Georgia and Mississippi, they proved a curse. Confederate clothing was somewhat scanty, but the average Rebel liked to travel light. Unencumbered by heavy equipment, he was an agile foe. Mass production from big arsenals like Springfield enabled the Union to standardize rifles in a short time, simplifying the ammunition problem. Limited production facilities kept the South from achieving this goal, and it was forced to purchase arms abroad. The Rebels, however, were adept at stripping battlefields and many of them fought with Northern arms. As troops gained battle wisdom, the need for intensive training disappeared. Units were built around tough veterans who did not coddle recruits. Officers and noncoms taught their men to fight, ignoring recreation and off-time amusements. Under this treatment, Yank and Rebel flourished. They learned fast, became self-sufficient, proved dependable, and emerged as first-rate fighting men, equal to any the world has ever seen. Between engagements, soldiers found means of fighting monotony. In large camps, ball games, horse races, foot races, and even snowball fights satisfied the competitive instinct. Chess and checkers whiled away hours. Newspapers and paperback books passed from hand to hand until tattered. Band concerts and amateur shows were arranged regularly. Vice never ran rampant through either army. Few cities in line of battle were large enough to boast organized red-light districts. Camp followers operated, but Civil War literature carries little mention of prostitution. Drinking was sporadic, as liquor was usually confined to officers' messes. Gambling never ceased, but low pay kept the stakes down. The soldier of the 1860's, for all his toughness in battle, was both moral and sentimental. Most of the rank and file were away from home and its stern religious background for the first time. The lonesome sentry watching the rising moon thought long and hard of those he left behind and put these memories into oversentimental music. "Lorena," a sugarplum of a song, was probably most popular of the Civil War ballads. "Weeping Sad and Lonely," "The Vacant Chair," "All Quiet Along the Potomac" mixed tearful sorrow and devotion. This excess of tearful tribulation may sound strange to modern ears, but it was a sentimental era. There was reason for sorrow. The Civil War had the highest proportionate casualty rate of any war in American history. Yank and Rebel alike helped create that rate. Through four bitter years they fought bravely with their heads held high. They were good soldiers. The comparative luxury of barracks life, vanished when troops went into the field. From that time on, shelters were based on government-issued canvas, arranged in ways limited only by the ingenuity of individual units. At the war's beginning, several tent types existed but two were basic: the Sibley and the wedge. The first was large and bellshaped, supported by a center pole. It could sleep 12 men but was unwieldy, hard to handle, and bulky to move. More popular was the wedge, an A-shaped structure supported by a ridgepole resting on two small poles driven into the ground. Such a tent accommodated four, five, or six people. On the luxury level was the hospital or wall tent, with four upright sides. Occupants could stand erect in these, and move about in a small area. In good weather, semipermanent camps consisted of wedge tents arranged in parallel lines, the ground between these lines becoming company streets. The company street was a common meeting ground where men met to gossip, clean rifles, take turns at barbering, and pass the time of day. When winter came, if no move appeared imminent, the wedge-tent villages were transformed. Logs were joined to form low walls and tent canvas was then slung over these to make a roof. Fireplaces of mud and stones were built into one wall, and chimneys of barrels and fence pickets carried off the smoke. More fastidious soldiers constructed California furnaces. These were rough fireboxes within the tents connected to long earthen tunnels that ran several feet beyond the tent walls to culminate in chimneys made of stacked up cans. Such devices carried fumes well beyond the tents. Inside winterized shelters, occupants often dug well below ground level (to make more head room) and laid rough floors of logs or straw. Bunks and rude furniture were constructed. When on the move and near actual battle, soldiers sought shelter in pairs. Each man carried a square of canvas, with buttons and buttonholes on its edges, called a shelter half. Two of these, buttoned together and supported by poles, made a tiny tent that would just cover two sleeping men. Yanks and Rebels both carried these, and were also equipped with ponchos or rubber blankets. The latter, folded, were laid on the ground inside the pup tents to break the chill from the earth. In times of extreme fatigue, bunkmates dispensed with tents altogether, stretching out on top of their rubber blankets with shelter halves over them. Soldiers' rations were similar in North and South when war began. Theoretically, each man was entitled to about one pound of meat per day; a somewhat larger quantity of bread, flour, hardtack, or corn meal; and a generous allowance of coffee and sugar. These basic foods were to be supplemented by peas, potatoes, rice, molasses, and spices. Theory never became fact. Crooked contractors, venal supply sergeants, inadequate transportation, and lack of preservation facilities soon killed off good intentions. As early as 1862, the Confederacy reduced the basic ration. Rebel and Yank learned to supplement their food with produce from the countryside. Beef cattle on the hoof accompanied armies in the field. Whether the yield from these tough and stringy animals was good or bad depended on the quartermaster's luck as he stood in line to draw food for his unit. Hardtack, a tough, plain flour-and-water biscuit, made up the staple bread ration.. When fresh, it was edible and moderately sustaining. After long storage, the biscuits sheltered maggots and weevils. Coffee made up for hardtack. It was the supreme luxury of the fighting man, and he consumed it in copious quantities. Union soldiers were well supplied with coffee; the Rebels were not so fortunate. The food available was prepared by a variety of systems. In barracks or permanent camps, the company method predominated. Rations were cooked in quantity in a central building. The steaming buckets contained meat, potatoes, and coffee; and troops lined up with tin plates and cups for their share, plus bread and butter if these were available. KP details were rotated unless there was a permanent kitchen staff. Such a staff was often made up of contraband Negroes. The mess plan of cooking was employed, in the field, four to eight men making up each mess. Every soldier took his turn at cooking for his messmates. This was the usual procedure in semi-permanent tent cities. On the battlefield or on picket duty, it was every man for himself. The soldier made flour-and-water dough when possible. Threading this, along with pieces of meat, on a saber or ramrod, he toasted his dinner over a campfire. Scouts learned to watch for the twinkle of evening fires, a sure sign an enemy detachment was in the neighborhood. To break the monotony of government rations, there was the sutler's store, roughly similar to the modern post exchange. The sutler was a civilian merchant who traveled with the troops by boat or wagon, pitching his tent and hanging up his shingle wherever he could. He sold delicacies: pies, oranges, lemons, fruitcake, liquor, plug tobacco, and cigars. Charging what the traffic would bear, his prices were sky-high. Occasional semiofficial attempts were made by authorities to control sutler prices, but these were of little avail. Sutlers had few friends among the troops, but were suffered for the goods they handled. These traveling merchants were gold mines of gossip, and many were supposed to have acted as spies. Soldiers' privileges included the right to vote. Because of this franchise, they were assiduously wooed by politicians. Party workers traveled from camp to camp with electioneering posters. These were attentively read. Some men were furloughed for the specific purpose of voting. Others cast their ballots in the field. The soldier vote was an important factor in the state elections of 1863 and the presidential election of 1864. Politicians might woo soldiers, but their commanding officers did not. In North and South, minor infractions of rules and regulations were punished in similar ways. Company punishments were planned to produce fatigue and aching muscles. A man might be made to walk a beat, carrying a heavy log along with a ball and chain. Another might stand on a barrel head or ride a sawhorse for hours at a time. "Bucking" was popular with disciplinary officers. The soldier to be bucked sat on the ground with his knees drawn up. His hands, tied together, were slid well over his knees and a stick was run under his knees and over his arms. Bucked men were often gagged as well, a bayonet or stick being placed in the open mouth and secured by ties around the head. Miscreants were tied to trees, or strung by their thumbs from tree branches so the toes barely touched the ground. Others were spread-eagled on spare wheels carried by artillery caissons and left in the sun. Flogging, though forbidden, was often described in contemporary letters. The severity of company punishment was left to the discretion of the commanding officer. Serious offenses such as desertion or cowardice brought court-martial, and such punishments as prison, dishonorable discharge, or death. There was always work to be done. As troops reached the fighting front, drills were forgotten and labor details became more important. Care of the army mule, who provided transportation for equipment and supplies, was a never-ending job. This patient, obstinate beast was cursed, reviled, and abused, but always carefully shod to keep him fit for duty. Soldiers not tending animals worked on fortifications and entrenchments. Making gabions was a typical occupation. The trunks of saplings were joined together and wrapped with pliable branches to make rough cylinders that could be filled with sand. Gabions were placed around cannon to serve as bulletproof armor in front of the gunners. Digging became more important as the war progressed. The individual soldier, who fought over open fields in the beginning, soon began to find safety in the ground. In dangerous territory, commanders threw up defensive earthworks when halts were called. During the great sieges, such as Vicksburg and Petersburg, both sides built complicated defense systems from mud, timber, and sandbags. For their labors in the field, Yank and Rebel were theoretically paid at regular intervals, but the paymasters seldom appeared as scheduled. On the Union side, signing in for pay was an elaborate ceremony that might involve a roll call and review before the pay books were signed. Once this was done, the signatures were taken to Washington for review. At two-month intervals, a money-carrying major was supposed to appear to pay off the men. The sums involved were small. At the war's beginning, a Union infantry private earned $11 per month. He was shortly raised to $13, and in 1864, to $16. His Confederate counterpart started at $11 and received no raise until 1864 when he was given $18. By that time, however, Confederate money was almost worthless. Officers fared somewhat better. A Federal infantry colonel received $95 base pay but was given extra sums for rations and body servants, raising his total to $194.
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