AMERICANS’ VIEW OF DEATH DURING CIVIL WAR
The Civil War was the bloodiest conflict in the history of America. The soldiers who died between 1861 and 1865 are estimated to be approximately 620,000, a number that was very high compared to any other war in American history. Peoples’ approach towards death is shaped by culture, history and other conditions that vary with time. During the mid-nineteenth century, Americans’ views and attitudes towards death was greatly influenced by the Civil War. Death was a familiar occasion to many American during the Civil War. Civil War shifted the way Americans assumed about the proper ending of life, who should die and when, and under what circumstances.
The Civil War killed everyone, including the infants, young, and healthy men through disease and injury. Soldiers were five times likely to die on the battlefield than other civilians (Pearcy, 2014). Younger people were dying more during the War than any other time and the circumstances under which they died also changed. The changes about who died, when, and under what circumstances changed the Americans’ previous perceptions of who should die and the circumstances that lead to death.
During the Civil War, almost all families mourned the loss of a family member or loved ones. Death was the most shared experiences during the War since almost everyone shared its proximity and threat. People became more united without discrimination on the bases of race and nationhood. The War had created what Fredrick Law described as the ‘republic of suffering’. The War required the government to meet the needs of the people that had died in service. The government established national cemeteries for the fallen soldiers and pension scheme to take care of the dead and survivors of the War (Pearcy, 2014). Therefore, the deaths that occurred during the Civil War facilitated the modern union among Americans.
Death also made many Americans develop a new sense of who they were, thus inspiring self-scrutiny and self-realization. Death had brought social, political, spiritual and philosophical changes. African-American viewed death and willingness to kill as a means to win American citizenship and equality. Americans were also seeking the religious and philosophical meaning of the deaths and the destruction caused by the Civil War.
The initial idea about ‘good deaths’ was also changed by the Civil War. Unlike the previous years where people died surrounded by their families, during the Civil War people died in the arms of comrades and doctors, or disappeared without a trace (Marshall, 2014). Soldiers and their families lost hopes of the idea of good death during the War as many died on the battlefield away from their loved ones.
With death being displaced from its natural setting, family context, a new social and civil alchemy emerged. Death and mourning shifted from being a private family affair to a national issue, with people unknown to the dead attending confederate funerals. The impersonal connection independent of family ties and friendship was a vital aspect of understanding death and the massacre caused by the Civil War.
The traditional belief of life after death and resurrection on the day of judgement was beginning to appear unlikely to many Americans who had witnessed the maiming of people during the War. Believe about the existence of an afterlife and its nature made soldiers more anxious about their death and their fate once they died. With the disfiguration and maiming during death, many soldiers and their families began to doubt the idea of an afterlife and bodily resurrection.
In conclusion, the Civil War significantly shaped the Americans’ interaction with death and its effects. The initial idea of when and where death should occur changed and the idea of an afterlife was becoming implausible. More young people were dying every day away from their families, and the concept of good death began to diminish.
References
Marshall, N. (2014). The great exaggeration: death and the Civil War. Journal of the Civil War era, 4(1), 3-27.
Pearcy, M. (2014). “We have never known what death was before” US history textbooks and the Civil War. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 38(1), 45-60.