Civil War Letters By Sachin Katyal

A Collection of Letters from Confederate Soldiers

From the diary of William Chegg of Louisiana, a Confederate soldier in the 2nd Louisiana Infantry, July 4, 1861

A confederate soldier talks about the excitement that the soldiers feel as the are about to enter a battle. They want to fight against the Union as he truly believes that the creation of the Union was just an experiment; the true countries are the ones being formed in this war.

A letter from Edward Ward of Tennessee, a Confederate officer in the Shelby Grays, a company of the 4th Tennessee Infantry, written from Tupelo, Miss., to his sister Elmira Ward, June 14, 1862.

The impact of the war is already apparent on this soldier. He hates every part of this war and says that he would have to locked in an insane asylum than fight in this war. He despised the war so much that he even said he would rather be a slave than to keep fighting.

A letter from Confederate soldier John P. Nugent in Tennessee to his mother, Ann, in Louisiana, November 18, 1862

This soldier talks about how because he lost his shoes, he has been walking barefoot for over 200 miles. On top of this, he has diarrhea, and that the number of people that are in the camp are slowly dwindling. He just wishes he could go home and return back to good health. 

A letter from Maxine Jones in Tennessee to her husband, Alfred, a surgeon in the Confederate army, December 31, 1862

This soldier talks about not only how he fears for his own life, but he fears for the life of this friends. He's scared, in pain, and anxious to find out. He just wishes he could go back home.

A letter from Confederate soldier A.D. Clifton to his family in Mississippi, June 23, 1864

Again, this soldier writes about the pain he is going through. His arm and his body is injured and wish to see his family again. He prays to God that He will keep him safe and let him survive as he goes through the war.


These collection of letters written during the Civil War all written by soldiers of the Confederacy show how these soldiers felt about the war. It is widely considered that the morals that formed the basis of the Confederacy do not match the morals in the modern day society. While some of the soldiers show examples of enthusiasm when entering the war, fighting for something they truly believe in, there were many who, even by the second year of war, were ready to go home and stop fighting. The soldier in the second letter above even states that he would rather be a slave than be fighting in war. This not only shows the fighting spirit of soldiers during the Civil War, but many other wars.Citizens and soldiers, similar to World War II, were excited to enter a war and fight for something they believe in. As the gruesome and horrific aspects of the war break out, this eagerness comes to an end. Even though many soldiers hated fighting in the war, why did they continue to fight anyways? How might this idea of subsiding passion be applied in other areas outside of war?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
\ \ https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/vote-no-on-womens-suffrage-bizarre-reasons-for-not-letting-women-vote/264639/ After reading The Atlantic, the reason many "voted no" to the idea of giving women the right to vote in the first place is because 90% of women either "did not want it" or did" not care." I'm not exactly sure why many women didn't care. This may be due to the culture of that time where women mainly stayed inside the house, so possibly many of the politics that they would be voting for would not have an effect on them. The Atlantic continued to state that 80% of women eligible to vote are married. As a result, many of the women would just be emulated the husband's vote having essentially net effect of zero in voting percentages. The article then continues on to say that giving women the opportunity for women to vote would result in competition between men and women ins...
Read more

American Indian Alcoholism

Image
One of the most pressing issues in Native American society is alcoholism. Around 42% of Native Americans that start to abuse alcohol, will continue to do so the rest of their life. On top of this 12% of all Native American deaths are due to alcohol use. The most common deaths by alcohol include traffic accidents driving under the influence and liver disease, which contribute to over 25% of alcoholic-related deaths. This is over 3 times the national average at 3.3%. Not only does this affect the lives of themselves, but alcohol is a major part in many other afflicting issues, like violence, rape, and suicide.  Native American Alcoholism Prevalence Compared to Other Races American Indians, unlike other cultures that have been in contact with the consumption of alcohol for thousands of years, have only been in contact with alcohol for a few hundreds of years. As a result, in comparison to the rest of the world, Native Americans have had less time for their bodies to deve...
Read more
Progress:  Progress is the development or movement to an end goal. From my knowledge, the Progressive Era is the time period between the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 1920's that is know for the social reformed and political activism.  The Progressive Reforms addressed the economic, political and cultural questions that came with the new age of Industrial revolution, eliminating problems caused by  industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and corruption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era 1. Corruption 2. Urbanizations 3. Industrialization 4. Imigration
Read more