There are no doubts that acts of war can have a negative impact on the individuals involved. There are countless stories of the soldiers’ experiences in the war, and how it affected their lives, families, and attitudes. However, there is a large demographic that is hardly accounted for: children, specifically during the Civil War era. Understanding the children that lived in the time of the Civil War is important because it affected their future careers, shaped their attitudes towards race, and affected their home lives, and through this understanding that should be provided by historians, it allows the audience today insight into contemporary issues.
The future careers and ventures of the children who grew up during the Civil War may have been shaped by the way they experienced the events. James Marten suggests “the war could become a foundation for personal beliefs and philosophies as they applied the lessons of war to their careers” (220). This is evident in the story of Anna Howard Shaw, who was a child living in the Civil War. She became a leader of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, but this may have not been the case if she didn’t have an “obvious resentment at being left with her sisters and mother to fend for themselves in the wilds of Michigan by her father and brothers” (220). She was deeply affected by the time of the war because it left her sisters and mother helpless, which may be why she decided to lead the fight for women’s rights. The
Throughout one’s lifetime growth occurs, and the trials and tribulations they face shape their opinions and beliefs of the world. The Death of a Confederate Colonel, written by Pat Carr, shows the hardships Saranell Birdsong, a young girl, experiences and how she conquered her struggles during the Civil War period. Though Saranell’s pain was enough to ruin her emotionally, she was able to overcome and change into a more mature young girl. It is only through tragedy that true growth can take place.
In this historical text, Reluctant Witnesses: Children’s Voices from the Civil War, Emmy Werner retells the events of the Civil War through the eyes of children who are male, female, black, and white. Werner worked to sift through the reactions and experiences of the young men and women who were involved in the Civil War. Each chapter articulates a different portion of the battle and the events during the Civil War. Chapter two, five, six, eight, and nine capture the eye-witness accounts from young soldiers and young women who lived through the Battle of Shiloh, the Battle of Gettysburg, the siege of Vicksburg, the burning of Atlanta, and Sherman’s march to the sea. Chapter three, four, seven, and ten depict the responses the young children had at Andersonville, during the bread riots, the triumph at Washington D.C., and the voices of the former slaves of the south. Werner thrived to increase the knowledge on the involvement of children within the Civil War. Werner’s historical picture was to present the realities children faced on and off the field of battle. Werner’s argument focused on children’s perspective of the Civil War. She supports her claim by providing diary, letter, and journal excerpts from one hundred and twenty children ages four to sixteen, by being focused on their subjective experiences of the hardships they endured and how they managed to cope with them drawing, where appropriate, parallels to the experiences of children in contemporary civil strife.
The Civil War altered the lives of women, in both the North and South, just as it altered the nation as a whole. Although it is irrefutable that both the North and the South felt the wrath of the war, the South encountered a unique set of troubles that caused the weight of the war to fall predominantly on Southern women. Attempting to understand the experiences of all Southern women during the Civil War does not come without its challenges. It is impossible to connect the stories and experiences of all Confederate women without generalizing their history. However, by narrowing the analysis to a singular concentration of middle and upper class
The Civil War altered the lives of women, in both the North and South, just as it altered the nation as a whole. Although it is irrefutable that both the North and the South felt the wrath of the war, the South encountered a unique set of troubles that caused the weight of the war to fall predominantly on Southern women. Attempting to understand the experiences of all Southern women during the Civil War does not come without its challenges. It is impossible to connect the stories and experiences of all Confederate women without generalizing their history. However, by narrowing the analysis to a singular concentration of middle and upper class white-Southern women, there can be greater understanding of the complex relationship between the history of the Civil War and the Southern women who endured it.
president after Lincoln 's death and immediately set the tone for the rest of his
When we think of the Civil War, many think of the sacrifices and influences of the men during this time. Women of the Civil War however, were also active participants of making history. Their lives before the war were that of being proper. Their focus was working to maintain and support their families. The Civil War stole away the life as women knew it and placed them into a whole different role- one that was much more difficult both physically and emotionally. Women of both the North and the South were forced to accept a much different role in order to survive. The Civil War was the first account in history where women had an active role throughout a war. It was their first opportunity to make a difference in our country’s history.
The war produced about 1,030,000 casualties, including about 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease, and 50,000 civilians. The war accounted for roughly as many American deaths as all American deaths in other U.S. wars combined.
One of the key demographics that many say that the South was different from the North would be their means of economic ambiguity. Many saw the North as a purely industrialized region compared to the South as being purely driven by agriculture. However, not all of the North was industrialized as not the entire South was based on agriculture. There were northern farmers who specialized in specific crops that couldn’t be grown in the South, as there were crops harvested in the south that couldn’t
Soldiers of the American Civil War were overwhelmed by a time where weaponry and technological developments were thriving. This brutal war changed the soldiers, both mentally and physically, and continued to have an impact throughout their entire lives. There were not only many deaths during the war, but also prior to the war as many soldiers took their own life. They would experience disturbing thoughts and events in their mind that could not be explained until they became known as mental illnesses. The exploration of psychological disorders following the Civil War improved medical diagnostic tools and the way patients were treated which transformed the treatment of mental illness by creating new ways of discovering illnesses, treating patients, and developing the foundation for the future of psychology throughout America.
A Civil War is a battle between the same citizens in a country. The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865 to determine the independence for the Confederacy or the survival of the Union. By the time Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1861, in the mist of 34 states, the constant disagreement caused seven Southern slave states to their independence from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy, generally known as the South, grew to include eleven states. The states that remained devoted to the US were known as the Union or the North. The number one question that is never completely understood about the Civil War is what caused the war. There were multiple events that led to the groundbreaking, bloody, and political war.
During the 1860s there were many issues and that the Southern and Northern states needed to work on. In 1861 hundreds of thousands of Americans volunteered to fight in the Civil War, also known as the First Modern War. The main causes of this war were the economic and social differences between the North and the South. These differences led to other fundamental issues such as slavery and its abolition. In addition to that as the war was coming to its end, federal authorities found themselves presiding over the transition from slavery to freedom.After the war, there was a 12-year period best known as the Reconstruction and the main goals that it had were to get the Confederate States back into the Union, to rebuilt the Southern economy
When the American Civil War began in the spring of 1861, those flocking to enlistment stations in states both north and south chiefly defined their cause as one of preservation. From Maine to Minnesota, young men joined up to preserve the Union. From Virginia to Texas, their future foes on the battlefield enlisted to preserve a social order, a social order at its core built on the institution of slavery and racial superiority . Secession had not been framed by prominent Southerners like Robert Toombs as a defensive measure to retain the fruits of the revolution against King George, a fight against those who sought to “intrique insurrection with all its nameless horrors.” (Toombs Speech) On January 1, 1863, when Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect the war became a revolution. The Union, the soldiers in blue fought to preserve could no longer exist. On every mile of soil, they would return to the Stars and Stripes from that moment on, the fabric of society would be irrevocably changed. In May of 1865, with the abolition of slavery engrained into the Constitution with the passage of the 13th Amendment, the Confederate armies of Lee and Johnston disbanded, and Lincoln dead of an assassin’s bullet; this change was the only certainty the torn fabric of the newly reunited states was left to be resown. Andrew Johnson and Southern Democrats believed the revolution of 1863 had gone far enough. Radical Republicans and African-Americans sought instead to bring it to
Many Texans contend that the Civil War was not fought over slavery, citing the limited number of slave-owning households in the state. While the majority of Texans did not own slaves, it would be inaccurate to argue that they were therefore against slavery. Texas, representative of other southern states that supported slavery, had a vested interest in preserving the institution at all costs, which is why they risked their lives over it. Moreover, Texans may argue that the civil war was about states’ rights or defense of the southern “way of life.” States’ rights, though part of the equation, played a diminished role as a whole in prompting the Civil War. Furthermore, because it revolved mostly around slavery, the southern “way of life”
In 1861, a horrific war began. Nobody had any idea that this war would become the deadliest war in American history. It wasn’t a regular war, it was a civil war opposing the Union in the North and the Confederate States in the South.. The Civil War cost many people’s lives on the battlefield and beyond. In addition it cost an extreme amount of money for the nation which possibly could have been avoided if the war had turned to happen a little differently.
Abraham Lincoln once stated “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Abraham Lincoln is a hero for the citizens of America because his determination and courage to ending slavery even if it meant war caused peace in this nation. Slavery was the vital cause of the American Civil War. The north and the south both had their differences on how to run the country. People in the North believed in unity and that slavery should not exist because “all men are created equally.” On the other hand, the South believed in continuing slavery. People tried to talk it out and come to a middle ground after both sides compromising, however that didn’t work and caused war. Ideological differences were a vital role to making the American Civil War an inevitable event.