Yesterday`s War

During the war, a lot of time was spent in the camps. Besides drilling all day long, soldiers read books and newspapers, wrote letters to their loved ones at home, went to prayer meetings and revivals, played cards, and visited with the local people. During winter, which was the least active time of all, the men skated, sledded, and held snowball fights. Theodore Winthrop, who fought in the war had this to say about camp life. “It is monotonous, it is not monotonous, it is laborious, it is lazy, it is a bore, it is a lark, it is half war, half peace, and totally attractive, and not to be dispensed with from one`s experience in the nineteenth century.” (Anderson,

So that is what a soldier could choose to do in his free time, but what was a typical day for a soldier? Well to start, you would wake up at five or six o`clock in the morning, and go through roll call. Then you would complete any special orders given to you. Next you would eat breakfast, and a sick call would be taken. This was where any ill personnel would go to the doctors to be given a checkup. Next you cleaned up the camp, and then started the drills. After that came lunch, followed by more drills. Directly following this torture, you would gather with everyone from your regiment to receive any general orders from your commander. Then you ate supper, relaxed until eight-thirty, went through another roll call, and drifted off to sleep.

There were many chores that a soldier was expected to complete. They had to clean their tents, build pathways with logs, take care of the horses, repair their equipment, gather firewood and water, and even guard the camps from an enemy invasion. With all this to do, it is hard to believe that the ...

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... over a fire. After reading what these people had to eat, we should forget about complaining over our food.

The War Between the States started on April 12, 1861; and after four years of bloody war, ended on April 9, 1865. There was no peace treaty, but General Lee did surrender to General

Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. There were 360,000 deaths and 275,000 casualties on the Union side alone. The Southern side lost 258,000 men and some 100,000 men were wounded. Among the death toll, 50,000 civilians died. Before the war, there was only one hospital, but after the war, the North owned 203 and the South contained 150 hospitals! Though part of this dreaded war was over freedom for the blacks, and they gained their freedom, they were not entirely free. Racism was predominant throughout the states, in both the North and

South alike.