Which side?

[pvt gauss]

Had two brothers [ancesters-duh] from Boyle Co. KY. One fought secesh{5th KY Inf.Mtd] and the other who fought Federal[5th KY. Inf. Union]. in thier letters home to their father each always asked about the welfare of the other "dear father have you heard of Henry is he well? is he alive"etc. fighting on either side was not always about politics. Seems to me I read somewhere of a blueboy asking a butternut pow why he was fighting the reb answered "cause your down here".

[rbenne]

In spite of neils comments I like to think I know what i would have done, assuming I was still the me I am today back then. I would have agrued and demonstrated against the war, told everone who would listen that the war was wrong and the south had a right to go, then enlisted in the Union Army.

Hell replace CW with Vietnam and thats exactaly what I did

[Johnny Rube]

One of the things that makes this war different from all other wars I've ever read about (and I admit I haven't done an exhaustive study of any of them) was the fact that (as was earlier mentioned on this thread), under all the battle rage was the recognition that they were "brothers." (Not necessarily blood brothers) and there was often fraternizing between two armies at rest, and even reports of soldiers on either side standing up in the midst of battle, cheering the other side because they recognized and admired the bravery with which they fought.

Can you even imagine an American soldier In WWII standing up and cheering the Germans?

[larry_cockerham]

A young man in 1861 or later looking for a regular pay check, a replacement for his boots, or a new blanket and clothes to withstand better the brutal winters, would have perhaps opted for the US Army. His southern counterparts weren't so fortunate. The Army of Tennessee had no payroll after the assembly at Dalton, Georgia in the spring of 1864. Food had to be found or otherwise acquired. That's why there are no fat re-enactors in the Brady photographs! Did this have anything to do with sentiment or as Steven mentioned earlier, the simple fact of which army had armed representatives staring in your fact at the time? Not a bit. Lots of common soldiers joined the war and learned it was a war far too soon thereafter.