The Common Soldier's Motivation

yankee hoorah

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What was the common troopers motivation to assault a heavily fortified position where more than likely they knew they were going to be killed ? Or why would Confederates enlist for sevice when South Carolina was the only Confederate state ? If no other states seceeded the war would have lasted only months. I just wonder why they would give up all hope for a war they were sure to losse by mid 1863. Still the Confederate troops were still in action. Please help me to understand this.


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I wouldn't enlist in 1863-64. Which through several sources men were still enlisting for the south.
It seemed pointless. I understand about the cowardice thing.
 
I wouldn't enlist in 1863-64. Which through several sources men were still enlisting for the south.
It seemed pointless. I understand about the cowardice thing.

At that point in the war a lot of folks were probably staring to question the wisdom of secession. But the Civil War was a grand scale feud within the American nation, and we are a fiercely loyal and stubborn people.
 
Which was the original understanding of massing men together from the same locations. When you're shoulder to shoulder with people you grew up with or even related too, that would help to bolster the spirit of those wishing to turn and run and continue forward even in the face of certain death. But that theory took a huge toll on communities and regions which was why it was eventually stopped and now units are now all mixed, at least I've read that is the reasoning.
 
Which was the original understanding of massing men together from the same locations. When you're shoulder to shoulder with people you grew up with or even related too, that would help to bolster the spirit of those wishing to turn and run and continue forward even in the face of certain death. But that theory took a huge toll on communities and regions which was why it was eventually stopped and now units are now all mixed, at least I've read that is the reasoning.
That makes sense
 
By 1863-4, desertion had become a huge problem. Patriotism has a funny way of falling to the wayside when you're hungry, shoeless and ordered to march 25 miles a day to be dashed against earthworks. By that stage of the war, the shirkers were long gone; real men were what remained. Americans, then as now, are a proud people who don't like to lose. Given the proper food and equipment, which was denied due to a lack of centralization of supplies and provisions (many Confederate Governors would not allow products from their state to be given to troops from other Confederate states), the C.S.A. would have been a very real possibility. The hard core believers kept faith in that.
 
I wouldn't enlist in 1863-64. Which through several sources men were still enlisting for the south.
It seemed pointless. I understand about the cowardice thing.

It's like dialogue I once heard in a movie...

Calvera: What I don't understand is why a man like you took the job in the first place, hum? Why, heh?

Chris: I wonder myself.

Vin: It's like a fellow I once knew in El Paso. One day, he just took all his clothes off and jumped in a mess of cactus. I asked him that same question, "Why?"

Calvera: And?

Vin: He said, "It seemed to be a good idea at the time."
We may look back on it and say its crazy and pointless, but at the time it might have seemed to be a good idea, and idea driven by honor, pride, patriotism, glory, or some other driver of human nature.
 
Everyone here is likening the Confederate effort to a Japanese banzai attack.

It was a lot closer than that. As long as the South maintained armies in the field and some basic level of support by the population, it had a chance to succeed. I recommend that you read the first chapters of Albert Castel's Decision in the West, which maintains that things were very much up in the air as of the spring of 1864.

I personally don't think it became hopeless until September 1, 1864. That was the day Atlanta surrendered.
 
Everyone here is likening the Confederate effort to a Japanese banzai attack.

It was a lot closer than that. As long as the South maintained armies in the field and some basic level of support by the population, it had a chance to succeed. I recommend that you read the first chapters of Albert Castel's Decision in the West, which maintains that things were very much up in the air as of the spring of 1864.

I personally don't think it became hopeless until September 1, 1864. That was the day Atlanta surrendered.
Alright, before I read what did the book say about spring 1864.
 
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This it ?
 
I wouldn't enlist in 1863-64. Which through several sources men were still enlisting for the south.
It seemed pointless. I understand about the cowardice thing.

There was a big difference between the men who enlisted in 1863-1864 and the men who enlisted in 1861-1862. The men who enlisted in 1861-1862 did it largely for the reasons others have listed above. But by 1863-1864 we're left with men who chose not to enlist in 1861-1862. Many of these men were conscripted, or felt the fear of conscription. But there were also boys who had just reached enlistment age and had been longing to become part of the "glory and adventure", and there were men who saw enemy troops coming for the first time into their states and neighborhoods.
 
Before the attack at Franklin, Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne said to Brig. Gen. Daniel C. Govan "Well, Govan, if we are to die, let us die like men."

I think those words there pretty much state what many men, on both sides, thought when they had to attack a fortified position, knowing their chances of survival were slim. Just like mostly any soldier in any war, these men had a general sense of duty, not just to their country or their cause, but the men around them most of all. There's no doubt they were scared, (as the saying goes, "Any soldier who says he's not scared is either a liar or dead") but they were going to go down fighting with their fellow comrades.

The typical ACW regiment was made up of companies, each made up of men who all came from generally the same county or town. Family members and fellow neighbors often enlisted in the same company at the beginning of the war and fought together. Perhaps the soldiers back then were even more tightly knit than those of the 20th or 21st century. I think that alone kept many men fighting for so long.
 
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Before the attack at Franklin, Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne said to Brig. Gen. Daniel C. Govan "Well, Govan, if we are to die, let us die like men."

I think those words there pretty much state what many men, on both sides, thought when they had to attack a fortified position, knowing their chances of survival were slim. Just like mostly any soldier in any war, these men had a general sense of duty, not just to their country or their cause, but the men around them most of all. There's no doubt they were scared, (as the saying goes, "Any soldier who says he's not scared is either a liar or dead") but they were going to go down fighting with their fellow comrades.

The typical ACW regiment was made up of companies, each made up of men who all came from generally the same county or town. Family members and fellow neighbors often enlisted in the same company at the beginning of the war and fought together. Perhaps the soldiers back then were even more tightly knit than those of the 20th or 21st century. I think that alone kept many men fighting for so long.
I think Franklin is a great example of the determination and grit of the men of the South. By that stage of the war ALL of the men present knew what would happen. But they did it anyway. To attack an enemy anchored on terrain like that after giving them time to fortify borders on ludicrous, even today. Hood was crazed to order that attack, and Cleburne knew it. But, again, they did it anyway. That's dedication right there.
 
I think Franklin is a great example of the determination and grit of the men of the South. By that stage of the war ALL of the men present knew what would happen. But they did it anyway. To attack an enemy anchored on terrain like that after giving them time to fortify borders on ludicrous, even today. Hood was crazed to order that attack, and Cleburne knew it. But, again, they did it anyway. That's dedication right there.
Right, those men had attacked a fortified position before in the Atlanta Campaign and had been through numerous battles and skirmishes, though they still went at it again at Franklin. I think there was a camaraderie among those troops that was unbreakable - something that would only develop in the type of situation that they had been through. I've read accounts of civilians and survivors of Franklin speak of groups of men the next morning huddled around their fellow dead and dying comrades, "weeping like women." They were hardened veterans who had seen battle dozens of times before, but to them, those men were their family and they would fallow them anywhere.
 
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