A Case of PTSD?

[John Hartwell]

We've had threads before about post traumatic stress among Civil War soldiers. This sounds very much like an example.

Henry A. Walton was a private in Battery D, 1st Illinois Light Artillery:

Duluth News Tribune, Sept. 9, 1907​

How many times was that tale repeated in the years following the war? How many men were just so "damaged" that they were unable to reconnect with their families ... with normal, civil life, and simply disappeared? It is well known that those years saw the beginning of the "Hobo" subculture, with hundreds, even thousands of rootless men dropped out society, "riding the rails" in anonymity for the rest of their lives.

Clearly, Henry A. Walton was such a man. Walked out on his wife and child to spend his last 30 years living the life of a hermit. Sad for him, but also a tragedy for the family he left behind. Even when found, years later, he disappeared again rather than return.

 

[ANVReb]

A sad tale indeed. And as you say it was symbolic of the suffering that followed 100's of thousands years after the war. Needless to say, CSA soldiers and families faced especially painfully circumstances as they lacked not only pensions, but basic sustenance. Let us honor all on memorial day.

 

[John Hartwell]

And, sometimes the damage done to men by the experience of war, while nonetheless obvious, comes out in different, more benign ways.

[from the Biloxi Daily Herald, July 22, 1900]​

This unnamed veteran, (a Billy or a Johnnie?, we don't know; it doesn't matter) suffered, clearly … but he also had a good heart, and that made his damaged life something very different.

Perhaps, too, this is PTSD?

 

[ANVReb]

Thanks JH for another example that continues to reach across time to inspire and humble. The mind is a powerful mystery. "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he" -Proverbs

 

[lelliott19]

Thanks @John Hartwell for sharing these stories. The first one is incredibly sad, but the second is inspirational! Even when we have little left to offer, there is such value in what we can provide. Thank you.

 

[BillO]

Of course it is entirely possible he suffered from any number of mental illnesses before he went into the army.