Civil War PTSD

[Manassas 1861]

How were cases of ptsd treated during and after the war? I haven't found any info on the subject, so it would be nice to find out.

 

[JackADriscoll]

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Civil War

Compare how soldiers suffering from PTSD have been treated and how they grappled with it from the Civil War into the twentieth century.

www.civilwarmed.org

Here's a nice article. To sum it up they weren't really treated

 

[BCS1973]

I've read through enough pension files to say that it appears that self medication with alcohol was a common treatment.

 

[JackADriscoll]

I've read through enough pension files to say that it appears that self medication with alcohol was a common treatment.

Still is

 

[USS ALASKA]

"My Bruises Are Inward:" A Study of Mental Trauma in the American Civil War
Cody Turnbaugh

Medical papers | Medical Care

University of South Alabama JagWorks@USA Honors Theses Honors College 5-2024 © 2024 Luke Love ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Evolution of Medical Ethics During the American Civil War Luke Love ABSTRACT This thesis will explore the relationship between medical ethics and the American Civil War...

civilwartalk.com

War on the Mind: Trauma and Coping among Union Soldiers and Veterans
Kathleen Anneliese Logothetis Thompson

Medical papers | Medical Care

University of South Alabama JagWorks@USA Honors Theses Honors College 5-2024 © 2024 Luke Love ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Evolution of Medical Ethics During the American Civil War Luke Love ABSTRACT This thesis will explore the relationship between medical ethics and the American Civil War...

civilwartalk.com

HTHs,
USS ALASKA

 

[jackt62]

During and after the CW, medical science and societal awareness were far removed from our current understanding of PTSD. Even into the first half of the 20th century, there was little comprehension of the malady and its treatment, regardless of whether it was called shell shock, battle fatigue, or anything else. Contemporary thinking has raised the possibility that PTSD is in fact a physical disorder, not simply a mental one. In any case, as noted in the prior posts, self-medication was the only real "treatment" during the post-CW era.

 

[Kathy the history sleuth]

There was an author on the CWT Wednesday night presentations that wrote a book about this. I am unsure of the author or name. It makes sense though. The noise and wounds alone were horrific.

 

[MWood1841]

How were cases of ptsd treated during and after the war? I haven't found any info on the subject, so it would be nice to find out.

I've had the impression that behavioral health complications and depression during 19th century were rarely touched on due to sensativity and privacy of the topic with societal and cultural norms at the time. I've always thought that suicide related to prior service and military action occurred more than it was ever reported due to it being something that was just not talked about and kept extremely private amongst families, guarding legacies and honor for family members. 19th century writings about the war often use other subtle words and terms to describe what we know now as PTSD. The term 'soldiers heart' was used to describe physical ailments connected to those associated mental stress conditions.

PTSD was touched on during an earlier thread begining this year regarding Philip St George Cocke.

Thread 'A "Melancholy Suicide": The Death of Brigadier General Philip St. George Cocke'

 

[jackt62]

I've had the impression that behavioral health complications and depression during 19th century were rarely touched on due to sensativity and privacy of the topic with societal and cultural norms at the time.

For sure. Combat during the 19th century was held among much of society to be a glorious undertaking in which a person's "manhood" was tested. Young men (at least in the early part of the war), were hoping to "see the elephant" and be part of the grand spectacle of marching ranks and banners blowing in the wind. Cowardice and dishonor were badges of shame and "real men" were not expected to exhibit fear, doubt, or nervous behavior.

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

I've read through enough pension files to say that it appears that self medication with alcohol was a common treatment.

Yes. Also, many fell back to their religious beliefs for rationalizing their feelings. One of my GG grandfathers lost an arm at the battle of Deep Bottom II, and he was known to pray much more often after returning from the war than before it. He had always attended church regularly, as was common in those days.

 

[Allyn]

Some time ago I worked on a diary written by Pierre Clausse, 13th Regt. PA Reserves (McKean County Rifles). His daily entries for 1862 were usually terse, and kind of repetitive (mud and marching), but one of the entries caught my eye. On 2 May 1862, Pierre reported that "one of Co. G blew his brains out this evening at 10 p.m." I have always wondered if this was PTSD-related.

 

[bankerpapaw]

How were cases of ptsd treated during and after the war? I haven't found any info on the subject, so it would be nice to find out.

Also, how many instances of Stolen Valor was there?

 

[rpkennedy]

I would recommend Brian Matthew Jordan's Marching Home: Union Veterans and their Unending Civil War. It discusses a number of different topics including PTSD and how the veterans dealt with it.

Ryan

 

[JackADriscoll]

Also, how many instances of Stolen Valor was there?

I think due to the way units were constructed being from the same areas stealing valor in your home town was probably a challenge.

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

Also, how many instances of Stolen Valor was there?

Don't know about that, but there were certainly many thousands of legitimate valor at the highest level.

 

[CWdiaryPA]

They belonged to the ruin & nothing could pull them forth but the promise of free air, & the height from a free fall, if just for a moment. Here's a few passages in research that stood out to me. There was a man in my grandfather's Reg't (110th PA Vols) who unceremoniously shot himself seemingly out of the blue one day, after acting like everything was alright. I'll try to find it to post. Meanwhile:

The Secret of Suicide and the Civil War" Brian Hicks Postandcourier.com

"The pressures of war in the 19th century is an area that historically has seen little study. Most historians began to note the mental stress of war during World War I, when troops were said to be shell shocked. And any notion of post-traumatic stress disorder did not come along until the Vietnam War. The first look at this trend came less than 20 years ago, with Eric Dean's book "Shook Over Hell," a treatment of PTSD in the Civil War.

Sommerville said that a study of asylum records, diaries, and newspapers of the day reveal "a virtual epidemic of emotional and psychiatric trauma among Confederate soldiers and veterans."

In the summer of 1861, just as the war was escalating, Lt. C.E. Earle of the Palmetto Guard of the 4th Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers jumped from the sixth floor of a Richmond hotel, killing himself instantly.

And the Rev. Dr. Robert Woodward Barnwell** served as chaplain for a South Carolina Regiment. In June, 1863, not long after writing "Such a sight as that field of slain I never dreamed of. I counted 100 Yankees and 26 horses in one spot," Barnwell asked to be committed. After two days in a Virginia asylum, he flung himself out a second-story window.'"

Living Hell: The Dark Side of the Civil War Michael C.C. Adams P. 200-201

"Veterans suffered nightmare reliving of traumatic events or PTSD, a frequent and debilitating complaint that most civilians failed to understand. The quartermaster of the 5th Indiana Cavalry never recovered mentally from his incarceration in Andersonville. Repatriated, he worked obsessively on building a model of the prison in his backyard, then spent the last twenty-five years of his life in the Indiana Hospital for the Insane."

The Shock of War " Historynet.com/the-shock-of-war Ron Soodalter

"Many prison camp survivors exhibited stressors of PTSD. Erastus Holmes, a quartermaster sergeant of the 5th Indiana Cavalry, bore the classic symptoms for the rest of his life. He was captured by the Confederates in July 1864. After a brief incarceration in Florence, S.C., he was transferred to Andersonville,*** where he endured terrible hunger and slept in a water-soaked hollow in the ground. Not surprisingly, he suffered from various diseases, and at war's end, weighed only 85 pounds– around half of what he had weighed when captured. On his return home, he could barely walk, and according to his sister, "was the poorest looking thing I ever saw." He relived the horrors of his experience over and over, both internally and verbally, constantly talking to himself, gnashing his teeth, tensing his muscles, and suffering "spells" of mental anguish. He created a detailed model of the prison camp in his back yard, repeatedly insisting his neighbors and family tour it. Unable to sleep, he ate obsessively, at all hours of the day and night. According to his daughter, Holmes "would feed all the tramps he could find... it seemed as though he could not bear to see anything that seemed to be hungry." Twenty years after the end of the war, Holmes suffered a complete breakdown, and could remember nothing of what had occurred in his life after Andersonville. He was admitted to the Indiana Hospital for the Insane, where he remained until his death in 1910."

Note that The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference tables "Selected Sickness and Mortality Statistics in the Union and Confederate Armies," while listing itch, nostalgia, inflammation of the brain, inflammation of membranes of the brain, gonorrhea, syphilis, scurvy, and insanity, do not list suicide. Other accounts indicate 13 officially documented suicides among Civil War soldiers from 1861-1865; clearly an undercount by several hundred, if not thousands. Out of 2,128,948 United States' soldiers, and 1,082,119 Confederate States' men, the likelihood a mere 13 noped-out is laughable. Additionally, postwar, 40 Generals & Colonels took their lives (including PA. 111th, Co.l Schlaundecker, in 1907). Most of the suicides happened from the 1870s-1880s, which points to ongoing PTSD. And no, it wasn't called "PTSD" back then. No matter the era's term for it, it was.

A ½ mill Union Vets disabled– a low number which will, some decade in the future, be upgraded; the disability was called "insanity," then upgraded to "shell shock" after World War I. One hundred and fifteen years after Appomattox, PTSD was added to the DSM. For more about soldier mental health & trauma, see Diane Miller Sommerville's Aberration of Mind: Suicide and Suffering in the Civil War Era South.

Aberration of Mind: Suicide and Suffering in the Civil War Era South Diane Miller Sommerville P. Introduction

"Those living in Civil War America used a different lexicon; they remarked about those plagued with "nerves," "melancholy," and "the blue devils." They described extreme or unusual forms of mental illness generally as "insanity" or "lunacy." Medical practitioners tending to Civil War soldiers offered diagnoses like nostalgia and irritable heart, no longer recognized by the medical profession."

June 25, May 11, March 21 are days I delve into PTSD a bit more, if anyone is interested. Plenty more if you do a keyword "suicide" search on my site.

 

[CWdiaryPA]

Some time ago I worked on a diary written by Pierre Clausse, 13th Regt. PA Reserves (McKean County Rifles). His daily entries for 1862 were usually terse, and kind of repetitive (mud and marching), but one of the entries caught my eye. On 2 May 1862, Pierre reported that "one of Co. G blew his brains out this evening at 10 p.m." I have always wondered if this was PTSD-related.

Yeah, these brief accounts when encountered in research are haunting. The below is a one Vermont Colonel Holliday (what a name) who had had enough by Spring, 1862:

We Are In For It! The First Battle of Kernstown Gary L. Ecelbarger P. 229

"On Saturday, April 5, Colonel Holliday rode southward toward Fisher's Hill where his command was stationed. At the stone bridge that crossed Tumbling Run, he dispatched an orderly and his bugler to tell the adjutant to join him, but this was merely an excuse to send the aides away from him. Totally alone and behind his command, Holliday rode farther with a little speed, wheeled his horse to the right on a by-road that led to the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, and dismounted at the riverbank. Holliday then drew a pistol from his belt, placed the muzzle against his forehead, and squeezed the trigger. His lifeless body tumbled backward into the river and gently floated near the men he had commanded up to just minutes earlier."

A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War The Diaries of David Hunter Strother David Hunter Strother P. 26

"APRIL 5, SATURDAY.—Raining.... A militiaman deserter came in and gave us some fresh information. He says Jackson's principal force lies between Rude's Hill and New Market without heavy guns or baggage and is ready for flight. The force is much disorganized, drinking whiskey furiously, scattered along the whole road to Harrisonburg and Staunton.

Was informed that Colonel [Jonas P.] Holliday of the Vermont cavalry had committed suicide, the cause said to be disgust with the bad discipline of his regiment. Colonel Holliday was a regular officer of New York, a tall man with a huge beard and of a melancholy mien, talking rarely and in monosyllables. I was introduced to him three days ago and remarked his sad and speechless demeanor. He ordered his regiment to march and remaining behind lit his pipe and blew his brains out."

Nature's Civil War: Common Soldiers and the Environment in 1862 Virginia Kathryn Shively Meier P. 64

"General Banks confirmed the incident in his official report on April 6th, 1862. "The death of Colonel Holliday was very sudden and very sad. He appeared greatly depressed when here about the condition of his regiment, which was then at Strasburg." Further, "his officers say he had been nearly insane for three weeks, and attribute his depression of spirits to personal disappointments not connected with his profession. I do not know why this may be. His death occurred near Strasburg, while he was near the head of his column. He shot himself in the head, and died without a word." It would be silly to suggest that environmental adversity alone contributed to suicide, but the daily discomfort of soldiering and prolonged separation from loved ones in combination with combat trauma tested the limits of those in poor mental condition.

To sum up this soldier experience in the 1862 Peninsula and Shenandoah Valley campaigns, soldiers perceived nature as tremendously hampering to mental and physical health."

Day 21. March 21, 1862. – We Saw a Grate Smoke Raise Up: Letters, Diaries, Wires from the Valley of the Late Rebellion

jacksonsvalleycampaign.com

 

[Library Lady]

For those who read historical fiction, Dennis McFarland's book Nostalgia is a powerful look at PTSD in the Civil War. If I remember correctly, the protagonist, who has PTSD, is warned about a doctor who prowls the ward periodically looking for patients to take to Turner Lane Hospital where neurological experiments are carried out. One of the officers is convinced that the protagonist is faking not being able to speak and not knowing who he is, so he puts the protagonist under chloroform and forcefully questions him as he's coming out from under. The officer believes that fakers won't be able to keep up the pretense under such circumstances.

The Judas Field by Howard Bahr also deals with PTSD. A survivor of the Battle of Franklin goes back to the scene of the battle with a friend, a girl from his hometown, to help her retrieve the bodies of her father and brother, but long before they get there, he is having flashbacks. Bahr's writing tends to be very direct and very violent. His trio of books tied to the Battle of Franklin would have made great Sam Peckinpah films.

Both books won the Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction, The Judas Field in 2007 and Nostalgia in 2014.

 

[MWood1841]

@CWdiaryPA excellent information and have jotted down the books mentioned. Much Thanks. It has been a CW topic I have had interest in since learning about St George Cocke several years ago and his plantation home where he took his life after 1st Manassas, is not far from where I reside. Unfortunate and extremely sad instances. War is hell. God Bless all Veterans.

 

[rpkennedy]

Yeah, these brief accounts when encountered in research are haunting. The below is a one Vermont Colonel Holliday (what a name) who had had enough by Spring, 1862:

We Are In For It! The First Battle of Kernstown Gary L. Ecelbarger P. 229

"On Saturday, April 5, Colonel Holliday rode southward toward Fisher's Hill where his command was stationed. At the stone bridge that crossed Tumbling Run, he dispatched an orderly and his bugler to tell the adjutant to join him, but this was merely an excuse to send the aides away from him. Totally alone and behind his command, Holliday rode farther with a little speed, wheeled his horse to the right on a by-road that led to the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, and dismounted at the riverbank. Holliday then drew a pistol from his belt, placed the muzzle against his forehead, and squeezed the trigger. His lifeless body tumbled backward into the river and gently floated near the men he had commanded up to just minutes earlier."

A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War The Diaries of David Hunter Strother David Hunter Strother P. 26

"APRIL 5, SATURDAY.—Raining.... A militiaman deserter came in and gave us some fresh information. He says Jackson's principal force lies between Rude's Hill and New Market without heavy guns or baggage and is ready for flight. The force is much disorganized, drinking whiskey furiously, scattered along the whole road to Harrisonburg and Staunton.

Was informed that Colonel [Jonas P.] Holliday of the Vermont cavalry had committed suicide, the cause said to be disgust with the bad discipline of his regiment. Colonel Holliday was a regular officer of New York, a tall man with a huge beard and of a melancholy mien, talking rarely and in monosyllables. I was introduced to him three days ago and remarked his sad and speechless demeanor. He ordered his regiment to march and remaining behind lit his pipe and blew his brains out."

Nature's Civil War: Common Soldiers and the Environment in 1862 Virginia Kathryn Shively Meier P. 64

"General Banks confirmed the incident in his official report on April 6th, 1862. "The death of Colonel Holliday was very sudden and very sad. He appeared greatly depressed when here about the condition of his regiment, which was then at Strasburg." Further, "his officers say he had been nearly insane for three weeks, and attribute his depression of spirits to personal disappointments not connected with his profession. I do not know why this may be. His death occurred near Strasburg, while he was near the head of his column. He shot himself in the head, and died without a word." It would be silly to suggest that environmental adversity alone contributed to suicide, but the daily discomfort of soldiering and prolonged separation from loved ones in combination with combat trauma tested the limits of those in poor mental condition.

To sum up this soldier experience in the 1862 Peninsula and Shenandoah Valley campaigns, soldiers perceived nature as tremendously hampering to mental and physical health."

Day 21. March 21, 1862. – We Saw a Grate Smoke Raise Up: Letters, Diaries, Wires from the Valley of the Late Rebellion

jacksonsvalleycampaign.com

Colonel Holliday graduated 24th in the West Point class of 1850.

Ryan