Civil War PTSD

[Old Soldier]

Rates may be up, but as several ACW excerpts others have posted in this thread it is nothing new.

If anything, shooting yourself in the head with a modern firearm is probably more reliably fatal than 1860s firearms.

I can assure you that a .58 or .44 to the head, done properly, does just as much, if not more. as a modern .223 or 9mm

 

[CWdiaryPA]

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.

In case you're not familiar with her work, Somerville may be of interest. This interview, page 6, delves into the exact points you've made. A LOT of pressure on these men about masculinity, proving themselves:

 

[CWdiaryPA]

Suicide is something new. In the past, they never tried to top themselves because they knew it was a sin and the end of their trip to heaven, if they believed what they were told at church. This was always some mental support in the past - and a good reason - GOD'S WILL. If you do not believe - or if you have no religion, there are no rules to follow.

PTSD is YOUR problem, no one else's, and few are likely to bother with you - just another drunken ex-soldier who is a bit 'funny'. They will NEVER understand, because they have NEVER experienced what YOU have been through. They cannot even imagine what you have been through They have never seen their friends and comrades battered and punctured , killed and wounded, by shell and bullet. they have never had to shoot the opponent or stick a bayonet in them. They have NEVER been left on their own with just a few strangers to support them in the danger of the front line.

PTSD rarely happens during the battle, it is always after, when the danger has passed and the adrenaline has eased it's way out of your system and you are relaxing - or trying to relax. That is when the memories return and you react to those happenings. That is when you need good mates and someone to talk to.

Or if at the end of their rope (no pun), it might mean they had to get creative in the act so that their memory/legacy not be shrouded in the word suicide, whether for religious ends, familial reputation, etc. Better to go out "heroic," for instance, taking chances in battle no man in his right senses would, so "brave" is the final analysis rather than gave up. Other ways around it mentioned here. "Crossing the "dead line" was an apparently popular form of committing suicide; this was a perimeter set up...."

Suicide and the Civil War

Historian Kathleen Logothetis Thompson explores mental stress, psychological trauma, and suicide among Civil War soldiers.

www.civilwarmed.org

 

[alan polk]

There is a similar thread on this topic that was begun back in 2016. I posted there my experience with my wife's grandfather who was a World War 2 veteran. He was a stoic, Southern gentleman who opened up to me about the war in private. As it turned out, he had never spoken to anyone else about it. To be honest, it was not a pleasant experience for me. Here it was some 50 years or so after the fact and I saw PTSD up close. I don't think anyone knew just how much he had carried around with him all those years. And to this day, I'm not sure why he opened up to me.

His generation and his particular culture probably put him very near that of Southern veterans of the Civil War. I imagine his post-war experience in Mississippi was not unlike Civil War soldiers (at least from the South) after the war. In short, they suffered in silence.

Anyhow, this is what I wrote back in 2016 about that experience:

Early in college I was assigned a project where I interviewed WWII veterans. So I was pleased when I met my (future) wife's Grandfather who served in the 29th Infantry Div. in Europe.

One Easter I found myself alone with him in the backyard and took the opportunity to feel out a potential interview that I hoped to set up with a recorder, etc. in the future.

He seemed pleased. He had no problems recalling how he joined, where he trained and his time mobilizing in England. Those were mere recollections, memories.

However, he began talking about entering Saint-Lo after it had been bombed by the Allies. Suddenly, he seemed to no longer "recall" events, but was transformed in a way that rather felt to me that he was actually transported there (as if he were there at that very moment). He began to weep and for a very pious man, began using curse words. I tried to change the subject but he insisted that he continue. Again, we were alone. Amidst the weeping and cursing, I was able to hear him talk about having 2 kids of his own back in the states, and when he entered the outskirts of Saint-Lo he saw a half-blown tree among the ruins and in parts of the tree there was a little girl (here I will delete the very graphic description) who had been blown up into the branches. She had remnants of a red dress and blond hair.

He collapsed in a nearby swing and pressed his face into his hands and cried like I had never seen a man cry before. I didn't know what to do so I said nothing. After a bit, he recovered and simply said that they passed through town and the dead girl in the limbs and attacked a German position on a hill. Everyone in his platoon was killed or wounded. They shipped him to England, put him back together, then lovingly sent him back into combat just in time for (what I think) was the Bulge.

He cleared himself, stood erect and we shook hands before going back into the house for Easter dinner. I never asked him about it again.

Whether the memory of the little girl represented Moral Injury or PTSD, I'll never know, but whatever it was it was very real. Whenever I hear people occasionally question whether such things like Shell Shock or PTSD or Moral Injury are real things, I just keep my mouth shut. I just know what I saw and heard from an old warrior close up and in person, and I never want to see that again. They were truly a great generation!! Living with that pain in silence and without help, while living a very upright and honorable life, is about a brave and courageous thing I've ever seen!

 

[Old Soldier]

Whether the memory of the little girl represented Moral Injury or PTSD, I'll never know, but whatever it was it was very real. Whenever I hear people occasionally question whether such things like Shell Shock or PTSD or Moral Injury are real things, I just keep my mouth shut. I just know what I saw and heard from an old warrior close up and in person, and I never want to see that again. They were truly a great generation!! Living with that pain in silence and without help, while living a very upright and honorable life, is about a brave and courageous thing I've ever seen!

it doesn't matter what name you give it or how it became embedded in the mind - a mental shock. It is there - and it isn't going away no matter how you try. It can reappear at any time when you are low and you just have to put up the barriers and stay away from people until you think it is safely hidden again.

Your interview was one of the occasions when that man relived an experience he could not get out of his system. I have this feeling that you were the first, and quite possibly the only, person to hear about it. He had to tell someone, to 'get it off his mind'. Whether it succeded or not is anyone's guess, but I have no doubt that it would have helped him cope with it. Someone had to know. Experiences like that never leave your mind - you just do a good job of not following or being led up the track that leads to that memory. That's what happened in your interview. You gained his confidence to tell all, but went down that track and opened that door. I have no doubt that he witnessed it all again in very vivid, detailed memories. It is why many who took part in these conflicts rarely talk about it, to avoid going down that track again.

You learned about post-conflict depression and the way it screws up emotions - and guilt - the hard way.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Your interview was one of the occasions when that man relived an experience he could not get out of his system. I have this feeling that you were the first, and quite possibly the only, person to hear about it. He had to tell someone, to 'get it off his mind'. Whether it succeded or not is anyone's guess, but I have no doubt that it would have helped him cope with it. Someone had to know.

It underscores the need for people to write down their experiences, whether for others to read someday or not. Your mind is the worst place to keep something. The only thing worse than what you lose up there are the memories you're unable to lose no matter how much you want to. Putting those memories somewhere else is the only real hope of unloading that weight.

People think they can drown unpleasant memories, but memories can swim pretty well.

 

[bdtex]

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

That's probably who @Kathy the history sleuth was referring to above...and yes... great book.

 

[jcs266]

Alcohol

 

[Kathy the history sleuth]

There is a similar thread on this topic that was begun back in 2016. I posted there my experience with my wife's grandfather who was a World War 2 veteran. He was a stoic, Southern gentleman who opened up to me about the war in private. As it turned out, he had never spoken to anyone else about it. To be honest, it was not a pleasant experience for me. Here it was some 50 years or so after the fact and I saw PTSD up close. I don't think anyone knew just how much he had carried around with him all those years. And to this day, I'm not sure why he opened up to me.

His generation and his particular culture probably put him very near that of Southern veterans of the Civil War. I imagine his post-war experience in Mississippi was not unlike Civil War soldiers (at least from the South) after the war. In short, they suffered in silence.

Anyhow, this is what I wrote back in 2016 about that experience:

Early in college I was assigned a project where I interviewed WWII veterans. So I was pleased when I met my (future) wife's Grandfather who served in the 29th Infantry Div. in Europe.

One Easter I found myself alone with him in the backyard and took the opportunity to feel out a potential interview that I hoped to set up with a recorder, etc. in the future.

He seemed pleased. He had no problems recalling how he joined, where he trained and his time mobilizing in England. Those were mere recollections, memories.

However, he began talking about entering Saint-Lo after it had been bombed by the Allies. Suddenly, he seemed to no longer "recall" events, but was transformed in a way that rather felt to me that he was actually transported there (as if he were there at that very moment). He began to weep and for a very pious man, began using curse words. I tried to change the subject but he insisted that he continue. Again, we were alone. Amidst the weeping and cursing, I was able to hear him talk about having 2 kids of his own back in the states, and when he entered the outskirts of Saint-Lo he saw a half-blown tree among the ruins and in parts of the tree there was a little girl (here I will delete the very graphic description) who had been blown up into the branches. She had remnants of a red dress and blond hair.

He collapsed in a nearby swing and pressed his face into his hands and cried like I had never seen a man cry before. I didn't know what to do so I said nothing. After a bit, he recovered and simply said that they passed through town and the dead girl in the limbs and attacked a German position on a hill. Everyone in his platoon was killed or wounded. They shipped him to England, put him back together, then lovingly sent him back into combat just in time for (what I think) was the Bulge.

He cleared himself, stood erect and we shook hands before going back into the house for Easter dinner. I never asked him about it again.

Whether the memory of the little girl represented Moral Injury or PTSD, I'll never know, but whatever it was it was very real. Whenever I hear people occasionally question whether such things like Shell Shock or PTSD or Moral Injury are real things, I just keep my mouth shut. I just know what I saw and heard from an old warrior close up and in person, and I never want to see that again. They were truly a great generation!! Living with that pain in silence and without help, while living a very upright and honorable life, is about a brave and courageous thing I've ever seen!

I have an uncle who committed suicide after the Korean War. His family called it "shell shock".

 

[alan polk]

It can reappear at any time when you are low and you just have to put up the barriers and stay away from people until you think it is safely hidden again.

I think you a right. I interviewed about a dozen or so World War 2 veterans during that time period and got their stories on the record. What I now suspect is that most, if not all, of those who agreed to be interviewed had already taught themselves which experiences to talk about and how to talk about them. I see this more clearly as I've gotten older listening to those interviews again. I don't think my wife's grandfather had any such experience sharing his story.

 

[alan polk]

I have an uncle who committed suicide after the Korean War. His family called it "shell shock".

Very sad.

 

[CWdiaryPA]

Probably everyone's seen the 1993 Sudan famine photo of the Buzzard lurking near the starving boy, for which Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer. Carter, just 33, killed himself 4 months later.

Other photographers too. Subject gets to be too much to process. PTSD can come with all imaginable precipitating events.

Good news is researchers have pointed to a number of healing modalities, or at least ways to lessen effects, such as EMDR, which shows results.

Tetris, too, can help combat vets:

Trauma, treatment and Tetris: video gaming increases hippocampal volume in male patients with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder - PubMed

Tetris may be useful as an adjunct therapeutic intervention for PTSD. Tetris-related increases in hippocampal volume may ensure that therapeutic gains are maintained after completion of therapy.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Tetris used to prevent post-traumatic stress symptoms | University of Oxford

A single dose psychological intervention, which includes using the computer game Tetris, can prevent the unpleasant, intrusive memories that develop in some people after suffering a traumatic event.

www.ox.ac.uk

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

I had a grandfather and a great-uncle who were in WW2. Both were permanently shaken by their experiences.

The former, for more straightforward reasons, by what he'd seen as a medic on Okinawa.

The latter was a chaplain's assistant in France. I don't think it was even the countless dying and maimed young men that he probably tended to that shook him the most, or what men might have confessed to him. He was a highly-intelligent intellectual who studied complicated concepts like game theory, and corresponded with his aunt in Latin simply because they both could. I think it disturbed him most to see great European civilizations behaving as they did, to see the ruins of great European cities.

 

[Old Soldier]

Just to put you lot in the picture (no not Civil War, but illustrates the continual stress of combat):

My grandad fought in WW1 with 14th Battalion Australian Imperial Force. In August 1914, he was one of the first 1,000 volunteers (no draft in Oz) he fought at Galipoli - where he was wounded - Pozieres, Ypres and Bullecourt and stayed with that battalion until late 1918. I never knew him, as he died a few months before I was born. As I have said, he never talked about his experiences. My sister started some family history so I applied to the Australian War Memorial for his documents. Very little information really, but it showed poor but superficial health problems as his service lengthed. I got a unit history and read through it and then his unit's war diary. Both detailed what he went through.

The one that curled my toes, was what happened to his unit - B Coy 14th Bn - on the night of 5/6 August when they went into line at Pozieres, taking over the trenches filled with dead and dying soldiers, and were immediately hit by a long and effective artillery bombardment.

"The men are simply turned in there as into some ghastly great mincing machine. They have to stay there while shell after shell descends with a shriek close beside them, each one an acute mental torture. Every man in the trench has that instant fear thrust upon his shoulders—I don't care how brave he is—with a crash that is physical pain and strain to withstand."

This was followed by a large German infantry attack which they eventually beat back after several counterattacks. His company went into action at midnight, 128 strong. By 3.30am there were only 13 of them left standing. He was one of them.

From the war diary, I worked out that this had happened to him at least 4 times before they finally transferred him to Brigade headquarters as a cook. Imagine being the only survivor of your intake. On Armistice Day in 1920 only 28 of the original battalion were able to parade in Melbourne. He was not one of them as he had opted to be demobbed back home in Britain. He probably felt had no friends left in Australia.

 

[CleburneFanBoy]

If one enjoys books, I recommend Hearts Torn Asunder: Trauma in the Civil War's Final Campaign in North Carolina

The author includes PTSD-related behaviors & experiences from soldiers & civilians on both sides -- during and after the war. The weariness and physical changes caused by exposure are clearly documented and awful to contemplate.
Library, Savas Beatie, or other retailers.

 

[Old Soldier]

Just a note about any 'wartime experiences' in print. Very few written by participants appeared quickly, usually 10 or more years afterwards for reasons which will be obvious by now to anyone following this thread. Im Western, nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) did not appear until 1928; Jacka's Mob (History of the 14th Bn AIF) in 1933; Das Boot (The (U-) Boat) in 1973. All the authors were participants but only Jacka's Mob was a personal history, the others were classed as novels (Romane)

Im Western... sold 2.5 million copies in 22 languages in its first 18 months in print. Remarque also wrote Der Weg zurück (The Road Back - 1931) a novel about the reintegration of war veterans in Germany. Both books were banned from 1933 by the new government in Germany - and burned (!) - as being 'degenerate books'. A number of other European nations, especially the military, banned it too, considering it anti-war.

** Please bear in mind that, as a foreigner, my family was not involved in the American Civil War which is why can only quote these books. However, The Red Badge of Courage, one of the better known, was only published in 1895 - but the author was not a participant. I do not count 'official histories'.

 

[TnFed]

Sirs, I read somewhere - and I wish I could give proper accreditation - that what we now identify as PTSD was the reason why many veterans of both sides left their states at the end of the war and headed west. Wide open spaces, no other human contact unless one seeks it, 'Leave me the heck alone.' And quiet...

Also that the Hollywood representation of bad guys in the post-war west terrorizing everyone was false. If you survived Antietam, Chickamauga, Gettysburg - some clown on a horse with a gun was not going to intimidat

Just a note about any 'wartime experiences' in print. Very few written by participants appeared quickly, usually 10 or more years afterwards for reasons which will be obvious by now to anyone following this thread. Im Western, nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) did not appear until 1928; Jacka's Mob (History of the 14th Bn AIF) in 1933; Das Boot (The (U-) Boat) in 1973. All the authors were participants but only Jacka's Mob was a personal history, the others were classed as novels (Romane)

Im Western... sold 2.5 million copies in 22 languages in its first 18 months in print. Remarque also wrote Der Weg zurück (The Road Back - 1931) a novel about the reintegration of war veterans in Germany. Both books were banned from 1933 by the new government in Germany - and burned (!) - as being 'degenerate books'. A number of other European nations, especially the military, banned it too, considering it anti-war.

** Please bear in mind that, as a foreigner, my family was not involved in the American Civil War which is why can only quote these books. However, The Red Badge of Courage, one of the better known, was only published in 1895 - but the author was not a participant. I do not count 'official histories'.

Sirs, I read somewhere - and I wish I could give proper accreditation - that what we now identify as PTSD was the reason why many veterans of both sides left their states at the end of the war and headed west. Wide open spaces, no other human contact unless one seeks it, 'Leave me the heck alone.' And quiet...

Also that the Hollywood representation of bad guys in the post-war west terrorizing everyone was false. If you survived Antietam, Chickamauga, Gettysburg - some clown on a horse with a gun was not going to intimidate you.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

Agree about Hollywood. As the James, Younger and Dalton lads would find out.

 

[USS ALASKA]

Alcohol

Alcohol's affect on The US Civil War? | Questions? Ask Here! No Stone Left Unturned!

I'm writing a college paper on alcohol's affect on the Civil War and would like and be appreciated for all input. Thanks in advance for all input.

civilwartalk.com

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[General Casey]

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

That might be true at least at an earlier standpoint during the war, but remember, by 1863 when the draft started, you had guys being drafted that weren't really part of the social fabric of the community in which the regiment was raised. Looking at the 28th Massachusetts, you have guys being drafted who are listed as residing in other states, from Germany, France, and Canada. It wouldn't have been hard for anyone of those people to claim stolen valor, as the vast majority of these draftees probably had few ties to the other members of the regiment.

 

[Specster]

Im sure it was a real thing although in that day few people understood it at the most fundamental level. Post war they call morphine addiction (heroin was yet to be invented)...Soldiers Disease...enough said???