How Common was Hatred Between Union and Confederate Soldiers? (poll)

How Common was Hatred Between Union and Confederate Soldiers?

  • Uncommon

    Votes: 19 28.8%
  • Common

    Votes: 22 33.3%
  • Very Common

    Votes: 6 9.1%
  • Can't Determine / Don't Know

    Votes: 19 28.8%

  • Total voters
    66
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/breaks-in-the-action/

"It is easy to see these truces as moments of humanity, when men demonstrated that despite their differences, something kind and brotherly remained inside them. “They forget that they are enemies and a kind of chivalric honor and courtesy are strictly observed,” meeting “in so friendly a way that one would have thought they were the best and most loving neighbors in the world,” according to The Soldiers’ Journal of Oct. 5, 1864.

But according to Bearss, “the older the war gets, the more the soldiers move toward hatred.” By the time the war moved onto northern soil in Gettysburg, “They really don’t like the sons-of-*****es,” he says of the armies, and the powwowing dropped off."
 
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Firstly define " hatred" in your own words. What specific acts qualify as hatred I.e. shooting prisoners, starving prisoners, torturing prisoners etc. ?
Are you looking for a round percentage number of hatred on each side. @TomdeSon has what would appear to be a similar thread. Lots of posts on said thread.
Are you including counterinsurgency incidents in your thread? Counterinsurgency which both sides engaged in gets real ugly real fast.
Leftyhunter
 
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/breaks-in-the-action/

"It is easy to see these truces as moments of humanity, when men demonstrated that despite their differences, something kind and brotherly remained inside them. “They forget that they are enemies and a kind of chivalric honor and courtesy are strictly observed,” meeting “in so friendly a way that one would have thought they were the best and most loving neighbors in the world,” according to The Soldiers’ Journal of Oct. 5, 1864.

But according to Bearss, “the older the war gets, the more the soldiers move toward hatred.” By the time the war moved onto northern soil in Gettysburg, “They really don’t like the sons-of-*****es,” he says of the armies, and the powwowing dropped off."
The above link for the NYT goes to Viglink. Anyway to bypass that site.
Leftyhunter
 
that's strange not sure why its happening but copying and pasting the link in a browser will bypass it.
OK I will try that. If possible to assist me and other posters please answer at your earliest convenience the answers to my first post.
Thanks ,
Leftyhunter
 
OK I will try that. If possible to assist me and other posters please answer at your earliest convenience the answers to my first post.
Thanks ,
Leftyhunter

alternatively you could do a google search for:

Breaks in the Action by sue eisenfeld FEBRUARY 7, 2014
 
alternatively you could do a google search for:

Breaks in the Action by sue eisenfeld FEBRUARY 7, 2014
Yeah I was able to Google said article. It would be a good article for some of our newer friends not much we don't know for us old salts.
As a general rule hatred is definitely going to be a factor in Unionist regiments vs Confederate regiments and USCT vs any Confederate regiments they are fighting. Insurgency vs counterinsurgency which was a major apart of the ACW is not going to have a lot of Kumbya moments.
In all war " stuff happens" so it's highly recommended to clarify your thread via my original questions if you please.
Leftyhunter
 
How Common was Hatred Between Union and Confederate Soldiers?
If we include Kansas regiments vs Confederate's either soldiers, insurgents or perceived pro Confederate civilians especially post Lawrence Massacre then we will not have a whole lot of Kumbya.
Leftyhunter
 
Firstly define " hatred" in your own words. What specific acts qualify as hatred I.e. shooting prisoners, starving prisoners, torturing prisoners etc. ?
Are you looking for a round percentage number of hatred on each side. @TomdeSon has what would appear to be a similar thread. Lots of posts on said thread.
Are you including counterinsurgency incidents in your thread? Counterinsurgency which both sides engaged in gets real ugly real fast.
Leftyhunter

I'm not talking about simply committing horrific acts, I'm asking the question on a much more basic level.

Did Union and Confederate Soldiers view themselves merely as opponents vying for different objectives, or were feelings much deeper and personal. An intense dislike, hatred, for one and another.
 
I'm not talking about simply committing horrific acts, I'm asking the question on a much more basic level.

Did Union and Confederate Soldiers view themselves merely as opponents vying for different objectives, or were feelings much deeper and personal. An intense dislike, hatred, for one and another.
Also @TomdeSon
Like I stated earlier it depends on the regiment. Regiments assigned to counterinsurgency are not going to be bastions of love and kindness for to long. Post Ft.Pillow massacre being captured by the USCT could be far less then pleasant. USCT soldiers knew that being captured by Confederate soldiers was going to be good. Ditto for Unionist regiments .
Has far had the average soldier not a Unionist not a USCT and not assigned to counterinsurgency ( that's over 300 k men) then the level of hatred is not so bad. Tens of thousands of troops were captured by both sides and not mistreated on the battlefield. Pow Camps now that's a whole other story. So it just kind of depends.
Leftyhunter
 
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I'd say common, even towards the beginning of the war. Tensions had been building for decades, with both sides attitudes going from disagreement, to dislike, then to a pretty big amount of hatred. Now I'm sure soldiers on both sides gained respect for one another in the field, but that doesn't always mean they didn't hate one another. Another thing to consider is that there were large amounts of immigrants in the Union Army, (one source says 25%), and I'd bet their hatred level wouldn't be possible to uniformly guess, they mostly had no part in the arguments that led to the war, but they stuck away from their families because of it, so I'd say it comes down to the individual more than native born Americans.

But something important to consider, is how not very different from today news "media" (I hate to call CW newspapers of any kind "media" such a modern word in that context), was back then, it was very responsible for inflaming attitudes between both sides, along with rumor in the field, and in the newspapers, like today they wanted material that sold big time, and didn't care about truth. That probably cause more hatred than anything in the field.

I would also think Confederates became more hateful than Federals towards the end of the war. The reason for this I would say is the level of destruction wrought in the South, with a few atrocities by Union troops not only making it worse on their own, but being spread, exaggerated, and even told accurately occasionally by Southern newspapers making it worse. I'd say that lead Confederates towards that path, along with wartime defeat and I think it increased at the same time Federal levels stayed the towards the levels it was before say 1864. Of course before anyone says it, I'm not including the "bushwhackers" of Missouri in that calculation, that's a mess we should steer clear of here.

But that's me, but we should all be mindful of the fact that hatred is an emotion, and emotions differ person to person, so its hard to say what all people felt in wartime. Just look at memoirs and journals of men who fought on both sides immediately after the war, and compare them to ones from say thirty years later, there was a big difference, and who knows that may be a clue to how deep the hatred was in the war.

Sadly another clue could conceivably be how decedents of men from both sides feel about the "other side" in comparison the side their ancestors fought for as to the level of hatred in the war, or rather in its aftermath.
It's a difficult question to be sure lol!
 
That's true the sectional crisis fomented to the point that hatred existed before a shot was ever fired.

Now add the war . . .
 
I'd say common, even towards the beginning of the war. Tensions had been building for decades, with both sides attitudes going from disagreement, to dislike, then to a pretty big amount of hatred. Now I'm sure soldiers on both sides gained respect for one another in the field, but that doesn't always mean they didn't hate one another. Another thing to consider is that there were large amounts of immigrants in the Union Army, (one source says 25%), and I'd bet their hatred level wouldn't be possible to uniformly guess, they mostly had no part in the arguments that led to the war, but they stuck away from their families because of it, so I'd say it comes down to the individual more than native born Americans.

But something important to consider, is how not very different from today news "media" (I hate to call CW newspapers of any kind "media" such a modern word in that context), was back then, it was very responsible for inflaming attitudes between both sides, along with rumor in the field, and in the newspapers, like today they wanted material that sold big time, and didn't care about truth. That probably cause more hatred than anything in the field.

I would also think Confederates became more hateful than Federals towards the end of the war. The reason for this I would say is the level of destruction wrought in the South, with a few atrocities by Union troops not only making it worse on their own, but being spread, exaggerated, and even told accurately occasionally by Southern newspapers making it worse. I'd say that lead Confederates towards that path, along with wartime defeat and I think it increased at the same time Federal levels stayed the towards the levels it was before say 1864. Of course before anyone says it, I'm not including the "bushwhackers" of Missouri in that calculation, that's a mess we should steer clear of here.

But that's me, but we should all be mindful of the fact that hatred is an emotion, and emotions differ person to person, so its hard to say what all people felt in wartime. Just look at memoirs and journals of men who fought on both sides immediately after the war, and compare them to ones from say thirty years later, there was a big difference, and who knows that may be a clue to how deep the hatred was in the war.

Sadly another clue could conceivably be how decedents of men from both sides feel about the "other side" in comparison the side their ancestors fought for as to the level of hatred in the war, or rather in its aftermath.
It's a difficult question to be sure lol!
What atrocities did Union soldiers commit other then Ft.Blakely? Even Ft. Blakely was turnabout is fair play for the Ft.Pillow massacre.
Leftyhunter
 
An intense dislike, hatred, for one and another.
counterinsurgency
Lefty, I understand that counterinsurgency is your expertise, but the OP as I understood it is about the common soldier.

Overall, I don't think the common soldiers had any personal hatred toward their counterparts.

Granted, there was no 'love lost'. . .

But the boys, both North and South had more in common with each other than the politicians that started the War.
 
Lefty, I understand that counterinsurgency is your expertise, but the OP as I understood it is about the common soldier.

Overall, I don't think the common soldiers had any personal hatred toward their counterparts.

Granted, there was no 'love lost'. . .

But the boys, both North and South had more in common with each other than the politicians that started the War.

that's true this thread is about the common solider .
 
How Common was Hatred Between Union and Confederate Soldiers?
I went with common, but no idea what you define the categories as, if uncommon is less then 10% and very common is over 90%, I'd assume it was somewhere between personally ...…

I also factor in Radical Republican desire to punish the south postwar, and southern Democrat opposition to it and reconstruction also representing somewhat the view of the common soldiers had received during the war towards the other.
 
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Lefty, I understand that counterinsurgency is your expertise, but the OP as I understood it is about the common soldier.

Overall, I don't think the common soldiers had any personal hatred toward their counterparts.

Granted, there was no 'love lost'. . .

But the boys both North and South had more in common with each other than the politicians that started the War.
Well the thing of it is quite a few soldiers on both sides were engaged in counterinsurgency. Some regiments that's pretty much all they did . I have a pretty good list of said regiments in my thread" compare and contrast Union vs Confederate counter guerrilla operations".
Per one sourced author in my thread one third of all Union Cavalry regiments spent some time in counterinsurgency. Some infantry units were also assigned to counterinsurgency at least part of the time. Some Confederate regiments spent some in counterinsurgency as well. So more then a few common soldiers were assigned to counterinsurgency.
Leftyhunter
 
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