I think a lot depends on your definition of "returned home." Does it mean they make it to their actual houses? In a hospital in their home state? While being transported back to their place of origin? At a parole camp? It's a pretty vague term.
Life was tough back then to begin with. Peoples diets weren't the best and add to that all kinds of diseases. Then the war comes along and you find yourself in absolutely the worst circumstances imaginable but then it gets worse. You're a POW living in fetid conditions without shelter, barely clothed, and subject to torrential rain, freezing cold, heat and humidity that would make a pig sweat, and with hardly any food at all. Your body and your brain are totally traumatized and then you're free. All of the above mentioned come into play and your body and mind can't handle it. If you don't kill your self from PTSD your body will.
I'm also unaware of a general assumption that (all, most, many?) POWs died shortly after they returned home. What information prompted your question? (Just asking - that isn't intended to be confrontational
)That's what got my attention @lupaglupa. Who is assuming POWs died soon after returning home? If true, why would this be surprising given the reasons @CavRTO stated and more?
You're probably right, but we'll never know for sure. I tried to imagine from I've read, what it must've been like for returning POW's given what life was like back then. There was no psychiatric help, and medicine and health habits were still primitive. If you look at reports of POW and death camp survivors from WWII, especially those held by the Japanese, that without modern medicine and an understanding that a rapid infusion of food can kill people whose bodies were traumatized by their captivity would it not be possible that a good number of civil war POW's succumbed shortly after release? We'll never know for sure.
Being a native East Tennessean, I had relatives on both sides that died while prisoners of war. This is the one definitive work on the Civil War prison experience in my opinion. He pulls no punches for either side.
My definition of "returned home" means actually making it home to family and friend, the place they left when they signed up to fight.
I realize that life was tough even before the war but I'm looking for specifics on why it is assumed that being a POW shortened their lifespan.
My paternal 2 x gr grandfather from Wilkes County, NC was a 40-year-old father of seven, He was conscripted in Feb.1864. After about a month of training, he was sent to the front in Virginia. He managed to survive the Overland Campaign and Seige of Petersburg. He was captured on April 2, 1865, when the Confederate lines were broken. He was confined in the last Civil War prison camp at Hart Island, NY. until mid-June 1865. He was furnished rail transportation to probably Wilkesboro where he walked to his home in the Brushy Mountains. He died sometime in the early 1900s. Applied for a pension on June 13, 1901. He must have been a tuff old ridge runner.
What is this assumption from? You keep saying "it is assumed".......by who and in what context.
It has been a topic of discussion at many of the Civil War roundtables I have attended over the years as well as from monitoring chats in a variety of Civil War social media platforms.
Lots of discussions with people at CW roundtables as well as discussions on social media platforms.I'm also unaware of a general assumption that (all, most, many?) POWs died shortly after they returned home. What information prompted your question? (Just asking - that isn't intended to be confrontational
civilwartalk.com
www.uclahealth.org
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
That's interesting- thanks for sharing.As often happens, I find (possibly) interesting things while specifically looking for something entirely different. In this case, it is a fairly recent study out of UCLA that shows that the lifespans of the sons of Civil War POWs were shortened compared to those of the sons of soldiers who were not POWs. And yes, the writing style is what you would expect from a research study/clinical trial (and so is the math).
Intergenerational Transmission of Paternal Trauma Among US Civil War Ex-POWs
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1803630115
This is UCLA Health's translation for the rest of us (especially the math challenged):
Civil War data reveals that fathers' trauma can be passed on to sons
Although the study analyzed information dating back to the mid-19th century, the findings could have important implications for human health today.
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