Sleeping Under Fire

[Cavalry Charger]

'REM sleep is the period in which people dream most often and most vividly. Usually REM is the fifth stage of sleep occurring in each cycle (following four non-REM stages, the first of which is nodding off). However, people who have been deprived of REM sleep often jump directly into the REM stage and begin dreaming as soon as they doze off...It is not the typical state of affairs for human adults.

However, it is likely that Civil War soldiers experienced dreams early in their sleep precisely because of how tired and stressed they were. In fact, soldiers often described dreaming the moment they fell asleep. One example will suffice to demonstrate the point here.

During the Overland Campaign in 1864, two exhausted New Hampshire soldiers fell asleep next to each other during the fighting at Spotsylvania Courthouse-only to wake up a few minutes later when one of their comrades was shot and cried out in pain. The two awakened men looked at each other and recounted their dreams. Both had dreamed of going home to see their families, and one remaked, "I wish it were all real".

What seemed notable to these soldiers was not that they had dreamed, but that they had slept under fire. One of them wrote after the war that "it may seem incredible" to civilians that soldiers could fall asleep while under fire from the enemy. But the soldiers were "so completely worn out by toil, watching, and anxiety," he wrote, "that the moment we stopped and lay down we went to sleep in spite of every effort to keep awake".

From a modern scientific perspective, however, it may be more significant that they had dreamed. Their dreaming under fire reveals just how physically and mentally exhausted the troops had become. In their exhausted sleep they almost instantly fell into stage REM, which, again, is normally a later sleep stage more conducive to blocking out the world...

It is worth noting that these two soldiers had both experienced pleasant dreams of home, with one of them even voicing his desire for the escape of sleep.'

Midnight in America - Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams During the Civil War, Jonathan W. White

Does anyone know of any other instances of soldiers falling asleep while under fire, or in other unusual circumstances during the war?

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

No one get excited, please, if I bring up Killer Angels. I have no idea if Shaara took this from Chamberlain's writings ( it's been awhile ), that he fell asleep, exhausted during the bombardment Day 3 at Gettysburg. Shaara used quite a few facts to scatter around Chamberlain that day- if that one is true, be good to know?

I can see where the mind would get so overwhelmed it forces a kind of shut down. Someone posted there was a difference between what Civil War vets endured compared to modern wars and it's nonsense. Exhaustion, horror, shock and trauma have no degrees.

What a fascinating thread albeit makes you aware what they went through. Romantic, no.

 

[GS]

From a clinical viewpoint, when people are sleep-deprived and finally fall to sleep, their dreams are generally not sweet, but nightmarish, as if they'd been drugged. One example is what we call "fever dreams", when illness has deprived one of restful sleep. For these two men both to have had pleasant dreams, under those conditions, was surely Divine intervention.

 

[diane]

Streight's men, near the end of their raid, fell asleep under fire. They laid down to shoot at Forrest's troops...and fell right asleep! They passed go and did not collect the 200 dollars, either - Streight and his officers could not rouse them and said they were like dead men. A critical part of Forrest's strategy with these Union troops was to never let them or their mules rest. He rotated his men - some slept briefly while the others went on - but Streight didn't do this because he couldn't find a safe couple minutes. He was the pursued, not the pursuer. It seemed that if he could have gotten even a ten minute nap to his men, they would have done a lot better.

 

[Jimklag]

But the soldiers were "so completely worn out by toil, watching, and anxiety," he wrote, "that the moment we stopped and lay down we went to sleep in spite of every effort to keep awake"

My uncle, who served in the 101st Airborne in WWII, said you could always tell veterans from green soldiers. The green soldiers were eating and the veteran was sleeping. He said they could eat while marching but they learned to get shuteye at every halt in the march.

 

[AUG]

The fallowing in from The Story of the Sherman Brigade by Wilbur F. Hinman, p. 545:

The opposing lines [at Kennesaw Mountain and throughout the Atlanta Campaign] were near each other at many points and an irregular fire was kept up almost continuously. Our "pup" tents were usually pitched directly in rear of the breastworks. One brigade of each division, by turn, was permitted to retire to the second line, out of range, several hundred yards back, twenty-four hours at a time, to rest, cook and wash.

One day Lieutenant Joseph F. Sonnanstine, of the Sixty-fifth [Ohio], was lying tinder his little shelter trying to get a nap. A stray bullet struck one of the sticks supporting his tent and broke it squarely off, the tent falling upon him. "I wish those fellows would let me sleep!" he said, in his cool, inimitable way, as he crawled out from the wreck. He went a short distance into the woods and in a few minutes came back with another forked stick, and in a "jiffy" his tent was up again. "There," he exclaimed, as he lay down, "I don't believe they can hit that. They say lightning never strikes twice in the same place, and I don't think bullets do, either! "

After sleeping soundly for a couple of hours he rolled out with a broad smile on his genial face. "Boys," said he, "I just dreamed I was at home. I thought I pitched and tossed about half the night, but couldn't sleep a wink. Then I hired a boy to shoot at me and I was sound asleep in five minutes. I guess we will all have to do that when we get home--if we ever do!"

 

[major bill]

I have slept during missile attacks. I did put in early plugs to help muffle the air raid siren.

 

[Cavalry Charger]

The fallowing in from The Story of the Sherman Brigade by Wilbur F. Hinman, p. 545:

The opposing lines [at Kennesaw Mountain and throughout the Atlanta Campaign] were near each other at many points and an irregular fire was kept up almost continuously. Our "pup" tents were usually pitched directly in rear of the breastworks. One brigade of each division, by turn, was permitted to retire to the second line, out of range, several hundred yards back, twenty-four hours at a time, to rest, cook and wash.

One day Lieutenant Joseph F. Sonnanstine, of the Sixty-fifth [Ohio], was lying tinder his little shelter trying to get a nap. A stray bullet struck one of the sticks supporting his tent and broke it squarely off, the tent falling upon him. "I wish those fellows would let me sleep!" he said, in his cool, inimitable way, as he crawled out from the wreck. He went a short distance into the woods and in a few minutes came back with another forked stick, and in a "jiffy" his tent was up again. "There," he exclaimed, as he lay down, "I don't believe they can hit that. They say lightning never strikes twice in the same place, and I don't think bullets do, either! "

After sleeping soundly for a couple of hours he rolled out with a broad smile on his genial face. "Boys," said he, "I just dreamed I was at home. I thought I pitched and tossed about half the night, but couldn't sleep a wink. Then I hired a boy to shoot at me and I was sound asleep in five minutes. I guess we will all have to do that when we get home--if we ever do!"

"Some soldiers even grew to need such noises in order to sleep. One Union solider remarked in 1863, "the silence was so unusual that many in camp, accustomed to hear the incessant reports of heavy guns and mortars, the hawl of shot and the bursting of shells, felt that there was something needed to make it possible to sleep soundly". Others became "nervous and restless" when "the regular nightly cannonade was suspended," remarking tht the thunder of cannons had become "almost a necessity" to the weary men. One soldier asked, "What will the soldier do when he returns to his quiet country home, and hears only the shot of the fowling piece or the annual discharge of the immense brass six {pounder} on Fourth of July?" similarly, a surgeon stationed near Petersbrug in August 1864 wondered, "What shall I do when I can no longer be 'lulled to sleep' by the popping of musketry and booming of big guns?"

Midnight in America - Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams During the Civil War, Jonathan W. White

 

[Cavalry Charger]

I have slept during missile attacks. I did put in early plugs to help muffle the air raid siren.

It does seem incredible to people who have never experienced it firsthand. I'm guessing exhaustion has a lot to do with it, but maybe also the familiarity with the sounds/noises that become a kind of 'backdrop' to war.

 

[Cavalry Charger]

'Exhausted soldiers - wearied from day afer day of campaigining - sometimes found themselves asleep while marching or in battle. Such peculiarities were particularly common during the Overland Campaign of 1864, but they happened at other times as well. In December 1863, a Massachusetts soldier wrote, "I doubt if our ancestors at Valley Forge suffered more from cold than we did... often found that I had been sound asleep while my legs were trudging along. Sometimes soldiers became so exhausted that they could not tell the difference between reality and a dream. As one Georgia soldier approached a river, he "sat down to collect my thoughts and to be sure I was not dreaming."'

Midnight in America - Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams During the Civil War, Jonathan W. White

 

[major bill]

I have been on my feet for over 75 hours in my gear and can tell you that reality and dreams start to mix. I had standing solders fall asleep and hit the ground as I gave them tasks to do. I would pull them to their feet only to have them fall asleep as I held them up. Sadly I could only hold up and drag around two sleeping soldier at a time as I only have two arms.

At one point I started to dream all my men and women were in fact dead and I was moving about nothing but dead bodies.

After 80 hours I had to write reports. When I was asked to sign the reports as sworn statements it appeared that the long reports had be written by a 3rd grader. Some line repeated the line before and some sections appeared to be nothing more than scribbling.

Way way to funny.

 

[Cavalry Charger]

I have been on my feet for over 75 hours in my gear and can tell you that reality and dreams start to mix. I had standing solders fall asleep and hit the ground as I gave them tasks to do. I would pull them to their feet only to have them fall asleep as I held them up. Sadly I could only hold up and drag around two sleeping soldier at a time as I only have two arms.

At one point I started to dream all my men and women were in fact dead and I was moving about nothing but dead bodies.

After 80 hours I had to write reports. When I was asked to sign the reports as sworn statements it appeared that the long reports had be written by a 3rd grader. Some line repeated the line before and some sections appeared to be nothing more than scribbling.

Way way to funny.

You're taking us right into the heart of this thing, @major bill . There's nothing to compare to first hand experience. Thank you for sharing that. It's very insightful.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

I don't know how I missed this thread early this month. I remember reading in a diary that this soldier always fell asleep as the action was starting. Probably for only a few minutes but he said the excitement of battle "always took him that way." He would fight for hours but when it would all start he would have this lapse of consciousness and then come to. Apparently it wasn't that unusual either. He also came across different soldiers in a battle that you thought were dead but they were beyond exhausted and fell asleep during battle.

 

[Cavalry Charger]

I don't know how I missed this thread early this month. I remember reading in a diary that this soldier always fell asleep as the action was starting. Probably for only a few minutes but he said the excitement of battle "always took him that way." He would fight for hours but when it would all start he would have this lapse of consciousness and then come to. Apparently it wasn't that unusual either. He also came across different soldiers in a battle that you thought were dead but they were beyond exhausted and fell asleep during battle.

I found it fascinating that men could fall asleep with all that was going on around them, including the noise. Once I started reading about their efforts, and subsequent lack of sleep, it wasn't really that hard to understand.

I found it interesting that the men also dreamt in those few short minutes, falling almost immediately into a very deep sleep cycle. And when they did, they dreamt of pleasant things. The body really is truly remarkable, in terms of how it enables us to cope in times of stress.