Soldier Nightmares and Flashbacks

Tom Elmore

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"About 1 a.m. on July 2 we had a great alarm. A man in the 7th Indiana regiment, next on the right, cried so loudly in his sleep that he aroused all the troops in the vicinity. Springing up, half bewildered, I ordered my regiment to 'fall in,' and a heavy fire of musketry broke out from along the whole line of men." (Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, by Rufus Dawes)

"Our Major, who is now tenting with me, only the night before last awoke me by his fighting the battle over again." (July 28 letter of Lt. John E. Rastall, 1st Maryland Eastern Shore, to his parents and brother)

It might have been around midnight on July 2 when the 147th Pennsylvania moved up to a stone fence on Culp's Hill and was ordered to rest. Private William S. Keller of Company G soon fell asleep and dreamed he was engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand encounter with the enemy. He awoke flailing and struck 1st Lieutenant Nelson Byers in the face with his fist. Byers, who was likewise sleeping, suddenly jumped up, imagining he had been struck by an artillery shell. But Byers was not seriously hurt and remained on duty as company commander. (Civil War Diary, Company G, 147th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, by Corporal J. A. Lumbard)

"During the march from the Potomac to Chambersburg, I one night had a dream in which I saw my left shoulder mangled by a cannon shot and I lying on the battlefield, dying. This dream, not like many not recollected, deeply impressed itself upon my mind, and I found myself unable to throw it off. When three days later in the battle at Gettysburg I was struck by an exploding shell on my left side, the dream instantly came up, and I said, here now is its fulfillment. Other soldiers, like myself, probably during and after the war dreamed of being in battle, hearing distinctly the booming of cannon, the noise of bursting shell and the rattle of musketry." (The Story of a Confederate Boy in the Civil War, by David E. Johnson, 7th Virginia Infantry Regiment, Portland, OR: Glass and Prudhomme Company, 1914, pp. 196-197)
 
I wonder just how common these incidents were. Here is a case experienced by the men of the 104th Illinois in Tennessee. Perhaps someone dreamt of Hartsville.

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"About 1 a.m. on July 2 we had a great alarm. A man in the 7th Indiana regiment, next on the right, cried so loudly in his sleep that he aroused all the troops in the vicinity. Springing up, half bewildered, I ordered my regiment to 'fall in,' and a heavy fire of musketry broke out from along the whole line of men." (Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, by Rufus Dawes)

"Our Major, who is now tenting with me, only the night before last awoke me by his fighting the battle over again." (July 28 letter of Lt. John E. Rastall, 1st Maryland Eastern Shore, to his parents and brother)

It might have been around midnight on July 2 when the 147th Pennsylvania moved up to a stone fence on Culp's Hill and was ordered to rest. Private William S. Keller of Company G soon fell asleep and dreamed he was engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand encounter with the enemy. He awoke flailing and struck 1st Lieutenant Nelson Byers in the face with his fist. Byers, who was likewise sleeping, suddenly jumped up, imagining he had been struck by an artillery shell. But Byers was not seriously hurt and remained on duty as company commander. (Civil War Diary, Company G, 147th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, by Corporal J. A. Lumbard)

"During the march from the Potomac to Chambersburg, I one night had a dream in which I saw my left shoulder mangled by a cannon shot and I lying on the battlefield, dying. This dream, not like many not recollected, deeply impressed itself upon my mind, and I found myself unable to throw it off. When three days later in the battle at Gettysburg I was struck by an exploding shell on my left side, the dream instantly came up, and I said, here now is its fulfillment. Other soldiers, like myself, probably during and after the war dreamed of being in battle, hearing distinctly the booming of cannon, the noise of bursting shell and the rattle of musketry." (The Story of a Confederate Boy in the Civil War, by David E. Johnson, 7th Virginia Infantry Regiment, Portland, OR: Glass and Prudhomme Company, 1914, pp. 196-197)
PDSD was present in each and every war.
 

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