Civil War Soldiers

Indtroduction - In this assignment, you will be reading about soldiers during the Civil War. The first part of the assignment you will create a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting Union and Confederate soldiers. In the second part of the assignment, you will read about the lives of ordinary soldiers during the war. Complete both activities on your own paper.

This is a Venn Diagram.

Directions for Part 1 - Click on Union Soldiers. Take at least ten notes on facts about the Union soldiers and write them on the left side of the Venn Diagram.

Click on Confederate Soldiers. Take at least ten notes on facts about the Confederate soldiers and write them on the right side of the Venn Diagram.

In the center of the Venn Diagram, write five similarites between the Union and Confederate soldiers. Click on Camp Life to find the similarities.

Directions for Part 2 - Read the selections and answer the following questions in your notebook using complete sentences.

Life of a Union Soldier: Excerpts From the Civil War Memoirs of Daniel Crotty

1. In your own words, describe the daily routine that Crotty experienced.

The Routine of Camp Life
Fourth of July, 1862 in Washington, DC:
Camp life here is very hard, the weather being very hot, and we drill a great deal. In the morning at 5 o'clock we are awakened by the reveille; get up and answer the roll-call; then form for squad drill; then breakfast, after which is company drill; come in and rest for awhile, and then the whole regiment goes out for batallion drill; next dinner; next brigade drill; next division drill, and we all think if the fields were only large enough, we would have a corps and army drill....

Here we have the same routine of camp life as in all other camps—guard mount, guard duty, picket duty, and fatigue duty. Hundreds are getting sick every day, and if we stay here in this hot hole much longer there will not be much of the army left fit for service.

2. Read the selection below. In your own words, discuss how Crotty writes about how the men dealt with the deaths of fellow soldiers in the camp.

Winter in Camp, 1862
It is evident now that all movements of the army is at an end for a while at least. Each corps, division, brigade, regiment and company, is assigned camping grounds, and all are told to build winter quarters, and make ourselves as comfortable as we can. The forests around this country are stripped of their trees for houses and fire-wood. The walls of our houses are built of logs, and covered with shelter tents, with a nice cosy fire place at one end, made of brick or stone, with a mud and stick chimney. They are very comfortable houses, with plenty of blankets and a bed of long poles. The sutlers are all up again, and supply us with what delicacies we can afford.

When one of our men die in the hospital, all who can, go to his funeral. It is one of the most solemn things of the soldier's life, to witness the burial of one of his comrades. One might suppose that a soldier is so used to seeing death on the battle-field, that he is hardened to everything, but it is a mistake, for when one dies in camp he is mourned over as much as those at home mourn over their friends. The soldier has the most acute feelings for his suffering comrades, and sympathize with the loved ones who have lost their relative or friend. The poor soldier dies away from home; no relative is near by to comfort or sympathize with him in his last hour, but his comrades gather around him and give him the burial of the warrior. He is laid out in his uniform of blue, in a plain, rough coffin, over which hang the stars and stripes. The mournful procession commences its slow march, headed by the band. Oh, how solemn are the strains as they are taken up by the chilling breeze. His comrades follow close behind, marching with reversed arms. The solemn procession halt at the lonely grave, when the coffin is lowered into the earth....

3. Read the selection below. Describe what a regular meal for Crotty and other men he served might have included.
4. Describe the methods by which the food would have been prepared.

Drawing Rations and Army Cooking
One of the most peculiar features of a soldier's life is the drawing of his rations. Everything in our army goes like clock-work, from the Army Quartermaster down to the Orderly Sergeant who deals out the sugar, coffee, pork, beef, and hard-tack, or hard bread, to his company, who gather around him like chickens around an old hen, to get their daily food....

Another feature in a soldier's life in camp is cooking his rations. We are not very particular how we cook our pork. Sometimes we fry it in a tin spider, which we make by cutting in two a canteen; other times we punch our ramrods through a slice and let it fry over the camp fire, and, in order not to lose any of the grease, we hold a hard-tack under and let the gravy drop on it, which answers very well for butter. We have different ways of cooking hard-tack. At first we could not manage it very well, but necessity is always the mother of invention, and during our four years campaigning we have found out a good many ways to make our life more comfortable than at first. The best way we find to make hard bread palatable is to soak in cold water, then fry in a spider with the fat of pork. Of course, butter would be better, but that luxury is out of the question, unless we pay an extravagant price for it to the sutler. Hot water will not soften hard-tack, but will make it as tough as leather. Our "concentrated soup" will bear a brief mention. Vegetables of all kinds are pressed together and made as hard as a stone—potatoes, onions, parsnips, carrots, cabbage, pepper, salt, and garlick, are mixed up in a solid mass, so when boiled about ten hours it makes a delicious soup, but it is not much of a favorite with many soldiers, because of a sickish taste there is to it. There is nothing a soldier likes better than his coffee, without it he could not live in the field. In about ten minutes after we halt we can sip our favorite beverage. On the campaigns "concentrated soup" is out of the question, for we do not stay long enough in a place to cook it.

Life of a Confederate Soldier: From the Words of Sam Watkins

5. Read the excerpt below and describe how Watkins describes the life of a soldier.

Impressions after a Battle - After the Battle of Chickamauga (September 19, 1863)
We remained upon the battlefield of Chickamauga all night. Everything had fallen into our hands. We had captured a great many prisoners and small arms, and many pieces of artillery and wagons and provisions. The Confederate and Federal dead, wounded, and dying were everywhere scattered over the battlefield. Men were lying where they fell, shot in every conceivable part of the body.... In fact, you might walk over the battlefield and find men shot from the crown of the head to the tip end of the toe. And then to see all those dead, wounded and dying horses....
Reader, a battlefield, after the battle, is a sad and sorrowful sight to look at. The glory of war is but the glory of battle, the shouts, and cheers, and victory.

A soldier's life is not a pleasant one. It is always, at best, one of privations and hardships. The emotions of patriotism and pleasure hardly counterbalance the toil and suffering that he has to undergo in order to enjoy his patriotism and pleasure. Dying on the field of battle and glory is about the easiest duty a soldier has to undergo. It is the living, marching, fighting, shooting soldier that has the hardships of war to carry. When a brave soldier is killed he is at rest. The living soldier knows not at what moment he, too, may be called on to lay down his life on the altar of his country. The dead are heroes, the living are but men compelled to do the drudgery and suffer the privations incident to the thing called "glorious war."

6. Read the next excerpt and describe how Watkins describes the condition of the patients in the hospital.

The Field Hospital in Atlanta
It was the only field hospital that I saw during the whole war, and I have no desire to see another. Those hollow-eyed and sunken-cheeked sufferers, shot in every conceivable part of the body; some shrieking, and calling upon their mothers; some laughing the hard, cackling laugh of the sufferer without hope, and some cursing like troopers, and some writhing and groaning as their wounds were being bandaged and dressed....
Ah! reader, there is no glory for the private soldier.... The officers have all the glory. Glory is not for the private soldier, such as die in the hospitals, being eat up with the deadly gangrene, and being imperfectly waited on. Glory is for generals, colonels, majors, captains, and lieutenants. They have all the glory, and when the poor private wins battles by dint of sweat, hard marches, camp and picket duty, fasting and broken bones, the officers get the glory. The private's pay was eleven dollars per month, if he got it; the general's pay was three hundred dollars per month, and he always got his. I am not complaining. These things happened sixteen to twenty years ago. Men who never fired a gun, nor killed a Yankee during the whole war, are today the heroes of the war. Now, I tell you what I think about it: I think that those of us who fought as private soldiers, fought as much for glory as the general did, and those of us who stuck it out to the last, deserve more praise than the general who resigned because some other general was placed in command over him. A general could resign. That was honorable. A private could not resign, nor choose his branch of service, and if he deserted, it was death.

7. You have now read segments of two memoirs. Based on what you have read, describe what you believe the average soldier's life would have been like during the Civil War.