Civil War
history is overflowing with grand and romantic stories about the big battles,
colorful generals, sneaky spies, and dramatic politicians pressing their agendas. One rarely hears about the quiet civilian
folks who traveled to the front to offer their services, stayed back from the
field at large depots, and supported the war effort from home. U. S. Grant and President Lincoln’s herculean
efforts cannot trump those of ordinary civilians. Many of them certainly were as interesting
as their military commanders and others, but Americans remember little of
anything of civilian contributions that supported the war effort. My research paper will reveal some of the
extraordinary accomplishments by civilians lost in the quagmire of Civil War
history.
Without
civilian support, neither army could have held the field for long, and critical
support for the Union army contributed to their victory as much if not more
than any other factor. In December 1860,
little more than 16,000 men filled the army ranks. The United States had a historically
persistent uneasiness to large standing armies.
Therefore, when Lincoln called up the initial 75,000 men to put down the
rebellion, the call disastrously overloaded the military system with men
reporting for duty in Washington. The
military provided no food, shelter or clothing for the troops. Only one hospital existed in the army, at
Fort Riley, Kansas with a scant 40 beds.
The army expected regiments to subsist on what they brought with
them. Overwhelming numbers caused make
shift camps in any and every open space, with little to no attention to
sanitation, resulting in medical epidemics robbing some regiments of 50 percent
of their strength. Time did not improve
conditions much on the military’s part. The
soldiers needed civilian support, and concerned civilians were eager to give
it.[1]
Besides a
great deal of monetary support, civilians volunteered as hospital workers of
every type, spies, military guides, provided tons of material, humanitarians, military/soldier
advocates, moral supporters and event witnesses, most of them as
volunteers. They also supplemented the
military as laundresses, contract surgeons, teamsters, administrative clerks,
and manufacturers. Any army of that time
could not have campaigned without the huge support system organized and
provided by civilians even though many commanders loathed admitting it and
tried to deny needing or wanting any of it.[2]
Of course,
their contributions were not always positive, such as journalists who gave away
information to the enemy and drummed critical information in their papers that
affected elections and caused some chaos in Washington. For this service, however, the federal
government arrested and imprisoned citizens without real cause, some dying from
horrible prison conditions, some held for the duration of the war, especially
after Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus.[3]
Women provided
the greatest amount of support, working largely through relief societies, as
camp “followers” or those local to the armies and campaigns. Anxious women with a variety of talents
longed to contribute to the war effort.
Most stayed at home, operated businesses in the absence of men, gave
labor and/or goods, or organized and administered the efforts. Army wives following the military in camp
could launder soldiers clothes, act as nurses (cooking and cleaning rather than
the modern conception of nursing), supplementing the family income, a slim and
irregular issue for enlisted soldiers and some junior officers. Several civilians acted from within the
relief societies as inspectors and soldier advocates, in attempts to ensure the
best living conditions possible for the masses of soldiers necessary to conduct
operations.[4]
The most under-appreciated
must be locals caught up by the military on campaign. The small farming communities in mid-western
Maryland received as guests around 120,000 in number during the Maryland
Campaign of 1862. Hungry, thirsty
soldiers arrived needing food water and shelter, resisting futile since they
traveled with plenty of weapons for coercion.
The Pry family (and their relatives) are a good example of the civilian
battlefield experience. The Battle of
Antietam took place just before the harvest in September 1862. In the week that General McClellan used their
property as army headquarters, their losses were the equivalent to that caused
by a natural disaster. Their crops were
taken for forage, fencing used as firewood, livestock consumed by the army,
furniture ruined, property trampled, an entire warehouse of wood used to make
hospitals, the house and barn utilized for several months as hospitals, and
even Mrs. Pry’s personal effects taken by soldiers. Since the Union army remained around the area
for six weeks, all the locals worked as nurses, doctors, buried the dead,
burned dead animals, and survived dependent on army rations when
available. The Pry family never
recovered, sold their farm and properties, and moved to Tennessee for a fresh
start.[5]
If appreciation for white volunteerism is
undervalued, it is nothing compared to the plight of African-Americans,
volunteers or not. Many worked in
servitude, quite a few served to gain their freedom and assist in making it
permanent for others. Their class level
under women made exploitation of them a sure thing. Some were able to work on a limited basis as
laundresses and cooks for pay, and even as nurses, although jobs assignments
placed African-Americans in positions whites generally thought were beneath
them. When historians began compiling
the numbers, African-Americans made up approximately ten percent of the civilian workforce for both
men and women. Studying their role is quite difficult, however, due to the lack
of documentation and recognition.[6]
American
society allowed women to support the war effort in limited ways, including
appointing them as moral authorities.
Earlier in the nineteenth century, men assigned women the role of moral
educators and watchdogs. The assignment
led to women’s public activities promoting moral reform. Because of the critical need for support,
many women could work in areas forbidden to them in antebellum America. This work was a natural extension of reform
activism and would assist women’s call to reform in civic areas afterward.[7]
Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell and friends, through their Women’s Central Association of Relief organization, and the popularity of Florence Nightingale’s
humanitarian work in the Crimean War, organized what became the largest and
only government recognized relief agency, the U. S. Sanitary Commission (USSC). Women’s status in the country- a lack of
recognition as equals to men and therefore second-class citizens necessitated
the recruitment of prominent men as commissioners for the organization. Dr. Henry Bellows, a notable doctor from New
York, lobbied for and received the recognition from officials in
Washington. Men inside the organization
acted as administrators, field agents, and delivered much of the provisions to
the army, but a network of organized regional and local aid societies provided
most of what the military received. Approximately 7000 smaller aid societies
contributed to efforts with twelve major regional branches. Their efforts sent millions of dollars worth
of food, medicine and clothing to the front.
Women primarily administered and operated these agencies independent of
the Washington commissioners.[8]
The USSC
absorbed the role of inspectors of military facilities, provided recommendations
for improvements, relief supplies for the troops, published booklets on
personal hygiene, health and welfare, and advocated for the soldier and medical
department in Washington. Their massive
donations of money and material to the government gave them great influence in
Congress, and they significantly improved the medical system; This power eventually
trickled down to the public after the war and continues to do so to this day. The Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, allowed
the USSC to name the new Surgeon General of the Army in 1862, who updated and
implemented many of the medical changes necessary to care for the thousands of
wounded created by new weapons technology.
The USSC recommended Dr. William A. Hammond, a young army doctor with progressive
ideas. Dr. Hammond and his staff designed and constructed large-scale hospitals
for recovery and rehabilitation never seen before in the U. S., complete with
baths and indoor toilet facilities.[9]
Additionally,
the USSC organized massive fund-raising fairs across the North and
Northwest. The fairs not only acquired monetary
support for the war effort, but also emotional relief for anxious families and
furloughed soldiers through games, exhibits, restaurants and entertainment
offered at the event. Post war estimates
credit these events with producing over three million dollars for the military.
Lack of records or a scattering of them prevents the attempt of a compilation
of volunteer labor hours. Estimated contributions by the USSC alone were
approximately five hundred million dollars.[10]
Other large
organizations contributed even more support.
The Young Men’s Christian Association felt compelled to help, and
created the U. S. Christian Commission (USCC) as their wartime organization dedicated
to soldier spiritual and emotional needs.
The USCC provided volunteer chaplains and worked cooperatively with
military chaplains to supplement their work.
In this capacity, they accompanied the armies in the field and provided
much needed emergency assistance to the wounded after battles. Estimates for material relief from the USCC include
the distribution of almost one million bibles and tens of thousands of other
books and pamphlets. Additionally, they
provided coffee wagons and distributed soldier comfort supplies to the troops.[11]
As the war
progressed, these organizations served not only soldiers, but acted as a link
between soldiers and their families. The
USSC, USCC, and smaller organizations provided writing materials and even mail service
for soldiers in camp and on campaign.
They also provided investigative services for families of missing
soldiers. The USCC reportedly wrote
92,000 letters for soldiers by the end of the war.[12] Due to the lack of resources within the
military, the USSC played a significant role in handling the dead. After the Battle of Gettysburg, they compiled
a list of over 8000 dead. They figured a
70 percent reply rate on inquiries. The
U. S. government would not establish a military agency to deal with burials
until July, 1864.[13]
With the only
formally trained nurses, the Catholic Church also significantly contributed to
the war effort. Surgeons at military
hospitals preferred Catholic nuns trained in nursing to civilian women. Often, authorities accused female volunteers
of husband hunting, inappropriate gossiping, delicacy, and incompetence. This led Army Nursing Superintendent Dorothea
Dix to require volunteers be over thirty, plain in looks, and
conservative. Surgeons preferred nuns
over civilian nurses because their devotion to God, training and habits ensured
their competence and faithfulness to duty. Nuns in Emmitsburg, MD, the Sisters of
Charity, responded quickly to care for the wounded during the Antietam and
Gettysburg Campaigns. History often
forgets these selfless women of the Civil War.[14]
There was a
great demand for nurses during the war because of the sheer numbers of sick and
wounded. The army initially used
convalescing soldiers as nurses but quickly became overwhelmed. So many women and men came forward to serve
that many were turned away. Nurses
provided support to the wounded by not only cooking and cleaning, but reading
to and writing for them, assisting them with difficult tasks such as bathing,
feeding those unable to feed themselves, or just comforting them while they
died. Often nurses wrote letters for
soldiers unable to do so themselves, or notified families of the death of their
loved ones. Surgeons might allow
competent and trusted nurses to change bandages and assist in giving
medications.[15]
Walt Whitman
served in the hospitals in Washington D. C.
Already a famous poet, Whitman wrote and published his experiences for
the public; papers that are still quoted and studied almost 150 years
later. He fell into service after
observing the wounded in hospitals while searching for his wounded
brother. During his tenure, almost
50,000 men came and went as patients through the Washington hospitals. Whitman spent seven to eight hours a day
consoling the wounded with treats, stamps, small amounts of money and letter
writing. [16]
The Civil War
was life changing for Miss Clara Barton, a clerk working at the Patent Office
as a copyist. Barton longed to join the
army but could not bring herself to don a uniform and disguise as a man. Her father, a veteran of the Indian Wars,
encouraged her to assist the war effort.
The 6th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment hailed from Worcester,
close to her hometown, and compelled her to act on their behalf after she
learned they were the militia attacked by secessionist protesters in Baltimore
on their way to Washington. Realizing
the military was unable to provide even the most basic comforts to soldiers,
she determined to become a one-woman relief agency. Her requests to distribute supplies on the
field were ignored until she pleaded her case to an influential officer in the
Quartermaster Department after she admitted she had gathered more than three
warehouses full of supplies. The
astonished officer, Major Daniel H. Rucker would eventually become
Quartermaster General of the Army.[17]
Barton enabled
the medical department to use her as a loophole to deliver medical supplies to
the army in the field, circumventing the established system. Because she was a civilian, she did not fall
under military jurisdiction and did not have to travel in the accustomed
military order within the supply train.
After receiving her first pass to the front, Barton, after becoming
exceedingly annoyed at the supply train pace, ingeniously pulled out of line
during the day and traveled at night while the train rested, bypassing the
entire train and arriving at the field of battle a day earlier than her
peers. She distributed critically needed
supplies to 13 field hospitals the same day the USSC and USCC supply trains
left Washington – on the day of the battle.
Barton rode out to the battle line, worked as a medic assisting the
wounded to field hospitals under fire and spent the entire night assisting the
surgeon in charge at the Samuel Poffenberger farmhouse.[18]
Barton’s
experiences did not end in 1865. Now
internationally famous due to her exploits, early in the year she began to
receive letters from families looking for missing soldiers. Moved by their acute anxiety and the failure
of others to meet the need, Barton proposed establishing a bureau to assist
these families to her patron, Senator Henry Wilson, Chairman of the Senate
Military Affairs Committee. She asked
Wilson to accompany her to the White House to present the idea to President
Lincoln. Wilson could not go with her,
but presented the idea to Lincoln. The
President referred the idea to the War Department for recommendation, but
rather than wait for their reply, posted a notice in a Washington paper for
interested parties to contact Barton with or for information. In the following days, Barton began receiving
up to three hundred letters a day.
Although Barton hoped to establish an official bureau in the Federal
government to support the effort, she contributed over $17,000.00 over four
years, and received reimbursement of $15,000.00 from Congress in bonds. To help fund the project, Barton went on the
lecture circuit and made a profit of $12,000.00. Dangerously declining health forced Barton to
close the office and travel to Europe to regain her strength.[19]
Barton’s trip
to Europe cemented her desire to see a permanent organization along the lines
of the Sanitary Commission established in the United States. While vacationing in Switzerland, the leaders
of the recently formed International Red Cross called to ask why the U. S. had
not signed and ratified the Geneva Convention of 1864. The U. S. sent Henry Bellows as their
delegate. Barton had never heard of the
organization or treaty, and agreed to investigate upon her return to the
States. Before she had fully recovered
her health, the IRC began providing support for the Franco-Prussian War, and
Barton could not resist their call to duty.
She traveled to France and helped civilian refugees rebuild and recover
from local fighting that devastated their city.
By the time Barton returned to the U. S., she determined to establish a
Red Cross society for the nation and convince the federal government to sign
the Geneva Convention treaty. Although
it would take Barton close to a decade to accomplish her goal, The American Red
Cross became chartered by the U. S. government (with an expansion to include natural disasters giving it a peacetime purpose), the treaty ratified by
Congress, and the organization she founded would go on to become one of the biggest
and most influential relief agencies in the world. Dr. Henry Bellows wrote a letter of
congratulations to Barton, lamenting that he was unable to accomplish the feat.[20]
Clara Barton
prevailed despite many seemingly impregnable obstacles thrown in her way by
military authorities and jealous colleagues, but she was not alone. Dr. Mary Walker navigated through heavy
prejudices and attacks on her reputation to assist wounded soldiers as a
physician during the Civil War. Walker
decided on a career in medicine and graduated from medical school in 1855. She married and practiced alongside her
husband until they separated four years later due to her eccentricities and his
unfaithfulness. A dedicated champion of
dress reform and women’s rights, Walker pushed her way into contracted
positions as an assistant surgeon through volunteerism and persistence during
the war. The first woman awarded the
Congressional Medal of Honor for work in the field in 1865, Walker’s
flamboyance continued to rankle those around her, losing her clerkship at the
Patent Office in a sexual harassment scandal in the 1880s. Her work and advocacy of women’s rights
opened the door for women in medicine.[21]
Although
civilians such as Clara Barton and Walt Whitman receive recognition for their
contributions during the war, the scope of the significance of civilian support
goes unnoticed as historians focus on battles and military and political
leaders. The rise of social history and
interest in women’s history have come a long way in promoting individual
contributions, but the best lessons learned regarding public participation in
wartime continue to receive little attention.
The organizations and dedicated work on the part of civilians during the
Civil War has contributed not only to the war effort during the conflict, but
changed the lives and improved humanity from their establishment to the present
day. Civilian contributions to this
critical period in American history changed social views of the abilities of
women, especially for themselves, created innovation that benefited society
after the war, and led to a movement to establish humanitarian relief on a
national scale and during peacetime.[22]
The continued ignorance of these facts may
lead a general misjudgment regarding the consequences of conflict, with
realization of a commitment made too late to retract. Since the purpose of history is to inform
others of the past for understanding of how it may influence our present and
future, it seems logical to understand consequences and act rather than react
after war is initiated. It is important
to recognize civilian participation and contributions during the Civil War to
offer both warning and hope when the storm of war approaches. Perhaps then history can serve its purpose of
assisting decision making and improving the lives of everyone.
[1] Clyde
Buckingham, Clara Barton: A Broad Humanity. (Alexandria, VA:
Mount Vernon Publishing Company, 1977), pp. 1. Stephen
B. Oates, A Woman of Valor: Clara Barton
and the Civil War, (New York: The Free Press, 1994), pp. 17.
[2] Schultz, At The Front,
pp. 15-16, 18, 21, 125.
[3]
Judith Giesberg, Civil War Sisterhood: The US Sanitary Commission and Women’s Politics
in Transition. (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000), pp. 137.
[4] Ibid., 14, 21.
[5] Kathleen A. Ernst, Too Afraid to Cry: Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign,
(Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Bookes, 1999), pp. 121-122, 128, 176, 197,
231-232. Jane E. Schultz, Women at the F ront,81,
83. Hospital Workers in Civil War America, (Chapel Hill, NC: The University
of North Carolina Press, 2004), pp. 17.
[6] Schultz, At The Front, 16-17, 19-22, 102-103,
118, 165-166, 213.
[7] Ibid., pp. 6. Marian Moser Jones, The
American Red Cross: From Clara Barton to the New Deal, (Baltimore, MD: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 13.
[8] Schultz, At The Front,
pp. 14. Buckingham, Barton, 9-11.
[9]
Not all of the influence served to help the
soldier. The USSC pressed Congress to
direct soldier pay home to the soldier’s families towards the end of the war,
stranding some at the end of the war. Giesberg, Sisterhood, pp. 137.
[11]
Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), pp. 107-110, 136. Schultz, At The Front, 14, 39-40. Clyde Buckingham, Barton, pp. 36.
[12] Faust, Suffering, pp.
105-107, 112-113.
[14] Schultz, At The
Front, pp. 16.
[15] Ibid., pp.
110, 114, 124, 127.
[16] Ibid., 123. Whitman's duties were considered nursing at that time.
[17] William E. Barton, The Life of Clara Barton, Founder of the American Red Cross, two
volumes, (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1922), Vol. 1, 194, 195.
[18] Susan Rosenvold, Clara
Barton at Antietam, (Presentation given at annual Save Historic Antietam
Foundation Meeting, June 7, 2012). Barton, Founder,
195, 198-199.
[19] Barton, Founder,
Vol. 1 pp. 334-348.
[20] Ibid., Vol. 2,
pp. 2-8, 183-184. Oates, Valor, pp.
382. Jones, Red Cross,, pp. 24-25,
31, 33-36.
[21]
National Institutes of Health, “Dr. Mary
Walker”, Changing the Face of Medicine,
accessed 05/24/2014, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_325.html,. Schultz, At The Front , pp. 174, 176-178.
