This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (National Book Award Finalist) (Vintage Civil War Library)

Drew Gilpin Faust's recent Civil War book on the grim subject of suffering and death perched for weeks atop the New York Times bestseller list, and ranked among the ten best books of the year (2008), attesting to the reading public's hunger for new perspectives on the war that abolished slavery. "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War," words taken from Frederick Law Olmstead's description of the casualties arriving at hospital ships in the Virginia peninsula, addresses a glaring omission among the more than sixty thousand Civil War books written since the end of the war. Biographies of heroes and fiends, and studies of politics and battle strategy fill bookshelves, but few address the terrible aftermath of battle. A search of the literature draws only a single parallel, the complementary "Awaiting the Heavenly Country: The Civil War and America's Culture of Death" by Mark S. Schantz, which, in a startling case of convergence, was also published in 2008. While Schantz's narrative develops the argument that 19th century belief in an afterlife enabled soldiers and their families to accept the tremendous carnage of the war, Faust's book delves deeply into the prosaic management of mass mortality. If you've ever wondered who buried the dead after armies had moved on, or why the identity of so many bodies was unknown, Faust delivers long overdue answers."The work of death," Faust writes, "was Civil War America's most fundamental and most demanding undertaking," which "shaped enduring national structures and commitments." While tackling the logistics of mass death in comprehensive detail, she also addresses the emotional and social ramifications on the home front. In eight chapters, accompanied by forty-eight pages of notes, the story shifts between battlefield and Victorian parlor, soldier and civilian. Faust's extensive use of first person accounts, and other primary sources, illuminates the human suffering behind the statistics: 2% of the nation's population died in uniform; more than 90% of injuries and death were caused by mini-balls; 300,000 bodies of Union soldiers were relocated to seventy-four newly-established national cemeteries after the war, and at least half of all dead soldiers remained unidentified.When the Civil War began it was critical for both sides to prepare for the coming mortality, in part because the "miasma" of decaying bodies was still thought to pose a serious health threat. Commanding officers established cemeteries near military hospitals where bodies and amputated limbs called for speedy disposal. But the cemeteries were inadequate for the sheer numbers of dead and dying. Neither side could spare men for formal burial details or organized grave registration; soldiers were often buried where they fell, the places marked by wood panels scavenged from hardtack and ammunition boxes, and crossed fence rails served as makeshift grave markers. In Richmond, it wasn't unusual for the bodies of enlisted men to lie for days waiting interment while the bodies of officers were packed in charcoal and shipped to Washington where they would be enclosed in metal caskets and shipped North to their homes. A stopgap system of notification of kin, letters written by officers, comrades or medical attendants, was soon overwhelmed by the chaos of battle. Many families waited months, and sometimes years, for word of their loved ones.Faust, Harvard's first female president and author of six books on Southern culture and the Civil War, was born in the Shenandoah Valley. She has a doctorate in Southern studies from the University of Pennsylvania. This book was conceived in 1996, following on the heels of her previous work "Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War." The reader will find few shortcomings in this balanced account of the Civil War and its aftermath. In fact, where Faust, perhaps, falls short in developing the 19th century concept of the "Good Death" and pervasive belief in an afterlife, Schantz's book ably fills the gap for any reader seeking a more exhaustive understanding of a time when the shadow of death fell over every home.Faust takes her readers into homes and onto battlefields, North and South, and in the end brings us to stand in cemeteries where "row after row of humble identical markers . . . represent not so much the sorrow or particularity of a lost loved one as the enormous but unfathomable cost of the war." (249) Encompassing research in a broad range of disciplines including demographics, material culture, and thanatology, the resulting book strips away, as Eric Foner writes, "any lingering romanticism, nobility or social purpose" from war.

The order was handled quickly and now I am enjoying the book

Death during the Civil War shook America to its’ core. This war was fundamentally different than America’s break from England; now the country was divided and, not to beat an already bruised cliché, brother was firing on brother. As a society founded on Puritan principals, members of the military were “aposed to one man killing another [but they would still] fight.”(p. 33) The question became how to balance “killing [as] battle’s fundamental instrument and purpose” with the “human reluctance to [essentially] murder” another human being. (p. 34) In her “work of death,” author Drew Gilpin Faust does not simply delineate the horrors of death during the Civil War, she attempts to uncover the “work” of dying. (p. xi)At the heart of Faust’s book is the true human nature of those fighting in the metaphorical trenches. In the chapter entitled “Accounting,” readers find that despite untold numbers of dead littering the South in quantities unfathomable even by today’s standard, the human inclination to preserve dying with dignity outweighed, when possible, the immediacy of battle; there was without a doubt a “debt to the fallen.” (p. 211) The Civil War did not provoke a religious crisis - it reinforced what we already knew to be right with regard to not leaving another human being to die in an unmarked grave; his family never knowing what became of him, his heroism, the brutality his body endured, nor his soul having the right of passage the bible promised him. Faust notes that in particular instances military personnel took it upon themselves to keep detailed records of death and where soldiers were buried, far exceeding the military standard of the time; nor, frankly, the ability to simply keep up with the sheer numbers of dead- without which countless more souls would have been lost. Eventually, “widespread and continuing public discussion about the dead gradually articulated a set of principles that influenced military and legislative policy.” (p. 218) These exceptions speak to an innate human drive to preserve life, even among the chaos of war. Regardless of the fact Faust’s book is one comprised on the merits of war time death, there are glimmers of dignity that can not be ignored.That being said, it should not be dismissed that Faust dedicates significant attention to the enthusiasm some men showed for killing, “the desire for retribution…almost elemental in its passion, overcoming reason and releasing the restraints of fear and moral inhibitions for soldiers who…witnessed the slaughter of their comrades.” (p.35) Some southern troops reveled in a job well done as they “rode over the battlefield, and enjoyed the sight of hundred[s] of dead Yankees.” (p. 37) If killing was a battle’s fundamental purpose were the troops wrong to take pleasure in appreciating what was then indeed victory; was there a difference between victory and being “carried away with the excitement & delight” of having murdered another human being? (p. 37)This is not a question Faust specifically answers, rather she draws parallels between the human connection binding life and death, and our responses to killing under the auspices of bettering the same nation both armies were fighting for. Faust’s book is grim, appropriately so, the north and south lost almost the same equivalent of soldiers as they did in the Revolution through the Korean War combined. She very gently shows readers the toll all of that death took on the nation, and the lasting impact it has had, even today. To say it is a beautiful book might seem at first off putting, but that is exactly what is it.

A compelling account of the personal and social impact of the savagery and carnage on those who fought and survived the American Civil War as well as on the relatives and friends of those who didn't survive. There is no attempt by the author to justify the rights or wrongs of the war nor analyse the tactics employed at individual battles, but, more importantly, she describes the social and personal cost that would lead to the formation of one of the great democracies of the world.

I have just started reading this book, and I find it really informative regarding the mores surrounding death in Victorian America, and the way they were changed during and after the Civil War. I highly recommend it for anyone doing research on the subject.

Well written, well researched, but little-known topic of the meaning of death in mid-nineteenth century America. Most of the book was a complete revelation, despite having read a lot of Civil War histories. If you want to explore how the Civil War affected American lives and, in the end, the American psyche, read this book.

This book covers the aftermath of the battle and how those who perished were cared for. Superb book.

Superb account, enjoyed it all immensely