Such a poignant look at how the Civil War’s scale of destruction - and how unprepared both sides were for it - changed the view of death and the state’s responsibility to the fallen. ( )

Gilpin Faust discusses the notion of dying well, and how soldiers had to justify trying to kill others, even though it was against their beliefs. But then she goes into some subjects that were a bit surprising to me. Today, soldiers killed in combat or on the job, their remains are returned home to their families, and there are numerous National Cemeteries for them to be buried in. But many of these practices grew out of the Civil War. There was no formal method of identifying soldiers, no formal system for burying the fallen, or transporting them back to their families.

Gilpin Faust does a good job presenting the similarities and contrasts to the ordeals of those from the North and those from the South. There are lots of primary source materials, and a great deal of information in the end notes as well. There are a great deal of images in this rather short history book, but some people will likely find some of the photographs disturbing. This was the rise of photography, and people like Mathew Brady served as early photo-journalists, photographing camps, battlefields shortly after battles ended, or even sometime afterwards. So there are photographs of the dead- some lying where they fell, some along the process of burial, and one being embalmed before being sent to his family. These photographs, while squeamish, are necessary to demonstrate the various points she makes throughout the book.

A well written and documented book, I found it fascinating. If you would like to read up on a not often discussed social issues coming out of the Civil War, I highly recommend this book. This fall, the PBS program American Experience aired an episode entitled "Death and the Civil War", which is based on this book, which I would also recommend. ( )

An incredibly elocuent psychological history of the American Civil War. Every chapter stressing a different problem in the conflict.

The first chapter "Dying" talks about the importance of last words, the religious or patriotic connection with death, and what a "good death" would entail.
Despite clerical efforts, the boundary between duty to God and duty to country blurred, and dying braveyl and manfully became an important part of dying well.

The second chapter "Killing" is about the difficulty of killing your fellow human at first and then coming to terms with it by different psychological factors that military conflict ingrains in a soldier.
Human life diminished sharply in value, and the living risked becoming as dehumanized as the dead. Soldiers perhaps found it a relief to think of themselves as machines - without moral compass or responsability, simply the instruments of others' direction and will.

The third chapter "Burying" is about the value of having a good departure, in a sense of respect and the religious magnitude that it entails. It also talks about the different techniques to preserved corpses that are used to this day (yikes).
Families sought to see their lost loved ones in as lifelike state as possible, not just to be certain of their identity but also to bid them farewell.

The fourth chapter "Naming" comes to terms with the importance of individualizing the dead by finding who they were, building comissions from religious groups to help find the soldier's identities.
To die without identity seemed to Wormeley equivalent to surrendering one's humanity, becoming no more than an animal.

The fifth chapter "Realizing" describes the difficulties that civilians had to go through, from desease, grief, hunger, loss.
Wives, parents, children, and siblings struggled with the new identities - widows, orphans, the childless - that now defined their lifes. And they carried their losses into the acts of memory that both fed on and nurtured the widely shared grief well into the next century.

The sixth chapter "Believing and doubting" talks about the traditional view of death being challenged by the constant carnage that the war brought upon it. From changing the argument of why soldiers die, to connecting death with the tangible world and calling it spirituality.
Death was not loss, but both the instrument and the substance of victory.

The seventh chapter "Accounting" is about the postwar effort of some few to bring the fallen soldiers to their respective reburial places in their city of origin with new policies and financing. For northerners it was black civilians and soldiers helping to maintain their names and the places they were buried in order to find them. And for southerners it was mostly the women.
The reburial movement created a constituency of the slain, insistent in both its existence and its silence, men whose very absence from American life made them a presence that could not be ignored.

And the eighth chapter "Numbering" is about the importance of knowing how many... in order to have a context to deepened or altered the essence of the war.
They counted to establish the dimensions of the war's sacrifice and the price of freedom and national unity. They counted bacause numbers offered an illusion of certitude and control in the aftermath of a conflict that had transformed the apparent limits of human brutality. They counted, too, bacause there were just so many bodies to count. ( )

A discussion of the quarter million soldier deaths and countless civilian losses during our Civil war. The book was divided into chapters entitled "Dying", "Killing", Burying", Naming", "Realizing (Civilians and the Work of Mourning)", Believing and Doubting (the effects on Religious Convictions), "Accounting", "Numbering", and "Surviving". VERY SOBERING. ( )

An excellent and compelling piece of non-fiction, and a must-read for anyone working in death care in America. ( )