Death And The American Civil War

To be engaged in war is to be engaged in an armed conflict. Death is an all too ordinary product of war. It is an unsolicited reward for many soldiers that are fighting for their country’s own fictitious freedom. For some of these men, the battlefield is a glimpse into hell, and for others, it is a means to heaven. Many people worry about what happens during war and what will become of their loved ones while they’re fighting, but few realize what happens to those soldiers once they come home. The short stories "Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway and "Speaking of Courage” by Tim O'Brien explore the thematic after effects of war and how it impacts a young person's life. Young people who

The first war of this type is perhaps the American Civil War. Thousands of men died hundreds of miles away from home without being taken care of at their last moment, which contradicted the contemporary Victorian values. The mass casualties, combined with primitive communication methods, left many families uncertain about the fate of their loved ones. Drew Faust’s This Republic of Suffering, argues that these situations made the Union government realize that as the volunteer citizen soldiers had paid their ultimate price to save the country, the country was reciprocally responsible for accounting them and taking care of their remains. If the state left the duty to individual families to recover their loved ones, only the wealthy families could afford such practice, which was against the basic principles of democracy and equality that the Union fought for. She also argued that an accurate counting of casualties and the construction of national cemeteries demonstrated the recognition of their sacrifice by the country, thus to justify the tremendous price for defending the nation unity. The identification of the dead and their honorable burial or repatriation not only brought closure to their families, but also facilitated the distribution of pensions and back payment, which were also duties of a modern state with expanding

In the historical fiction novel The Slopes of War by N.A. Perez, the author illustrates the gruesome battle that befell the little market town of Gettysburg during the Civil War through the various perspectives of all the people whom were immersed and affected. These people included young men fighting, generals arguing about their plans and tactics, and innocent citizens who aided causalities regardless of what color their uniform happened to be. Perspectives from both the Confederate and Union armies are offered in the text to grasp a better understanding of all the thoughts occurring throughout the entire battle, as well as before and after. Throughout the novel, Perez elucidates the emotional and physical aspects of war the people endured, such as traumatizing, graphic images that can serve as bad omens, and loss of loved ones. Also, the book further explains what war truly signified, which was death. The positive results and overall effects of the war as described in the novel, however, somewhat outweighs the negative causes and struggles. In the book Crispin written by Avi, there is a particular quote in the novel on the first page in which reads, “In the midst of life comes death, in the midst of death comes life.” This quote can be related to the novel in numerous ways, and can be applied to life in general, too.

Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering: Death and The American Civil War tackles a subject that is not widely written about: the ways of death of the American Civil War generation. She demonstrates how the unprecedented carnage, both military and civilian, caused by the Civil War forever changed American assumptions of death and dying, and how the nation and its people struggled to come to terms with death on an unimaginable scale. The war created a veritable “republic of suffering” and Faust vividly portrays the United States’ ordeal, transformation, and

The poem “For the Union dead” by Robert Lowell is one of the writings whose title is exquisitely regarded. Commencing as a private meditation of his childhood the poet flashbacks on the commitment of Colonel Robert Shaw a union officer who was assassinated during the battalion of the black soldiers during the time of the civil war. Altering from the historical ancient and modern analysis, the poet is depicted lamenting that the heroic nature in the Contemporary America has been eroded. The contemplation of the poem is based on the mark left by the civil war which commemorates the death of Colonel Robert Shaw who died during the time when he was assigned to be the commander of the black regiment. He died because of sacrificing his life for the unity of the nation (Axelrod, 125). Symbolically, his deaths depict the union idealism that existed during that time. In his poem, Lowell shows the contrast that exists between the heroism of Shaw and the modern forms of greed and self-interests that are prevalent in the society. The title of the poem is symbolic in that it depicts that the national unity of America is dead meaning that it no longer exists.

“More than 600,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American civil war”. (Faust, 2012) It is equivalent to 2% of the current American population, which in present terms, it means six million dead. It was a period of time that made history but also an important historical event that is often overlooked, or even worse that many are misinformed about. In the book, This Republic of Suffering, Drew Faust dissects and illustrates into detail the war for what it really was. Faust primarily focuses on death and the dying and the suffering surrounding it, not only on the individual lives but how it affected the people nationwide, and its devastating circumstances. The Civil War took place from 1861 till 1865. It took a toll on humanity, religious beliefs

After the Mexican War ended on February 1848 when the US and Mexican government signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the US had the concept of manifest destiny, belief that the US would continue to spread west with ideas of the advancement in factories and a dispute over the issue of slavery. In that same year, David Wilmot of Pennsylvania composed the Wilmot Proviso, stating that slavery cannot exist in any territory acquired by Mexico, which upset many Southerners leading to events such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the Compromise of 1850 on how the issue of slavery would prevent the US from westward expansion and factory production. Eventually, the issue of slavery would cause the US nation to break into two groups called the

Effects of War Exposed in All Quite on the Western Front, Bury the Dead, and Paths of Glory

Topic: To what extend did the US have an impact on El Salvador and the way it was shifting //To what extent did the US have the rights to interfere in the Civil war in El Salvador (and the outcomes) //force modernization to the indigenous group.//To what extent was it ethically correct for the United States to help in the Salvadorian War.

widely known in the United States as simply the Civil War as well as other sectional names, was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865 to determine the survival of the Union or independence for the Confederacy. Among the 34 states in January 1861, seven Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy, often simply called the South, grew to include eleven states, and although they claimed thirteen states and additional western territories, the Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal and did not declare secession were known as the Union or the North. The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. After four years of combat, which left over 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead and destroyed much of the South 's infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed and slavery was abolished. Then began the Reconstruction and the processes of restoring national unity and guaranteeing civil rights to the freed slaves.

Power to the people. This was the heart and soul of the United States of America. This country was run by the decisions of the individual states’ opinions. Then, the Civil War happened. This war was one of the most pivotal points in American history. The government tried to make a decision on its own without the consent of the country as a whole. This led to the destruction of the rights of the people. The destruction of the rights of the people gave the majority of the power to the federal government, who have abused it, repeatedly, ever since. America has gone through very dark time as a result of the Civil War. These are the three most important points to learn from the Civil War: it was caused by the breaking of state’s

This week we read and discussed the first part of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Faust. Faust’s thesis, stated in the preface, is: “At war’s end this shared suffering would override persisting difference about the meanings of race, citizenship, and nationhood to establish sacrifice and its memorialization as the goring on which North and South would ultimately reunite (Faust xiii).” The way that America, North and South reacted is in the way that the survivors took care of the injured and what the North and South did with the dead bodies scattered all over the country.

As Faust shows in chapter one that no one expected what the Civil War was coming about. We also see how he explores the work of death in the role of the participants of death. We see a major empathies on how Faust describes the death as a major factor that went on during the Civil War, and will be a central point on how it describes his book. Faust also shows how the process of preparing for death was an attempt to continue the traditions of ars moriendi in the face of this destructive war. The Good Death was a major central point during the mid-nineteenth century.

“Twenty-one million men, Soldiers, armies, guns” (Sandburg, L#5-6). In ‘Statistics’, Sandburg symbolizes the evolution of war as it coincides with our civilization. Sandburg uses The Napoleonic Wars as a base point for comparison, a war that transpired mainly by means of tedious marching across thousands of miles. Sandburg takes us to his era, in the midst of the First World War, where civilization has advanced modern warfare from its rudimentary beginnings into something completely unrecognizable from The Napoleonic Wars. The reader is also able to look at once modern warfare of Sandburg’s era and see that it too is unrecognizable to them through the vigorous metamorphosis of war. Pile the bodies high at Napoleon’s victory and defeat (L#1). In Sandburg’s following poem of war, we begin with a tenebrously saturnine tone. Sandburg uses The Napoleonic Wars as a reference point again as he shows us that in one simple sweep, millions of bodies are shoveled under the grass. This poem is all about the death that every great war brings us. The millions of gallons of blood spilt, the billions of bullets fired, the

The trials and adventures of heroes are seldom beautiful. Often, these escapades include deceit, blood, death, madness, and destruction. All of which, are ugly. One may argue, that the triumph and glory at the end of these adventures represent a beauty that negates the prior ugliness. But, at what cost? Perhaps, the “victory” is pyrrhic, and the “beauty” is ephemeral. Now, apply this structure to war. Victory is sweet, but those burials are sorrowful. Between 3,250,000 and 6,500,000 million people died during the Napoleonic Wars. Anna Barbauld, probably wishes that number was curbed. Even more, she tried. Barbauld’s poem, Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, imagines a future England and London in ruins, visited by travelers from across the Atlantic eager to see the remains of a once-thriving and dominant culture. Through her poem, Barbauld warns that the pursuit of beauty inflicts violence upon the very beauty that is sought after.