150 The American Civil Warbands accompanied many units into service,
and they were constant sources of
entertainment throughout the conflict.
The novelty of camp life soon wore off,
however, and during the long
indistinguishable days of boring life,
preachers and camp chaplains attempted to
maintain morale among the ranks. Religion
proved to be the link between the home
front and the battlefront. When all else
failed, faith in God provided hope that life
might improve. Army chaplains on both
sides received officer status and substantial
pay- $100 per month in the Union and $80
in the Confederacy. Still, they were forced to
live a spartan life and, as the war continued,
both sides suffered chronic shortages of
qualified chaplains. Nonetheless, whether
they attended Sunday service or not, Civil
War soldiers relied on scriptures and faith to
get them through combat. Pennsylvanian
Milton Ray expressed a typical sentiment to
his sister; 'I hope you may continue in
earnest prayer for the preservation of my life
if it is God's holy will that I should be spared
... Pray that I may be a faithful soldier of the
cross and of my country.'
Death and disease
If the daily routine of harsh drilling and
unrelenting discipline, the indistinguishable
days of boredom, and the lack of good-
quality, plentiful food that made up a
soldiers camp life did not kill him, then
disease or disability from a battle-inflicted
wound often did. Of the 360,222 Union men
who died in the war, over 250,000 deaths
resulted from disease; nearly three-quarters
of the Confederate casualties also perished to
disease. Because camp sites were chosen for
military and not health considerations,
soldiers suffered tremendous depredations.
Inadequate drainage, ignorance of sanitary
practices, and the natural carelessness
associated with army life characterized
Union and Confederate camps and
produced a contaminated atmosphere.
'We have had an awful time drinking the
meanest water not fit for a horse (indeed I
could hardly get my horse to drink it),'
remarked a Texas surgeon.
Measles, smallpox, typhoid, diarrhea,
malaria, and dysentery were prevalent
throughout the war. More than 1,700,000
cases of diarrhea were recorded by Federal
doctors during the war, and 57,000 proved
fatal. Because many soldiers were farm boys
who had largely escaped a host of
communicable diseases, these spread like
epidemics in camp. Soldiers, uneducated
about the importance of hygiene,
exacerbated their problems by not bathing or
changing their clothes. Army surgeons were
few in number and their limited knowledge
and medical supplies often combined to
make the attempt to save a life as fatal as
the attempt to take one. Amputations
were common.
In early May 1862, Corinth highlighted
the familiar consequences of war. After the
bloody two-day battle at Shiloh, the
Confederates attempted to recover from the
devastating effects of the battle. Corinth, a
small railroad junction in northern
Mississippi, was in no way prepared to
accommodate 20,000 sick and wounded
Confederate soldiers. Residents used every
building possible to accommodate the
wounded men. However, more soldiers died
during the seven-week stay at Corinth than
had fallen in two days of battle. A
Confederate nurse, Kate Gumming, was at
the Tishomingo Hotel in Corinth, where she
found scores of disabled soldiers, 'mutilated
in every imaginable way.' She recalled that
the wounded soldiers were lying on the
bloody floors so close together that it was
difficult to avoid stepping on them.
During the siege of Vicksburg in May-July
1863, countless Confederate soldiers and
civilians fell victim to disease. Despite
herculean attempts to administer to the
wounded, the city and military hospitals,
with cots arranged even outside on the
grounds, could not take care of the flow of
casualties from the trenches. Scarcely a
woman at Vicksburg was not involved in
ministering to the wounded.