Civil_War_Quarterly_-_Summer_2016_

A slight knee wound brought the New Jersey

boy to a Washington military hospital, but

“his mind had suffered more than his body,”

wrote volunteer nurse Louisa May Alcott.

“He lay cheering his comrades on, hurrying

them back, then counting them as they fell

around him, often clutching my arm, to drag

me from the vicinity of a bursting shell, or

covering up his head to screen himself from

a shower of shot; while an incessant stream

of defiant shouts, whispered warnings, and

broken laments poured from his lips.” Such

hallucinations and flashbacks are consistent

with what is now called posttraumatic stress

disorder.

Symptoms labeled “shell shock” or “com-

bat fatigue” in later wars were poorly under-

stood during the Civil War, and writings of

the period imprecisely labeled them “home-

sickness,” “nostalgia,” “irritable heart,” or

sometimes “sunstroke.” Of course, homesick

soldiers were not unusual during the war. The

very word homesickness had more serious

implications than it does today. Kate Cum-

ming, who worked as a nurse in various Con-

federate hospitals, recounted a concert at

which a hospital matron sang “Home, Sweet

Home.” It was a mistake, Cumming wrote.

“It scarcely does to sing such a song at pre-

sent, as it touches the heart a little too

deeply.” Similarly, Union Surgeon General

William A. Hammond wrote that it was often

necessary “to prohibit the regimental bands

playing airs which could recall or freshen the

memories of home.”

Union surgeon John G. Perry said he had

attempted to suppress his emotions before

he left home, but on the boat headed to the

front he had behaved “as I did when a child

for the first time away from home. I cried as

I did then, all night long.” Perry thought the

man in the berth above him was asleep,

“when suddenly he rolled over and looked

down upon me. I felt for the moment thor-

oughly ashamed of myself, but he said noth-

ing and settled back into his place, and then

I heard him crying also.” Perry said he was

haunted by the word home. “An awful sink-

ing at the heart still sweeps over me, and I

can easily understand how soldiers die of

homesickness.”

A lieutenant with the 3rd Iowa Regiment

observed that “many good soldiers were pos-

Extreme homesickness, termed “nostalgia” during the Civil War, often killed

more soldiers than enemy bullets. Some literally died to get home.

Medicine By Kevin L. Cook

ABOVE: Nurse Louisa May Alcott and Union Sur-

geon General William A. Hammond. LEFT: A young

soldier feigns illness to avoid combat duty in

Winslow Homer’s painting, Playing Old Soldier.

Nostalgia was a real issue during the war.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Both: Library of Congress

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