An Environmental History of the Civil War by Judkin Browning

Author:Judkin Browning
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2020-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Painting of the Battle of Spotsylvania showing the fighting at the Bloody Angle on May 12, 1864. Courtesy Library of Congress.

Even after three years of war, the most hardened soldiers found the sheer magnitude of death difficult to comprehend. Vermont private Wilbur Fisk spoke for many when he noted that, “though I have seen horrid scenes since this war commenced, I never saw anything half so bad as that.” Returning home when hostilities ended, veterans found the death and destruction impossible to describe. As one Maine soldier explained, “I never expect to be fully believed when I tell what I saw of the horrors of Spottsylvania [sic], because I should be loth to believe it myself were the case reversed.” For any soldier who still maintained visions of fighting as an exciting and glorious adventure, Spotsylvania put an end to such naiveté. Fisk thought of his own mortality while viewing “such a terrible, sickening sight” and admitted, “I have sometimes hoped, that if I must die while I am a soldier, I should prefer to die on the battle-field, but after looking at such a scene, one cannot help turning away and saying, Any death but that.”6

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.