Life During the Civil War

 The South’s economy was more negatively affected by the war, but the North experienced problems also.  This ties back to some of the advantages the North had prior to the war (do you remember?)  Key problems in the South were:  Collapse of transportation networks  Few railroads to start and those destroyed  Northern blockade of ports and control of key rivers  This matters because it damages Southern morale. Why are they fighting for a government that can’t even provide food?  Bread riots in Richmond and other cities

 Providing supplies for the war caused industries to grow (clothes, weapons, ammunition)  Industries could get government contracts to provide uniforms, etc.  Spurred innovation in agriculture  Have to do something to produce crops with no physical labor to harvest them  Mechanical reaper

 The Emancipation Proclamation made it possible for African Americans to officially enlist in the Union army.  Thousands signed up hoping it would help end discrimination and increase respect  54 th Massachusetts regiment was the first African American regiment officially organized in the North.

 Hardships on both sides; food was often scarce or of poor quality Often didn’t have shoes or blankets Would kill livestock or take food from fields and farms they passed as they marched

 What happens to the soldiers who died?  No knowledge of germs or how infections are spread from person to person  Soldiers who didn’t get injured were often weakened by diseases (dysentery, typhoid, pneumonia)  Often amputated limbs to prevent gangrene  “As a wounded man was lifted on the table, often shrieking with pain…the surgeon quickly examined the wound and resolved upon cutting off the wounded limb. Some ether was administered…the surgeon snatched the knife from between his teeth, where it had been while his hands were busy, wiped once or twice across his blood-stained apron, and the cutting began. The operation accomplished, the surgeon would look around with a deep sigh, and then –’Next!”

 Took over the jobs of men who had gone off to war  Created Ladies’ Aid Societies to make bandages, blankets, socks  Also served as spies such as Pauline Cushman & Elizabeth Van Lew. Harriet Tubman also  Army nurses had traditionally been men  Clara Barton  Founder of the American Red Cross  Was inspired by Florence Nightingale, a British nurse  Civil War considered a turning point for the nursing profession in the war.

 Early in the war there were formal prisoner exchanges  The Confederacy announced after the Emancipation Proclamation that it will kill or re-enslave any captured African American soldiers  Lincoln stops the exchanges in response  Leads to large numbers of prisoners of war  Most famous (infamous) prison was in Gerogia at Andersonville  An open camp  Terrible (even for a prison camp) conditions  More than 100 men per day died  45,000 prisoners and 13,000 died there  Henry Wirz, the commander in charge, is the only person executed for war crimes after the Civil War