PTSD in the Civil War-- Part 8: "The Vicious Nature of Combat"

Another book on the war "Living Hell: The Dark Side of the Civil War" by Michael Adams describes the "vicious nature of combat, the terrible infliction of physical and mental wounds, the misery of soldiers living amid corpses, filth and flies."

Some historians do not like new scholarship which include subjects such as rape, torture and guerrilla atrocities.  They say that these were on the margins of the war and don't reflect the mainstream of Civil War experience.

Gary Gallagher at the University of Virginia is one of these and adds that the vast majority of soldiers weren't traumatized and went on to have productive postwar lives.

One thing he and others warn against is viewing 1860s Americans as though they were like modern Americans.  As a rule, Civil War soldiers were more religious, more imbued with notions of honor and glory and less inclined to share their pain or seek help for it.

--Old Secesh