Embedded Files
Soldiers' graves near the General Hospital at City Point in Virginia, USA, circa 1863
No doubt you are now aware of the enormous tragedy of the Civil War and its 600,000+ deaths. Just about 2% of the U.S. population at the time died. If we suffered the same loss today, we would lose nearly 7 million Americans. It's easy to regard this number as what it is - an impersonal statistic - but the aim of Healing Wars and other commemorative works is to keep alive the memory of the individual.
Many people died. But how were they mourned? How are they remembered? What keeps them alive?
Civil war mourning customs
Civil war mourning customs
The rate of death during the Civil War transformed the ways individuals and communities responded to death, and heightened women's public role in mourning traditions.
In 1861, Prince Albert died and Queen Victoria set a standard by publicly mourning her husband until her own death in1901. Americans followed this lead and established elaborately structured mourning customs. Etiquette books recommended that mothers mourn a child for one year, a child mourn a parent for one year, and siblings mourn for six months. Widowers mourned for only three months by wearing armbands, badges, or rosettes of black fabric.
Widows, however, were expected to respect a minimum two and a half years in mourning. Their mourning was structured in three stages:
Heavy mourning immediately following the death of the husband. A widow wears only black clothing and keeps her face concealed with a black crepe veil when she leaves home.
Full mourning. A widow continues to wear black clothing and veil, but brings lighter shades of lace and cuffs to adorn her outfit.
Half mourning. A widow wears solid-colored lavender, grey, and purple fabrics.
Immediately following the death of her husband, a wife was compelled to wear only black clothing and to keep her face concealed with a black crepe veil when she left home.
A widow's jewelry, social activity, and even stationary were also dictated by mourning customs.
Young women in full mourning.
Prior to the war, funerals were mostly private affairs. Death occurred at home, loved ones had a chance to view the body before it disappeared, and burial was in a familiar space, usually accompanied by previously deceased family and neighbors. But as the death toll rose, funerals became daily, public events. Most men died hundreds or thousands of miles from home, so strangers found themselves performing many of the rites associated with death.
In the south, women mitigated the anonymous burials of Confederate soldiers by attending services, writing letters to soldiers' families, and placing flowers on military graves. Union citizens would do the same for their lost soldiers, but with a slightly less public air about it than their Confederate counterparts.
Funerals took on a more political tone, as neither Union nor Confederate citizens wanted to see their families buried in the opposing nation's soil. Union officials sometimes demanded a Confederate soldier be moved from their grave in the south to one in the north, and vice-versa. Killed soldiers and leaders became martyrs, and accounts of individuals dying heroic deaths on the battlefield or in hospitals were connected to symbol systems relating to Jesus Christ, America, and home and used as logs to stoke the fire of the war cause.
The Civil War reinvented American society's perspective on death, raising questions about overexposure and desensitization, salvation and spiritual preparedness, democratic ideals and individual rights, and more. (From Encyclopedia Virgina and Death Reference)
Confederate General Stonewall Jackson's Grave
honoring through art
honoring through art
As is still the tradition, the lives of the dead are frequently honored through various art forms. Below is a poem and a sculpture from Civil War times, both honoring the lives of servicemen.
The Shaw Memorial was dedicated as a monument in 1897 to commemorate the valiant efforts of the 54th Massachusetts, the first Civil War regiment of African Americans enlisted in the north. Commissioned from the celebrated American sculptor August Saint-Gaudens, the sculpture has been acclaimed as the greatest American sculpture of the 19th century.
On October 21, 1861, Lewis Mitchell and the 1st Minnesota Volunteers were stationed away from the main fighting of the Battle of Ball's Bluff in Virginia. The unit lost only one man - Mitchell. A few weeks later, Mitchell's friend Hanford L. Gordon wrote a poem which comes to term with the death of a comrade. Below is an excerpt. The full poem is available here.
But we fight our country’s battles
And our hopes are not forlorn
Our death shall be a blessing
To “Millions yet unborn.”
To our children and their children
And as each grave is filled
We will but ask our Chief to say
“Only a private killed.”
-Hanford L. Gordon, Camp Stone, Maryland,
November 12, 1861
JOY
JOY
We remember people by the ways they impacted our lives and the lives of others, by the ways they touched the world and the beautiful fingerprints they left behind. In grief, there are moments of horrible lows, but there are also moments at which we can smile when we think of the happiness that others brought to us. We remember them through good memories - we remember their joy. In life and death, the thing that most often connects us as humans is our ability to have fun and put a smile on another's face.
Healing Wars recognizes that joy is as important as sadness and loss. Late in the stage performance, the show uses a viral video from 2010 of soldiers in Afghanistan remaking Lady Gaga's music video for "Telephone." This video garnered national attention because it provided such a stark contrast from the way Afghanistan was presented in the media - it showed soldiers still able to enjoy life though they are surrounded by death.
remembering contemporary conflicts
remembering contemporary conflicts
Thanks to the advent of the Internet, there are now countless ways to interact with memorials and other commemorative sites which honor the lives of service members of U.S.-involved conflicts. Check out a few resources below.
Virtual tours:
Photo gallery tours:
Page updated
Report abuse