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A turning point in how we deal with death
This gripping, scholarly book tells the ways the Civil War changed procedures and mind-sets.
This Republic of Suffering:
Death and the American
Civil War
By Drew Gilpin Faust Alfred A. Knopf. 346 pp. $27.95
Reviewed by William Blair
The dead return to us from Iraq, recovered dutifully by the government and sent home to communities. Some are buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Local media report on their funerals and convey what their loss means to loved ones. Families mourn, but they have the certainty of knowing how their soldier died, relayed by the military. And they know that the remains have received respectful treatment. Imagine a much different universe: a time when the dead may not have come back from the battlefield; when the government did not inform next of kin; when as many as half of the bodies went unidentified; when no national cemeteries existed; and when the military had insufficient plans for handling the bodies of the men who gave their lives so that this nation might live. This is the often gripping world that Drew Gilpin Faust restores as she explores dying and mourning during the American Civil War. Historians have long known of the enormous scale of death that the Civil War represents, with its 620,000 killed on both sides eclipsing the total for all other wars in our past until after Korea. Few before Faust, however, have considered the impact of these casualties on life in the United States. Her book, This Republic of Suffering, opens fresh ground and has blazed a research trail for future studies. Faust has been making history as well as writing it. She spent a good portion of her life in the Philadelphia area, earning a bachelor's degree at Bryn Mawr and graduate degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, where she served on the faculty for more than two decades. In 2007, after a stint as dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, she became the first female president in the 371-year existence of Harvard University. And her book has crossed over academic borders to find a public audience - a rare occurrence, if not historical. Faust writes from the perspective of historians who see the Civil War as creating revolutionary changes in American life. She argues that the war jolted the procedures for death out of traditional cultural pathways. Conventional thinking about how to die and how to mourn was turned on its head. Unprepared for war, the country took the first steps toward government assumption of the obligation for identifying the soldiers killed in the line of duty and caring for their remains. The conventions for handling death differed dramatically from those we follow today. Faust stresses the importance before the war of the notion of a Good Death - a passing that comes in the home, surrounded by family, with the dying person spiritually prepared and reconciled to fate. In support, Faust cites a compelling statistic: In the first decade of the 20th century, 35 years after the war ended, fewer than 15 percent of Americans died away from home. A bloody Civil War meant that hundreds of thousands of men did die far from home and family, but Faust finds more repercussions from this circumstance than simply distance. She considers how the war rattled and changed commonly held beliefs. Mourners often had no confirmation of the death of a loved one with so many men designated as "unknown" (there were no dog tags yet). Poor communications contributed to a sense of denial, which could stall the progression of a survivor through the stages of mourning. Ultimately, she maintains, the war enhanced a sense of irony, fostered skepticism about the tenets of revealed religion, and fed interest in spiritualism - trying to communicate with the dead in seances or through a precursor to the Ouija board. What will strike many readers is the sheer improvisation that went along with the military's burying the dead and handling corpses in general. Our Civil War ancestors were making up the rules as they went. The war prompted the creation of national cemeteries and the recognition of the need for better record-keeping and tending of graves. Most of the dead were buried near where they fell. Some of the details of the book, compelling and well presented, can also make for gritty reading. Embalming began to gain currency from the need to preserve corpses for transportation, but this was not a widespread practice because of the expense. Companies sold airtight coffins designed to trap odors from decomposition so closed-casket viewings could be held in homes. Battlefield graves were so shallow that they sometimes allowed for desecration. Yet this is by no means a gorefest. It is a serious work by a top-notch scholar who aims high and covers an amazing sweep of material - from the process of burial to the changing beliefs of survivors forced to adjust to unprecedented events in their own and their nation's lives.
William Blair is director of the Richards Civil War Era Center and professor of U.S. history at Pennsylvania State University. He also is editor of the scholarly journal Civil War History.
Death and the American
Civil War
By Drew Gilpin Faust Alfred A. Knopf. 346 pp. $27.95
Reviewed by William Blair
The dead return to us from Iraq, recovered dutifully by the government and sent home to communities. Some are buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Local media report on their funerals and convey what their loss means to loved ones. Families mourn, but they have the certainty of knowing how their soldier died, relayed by the military. And they know that the remains have received respectful treatment. Imagine a much different universe: a time when the dead may not have come back from the battlefield; when the government did not inform next of kin; when as many as half of the bodies went unidentified; when no national cemeteries existed; and when the military had insufficient plans for handling the bodies of the men who gave their lives so that this nation might live. This is the often gripping world that Drew Gilpin Faust restores as she explores dying and mourning during the American Civil War. Historians have long known of the enormous scale of death that the Civil War represents, with its 620,000 killed on both sides eclipsing the total for all other wars in our past until after Korea. Few before Faust, however, have considered the impact of these casualties on life in the United States. Her book, This Republic of Suffering, opens fresh ground and has blazed a research trail for future studies. Faust has been making history as well as writing it. She spent a good portion of her life in the Philadelphia area, earning a bachelor's degree at Bryn Mawr and graduate degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, where she served on the faculty for more than two decades. In 2007, after a stint as dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, she became the first female president in the 371-year existence of Harvard University. And her book has crossed over academic borders to find a public audience - a rare occurrence, if not historical. Faust writes from the perspective of historians who see the Civil War as creating revolutionary changes in American life. She argues that the war jolted the procedures for death out of traditional cultural pathways. Conventional thinking about how to die and how to mourn was turned on its head. Unprepared for war, the country took the first steps toward government assumption of the obligation for identifying the soldiers killed in the line of duty and caring for their remains. The conventions for handling death differed dramatically from those we follow today. Faust stresses the importance before the war of the notion of a Good Death - a passing that comes in the home, surrounded by family, with the dying person spiritually prepared and reconciled to fate. In support, Faust cites a compelling statistic: In the first decade of the 20th century, 35 years after the war ended, fewer than 15 percent of Americans died away from home. A bloody Civil War meant that hundreds of thousands of men did die far from home and family, but Faust finds more repercussions from this circumstance than simply distance. She considers how the war rattled and changed commonly held beliefs. Mourners often had no confirmation of the death of a loved one with so many men designated as "unknown" (there were no dog tags yet). Poor communications contributed to a sense of denial, which could stall the progression of a survivor through the stages of mourning. Ultimately, she maintains, the war enhanced a sense of irony, fostered skepticism about the tenets of revealed religion, and fed interest in spiritualism - trying to communicate with the dead in seances or through a precursor to the Ouija board. What will strike many readers is the sheer improvisation that went along with the military's burying the dead and handling corpses in general. Our Civil War ancestors were making up the rules as they went. The war prompted the creation of national cemeteries and the recognition of the need for better record-keeping and tending of graves. Most of the dead were buried near where they fell. Some of the details of the book, compelling and well presented, can also make for gritty reading. Embalming began to gain currency from the need to preserve corpses for transportation, but this was not a widespread practice because of the expense. Companies sold airtight coffins designed to trap odors from decomposition so closed-casket viewings could be held in homes. Battlefield graves were so shallow that they sometimes allowed for desecration. Yet this is by no means a gorefest. It is a serious work by a top-notch scholar who aims high and covers an amazing sweep of material - from the process of burial to the changing beliefs of survivors forced to adjust to unprecedented events in their own and their nation's lives.
William Blair is director of the Richards Civil War Era Center and professor of U.S. history at Pennsylvania State University. He also is editor of the scholarly journal Civil War History.
