For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War

“Helping a wounded comrade to the rear was a favorite device to escape further fighting.”

Here, McPherson offers one way in which soldiers avoided fighting. He looks into the motivations of soldiers and delves into their social class to see if he can find some reason for their behavior in battle. He does so to attempt to understand why those who did not flee chose to stay, looking to the exception to prove the rule. 

“I would strike down my own brother if he dare to raise a hand to destroy that flag.”

McPherson begins Chapter 2 by calling the Civil War “The Brothers’ War.” By doing so, he outlines the divide at the heart of the nation. In the above quote, James Welsh, who has declared for the Union, tells his brother John he cannot believe that John would betray the flag. John believes James is the traitor, and that he has signed up to murder his friends and family, sacrificing all for the slaves. Those who declared for the South believed they were upholding their way of life, while those from the North thought the South was betraying American ideals. 

“A good many Confederate soldiers also cited the obligations of duty. But they were more likely to speak of honor: one’s public reputation, one’s image in the eyes of his peers.”

Chapter 2 outlines the motivations of soldiers of both sides for going to war. Northerners believed it was their duty to defend the country and the flag, while Southerners thought of honor—they would rather die an honorable death than live in dishonor. McPherson is demonstrating the different beliefs of each side that caused such a schism. 

“The eagerness of green recruits for combat grew in part from their notions of manliness.”

In the third chapter, titled “Anxious for the Fray,” McPherson attempts to understand why soldiers were eager for battle. Here, he says part of that eagerness grew from a sense of manliness—they wanted to prove themselves. McPherson also mentions honor as a motivating factor, and, as earlier, he describes honor and manliness in the same sentence, with manliness, honor, and duty are all tied together into an eagerness to “see the elephant” (30). Since his book is an inquiry into the reasons men went to war, this chapter explains their reasons for wanting actual battle. To go to war is not good enough—they need to be proven in battle, to have faced death, which they believe will not only confirm their manhood, but satisfy their sense of duty and honor.  

“Once they had seen the elephant, few Civil War soldiers were eager to see it again.”

On the previous page, McPherson describes soldiers eager for battle; here, he describes soldiers after their first taste of battle. He lists accounts of soldiers writing home about how awful battle is, how scared they are, how many deaths they have seen. They are no longer yearn for the fray, and instead hope that they never have to fight again. 

“The comparison of a private’s lot to that of a slave was a common one—especially among privates.”

Describing training and discipline, McPherson quotes letters from soldiers comparing their lives to those of slaves—they are ordered around by their sergeants, yelled at, told where to go and where to be. 

“The most extreme form of discipline was coercion: the use or threat of deadly force to compel a soldier into the firing line against his will.”

McPherson’s book attempts to find the causes that kept soldiers in the war. Here, he gives a tangible reason: they were forced. This coercion, though shunned by the Republican founders of the country, nevertheless has a long history, especially when tied to class. McPherson follows the quote with examples of officers threatening to shoot men who turn from the firing line. In later battles, officers use their cavalry behind the lines, ordering them to cut down any man who runs. This shows not only the fear that came upon soldiers in battle, but the extreme methods officers used to combat it.  

“There were few atheists in the rifle-pits of 1861-1865.”

This quote shows the reliance on religion by soldiers, and how facing death forces them to think of the afterlife. McPherson shares quotes from soldiers whose faith gives them the strength to accept their fate—they have prepared for the end, and seem to accept it. In the overarching question of the book, then, this shows another reason why so many soldiers stayed, and gave their lives to the cause. 

“This Christian fatalism had both pessimistic and optimistic overtones.”

McPherson writes that Christian pessimists are resigned to their fate—they think they will die and accept it. The optimists, while thinking nearly the same thought, look at death as God calling them home. They believe that God protects them at all times, in war as outside of war, and if, then, they are killed, they are only going home to be with God. The idea here is that men facing death will accept any belief that gives them strength. Some find the strength to face death while others use their religious belief to have hope in life, but all of them are trying to find some way to face the fear of death.  

“The pride and honor of an individual soldier were bound up with the pride and honor of his regiment, his state, and the nation for which he fought, symbolized by the regimental and national flags.”

McPherson goes to great length to describe the Civil War soldier’s fear of being dishonored. Here, he explains that a soldier’s honor is made up of more than just his person. He represents himself, and everything he fights for. His family is also at risk. McPherson says that since regiments often come from the same town, any cowardice is reported back to the town through letters, and those so named can never return for the shame it would cause them. 

“Unit pride and loyalty prompted many three-year veterans in Union regiments to reenlist in 1864.”

McPherson is constantly looking for reasons soldiers stayed in the war. Chapter 6 is titled “Band of Brothers,” and describes the bonds soldiers share. They also share the fear of shame. These two forces drive them to reenlist: over half of the first-year volunteers in the Union army reenlist. Nearly all of the Confederates do.  

“Bonded by the common danger they face in battle, this primary group becomes a true band of brothers whose mutual dependence and mutual support create the cohesion necessary to function as a fighting unit. The survival of each member of the group depends on the others doing their jobs.”

Here, McPherson offers another reason as to why unit loyalty is so strong: the men keep one another alive. They protect each other, and out of that protection grows the trust and brotherhood that keeps them together. By protecting each other, they protect their own interests. By protecting his fellow soldier, a soldier keeps himself alive.

“When they enlisted, many of them did so for patriotic and ideological reasons.”

McPherson shares several quotes from several sources that claim soldiers, in battle, care not for ideological concerns. He also shares sources claiming primary group cohesion is more important than any ideological concerns. But McPherson disagrees with both theories. He says the election of 1860, in which many Civil War soldiers voted, is the most heated and momentous election in US history. They know the causes of the war, the goals of both sides, and the possible outcomes. They join for patriotic reasons, and do not stop being patriotic once the war begins. 

“When the war began, the Confederacy was a distinct polity with a fully operational government in control of a territory larger than any European nation save Russia. Although in the minds and hearts of some Southern whites, American nationalism still competed with Confederate nationalism, the latter had roots several decades deep in the antebellum ideology of Southern distinctiveness.”

McPherson is making the case that both sides fight for ideological causes. This quote reinforces that belief. Since the United States is still united prior to the onset of the Civil War, the Confederacy has to create its own ideas of nationalism. McPherson is saying here that those roots of nationalism are already present: because of its agricultural economy, its reliance on slavery, and other sociocultural and socioeconomic reasons, the South sees itself as different from the North. When the war begins, the South clings to those differences as a form of nationalism.  

“The patriotism of Civil War soldiers existed in a specific historical context. Americans of the Civil War generation revered their Revolutionary forebears. Every schoolboy and schoolgirl knew how they had fought against the odds to forge a new republic conceived in liberty. Northerners and Southerners alike believed themselves the custodians of the legacy of 1776. The crisis of 1861 was the great test of their worthiness of that heritage.”

The South believes the North is the aggressor. The North believes the South has betrayed the country. Both make religious, social, cultural, and economic arguments. This quote highlights the patriotic argument, with both sides believing they are carrying with them the same values the revolutionary fathers carried with them.

“Confederates professed to fight for liberty and independence from a tyrannical government; Unionists said they fought to preserve the nation conceived in liberty from dismemberment and destruction.”

McPherson is outlining how both sides of the Civil War see themselves as the hero, and the other side as the villain. Both sides use the same words to describe their struggle, but each have different meanings in their definition. In this quote, the Confederacy sees only their own liberty, but not the liberty of slaves; they also believe that “liberty” allows them to do whatever they will: own slaves, secede from the Union, start a war. The Union sees liberty as forcing the South to do the North’s bidding: end slavery, stay with the Union, not start a war. The North, of course, is fighting for the liberty of all, but from their different perspectives, even a single word is a point of contention.

“Few Union soldiers professed to fight for racial equality. For that matter, not many claimed even to fight primarily for the abolition of slavery.”

The South fights to preserve the institution of slavery. The North fights to preserve the Union. McPherson quotes a study that found only one in ten Union soldiers had any real interest in emancipation. Rather, their goal is to preserve the Union. Further, McPherson points out that a third of Union soldiers in the first year of the war, and many more after, either believe, or came to believe, that the Union can’t be made whole unless slavery is abolished. Abolition then, is a secondary goal, but a goal nonetheless.

“By the summer of 1862, antislavery pragmatism and principle fused into a growing commitment to emancipation as both a means and goal of Union victory.”

Certainly there were those among the Union who wanted to end slavery for humanitarian reasons. But many more soldiers were pragmatic: they see runaway slaves as hurting the Confederate Army, since men are often sent to track them down. The North also took in runaway slaves and put them to work as cleaners and cooks so more soldiers are free to fight. 

“‘Letters are the only thing that makes existence tolerable in this God forsaken country […] You all seem to think that because you have no great events to write about […] you have nothing. Whereas, it is the little common place incidences of everyday life at home which we like to read […] You do not realize how everything that savors of home, relishes with us.”

The cause in Chapter 10 that McPherson outlines is the support from home. He makes the claims that having support from home gives soldiers the strength to continue fighting. In this letter, a soldier chastises his family for not writing more often. He wants to hear about the small, everyday moments, because he no longer has access to those moments. Hearing about domestic life gives him the strength to continue fighting. 

“‘I experience such constant dread and anxiety that I feel all the time weary and depressed,’ wrote one Southern woman to her husband in the army. ‘What do I care for patriotism?’ wrote another. ‘My husband is my country. What is country to me if he be killed?’”

In Chapter 10, McPherson gives a short glimpse into the lives of the women left behind when their men go to war. A letter such as this one could hurt the morale of the man who receives it, and also shows the anxiety and despair that wives felt during the war.

“An essential component of the masculine code of honor was revenge for insult and injury. Hatred of the object of vengeance often accompanied this code.”

McPherson has made much of masculinity, and its demands on honor and courage. Here, he adds another piece of the code: vengeance. Even before the invasions begins, the South sees the North as thieves and money-grubbers coming to steal their land and way of life. McPherson describes dozens of letters fostering hatred and vowing vengeance: soldiers asking their wives to raise their children to hate the North, other soldiers saying the only thing that keeps them going is hatred of the enemy. This code of masculinity, McPherson points out, is at odds with Christian ethics, which most soldiers claim, but in this case, the sense of honor outweighs such ethics.

“Several Confederate soldiers picked up ghastly battlefield trophies. After the Battle of Manassas in 1861 a private in the 3rd South Carolina, son of a wealthy planter, offered to his sister to ‘send [her] some yankee bones.’”

Chapter 11 is about vengeance, and McPherson, here, captures a special kind of sadistic vengeance: the taking of battlefield trophies. It also gives insight into what war is; at its heart, war is neither about honor or courage, not patriotism or brotherhood. It is about killing and death, and to be able to kill another man, some soldiers must rely on hatred. This hatred extends beyond the battlefield, as a man who takes trophies externalizes that hatred via the carrying of the object, illuminating his loathing for those around him to see.

“Toward black Union soldiers and their white officers, Confederate enmity was unremitting.”

Confederates held a deep, unrelenting hate for black men. They saw them as less than human. McPherson gives an example a few paragraphs following in which Confederates are told that any time they encounter black troops, to leave none alive. The quote is also important in showing how the Union treated black soldiers. While they were considered free, they were led by a white officer. In other words, black men were still seen as less than white men, even by an army whose job it was to free all slaves.