"No Sacrifice is too Great, save that of Honor": Honor, Death, and Psychological Combat Trauma in the American Civil War

Abstract

Examination of honor culture and attitudes toward death and dying found in letters, diaries, and newspapers - from the colonial and revolutionary period through the Civil War era - strongly suggests that Civil War soldiers did not suffer from psychological combat trauma. Psychological combat trauma is as much a part of today's war as uniforms and ammunition, but this was not the reality for Civil War Americans. The truth is that all wars are terrible for those who fight them, and physical stresses of battle have been part of warfare in every age. Twentieth-century ideas of the psychological effects of war differ vastly from those of the nineteenth century. Civil War battle offered potential for psychiatric trauma. Civil War soldiers, however, lived in a time of different expectations and beliefs about honor and death and dying. Expectations for psychiatric trauma for these soldiers did not exist. This dissertation uses research in honor culture, masculinity studies, and attitudes toward death and dying to illustrate the idea that nineteenth-century cultural ideals of honor and death reduced or prevented psychological consequences of combat in Civil War soldiers.