Just like the soldiers of every conflict before and since, the men who fought in the American Civil War enlisted for a multitude of reasons. To claim any universality for these soldiers and the divided nation they represented would be a mistake, with perhaps one exception — their expectations were vastly different from the actual experience of military engagement.
Due to the wide background of experiences and attitudes and the transformative nature of combat, soldier motivation ultimately should be viewed as a progression. Historians have generally broken this down into three fundamentals: what spurs men to enlist, what steadies them on the firing line or pushes them forward in the assault and what keeps them in the service through the end. Analyzing the war through the lens of one individual can illustrate the variety of motivational factors and different fates a Civil War soldier realized.
Read Full Article »