Beyond the Battlefield: The Ordinary Life and Extraordinary Times of the Civil War Soldier

by David Madden

Blackandwhite period photographs and excerpts from the memoirs, letters, and journals of soldiers on both sides of the Civil War conflict provide a firsthand look at the everyday lives of ordinary soldiers, from what they wore and what they ate to the leisure activities that they used to combat the boredom of military life. Original.

Genres: History, Civil War, Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published July 19, 2000

Reviews

[Bernard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting book looking at the Civil War 1861-65.

This is not a dry history text book concerned primarily with big battles, politicians' speeches etc, it's more about the every day soldiers themselves, and the monotonous life they had in the camps, and the discomforts they suffered due to homesickness, loneliness, and especially, exposure to bad weather and chronic diseases/epidemics as well as war wounds themselves.

The biggest enemies for both sides were "the invisible enemies" - sickness and disease.
This, accompanied with the poor hygiene and bad medical practices of the time.

Medical treatment, 1860's style, was incredibly primitive, horrific beyond belief, no decent hygiene standards/practices of any kind.

One can be thankful to live in today's medical world.

[Michael Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are loads of books out there on the social history of the Civil War -- camp life, the home front, women in the War, whatever -- and some of them are excellent. This one, however, is right in the middle of the bell curve. Madden, an English professor and very minor novelist, is the founder of the U.S. Civil War Center located in the LSU library here in Baton Rouge. The Center “promotes the use of research materials” and publishes an online book review, but their main purpose really is to facilitate the raising of money for whatever project is popular at the moment. The nine chapters follow the usual sort of topical plan, which this time includes the preliminaries to the War, camp life, “fun and games,” food and recipes, socializing with the enemy, POWs, crime and punishment, correspondence with the folks back home, and medicine and disease. This selection is idiosyncratic -- and incomplete since it omits many other major subjects -- so it’s not nearly as “complete and authoritative” as it purports to be. Much of the space of each page is taken up with extended quotes from (again) highly selected primary sources; in some cases, I could think of better selections to illustrate a point right off the top of my head, which makes me wonder just how conversant the author is with even the published literature. Moreover, since there are so quotations in such a comparatively slender volume, real context is generally lacking. If you want to read the original sources, whether written at the time, or later as reminiscences, go to Dornbusch (especially Vol. 3) and dig in. There’s no reason to limit yourself to Madden’s selection, especially since the whole thing is less than 300 pages. So this isn’t really a “bad” book, merely a somewhat pointless one.

[Lisa Potocar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author David Madden allows us a personal and expansive glimpse behind the scenes of the American Civil War; less about battle strategy and fighting, more about the camaraderie and events that happened between battles--in camp, on the march, with the enemy across picket lines. I challenge every writer, student, historian, or history buff to try reading this superior sketch of history as corroborated by the soldiers themselves just once. It's impossible!

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book. Lots of insite into the everyday life of soldiers in camp. We tend to forget that the war was days of monotony broken by battles. The games and letters talked about will certainly aid in my living history impression.