Friendly Enemies: Soldier Fraternization throughout the American Civil War

by Lauren K. Thompson

During the American Civil War, Union and Confederate soldiers commonly fraternized, despite strict prohibitions from the high command. When soldiers found themselves surrounded by privation, disease, and death, many risked their standing in the army, and ultimately their lives, for a warm cup of coffee or pinch of tobacco during a sleepless shift on picket duty, to receive a newspaper from a “Yank” or “Johnny,” or to stop the relentless picket fire while in the trenches. In Friendly Enemies Lauren K. Thompson analyzes the relations and fraternization of American soldiers on opposing sides of the battlefield and argues that these interactions represented common soldiers’ efforts to fight the war on their own terms. Her study reveals that despite different commanders, terrain, and outcomes on the battlefield, a common thread soldiers constructed a space to lessen hostilities and make their daily lives more manageable. Fraternization allowed men to escape their situation briefly and did not carry the stigma of cowardice. Because the fraternization was exclusively between white soldiers, it became the prototype for sectional reunion after the war—a model that avoided debates over causation, honored soldiers’ shared sacrifice, and promoted white male supremacy. Friendly Enemies demonstrates how relations between opposing sides were an unprecedented yet highly significant consequence of mid-nineteenth-century civil warfare.  

Genres: Civil War, History

240 pages, Hardcover

Published August 1, 2020

Reviews

[Nolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard this author interviewed on a recent "Civil War Talk Radio" podcast. She did a great interview there, and I knew I had to read the book. I'm glad I did even though it left me a little unsettled.

The book essentially reaffirms the inherent reality of the brotherhood of man and illustrates the reality that kindness can and does conquer the darkest of dark places. I was fascinated by how frequently men on both sides of the civil war stepped across their various dividers, boundaries, and demilitarized zones to push back on the grinding tension of battle and build bridges of brotherhood rather than pontoon bridges. Despite constant repetitive orders to avoid the practice, men frequently engaged in everything from chat to commerce to naked swims.

Thompson delves into the why of such behavior and describes much of what happened. She describes small, localized cease fire conditions where small groups would deliberately agree not to shoot at one another for a proscribed period of time.

This left me a bit unsettled though. As they swapped newspapers and letters, I couldn't help but wonder whether they were inadvertently providing intelligence that cost lives. I suppose that didn't happen, but even a bit of speculation in a paper could, in the right hands, translate into the currency of war-related information.

She looks at the Union colored troops and their utter lack of ability to fraternize with anyone. These little trade and shoot-the-bullshit excursions among white men, she says, bolstered the white supremacy culture of the time. I assume a common language aided in the fraternization. I guess it happened in our world wars, but I never heard stories from my father of American ships swopping rice cakes for Coke or Pepsi with the Japanese in the South Pacific.

Her writing style is consistently interesting and easy to read. Once you start this, you'll stay with it. Not even the synthetic speech in my book reader could make it boring. It's worth your time.