Lizzi’s Reviews > This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War > Status Update

•heavy public mourning of Lincoln’s death was a substitute for the funerals of soldiers regular people could not attend
•published funeral sermons

•denial and difficulty of realizing deaths until physical proof is presented.
•women were expected to mourn longer—widow mourned 2.5 years, widower 3 months.
•”sorority of grief” in the south because of high death toll.
•mourning attire became a huge part of fashion industry.

•many uncounted casualties of noncombatant civilians by disease, stray bullets, slave/owners, and white northern citizens protesting against going to war for emancipation.
•Slaves were encouraged by disruptions to challenge masters and masters became paranoid and “witch hunted” those suspected of planning uprising, as well as retribution toward wives of runaway male slaves who joined the Union army.

•naming was difficult due to many completely obliterated bodies
•families were striped of the ability to even mourn because of the uncertainty of whether the soldiers were still alive
•prisoners size exceeded both north and south’s ability to supply food and medical care; regular prisoner exchanges

•personal efforts to communicate info about soldiers’ status
•dog tags, pre-written letters, bible inscribed with name and address

•sanitary commissions size far exceeded Christian commission; more importance on modern warfare realism rather than sentimentalism
•sanitary commission created Hospital Directory which acted as communication agency for families about soldiers’ conditions

•acknowledgement of the importance of information, whether a soldier is dead or alive
•wrong and confusing info in casualty lists

-burials became impersonal due to higher volume of bodies as the war went on, often times the burden of finding and shipping the bodies back home fell on kin

-poor planning and organization of burials
-a lot of times responsibility for burying the dead fell on the victor side

-“killing was for black soldiers[…]the instrument of liberation; it was an act of personal empowerment and the vehicle of racial emancipation. To kill and to be[…]permitted to kill was ironically to claim a human right”
-self numbing/detachment to cope, think of self as machines. “Loss of feeling was at base a loss of self—a kind of living death that could make even survivors casualties of war”