Lives and times of soldiers and families during the American Civil War

1. The Civil War Home Front The Civil War touched the lives of every American family, North and South. Almost every family had a son, husband, sweetheart, brother or father away at war.

2. As Men Left for the War the Home Fronts Mobilized to Support Them and the Families They Left Behind

3. What Were People Reading in the Newspaper?

4. The Picture News in Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Was Very Popular The papers were illustrated with drawings printed with woodcuts. Photography was new and the technology to print photographs in newspapers did not exist during the Civil War.

5. Photography and the Birth of Photojournalism Brought the War Home to Civilians Alexander Gardner shocked the nation with his photographs of dead on the Antietam Battlefield. People flocked to see the photographs in New York. Newspapers could not reproduce photographs at the time, but published woodcuts which were viewed across the country. Gardner stereo image entitled "A Contrast: Federal buried, Confederate unburied, where they fell on the Battlefield of Antietam." Woodcut created from the Gardner photograph that was reproduced in the newspapers.

6. Letters Of course, those on the home front lived in a constant state of fear over the prospect that their loved ones away at war would be killed or wounded. Newspaper reading reached an all-time high as people scanned the newspapers every day for any scrap of news that made mention their loved ones. Casualty lists were dreaded. Everyone wrote letters. Letter writing was the only way to communicate personally with those you cared about far from home.

7. Women Worked Hard to Support the Soldiers Through Traditional “Women’s” Roles Contributing to the War Effort How Many Activities Can You Identify in this Picture?

8. Women North and South Also Took Over Men's Work Which pictures do you think show Northern women at work and which show Southern women? Why?

9. Women North & South Risked their Lives Working in Dangerous Munitions Plants What differences can you describe that make the factory above different from modern factories? Why do you think munitions work would be dangerous?

10. More than 400 Women Disguised Themselves as Men and March Off to War Why do you think a woman would disguise herself as a man to join the army to fight in the Civil War?

11. Sometimes Women Followed Their Husbands Into the Army Camps and Brought Their Children These women washed clothes, cooked for the men, nursed them if they fell ill or were wounded.

12. THOUSANDS OF WOMEN NORTH & SOUTH BECAME NURSES"You have given your boys to die for their country;now you can give your girls to nurse them."(Nurse Mary Stinebaugh to her father in 1863)

13. The Civil War Touched the Lives of Every AmericanWhere People Lived, whether they were male or female, young or old, determined How Civilians on the Home Front Experienced The War.

14. Private Johnny Cook was a bugler with Battery B, 4th U.S. Artillery who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Antietam when he was only 15 years old. Just west of the Cornfield with men down in the battery he acted as cannoneer under severe fire

15. Women and Children Could be Trapped in the Line of Battle When the Armies Clashed Tillie Pierce- was 15 years old teenager on July 1, 1863 when she left Gettysburg with her family to escape the battle. She found herself nursing the wounded at the J. Weikert Farm south of town. Care of wounded soldiers continued upon returning to the family home, and in almost every home and building in Gettysburg for months after the battle. Tillie later wrote about her experiences in an article, "What a Girl Heard and Saw at the Battle."

16. Civilians at Vicksburg lived through 47 days of Union siege operations against Confederate forces defending the city of Vicksburg. Families lived in caves and trenches to escape the bombardment and they starved. Vicksburg was a fortress guarding the Mississippi River. It was called "The Gibraltar of the Confederacy." It surrendered to General Grant and the Northern Army on July 4, 1863

17. Civilians often had their homes destroyed or taken over for field hospitals and headquarters if they were unlucky enough to be in the middle of a battle. The Chancellor family was trapped between the armies in May 1863 when their home became General Hooker’s Headquarters. Sue Chancellor was 16 and was forced to hide in the basement with 15 other women and girls until the house caught fire and they had to flee. The Burned Chancellor House after the Battle, Library of Congress

18. Families on the home front faced shortages of every kind as both the Union and Confederate armies struggled to feed and supply their Armies. Shortages were particularly severe in the South, as the Union navy blockaded the Southern states to prevent any sort of European goods from being imported to the South. Cartoon map illustrating Gen. Winfield Scott's plan to crush the Confederacy, economically. Why do you think it is sometimes called the "Anaconda plan?"

19. As a result of the blockade, the South experienced shortages of food, clothing, medical supplies and every sort of item needed for daily living. Food became so scarce in Richmond in 1863 that the women of the city marched on the government in a “Bread Riot” protest. In this Northern drawing what is the author saying about the bread riot and Southern Women?

20. Southern Families Were Often Forced to Flee Their Homes and Become Refugees As The Armies Marched and Clashed Too Close for Safety This print from the Library of Congress is titled: The war in Virginia - farmers' families on their way to the Union commissaries for food

21. Many slave families and their children became contrabands as they left the plantations and followed the union armies.

22. The Road to Freedom

23. Slaves who entered Union lines and came to City Point, Virginia during the Siege of Petersburg, were typically employed unloading ships and working in the hospitals to aid the Union war effort. (Petersburg National Battlefield)

24. By war's end, African-American soldiers made up roughly 10 percent of the Union army. Approximately 179,000 black soldiers wore the blue; 37,000 lost their lives. In March 1865, the Confederate congress authorized the army to recruit 300,000 black troops. Some units were raised, but it was too late for them to make a difference.

25. Often Soldier’s on the March stopped at homes along the way. They sometimes wanted food, or something to drink. Often the women and children left behind reminded them of their own families far away. Sometimes they simply took what they wanted, or they could burn homes or farms and steal. These halts could be frightening experiences for women and children alone. At the very least these families know they would be required to provide food, of which they often had little themselves, to the soldiers.

26. The War Made Hundreds of Thousands of Children Orphans An incident of Gettysburg - the last thought of a dying father

27. More than 620,000 American Men Never Returned Home. Over 50,000 Returned Home As Amputees

28. The war created widows and orphans; and it deprived elderly members of families of the support they might have had in their old age, had their sons and grandsons lived or remained able to work. While many looked forward to the time ... "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again"... many soldiers limped home to be disabled for the rest of their lives. The Civil War, America's bloodiest conflict, cost nearly 1,100,000 casualties and claimed more than 620,000 lives. The campaigning armies left destruction in their wake, particularly in the Southern states that bore the brunt of the fighting. Best estimates place the total number of war-time clashes in excess of 10,000, many of them large scale encounters that resulted in staggering losses for both sides. Battles such as Gettysburg, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Antietam are bear witness to the courage and tenacity with which the Federal and Confederate soldiers fought for their beliefs and the endurance of those who were left at home.