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Citizen-Soldiers and Killing in Civil War Combat
Steplyk, Jonathan Michael
Steplyk, Jonathan Michael
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2015
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This dissertation examines Union and Confederate soldiers¿ attitudes and experiences in regards to killing in combat during the American Civil War. In doing so, I argue that the majority of Civil War soldiers affirmed and embraced the necessity of killing in war and successfully functioned as potential killers on the battlefield. I base these conclusions on the analysis and explication of soldiers¿ accounts from wartime letters and diaries as well as postwar memoirs and reminiscences. I address the subject matter thematically in chapters addressing prewar cultural influences on recruits¿ attitudes toward killing (including political ideology and religion), the nature of killing in battle, hand-to-combat, sharpshooters, atrocity killings, acts of forbearance and mercy, and the role of race in regards to African-American soldiers. The dissertation challenges suggestions that Civil War soldiers largely failed to overcome an innate resistance to killing fellow human beings and actively avoided killing. Instead, I contend that American society in both the North and South and soldiers¿ own motivations affirmed the necessity of killing in war. Furthermore, the nature of combat in the Civil War and the tactics used fostered a willingness to kill as well as partially shielded combatants from negative repercussions of killing.
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History