Originally aired on November 29, 1996 - In part 118 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson discusses why fraternization among Union and Confederate soldiers was so rampant.
#118 – The Last War between Gentlemen
Pennsylvania soldier Gilbert Hays never forgot some unusual scenes he witnessed during the 1864 siege of Petersburg, Virginia. “Although (communication) with the enemy was strictly forbidden,” Hays noted, “the men were on the most friendly terms, amicably conversing and exchanging such commodities as coffee, sugar, tobacco, corn meal and newspapers. It was a singular sight to see the soldiers of the two great hostile armies walking about unconcernedly within a few yards of each other… bantering and joking together, exchanging the compliments of the day and even saluting officers of the opposing forces with as much ceremony…and respect as they did their own.”
America has never known a war where fraternization between men on opposite sides was so rampant as in the Civil War. Oftentimes Johnny Rebs and Billy Yanks found it difficult to hate individuals on the other side. One day at Petersburg, a Union soldier put his hat and shirt on a stick and raised them above the earthwork. From across the way came a shout: “It won’t do Yank, your neck is too skinny! Place your head under the hat and we’ll accommodate you!”
Why affable feelings existed among these enemy soldiers is easy to explain. Family feuds always engender the deepest bitterness. Yet opposing forces in the Civil War spoke the same language; they had the same likes and dislikes; they worshipped the same god; they possessed identical roots in America’s soil. Members of the same family sometimes fought on different sides.
Other factors behind fraternization were a general unawareness in the ranks of the issues that had sparked the conflict, camp boredom, and war weariness as the struggle dragged on endlessly. Common desires among soldiers for Northern coffee and Southern tobacco contributed as well toward friendly relations. Because the Civil War consisted of much idle time between battles, anger was hard to sustain. In addition, amply opportunity existed to become acquainted with counterpart across a field or on the other side of a river.
Friendly intercourse began as early as the summer of 1961 and intensified with each year of the war. Early in the contest, a Union commander reportedly issued an order for his men not to fire on the nearby Confederate picket-line because (the general said) it was “nothing but murder to kill a poor picket while on duty”.
A couple of years later, another Union general climbed atop a parapet and began surveying the Confederate positions through a telescope. Soon a rock bounced into the Union rifle pit. Around the stone was a piece of paper on which were the words: “Tell the fellow with the spy glass to clear out or we shall have to shoot him.”
Acts of mercy by enemy soldiers were commonplace. This program has already told of the ministrations to wounded Federals at Fredericksburg by South Carolina Sergeant Richard Kirkland, who was known thereafter as “The Angel of Marye’s Heights”. At Gettysburg, Private Patrick McNeill of a Virginia battery saw an injured Union soldier lying in front of the guns. McNeill risked his life to pull the soldier into the safety of the lines. As he was completing his deed, a cannonball tore off both his legs.
Compassion and acts of friendship never approached the hatred that prevailed between the armies of North and South. Still, fraternization persisted to such a degree as to give commanding officers on both sides genuine concern throughout the Civil War. Men of blue and gray killed, they looted, they robbed corpses; and yet deep within most of those participants was an absence of animosity.
That lack of smoldering resentment goes far in explaining why North and South were able to come back together so quickly after a war that tore this nation asunder.
