Read Online Those Who Have Borne the Battle by James Wright - Free Book Online
Authors: James Wright
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and for widows and survivors. Congress authorized in 1902 the first comprehensive pensions for surviving veterans of those Indian Wars fought prior to 1858; in 1917 they extended these to the survivors of the remaining campaigns. 24
Having fought in wars that were less popular, veterans of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War never attained the heroic cultural status of veterans of the American Revolution. Nonetheless, as time passed, Americans developed a willingness to assist these veterans and their survivors. And as they had for veterans of the Revolution, Congress also provided for young and healthy veterans with land grants. This peaked between 1847 and 1855 when Congress approved several bills that provided 60 million acres of federal land warrants to a half-million veterans, widows, or heirs of all conflicts from the American Revolution to the Mexican War.
Legislators supported these land grants because they rewarded veterans and facilitated settlement of the West, with no government cash appropriation required. It seemed a win all the way around. 25 Veterans were seldom the final users of these government land warrantsâthey or their heirs typically sold them and at a deep discount. Nonetheless, these federal grants became part of a historic legacy of support for veteransâand the political power of veterans as well as their natural appeal to a broader group of citizens set a precedent that few could ignore.
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If the American Revolution framed the Republic, the Civil War forged it. This war was unique in American history in terms of massive military mobilization, its bloody battles on US soil, the extent of carnage, and the far-reaching sacrifice, loss, and emotional toll. The warâs outcome affirmed the strength of the Union and the basic principles of the Declaration of Independence. Extending those affirmed principles to all citizens would be a far more lengthy process.
By 1861 the nation had in place its framework for embracing, recognizing, and supporting veterans and their survivors. Those who served in the Revolution and the wars of the first half of the nineteenth century were by then integral to the poetry of the nation, and support for them was embedded in its legislation.
However, neither poetry nor prose prepared the country for the years following April 12, 1861, when General P. G. T. Beauregard, commander of the provisional Confederate force at Charleston, South Carolina, attacked the United States Army post at Fort Sumter in the harbor. Over the next four years, each side would lay claim to the mystic chords of memory that Lincoln had described the previous month.
The scale of loss and devastation during this war would stretch the capacity of the opposing military forces and test the limits of national grief. Huge armed forces marched against huge armed forces, men were slaughtered by other men lining the tops of fortified trenches and walls, and sophisticated rifles and cannons and antipersonnel shells killed and wounded more efficiently than ever before. Technology and mass armies joined in a lethal cauldron.
When the scale of something exceeds experience and comprehension, one method of understanding is to abstract and depersonalize it. Theda Skocpol did some calculations that make the numbers more meaningful. Among Northern armies, disease, wounds, and injuries killed more than did direct battlefield deaths. For every 75 wounded, there were 100 men who died or were killed, a remarkably high ratio of death. Eighteen Union soldiers died for every 1,000 of Northern population. Moreover, at warâs end, there were nearly 282,000 surviving wounded. 26 David Blight argues, âThe most immediate legacy of the war was its slaughter and how to remember it.â 27
Walt Whitman, nurse and comforter, chronicler and poet of the carnage, wrote:
Noiseless as mists and vapors,
From their graves in the trenches ascending,
From cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee,
Having fought in wars that were less popular, veterans of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War never attained the heroic cultural status of veterans of the American Revolution. Nonetheless, as time passed, Americans developed a willingness to assist these veterans and their survivors. And as they had for veterans of the Revolution, Congress also provided for young and healthy veterans with land grants. This peaked between 1847 and 1855 when Congress approved several bills that provided 60 million acres of federal land warrants to a half-million veterans, widows, or heirs of all conflicts from the American Revolution to the Mexican War.
Legislators supported these land grants because they rewarded veterans and facilitated settlement of the West, with no government cash appropriation required. It seemed a win all the way around. 25 Veterans were seldom the final users of these government land warrantsâthey or their heirs typically sold them and at a deep discount. Nonetheless, these federal grants became part of a historic legacy of support for veteransâand the political power of veterans as well as their natural appeal to a broader group of citizens set a precedent that few could ignore.
Â
Â
If the American Revolution framed the Republic, the Civil War forged it. This war was unique in American history in terms of massive military mobilization, its bloody battles on US soil, the extent of carnage, and the far-reaching sacrifice, loss, and emotional toll. The warâs outcome affirmed the strength of the Union and the basic principles of the Declaration of Independence. Extending those affirmed principles to all citizens would be a far more lengthy process.
By 1861 the nation had in place its framework for embracing, recognizing, and supporting veterans and their survivors. Those who served in the Revolution and the wars of the first half of the nineteenth century were by then integral to the poetry of the nation, and support for them was embedded in its legislation.
However, neither poetry nor prose prepared the country for the years following April 12, 1861, when General P. G. T. Beauregard, commander of the provisional Confederate force at Charleston, South Carolina, attacked the United States Army post at Fort Sumter in the harbor. Over the next four years, each side would lay claim to the mystic chords of memory that Lincoln had described the previous month.
The scale of loss and devastation during this war would stretch the capacity of the opposing military forces and test the limits of national grief. Huge armed forces marched against huge armed forces, men were slaughtered by other men lining the tops of fortified trenches and walls, and sophisticated rifles and cannons and antipersonnel shells killed and wounded more efficiently than ever before. Technology and mass armies joined in a lethal cauldron.
When the scale of something exceeds experience and comprehension, one method of understanding is to abstract and depersonalize it. Theda Skocpol did some calculations that make the numbers more meaningful. Among Northern armies, disease, wounds, and injuries killed more than did direct battlefield deaths. For every 75 wounded, there were 100 men who died or were killed, a remarkably high ratio of death. Eighteen Union soldiers died for every 1,000 of Northern population. Moreover, at warâs end, there were nearly 282,000 surviving wounded. 26 David Blight argues, âThe most immediate legacy of the war was its slaughter and how to remember it.â 27
Walt Whitman, nurse and comforter, chronicler and poet of the carnage, wrote:
Noiseless as mists and vapors,
From their graves in the trenches ascending,
From cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee,
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