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  • "I Am Not So Patriotic as I Was Once":The Effects of Military Occupation on the Occupying Union Soldiers during the Civil War
  • Judkin Browning (bio)

When Joseph Barlow, a corporal in Company I of the 23d Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, wrote his wife from New Bern, North Carolina, in April 1862, he was not a happy man. Though his unit had just helped capture the eastern North Carolina ports of New Bern and Beaufort, the twenty-eight year-old former shoemaker from Newburyport, who had originally enlisted in the army on April 15, 1861, wrote, "I have had just about as much to do with the army as I want" and hoped for a speedy end to the war. On December 26, 1862, after performing tedious occupation duty in eastern North Carolina for eight months and hearing about Union military defeats on far off fields, Barlow complained, "we are all getting sick of this war." Five months later, after the latest Union defeat at Chancellorsville, Barlow despaired that "this war has played out." In October 1863, while still in New Bern, the disheartened Barlow strongly suggested that he might leave the army, claiming, "I don't think much about enlisting again."1

However, on December 2, 1863, Barlow did reenlist. In September 1864, [End Page 217] after a brief sojourn in Virginia, Barlow's unit was back in New Bern, performing the occupation duty in which it had been engaged for nearly two years, yet Barlow manifested a decidedly different spirit. Reaffirming his commitment to the Union cause, Barlow wrote to his wife that he opposed Gen. George B. McClellan's presidential bid as the Democratic candidate running on a peace platform. The Massachusetts soldier avowed, "The soldiers will not vote for a man that will dishonor them and so our ticket is Lincoln and Johnson." Reflecting his determination to win the war, he declared that there should be "no peace with Rebels until they lay down their arms and surrender."2 Barlow had often griped about the war and his service ever since he first began participating in occupation duty in the spring of 1862. The monotonous experience of occupation and the military defeats suffered elsewhere frequently caused his morale to sag. Yet his determination to serve until final victory illustrates that soldiers can still be committed to their military service even if their morale suffers at times.

Like Joseph Barlow, occupying Union soldiers exhibited a relatively high level of commitment to their duty, while frequently suffering through disheartening stretches of despair. While several scholars have analyzed soldiers' motivations and what sustained their morale particularly through harrowing combat situations, practically nothing has been written on how the experience of military occupation affected Union soldier morale and motivation. James McPherson, Gerald Linderman, and Earl Hess have written excellent, if not always congruent, studies of what motivated men to fight, and how the experience of combat shaped soldiers' definitions of personal courage and either sharpened or blunted their motivations to continue serving.3 But what of those soldiers who enlisted for the same patriotic reasons but were forced into tedious occupation duty and had very rare opportunities to experience traditional combat?

For soldiers on occupation duty, there was no opportunity for glory, none of the exhilaration or anticipation of engaging in combat, and few chances to build the bonds of camaraderie that battle experience helped forge between [End Page 218] soldiers. Instead, they acted as police units, forced into constant contact with white southern civilians and black slaves; they became victims of clandestine attacks and carried out Federal policies (such as emancipation and confiscation) of which several disapproved. This was not why they had enlisted, and they voiced a decided lack of satisfaction with their duties as a result. The experience of occupation and its many disagreeable duties forced soldiers to reexamine their views on the war and the nation that they fought to preserve. For many soldiers, their experience fostered a less idealistic view of the nation and its aims, and several became far more cynical than they had been when they enlisted. Yet, they persevered despite their disgruntlement. This article will explore the ways soldiers sustained their motivations while...

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