"No Place for the Sick": Nature's War on Civil War Soldier Mental and Physical Health in the 1862 Peninsula and Shenandoah Valley Campaigns

Artillerist George Perkins lay among fellow New Yorkers, listening to the thuds of hail on the tent above their heads. A look between the flaps revealed hail "as big as marbles and some as big as English walnuts." It had been very warm earlier in the afternoon of May 22, 1862, on the Virginia Peninsula, and though his "little tent stood the storm well," Perkins was soggy as he tried to sleep. During the night, the soldier took ill and became incapable of continuing the march the next morning; consequently, his battery left him behind. The washed-out roads were so bewildering that he and the others who had fallen back lost their ways and were forced to spend the following night scattered among Michigan soldiers in an old barn. Though blessed of a shelter over his head, Perkins's night was even worse than the previous one, as he heard the rats scampering across the planks, stealing kernels of corn. A few days later, still sick and now itching with a hideous rash, the private was back with his battery but had lost his nerve. On May 27, he scribbled in his diary, "Rained all last night and part of the day.… Sick with no care." On May 29, "Cloudy and rainy. Sick all the time." And finally, on June 4, "Drizzly and rainy all day. Longed very much for home."¹ The elements had challenged George's health, physically and mentally, and his fortitude and effectiveness as a soldier faltered.

Perkins's journal entries from May 1862 described experiences nearly universal to Union and Confederate soldiers in the early years of the war. Where a soldier slept, what he ate, how the weather treated him, how healthy he was, and how he felt about these wretched circumstances filled his diaries and letters, far trumping his musings on combat. Yet historians have spent little time analyzing why soldiers meticulously catalogued weather, climate, water, campsite locations, terrain, insects, flora, and fauna. We have instead taken it for granted that these men were simply bored or providing context for more interesting topics of soldier life. Nonetheless, Perkins's diary and similar documents in 1862 Virginia reveal that environmental attacks on physical and mental health formed the single most important soldier concern off the battlefield, which was the majority of service. Common soldiers held nature directly responsible for most of their illnesses, and, in confirmation, disease caused two-thirds of soldier mortalities by war's end. Though the science behind their reasoning was misguided, the men were correct to fear the environment's ability to sicken and kill as well as reduce morale and combat effectiveness.

The common soldiers who demonstrated the best health and highest morale during the Peninsula and Shenandoah Valley campaigns—the two 1862 Virginia campaigns examined in this study—were those who adapted to the environment of war in Virginia by developing habits of self care.² Self-care techniques—practicing personal hygiene, supplementing one's diet with fruits and vegetables, exercising regularly, protecting oneself from the elements, eradicating pests, and consistently communicating with loved ones—proved that one did not need flawless science to resist the unseen threats of microorganisms and despair. One needed keen observation skills, a positive and proactive attitude, obliging comrades, and a bit of creativity. These habits helped to both prevent and treat physical and mental maladies.

Self care was particularly important early in the war. Only occasionally in 1862 did common soldiers suggest that they had been trained or directed by officers to address environmental threats, and then officers just offered sanitary oversight—only one facet of a larger set of survival skills—per army manual instructions. While the Confederate and Union militaries did improve health care, particularly in supervising hygiene and improving rations, both war departments unnecessarily precipitated health crises by ignoring the wisdom gained in previous conflicts. This is particularly baffling in light of American experience in the Mexican War, in which more than 80 percent of mortalities were...