Battle Fatigue

Library of Congress

Two Civil War soldiers sitting on the ground at camp, one with his arm in a sling.

“It was the hardest day’s work I ever Expect to do.”

Wisconsin soldier Edward L. Davis, reflecting on his involvement in the Battle of Bull Run, in a letter to a friend, July 27, 1861

Thirty Years After (1890)

Confederate General Richard Taylor

“The position was good, my battery was at hand, and our men were so fatigued that we debated whether it was not more comfortable to fight than retreat.”

Confederate General Richard Taylor on a moment during the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1862, in his memoir of the war

“The events and fatigues of the last three days have so unstrung my nervous system that a blow from a twig would, I believe, prove fatal. During the engagement … this afternoon I became so weak that I could not stand up, and I bled at the nose like a stuck pig.”

John Haley, 17th Maine Infantry, on the Battle of the Wilderness, in his journal, May 5, 1864

“We are still in the front of the advance, living in dens and caves of the earth, maintaining our incessant skirmish, and occasionally losing men from the regiment. We go unwashed, uncombed, unshaven, creeping and stooping, with no baggage but the clothes on our backs, and they torn everywhere by brambles, and sometimes by shot.”

James K. Hosmer, 52nd Massachusetts Infantry, on his regiment’s condition during the siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, in his diary, June 17, 1863

Library of Congress

Illustration of a Civil War soldier carrying a musket and leaning against a tree.

“The men, totally exhausted, lay heedless to the shower of shot and shell that passed over their heads. In this position we passed the night.”

Lieutenant Colonel Adolph Engelmann, 43rd Illinois Infantry, in his official report of the fighting at Shiloh on April 6, 1862