Library of Congress

In May 1863, when the Battle of Chancellorsville was being fought, photographer Andrew J. Russell made this image of Union soldiers entrenched along the Rappahannock River awaiting orders to advance from Fredericksburg, Virginia.

“I know of no horror so terrible as the period just preceding the shock of battle.”

Pennsylvania soldier Frank Holsinger, in a postwar account of his experiences in combat

Life of Osborn H. Oldroyd (1927).

Osborn H. Oldroyd

“The boys … were busy divesting themselves of watches, rings, pictures and other keepsakes, which were being placed in the custody of the cooks, who were not expected to go into action. I never saw such a scene before, nor do I ever want to see it again.”

Osborn H. Oldroyd (above), 20th Ohio Infantry, on his comrades’ behavior before receiving an expected order to attack the Confederate works at Vicksburg, in his diary, May 22, 1863

Library of Congress

Civil War soldiers holding rifles with bayonets lined up in formation.

“It was the first time that I had ever been called upon to face death. I felt that in a few moments some of us standing here, vainly trying to jest and appear careless, would be in eternity. Would it be this friend, or that one, or myself?”

Edmund DeWitt Patterson, 9th Alabama Infantry, in his diary during the Peninsula Campaign, May 6, 1862

National Portrait Gallery

Colonel Edward E. Cross

“Men, you are about to engage in battle. You have never disgraced your State; I hope you won’t this time. If any man runs I want the file closers to shoot him; if they don’t, I shall myself. That’s all I have to say.”

Colonel Edward E. Cross (above), 5th New Hampshire Infantry, to his men before they entered the Battle of Antietam, as recorded by Thomas Livermore, a lieutenant in the regiment, in his memoir of the war

“[O]ne second you want to dash forward; the next, you want a rock or a tree to dash behind…. At times your heart is jumping a thousand times a minute; at other times it dont seem to move at all; your knees begin to tremble; your hair to stand up so stiff that you are unable to tell if you have hair or hazel brush on your head….”

Ohio soldier William Henry Younts, on his feelings before the Battle of Winchester, in his wartime reminiscences