Touched with Fire

After considerable wartime exposure to his comrades, a sage Confederate volunteer concluded, “Common soldiers by name, however, are often times very uncommon—like common sense.” More than three million entered the Union and Confederate military service with diverse attitudes and a broad range of backgrounds. Yet what brought them together in such meaningful ways were powerful motivations that sustained them through some of the greatest fighting and most intense hardships. They were, as Union veteran Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “touched with fire” (1). At the heart of that motivation resided five distinct elements: commitment to a cause or an ideology, patriotism, emotional attachments to home, perceptions of manhood and honor, and hatred of the enemy. These components worked collectively on the troops, forging a foundation, a common ground upon which to built unity and trust within the regiment or battery, a vital element for any effective military organization

Adversary · Element (criminal law · Hatred · Honor · Ideology · Military service · Patriotism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · American Constitutional Law and Politics · American History and Culture · History · Law