A Soldier Intoxicated is Far Worse than No Soldier at All”
Intoxication and the American Civil War
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12970739 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Scott C Martin (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 66-87 |
| Publication date | 2011-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Social History of Alcohol Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0887-2783 • E-ISSN: 2640-7329 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/shad25010066 |
| OpenAlex | W2898539669 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 8 |
This article examines the prevalence and role of alcoholic intoxication in the American Civil War, 1861–65. Using an array of sources, including letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper accounts and military reports, it identifies alcohol and drunkenness as topics of widespread concern in military and civilian circles. Examination of these sources reveals that alcohol suffused all aspects of the war, in both the Union and the Confederacy. Officers and enlisted men drank licit and illicit alcohol to alleviate the alternating boredom and horror of camp life and combat; commanders issued whiskey rations to troops for unusual exertion; and army doctors used medicinal alcohol to treat a variety of wounds and illnesses. Though supposedly regulated by military and civilian law, access to alcohol proved difficult to control, and soldiers often drank to excess. The resultant intoxication undermined the health, morale, and discipline of Union and Confederate armies, and influenced the outcome of battles, maneuvers and campaigns. Extensive intoxication among the troops also raised concerns, North and South, about the deterioration of combatants’ manhood as a moral danger to individual soldiers and the causes for which they fought. Though intoxication did not determine the outcome of the war, it did shape combatants’ experience of the war, and influenced, usually in negative ways, their ability to function effectively as soldiers
Alcohol intoxication · Boredom · Criminology · Environmental health · Injury prevention · Memoir · Newspaper · Poison control · Political science · Spanish Civil War · Law · Medicine · Psychedelics and Drug Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.07 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2011 - 2011 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |