Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the American Civil War

War-induced psychological trauma in American soldiers was first observed during World War One. The physicians who diagnosed soldiers with ‘shell shock,’ a form of ‘war neuroses,’ believed it to have been the first time psychiatric ailments could be attributed to military service.[1] They were wrong.

Abundant evidence suggests that Civil War soldiers, like their twentieth-century counterparts, exhibited symptoms that today we would associate with war trauma, notably post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a diagnosis that emerged out of the experiences of the Vietnam War.[2] Yet for years historians failed to consider the possibility that Northern and Southern soldiers and veterans suffered psychologically as a result of their military engagement. For one reason, the American Civil War lacked the weapons of mass destruction, including lethal gases, airplanes, and tanks, which stoked fear and anxiety among WWI soldiers and contributed to mental breakdowns of many. Civil War soldiers faced none of these so, the reasoning went, had fewer reasons to suffer psychological collapse. This explanation, of course, fails to consider that other forms of warfare could be just as terrifying to its participants. Moreover, this claim also neglects other factors unique to the Civil War that could prove just as traumatic for nineteenth-century soldiers as those in twentieth-century wars, notably, companies were formed locally. Company mates were likely to be relatives or men the soldiers had known for years. Thus, witnessing a soldier – maybe a neighbor or brother – horrifically killed had a more personal impact.

More