"I am Not So Patriotic as I Was Once"

Morale is a key component to war; an army that goes into a battle with high morale is an army of a high success rate.  This is something that many military psychiatrists have studied and examined. However the author of, “I Am not so Patriotic as I was once”, chose to study the morale of northern soldiers occupying southern territories. This type of soldiering is completely different from what we like think of as glorified civil war fighting. They are not fighting in big battles or small skirmishes instead they acted as police units, forced into constant contact with white southerners and black slaves. During this federal work the northern soldiers were faced with challenging obstacles that caused moral to drop. The Author thinks that moral dropped in these occupied sections because of a shock in climate, culture, inhabitants, news of bitter defeats and feeling of separation from the cause.

To gain a better perceptive on something not many historians have studied Judkin Browning chose to just examine the northern soldiers of occupied eastern North Carolina (particularly Carterest and Craven country).  The climate of this area turned out to be shock to northern soldiers; it might as well have been a foreign country. The heat was absolutely preposterous and the swamps of eastern North Carolina was home to all kinds of critters that the northern Yankees were not used to.  One northern soldier said, “I don’t believe the devil would live here if he wasn’t obliged to.” Other than weather the northern occupants also had to deal with the “uncivilized” southern inhabitants. They were appalled by how different these people were, the women included. One soldier was shocked to see women taking snuff. He stated, “They put the snuff on a piece of pine, and stick it up their gums, and then smack their lips as though they were eating something peculiarly nice. It will do for niggers but white women, faugh!”  The northern soldiers also struggled with being able to identify who their enemy was. This of course happens in any occupied situation and when it does the occupiers means of justification against the enemy is sometimes pushed to questionable distance. In one case Browning points out a white southern man who evidentially had helped aid the confederates. In return the northern army took him out in the street and stuck a bayonet in him but did not kill him.

In all Browning says the occupiers dealt with three key emotions due to all of this, Frustration, resentment and depression. However, he thinks that the men in eastern North Carolina showed steadfastness. Rather than quitting when they heard of their northern brothers defeats they continued to push on. In fact there were many men in this occupied land who had now seen firsthand what they were fighting for, and it caused them to steadfast even when their patriotism was questioned.

 

Judkin Browning. ""I Am Not So Patriotic as I Was Once": The Effects of Military Occupation on the Occupying Union Soldiers during the Civil War." Civil War History 55.2 (2009): 217-243. Project MUSE. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>.