Surviving the American Civil War

Between 1861 and 1865, the United States split into two main factions and declared war on each other. There were many reasons for the outbreak of war, but the one advertised the most was to end slavery on the North American continent. The entire country was affected and it didn’t matter if you were a soldier or civilian, it was a very tough four years, and the war caused mass suffering for all. Surviving the American civil war would come down to where you were in the country and what role you played, but here’s a look at the five main groups people were lumped into.

Life for Union Civilians

These were the people who weren’t in the army that lived within the states controlled by the Union. It’s often estimated that the number of civilians who died during the war is around 50,000, but there are very few records on where these deaths occurred and in which states. Most of the battles happened around the eastern side of the country and saw hot spots that were constantly fought over, but the other side of the country was very quiet and didn’t see any major battles further west than Mississippi.

The states north of the border states and main battle zones would have seen life as normal, but with an increased work quota to produce things their army needed. There was also the chance for people in danger zones to flee further north to escape battles but many were still killed by the conflict, but mostly through disease instead of starvation or being directly killed by someone.

Life for Confederate Civilians

In the first half of the conflict, the South saw numerous victories and they had slaves producing food for them. This allowed the South to achieve many initial victories and the civilians were less affected by the conflict than those in the North, but this would all change in 1863. President Lincoln signed an order that freed all the slaves in the southern states, which caused many of them to escape and flee to the north. From this year onwards the Confederate army began to see its first in a series of major defeats, and after losing such a large part of their workforce, the civilian population had to pick up the slack.

Life for those in the South would have been similar to those in the North but with more of a shock when they had to do the work themselves instead of watching others do it. Civilian deaths accounted for 50,000 for both the North and South, but there were more deaths due to starvation in the South during the last year of the war. When the army started getting desperate, they forced people to hand over their grain harvests to feed the soldiers, but this backfired and caused many to starve during the winter with no way of producing any other lastable food.

(It was common for displaced civilians to work within troop camps washing uniforms and as cooks, but it was also common to see many officers look the other way when someone too young tried to join up, leading to many child soldiers within the ranks.)

Union Soldiers

There is a common figure when it comes to the number of Union soldiers that died during the war which is 360,222 against the Confederate loss of 258,000. The Union lost more troops because the South had vastly more capable Generals, with a notable character called Robert E. Lee who led two invasions of the North and defeated more Union Generals than anyone else in the Confederate army.

The chances of surviving would depend on which battles you were in as opposed to simply just being in the army. The Battle of Gettysburg was the single bloodiest battle of the war and saw just over 50,000 casualties, but there were other battles that saw only a few hundred out of tens of thousands die. The war overall is thought to be responsible for taking the lives of 2% of the 1860 population of North America.

Confederate soldiers

They had it better than Union troops for the first half of the war and worse for the second. Initially, they had more supplies and a faster rate of recruitment, there were also many large plantations in the south that could mass produce food and equipment for the war effort. A series of initial victories would have put people in high spirits but this would all stop when Lincoln declared all slaves in the southern states could come to the north and live freely.

The flow of food and weapons quickly started to slow and Confederate soldiers not only saw a lack of supplies and being forced to eat the same thing over and over, but all the slaves who had escaped were now in Union territory and were fighting against them. A series of defeats and an ever-decreasing amount of supplies eventually forced the soldiers of the South to lay down their arms and admit defeat.

Slaves

Surviving the American Civil War would have been harder for a slave, as this life was never easy and when the war began, it became even harder. Initially, both the South and the North used slaves and they were forced to work on farms, in weapons factories, and as laborers and blacksmiths. People living in captivity in both territories would work extremely hard and suffer greatly, though it’s often agreed that the slaves in Union states were generally kept in better conditions.

After the order was signed to free slaves in southern states, a route was created called the Underground Railroad. Slaves who escaped their captors had to walk hundreds of miles, all while trying to avoid the entire Confederate army and its supporters, and also groups of people who worked as bounty hunters rounding up freed slaves.

If they stayed in the South, their lives became gradually worse because the workload was unrealistically high, and those who remained had to pick up the jobs of those who left, which in turn caused more people to flee. It’s been estimated that around 80,000 slaves died during the war, but half of these were in combat after they joined the Union army. Apart from a few hundred who died trying to escape or on the journey to the north, the remaining number of slave deaths were mostly on the plantations due to starvation combined with being overworked.

What did people eat during the American Civil War?

Civilians had the chance to grow their own food and go to the local market, but for a soldier, it was whatever you were given. Rations on paper were quite generous and were designed to provide not only a series of filling meals but also some items to boost morale like coffee and soap. Union soldiers had a better supply of food and after the Union Navy defeated the Confederates at sea, they controlled all shipping routes into North America and could buy goods from elsewhere.

(It was too difficult to organize mass kitchens to feed everyone, and so troops were expected to cook their own meals)

The more the war went on, the more this affected the people of the South who had to swap goods like rice and wheat for nothing but corn and salt pork. The Union’s control over the ocean was one of the major factors in them winning the war and forced those within the southern states to become completely self-sufficient in everything they needed.

Civilians in the north would mostly have eaten wheat, pork, and the range of vegetables they were able to produce, but in the hotter areas of the south, it wasn’t so easy to produce crops. Corn was the number one staple for everyone in the South, followed by salt pork and then whatever other things they could produce, which became less and less as the war went on.

Union Soldier rations

For a Union soldier in 1861, the Revised United States Army Regulations state that each soldier will receive each day:

• 12 ounces of pork or bacon; or 1 pound 4 ounces of fresh or salt beef
• 1 pound 6 ounces of soft bread or flour; or 1 pound 4 ounces of cornmeal; or 1 pound of hard bread (hardtack).

Every 100 days, each soldier will be supplemented with the following:

• 15 pounds of beans or peas
• 10 pounds of rice or hominy
• 10 pounds of green coffee; or 8 pounds of roasted (or roasted and ground) coffee beans; or 1 pound 8 ounces of tea
• 15 pounds of sugar
• 4 quarts of vinegar
• 1 pound 4 ounces of adamantine or star candles
• 4 pounds of soap
• 3 pounds 12 ounces of salt
• 4 ounces of pepper
• 30 pounds of potatoes
• 1 quart of molasses

These extra rations were distributed in smaller quantities alongside the daily rations, but sometimes they had to swap out certain things due to availability. There was also a change in the daily rations for something called marching rations or short rations which consisted of 1 pound of hardtack, 3/4 pound of salt pork or 1/4 pound of fresh meat, 1 ounce of coffee, and 3 ounces of sugar and salt.

The rations for Union troops were increased in 1862 to include more vegetables, and also more dehydrated vegetables to make them easier to carry on the march. As the war went on, troops of the North would see their rations decrease and swapped out for other things more and more often, but it was still much better than what they were getting in the South.

Confederate soldier rations

At the beginning of the war, rations for troops in the South would have been similar to those in the North but with slightly less meat and some of the extra goods like coffee and vinegar. The biggest difference over the war when it came to troop rations, was the blockades the Union put on Confederate ports, stopping all overseas trade from reaching them.

This cut off the supply of things like rice, sugar, tea, coffee, and molasses and the chance to buy meat and long-lasting foods from abroad. Troop rations would have constantly gone down over the years until many of the attacks on the North targeted Union food supplies just so the Confederates could feed their own army.

During the last two years of the war, things became so desperate for the South that troops were ordered to forcibly take grain supplies from civilians to feed the troops, which led to many starving throughout the South because of the army.