In the United States army and traveling home. Going away. Going back to where you came from. John julie was one of the soldiers who did not surrender. He went with the confederate government when Jefferson Davis evacuated richmond and headed west. Along the way, as he escaped into the carolinas, he was seeing a lot of signs the war was coming to a horrific conclusion. , abandonedong fences muskets of struggling soldiers. Some were broken, that other barrels of others, bent, and choked with mud. The cartridges landsat confusion along the road. Heart seemed slow, for here lies unmistakable evidence of a set of determination. A shameless indifference as to whether the world knows it or not. Professor miller the lecture today will examine particularly the transition that confederate veterans will go through as they go from soldier back to civilian. We will look at a few particular things. The hardships they pay they faced. The limited assistance they found, particularly as they were dealing with chronic pain and winds. What sort of help could they get in adjusting to those particular newfound disabilities . And finally, how they fought to actually remember the war itself. The confederates who return home, where dealing with the reality of defeat. It is not an easy reality if you will to come to terms with. They are returning to tables that had empty chairs around them throughout the war, and now will be permanently empty because thousands of those men will not return to their families. They are dealing with scenes like this come a property destruction, destroyed by battle fielding battlefield engagements or the destruction of military installation. In this particular image, richmond being destroyed as the union army marched in and a grand tories grand victorious manner. The smoldering ruins left all across the south. We talked before about the crisis that southern veterans faced as they pray to god in many ways for that big victory, and now are returning home as defeated men. As losers, if you will. There are many ways embodying if you will, rem, sitting in the corner, losing their religion because god has turned away from them. Some of them came home completely disillusioned, angry, frustrated. Some veterans remained hopeful. One veteran said defeat must be the will of god and is therefore right. Forward therefore with heart and hope to the future trusting that god will strengthen us to override all obstacles and try out all difficulties. Triumph all difficulties. Another noted the demoralization is complete, we are whipped, there is no doubt. When veterans return home, they will face mixed reaction as they come off of trains or walk back into the communities. They come off a horse they have taken home. In some cities use all these veterans return home and communities and the community rushed out to give them hugs and welcome them home. Reid was one of these guys in savannah after the war with as many of these reunions he said he saw crowds gathered that seemed tempered. Dressed inmen were gray uniforms, missing legs and arms, and they were getting extra attention. He said the couple minutes would rain on the veteran until the blushes would show upon his and bewed cheeks and he could convinced he had taken the most gallant and manly act. Now is the veterans return home, they return back to that dining room table chair that had been empty for so long. Some of them now are crippled soldiers, one Family Member wrote, home from war, with only wins in glory to pay. There was a case of major john haskell, who lost an arm during the war. He was during on the porch conversing with women. As confederate soldiers are walking by on their way back to their community after the war comes to the conclusion, he notices them, turns around, and the empty sleeve. The soldiers were impressed. They took off their hats and cheered and greeted him as they went by. Each regiment catching inspiration from the one ahead of it, according to an eyewitness. These cheers are short lived in many ways, particularly because this aura of defeat is now hanging over the confederacy itself. If youre like me and had to suffer through the Philadelphia Eagles yesterday losing to miami, its sort of creates a stupid loss to miami. A give you that little bit of internal cloud of defeat. Your light, do i really want to watch anymore nfl . You watch Peyton Manning look worse, and it makes you feel little better a little better about yourself. These particular veterans, where else are they going to go to oomph to feela better. For some, they came home from they came home with injuries. One soldier said he was excited to come home with a gunshot where and went. Ound. He was happy because he would not get that look from somebody saying, he lost his arm in that war that did not turn out so well. Others noticed it when the confederacy had been wrapped in the bloody sheet and the south had gone down in darkness, the transition begins for veterans himself. Some come home with empty sleeves, some come hobbling home on one leg. Some left both legs in the battlefield. Eyeballs,ightless groping their way home in blindness, in darkness. They all came in tatters and rags to look upon the ashes of their ruining home. He was one who pleaded that we needed to recognize those who had been so physically damaged. You can imagine this to be a little bit of a strange transition. Imagine living that life is three or four years of constant excitement, marching, wearing on your body. The ailments. The constant fear that you may have going into battle. All of the sudden it stops immediately. It in. It ends. That whole process you have gotten used to is gone. You come home with the memories of it. The good memories. The negative memories. Possibly psychological or physical repercussion that the war itself cost. Caused. For historians it is difficult in terms of chronicling the story is veterans of the difficulties after the war. One of the reasons is civil war folks were very good at writing everything down in letters and diary entries during the war. Piecehronicled every bad of meat they ate. Every raindrop that fell. Every battle. Every moment on guard duty. They came home. They are not chronicling the war in that amount of detail as they had previously. We are left with only those who kept writing diary entries to actually tell us what all of this means in the grand scope of things. Somether thing is confederates say, we can go to the pension files, these documents from confederate soldiers they fill out documents for money. Those files in many ways are incomplete. There are also hidden from public view. In fact some states still have medical seals on these documents because they contain private details. Medical details about Family Members that you do not want necessarily to go public. For the veterans that came home psychologically disturbed, some of them turned to alcohol abuse, some to drug abuse, particularly opium. We actually see some contemplate and actually commit suicide. Bill hicks is one of these guys. He was described as a pristine man, colossus in form. He lost a leg in the battle of shiloh in 1862. He came home to a law practice that seemed promising, but was not that great overall. Every day hicks thought about that like he lost. It preyed on him, according to one of his friends, he had no choice but to blow out his brains because he did not want to live the rest of his life. Another veteran who had severely beaten his child to take out some of his frustrations actually stood in front of the mirror and put a revolver to his temple and fired. Charles manager who had had businesses fail economically with debt and wounds, decided to and his life on a drug overdose. Extremists responses ill be but they give us some sense of the level of despair these veterans are facing. I dont think it is a quentin historians are looking at these darker issues, if you will of the American Civil War, this dark turn, particularly because of what our own servicemen and women are facing now is they return home. I think those of you who like to read a lot about the civil war will see over the next five to seven years quite a bit of literature on those who lost limb, on those who ended up in mental institutions, on those who are homeless or abused drugs or alcohol because they did not find ways to adjust back. It is very easy, i think for historians when they write the grand narrative of American History to end the civil war pter on the work including war and conclusion. You turn the next page it is reconstruction. There are no continued stories of those individuals who are transitioning home. You can imagine, if you came home with an injury like these confederate veterans here that you have a screen, the amount of chronic pain youll have to deal with on a daily basis. Southerners were not supposed to complain. This was part of their southern mantra if you will on what makes the men. Theyre not supposed to tell all of their friends how awful their injuries are. Theyre not supposed to complain. Theyre supposed to do it in stoic silence. That pain will be a constant part of their life. Us. Nds that might leak p inside decides one day while you are trying to walk downstairs to poke through the skin and create constant pain. A ringing in your ears caused by all of the artillery shells that explode it next to you during the war that never seems to subside. Those constant headaches. That blurred vision. Others even had the sensation that their limbs were still a part of their body. We call this phantom limb or sensory hallucination disorder to day. Able to uncover two cases of this one confederate veteran who awoke crying and a half in a hospital. He said i thought i was sleeping with my little brother at home and my foot itched come i try to rub it against the other, and my foot was not there. Ump. A st the sensory hallucination was usually in fingers, toes, or hands. You would still feel that foot itching, it did not exist. All of a sudden you have this horrific realization that that limits not there coming back. Another guy and a hospital bed said he would flip over on his body. The patient next to him got up , why areion to ask you rolling so quickly . He said he always had a scratch on one side of his back. He would flip over so his arm could scratch, but his arm was not there any longer. A constant reminder he had to deal with that he was going to be an amputee. ,hese confederate veterans particularly those disabled become in many ways, living symbols of what that defeat meant for the confederacy itself. They are the constant reminders them themselves and society at large who will look at them on a daily basis. You can imagine for southerners who have these prescribes notions of what southern manhood is and southern womanhood how will they deal with these dilapidated bodies. These altered forms of manhood, who also went off to war to prove themselves as true, honorable men, but come home defeated, and now have symbols of that defeat. Southerners in some ways remain in flux on how to deal with their veterans. In macon, georgia, shortly after the end of the civil war, the newspaper reported that one night, a gentleman got drunk, and passed out on the street of macon, georgia. And 11 sawes nine him on the street, picked up a rusty saw, and taught off his off his leg. They actually sawed off his wooden leg. Out thesepers pointed children had been part of one of the great depravitys of the age. They had done this to this particular confederate veteran who had served in the war, but had done something that had gone against the constructs of how southerners were expected to behave. You should be able to control your liquor. You are not going to go out and get drunk at a bar and pass out drunk on the street. In some ways this was the children reminding this gentleman of this is not how a real southern man behaves. At the same time, it is these children not understanding he was a veteran. He had given up a part of his body in the cause of the war itself. For these coming home to struggle distraught, they have to find some sort of Economic Opportunity to move forward. Most veterans worked confederate soldiers who went to war or doing manual labor. Farming was the largest occupation. And go back to the fields their wives or other Family Members attended while they were away. If you are physically disabled, can you keep doing that same level of manual labor . There is a case in georgia of a confederate veteran who had lost a leg and his wife literally taken to the plow and tie him to it though he could actually just dear the plow itself. Steer the plow itself. He would have to rely on the animals to move it forward. In aer worker who ended up tobacco warehouse could only work a couple of hours a day because he could barely stand on one leg he had. It was too painful. Other opportunities would spring up. A few seven states, virginia, georgia, and mississippi would offer free classes for wounded veterans to allow you to become a teacher. Not everyone is cut out to be an educator. James frazer is one of the men who lost a limb during the war. He said he did not have an enviable life after the war. He came home and decided to take up teaching. He routinely lashed out at his students because they were always texting on their phones, or playing candy crush or candy crush soda with gummy bears. Maybe that is why he lashed. No, it was the reality that he could not bear to deal with this chronic pain he constantly had and the reminder of failure. Frazier ended up meeting a woman, they fell in love and got married, then she died. He actually ends up in court because he was accused of eating , his nowren stepchildren because in many ways he could not handle his new reality of doing with failure in the aftermath of the American Civil War. I think one of the best places, maybe if you are in and ut and looking for a potential job is to run for political office. In fact you can use that to garner sympathy. There are cases throughout the od of veterans with missing arms and legs, noted in their campaign bios use the you see in the newspapers, they would emphasize that. One of the guys was francis nickles, he was actually a double amputee. Because so much of him had been physically damaged during the war, some reporters action questioned whether the constituents in louisiana should be willing to vote for a man in this physical condition to be governor of their state. Nichols thought about it, he said, well i guess they can just vote for whatever is left of me to hold the governorship of louisiana. Which they will do twice. He will actually serve two terms as governor in the louisiana. Large numbers of veterans are not going to have those political opportunities or educational opportunities. They are not able to transition to labor. They will have to beg for work and find signs everywhere that say gnome aims confederate need maimed say no confederate need apply. When that becomes your financial reality, when you cannot find a job, you end up begging on the streets for money. This is 110 particular confederate veteran became a fixture on the Capitol Steps of austin, texas in the postwar years. Every day his legislatures would come into the office to debate bills. He would be out front, as you can see, selling pencils. Andng to elicit sympathy allow him to survive. As you can see, he is missing a leg. He has a sort of wooden peg leg attached. It is not going to be very comfortable. It is certainly not one of these advanced prosthetic limbs. It is an irony that this man is on the steps egging legislators are money because in many ways the legislators have not done him i service. Texas is a state that do not give confederate veterans any prosthetic limbs. They waited decades to actually extend pension benefits. He is in this particular case number if you will, this part of life because legislators had not done anything to assist him. To help them transition back into society. A doctor who saw this veteran on numerous occasions on the steps wrote this about him poor old confederate, they told you a wound would be an honor, and you a hero, cruel mockery. Bitter deception. Your life bloodshed. Your youth wasted all in vain. These groups of beggars started popping up all over the streets of southern cities. Confederate veterans begging for money just to survive. The city of new orleans in particular decided to crack down on this large number of beggars and the street of the french quarter, particularly because the wealthy members of new orleans did not want to interact with these men on a daily basis. In 1883, the city of new orleans hosted an event known as the corralling of the cripples as it was announced in the newspapers. Officials went through the streets, rounded up wounded veterans, and put them in the shakespeare house. Men away,put these they realized many were confederate veterans with no options to survive, other than to back for money. Beg for money. The lawransitioned saying, no begging allowed unless you are a confederate veteran. How do you prove yourself a confederate veteran when somebody says, do you have the right to beg for money here . Do you show them your confederate id card . They didnt have them. You show your uniform. That is your clearest marker. We find cases of men who stole uniforms, bought uniforms from confederate men who were injured and disabled through other means, and theyre putting on the uniform, sitting on the corner, and pretending to be a confederate veteran. Thetity theft going on in d. Vil war postwar perio the amendment added to the constitution in 1868 section four prohibits the u. S. Government from paying any financial obligation tied directly to the aid of those who participated in the rebellion against the u. S. The 14th minute bars inveterate veterans from getting any limbs, prosthetic limbs the Union Government had been given to union amputees. If bars them from collecting pension. Theof the u. S. Budget in 1890s is going to pay pensions for union veterans. Are lefttes themselves to the will of the state themselves. The first area that we see in terms of assistance for these men, particularly those disabled and injured is in the form of giving them prophetic limbs. Prosthetic limbs. Not every state will participate. North carolina would be the first. Georgia, louisiana would come on board by 1880. In order to get a prosthetic limb you had to fill out an extensive application. You had to give details about cap who you are. You also have to prove that first you lost your limb in the American Civil War. It was not the lots are limb before or after, it had to be a direct result of your military participation. You had to prove that by having a doctor, or if you could find to regimental surgeon from the war, a lot of these guys came from the same communities. You could say, can you sign off that i lost my limb during the war. The second thing you had to prove was that you left the war and honorable shape. You didnt flee your post. You actually surrendered when you are forced to. When the union