Fighting the Environment As Well As the Enemy: “Environmental Aspects of the Civil War''

Fighting the Environment As Well As the Enemy:

“Environmental Aspects of the Civil War''

The impact of the environment upon the course of the American Civil War, and the impact of those who fought that war upon the environment, are subjects that only recently have drawn the attention of scholars. Such scrutiny is long overdue.

The environment in which the soldiers fought was deadly, and not just due to enemy fire. For every Civil War soldier killed by shot or shell, two more fell victims of disease. Further, the movement of large bodies of men between North and South led to a so-called “microbial exchange,” which introduced new types of deadly illnesses to swaths of each section’s population, including malaria, measles and yellow fever.

The soldiers also had to fight the elements. The environment in the guise of weather played a major factor in the Union Army’s failure to take the rebel capital of Richmond in 1862, while an untimely cold rain drenched unto doom General Ambrose Burnside’s career via his infamous “Mud March” of early 1863. By contrast, severe drought in central Kentucky killed hundreds and drove thirst-maddened soldiers to clash over dwindling water sources in what grew into the critical Battle of Perryville. In that sense, the environment not only killed by its own hand but lured men to come together to kill each other. Meanwhile, early in the war certain unprecedented environmental disasters plagued the South, devastating crops and causing adverse military and even political consequences, as Confederate soldiers felt pressure to desert after learning of starving family members at home, while their government imposed increasingly unpopular measures (e.g., food impressment) to try and deal with the crisis.

The soldiers themselves wrought havoc upon the environment in which they fought, with some of the effects lasting for generations after the war. Civil War armies denuded vast tracts of forest for use as fuel, fortifications and housing. The resulting barren landscape fell prey to erosion, damaging the land then and for decades into the future. (Indeed, the present layout of Atlanta and its suburbs is reflective of this effect.) Hundreds of miles of trenches scarred dozens of Civil War battlefields. Moreover, when armies took up extended residence in a region, the area became host to the daily waste products of thousands of men and animals, poisoning land and water. The carcasses of thousands of animals butchered for food only added to the environmental nightmare, for soldiers and surrounding civilians alike.

Anyone seeking to understand the full nature of the Civil War must consider nature itself, and how the environment influenced the war’s course as well as its environmental legacy. Fortunately, the Roanoke Civil War Round Table (“RCWRT”) is up to the task.

On September 10, the RCWRT will present Dr. Judkin Browning, professor of history at Appalachian State University and co-author (with Tim Silver) of An Environmental History of the Civil War, who will speak on “Environmental Aspects of the Civil War.''

Dr. Browning is an award-winning professor who developed and administers https://www.tarheeltroops.org/, which provides databases, letters, and blog posts about North Carolina soldiers during the Civil War. Among other works, he has written The Southern Mind Under Union Rule, an edited diary of a secessionist living under that Union military occupation in Beaufort, and Shifting Loyalties, which examines the effects of Union military occupation on the local whites, African Americans, Union soldiers, and northern benevolent societies that experienced or participated in the occupation of eastern North Carolina.

Date, Time & Location: Tuesday, September 10 (7:00 pm). Chapel of the Residents’ Center at Friendship, 397 Hershberger Road, Roanoke, VA. Admission is free (but becoming a Round Table member welcome).