Walk a Mile in Their Shoes: The Soldier Experience

The Soldier Experience

The Civil War remains the bloodiest conflict in US history. An estimated 3,000,000 soldiers would serve in the Union and Confederate forces, and roughly 750,000 of these soldiers would die as a result. The survivors would leave records (letters, memoirs, photographs, stories, etc.) that allow modern audiences to step into their shoes and understand the ideological complexities of the Civil War. The records collected by Historic Sandusky give a Lynchburg perspective on the life of the common soldier in terms of their ideological views, interactions with other soldiers, and their day-to-day lives.

Unidentified soldier in Company E, “Lynchburg Rifles,” of 11th Virginia Infantry Volunteers. Taken by Charles R. Rees in 1861. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Photograph of Lynchburg Confederate monument.

Photograph of James Risque Hutter, soldier in the Confederate Army. He was wounded and captured at Gettysburg on July 3rd, 1863. He was held at Johnson’s Island, Ohio. He was released in February or March of 1865, but then recaptured in April and released permanently in July of 1865.

Photograph of General Robert E. Lee taken by Vannerson & Jones. Taken between 1861 and 1865, courtesy of Library of Congress.

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Primary Sources 

Rees, Charles. “Unidentified Soldier in Confederate Uniform of Company E, “Lynchburg Rifles,” 11th Virginia Infantry Volunteers,”.

Vannerson and Jones. “General Robert E. Lee of General & Staff Confederate States Infantry Regiment in Uniform,”, 1861-1865.

Secondary Sources 

“Civil War Facts.” U.S. National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm.

Sheehan-Dean, Aaron. “Virginia Soldiers (Confederate) during the Civil War.” Encyclopedia Virginia (October 27, 2015). http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Virginia_Soldiers_Confederate_During_the_Civil_War.