Marching Home: Union Veterans And Their Unending Civil War, by Brian Matthew Jordan

Listening to this audiobook was a more frustrating experience than reading it would likely have been. When one listens to a book, one picks up on the repetition of language, as the author appears to have spent so much time immersed in the primary texts of Union veterans that the words hale and hearty, or one-armed, or empty sleeve appear over and over and over again. There is a certain monotony in the repetition, as the book is overly stuffed with anecdotal accounts of the traumatic and deeply unpleasant experiences of Union veterans after the Civil War, so much so that word choice would have made the book a lot less uncomfortable to listen to. It is likewise a bit troubling that the author seems to take the claims of the veterans at face value more often than is strictly wise, for although the fair-minded reader (or listener) will certainly find a great deal to blame in Grover Cleveland and his efforts to reduce federal expenditures by reneging on the debt of honor owed to Union veterans for putting down the rebel allies of the postwar Democratic Party, the same reader is likely to find the self-medication of many Union veterans in alcoholism to be deeply troubling. This is a book that seems to be deliberately troubling in its emphasis of the continual suffering and torment faced by many Union veterans in an uncomprehending civilian society that wanted to let bygones be bygones and largely forget the discomfort of the war, only caring about Union veterans when they were old and no longer a threat to the national budget.

The contents of this book are organized both thematically and chronologically, with a few large chapters beginning with quotes from Homer’s Odyssey that deal with different aspects of veterans’ suffering, being framed between two seminal incidents: the review of the Armies of Grant and Sherman in May 1865 and the deathwatch of the last surviving Union veterans in the 1950s. Between these bookends, the author dwells long on the physical and mental wounds suffered by soldiers, including PTSD (although the author does not tend to call it that, and the psychology of the late 19th century was particularly harsh towards those who suffered from it, blaming anxiety and frayed nerves on bad heredity rather than the experience of trauma), the lingering effects of wounds, including amputation, as well as disease, alcoholism and drug abuse, and chronic joblessness and discrimination at the hands of ungrateful and uncaring civilians. The book consists of broad statements followed by numbing details of authors being consigned to soldiers’ homes or poorhouses or mental hospitals, or trying to write memoirs or enjoy unofficial group therapy with fellow veterans and the few curious civilians (like a young Bruce Catton, who is mentioned often) who were not offended by the secrecy of institutions like the Grand Army of the Republic.

The way the book is handled is immensely curious. It is not clear from the text itself what exactly the author is trying to prove, aside from castigating the postwar society of the North for its quickness in desiring to reconcile with the not-exactly-repentant ex-rebels, for its lack of backbone in defending the dignity of blacks, and in its lassiez-faire refusal to provide for the long-term care of the broken bodies and shattered minds of veterans who continued to relive the war in their nightmares for decades. As the book is written with a long string of sometimes indecisive anecdotal accounts, it appears as if the historian is trying to overwhelm the audience with narrative rather than either tell a coherent narrative of his own or engage in the sort of statistical history that would seek to convince the reader through evidence. Yet given the mass of largely unexamined and often neglected memoirs and accounts of veterans and their lives after the Civil War, it is unsurprising that the author chose to focus on narratives that have not received very much attention instead of working on the statistics to back up the book’s broad and sweeping generalizations. This book does heroic work in acquainting readers with the realities of postwar life for veterans, is likely not to be a pleasant read for those who struggle from PTSD themselves, but falls short of the sort of convincing proof that it aims for, yet it is still a worthwhile read despite its flaws.