Generation to Consider What the Civil War

¶ … generation to consider what the Civil War must have been like. Horrible fighting conditions, brother against brother, massive loss of human life - it was a bloody war on American soil. The wonderful, informative website, The Valley of the Shadow, takes an in depth look at two communities, close in proximity, fighting against each other during our nation's battle against each other. The website is enormous - it offers pre-war information, war information, and post-war information for both the Staunton, Virginia region as well as the Franklins County, Pennsylvania region.

There are countless photographs, documents, letters, journals, church records, government records, newspapers, and maps. All of these items collectively offer faces and names to associate with a war that happened so many years ago. As a college student, learning about the Civil War is somewhat tedious - it is hard to put yourself into something that happened so long ago, and really grasp the impact of the war.

This site not only captured my attention, it drew me into the past, into the war, and taught me lessons of family life, husbands longing for their wives, sons longing to be home with their mothers, and the overall sense of urgency and desperation both sides were feeling as the war progressed.

The section of the site that most held my attention and had me online until the wee hours of the morning was the section dedicated to the years during the war, and the transcripts of letters from actual soldiers, and the journals of lives that were forever changed by the war. For example, there are letters from a William Baylor, to his wife Mary Baylor.

IN April 1862, he is discussing how he wants mail from her so badly; he also talks of the fear that is in the people of Staunton and Harrisonburg. Most touching is how he concludes - asking for her to write him a long letter, and that "I am still your husband." Sadly, after reading two of his letters and feeling as if you know him and his wife Mary, there is a third letter from Edward Walton to Mary Baylor telling of William Baylor's death.

Baylor was said to have sought out God during his last days, which of course was meant to bring comfort to his wife. He died an honorable death, but honor doesn't exactly hold you at night. Josiah Bloss, a Union soldier from Pennsylvania, wrote letters to his sister in 1864 as the war was nearing an end. It is uncanny how similar the men from the Union and the Confederacy seem to be - loyal to their troops and countrymen, missing their families, and wanting the war to conclude.

Josiah writes of Union victories, how the Confederate army is in shambles, and how the death of Lincoln, a "sad catastrophy," will most likely prevent any "quick restoration of our union, and peace." No doubt it was a tough blow to learn of the death of the man that so many Union soldiers admired and looked up to - Lincoln was whom many were fighting for. The letters are many, and all are of great importance - I could sit here and quote from them all day long.

There isn't a single letter that doesn't express some sort of desire for the war to be over - whether from the Union soldiers or Confederate soldiers. The similarities between the two are amazing. The Union soldiers offer victorious praises for their military successes, and that is pretty much the only difference that can be really be seen between.