A Soldiers Life in the Civil War Life during the Civil War was not a pleasant time. There was basically utter chaos going on the South. Soldiers had to deal with the harsh conditions and the thought of death. Plantation owners had to worry about who was going to work their fields. Business owners had to worry about who was going to buy their products. Citizens had to worry about soldiers destroying their property. And the government had to worry about how to pay the soldiers and how to end the war. This was a very rough time to be alive. Soldier Life During The Civil War The camp life for a soldier was hardly one to be desired. The weather was hot and the water was bad, yet the men kept in good spirits, and there was no grumbling at the hard drill and harder work(Ratchford, 11). The weather varied a lot during the Civil War. At times it would snow up to depths of eight inches and sometimes it would rain and hail for hours on end(Russell, 130). Other times it would be very hot. Sometimes when it would rain, soldiers would wake up half submerged(Brown,122). Death was also a major fear during the Civil War. We cook and eat, talk and laugh with the enemies dead lying all about us as though they were so many logs(Brown, 115). The soldier would march threw battlefields where dead men, horses, and smashed artillery were scattered about in utter confusion; the Blue and the Gray mixed-their bodies so bloated, distorted, and discolored from decomposition, that they were basically unrecognizable(Mohr, 326). There was also the duties of the officers. Often when a detachment was on scout, there were no men left in camp to release the pickets, and they had to remain on post for seventy-two hours at a stretch(History of the Service, 129). Marching, shooting, charging, scouting; they were all hard assignments, but they were important to the war. There were times when troops had to charge for ten miles to get to towns to protect them(Mohr, 326). Troop...
