Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in For Cause and Comrades, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Duty, Honor, and Masculinity
Northern vs. Southern Ideology
Slavery, Equality, and Abolition
Morale and Endurance
Summary
Analysis
Phrases like “shell shock,” “battle fatigue,” and “combat stress” didn’t exist in the Civil War. What soldiers understood best was “courage,” and they understood the loss of courage in terms of the loss of a will to continue fighting. Breakdown of courage occurred because of the prolonged fighting but also because of long marches, inadequate sleep and rations, and exposure. In the last year of the war, 1864, “combat stress reaction” and psychological breakdown became more common.
Contemporary students of war understand its effects in medical terms, but these resources generally weren’t available to Civil War soldiers. Whereas moderners are largely aware of post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans, at this time a psychological breakdown was understood in terms of a failure of courage, as McPherson’s explanation of the historical context (cultural values of duty and manhood) has made clear.
Themes
In light of such extremes, McPherson asks, “how could soldiers sustain a high level of ideological commitment or belief in noble ideas” to keep them going? Clearly, some couldn’t. But especially for those volunteers who enlisted in 1861 and 1862, duty, honor, and ideology were sustaining motivations all the way through the war, if rhetoric found in letters is to be believed. Both officers and enlisted men, married and unmarried, scorned suggestions of resignation or desertion even when they were exhausted and demoralized by reversals of fortune.
Confederate soldiers largely remained committed to upholding honor throughout 1864–1865, as well as their sense of resistance to self-perceived submission to the “Yankees.” A Confederate officer even said that surrender would mean “a depth of degradation unmeasurably below that of the Helots of Greece.” By the winter of 1864–1865, a Mississippi officer even wrote that a loss would be akin to slavery and that he would even be willing to “let the negro go” if it meant avoiding such a disgrace.
Confederate views remained largely unchanged over the course of the war; in fact, what they saw as Northern aggression seems mainly to have entrenched their outlook. “Helots” were low-status serfs in the ancient Greek state of Sparta. This historical comparison sums up Confederate views of their own likely status under the Union.
Themes
Increasingly, this was not an isolated idea. The Confederacy was beginning to debate whether to arm slaves to fight on behalf of the South. They were facing a manpower shortage. By February 1865, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee supported a measure to enroll a small number of slaves, on the assumption that these individuals would be freed. The “Negro soldier bill” was passed in March with a close margin, and soldiers appear to have been close to equally divided on the issue. Many saw it as a matter of “dishonor and humiliation.” Those who supported the measure, however, saw no other alternative: freeing slaves was viewed as better than defeat and the loss of liberty altogether. After all, if the Union defeated the Confederacy, slavery would be abolished anyway.
The controversial measure to free and arm a limited number of slaves shows how desperate the South had become by this point in the war—doing so undermined the foundational principles of the Confederacy, yet this was regarded as a better outcome than the looming collapse of their society.
Themes
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Letters and diaries from the waning years of the war display much of the same patriotism and commitment that one sees in the early period. As an Indiana lieutenant wrote, “I love peace but I love my country more. I am now wedded to war” until the issue is decided. Indeed, even more than half of those Union soldiers whose enlistments expired in 1864 ultimately reenlisted. An Ohio veteran wrote that although the desire to remain with his friends was one motivating factor, “more weighty [is] love of country and its institutions.” Undoubtedly, there remained skulkers, draftees, and those who couldn’t bear the pressures of war any longer. But enough remained to ensure that the tide turned in favor of the Union by the end of 1864.
Despite war-weariness, homesickness, and the loss of friends, the ideological beliefs that motivated soldiers to enlist seem to have sustained those who remained until the end. The longer they committed to Union success, the more “wedded” they became to seeing the cause through, not less. This steadfast commitment, according to McPherson, was ultimately responsible for Northern victory.
Themes
Lincoln’s 1864 reelection victory is a sign of how strong Union morale remained toward the end of the war—even though somewhere between 40 and 45 percent of soldiers had been Democrats, or came from Democratic families, in 1860. As a New York private explained, he intended to “give the [rebellion] another thump this fall by voting for Old Abe. I cannot afford to give three years of my life to maintaining this nation and then giving them Rebles all they want.”
The New York private’s comments illustrate this sense of increasing, not fading, commitment. The longer the most ideologically committed Union soldiers fought, the more they became convinced of the necessity of prevailing; the price for giving up was too high after investing so much.
Themes
On the third anniversary of his enlistment—and also his 31st birthday—an Ohio captain wrote to his 10-year-old son thanking him for the birthday letter he’d just received. “It tells me, “ he told his son, “that while I am absent from home, fighting the battels of our country, trying to restore law and order […] and endeavoring to secure for each and every American citizen of every race, the rights guaranteed to us in the Declaration of Independence […] I have children growing up that will be worthy” of those rights. McPherson concludes that contemporary Americans, too, are “children of that heritage. Whether we are worthy of it will remain a matter of constant reexamination,” for which we can only hope that wartime sacrifices will never be required again.
McPherson concludes his study with a stirringly representative quote from a Union soldier. The captain’s words sum up his sustaining motivations and combat motivations—among others, the desire to preserve law and order, and to secure and maintain Americans’ rights. This is a good summary of the spectrum of Union views—encompassing not simply distaste for secessionism, but a positive desire to defend the rights of all citizens. McPherson (who is transparently pro-Union throughout) closes with a word of challenge to his readers, suggesting that Americans will always be responsible for assessing their fidelity to the heritage preserved by the Union victory.
Themes
