Civil War Institute
The Victorian world was one of ceremony and order, even in death. Deathways–the practices of a society regarding death and dying–in 19thcentury America focused on elaborate rituals that earned the country the grisly distinction of possessing a “culture of death.” The American Civil War presented a four-year window in which many of these traditions were radically challenged in both the North and the South, as loved ones died anonymous deaths far from the embrace of kin. Nevertheless, the warring populations attempted to maintain important traditions even as the horrors of war surrounded them, thus allowing the deathways of the antebellum years to survive even into the early days of the 20th century. [excerpt]
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Wesley, Zachary A., "“The Vegetables Really Get More Tender Care”: An Introduction to Death and Dying in the Civil War" (2018). The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History. 260.