Summary Of This Republic Of Suffering: Death And The American Civil War

Drew Gilpin Faust, wrote the book This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, this book was about the suffrage in the Civil War. Although more specifically the book goes in depth about the death of the ones who was in the war as well as the spiritual. Since this was back in the nineteenth century, they have not had the access to the medical technology that we do today. This then led to many deaths from “infections, disease in the camp, and that doctors did not have the knowledge to use clean instruments when treating a wound properly” (Faust 4). Though just from 1861 and 1865 it was estimated about 620,000 soldiers died in the Civil War, this is a time expand of approximately four years. However, this did not only impact the

The book was comprehensive and planned accordingly enough for it to be educational, which made it just incredibly astonishing. Drew Gilpin Faust organized this book into eight chapters and they fit so well it was like a puzzle piece in their transition from one chapter to another. How it introduced the death at the beginning of the book, but then brings out a sway of a sense of being dramatic. However, this book just was not about death, it also brings out the economic struggle, citizens struggles, struggles of faith, struggle killing, mourning for the lost, and how they would ever recover from an in particular traumatic event. All these things corresponded together had balanced out into a beautiful masterpiece in literature for this history

The Civil War technology advanced extremely with the telegraph, an invention that was used to send and receive messages through Morse code. This invention was used the most during the Civil war because “it allowed President Lincoln to know what was going on the frontline” (Civil War Innovations). This was an enormous leap for the Americans because the long wait for an update on the war went from weeks to seconds. The “Civil War was also the first war to ever use railroads” to move man, food, ammunition, and medical supplies (Civil War Innovations). The railroads were a big advantage for the Northern since they had an approximately 20,000 miles of track and Southern had around 9,000 miles of track. Railroads aided heavily in advancing the transport of goods and supplies to the front lines, where they were needed the most. The only “disadvantage of this was the railroads became a prime target for attacks” (Civil War