Date

6-17-2026

Department

College of Arts and Sciences

Degree

Master of Arts in History - Thesis (MA)

Chair

Michael A. Davis

Keywords

Civil War, Social History, Leisure Studies, Military History, War Studies, Recreation, Sports, Music, Theater, Literature, United States of America, Confederate States of America, USCT, YMCA, USCC, Baseball, Boxing, Minstrelsy, Vaudeville, Romanticism, Realism, Walt Whitman, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Patrick S. Gilmore, John Philip Sousa, Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, Bell Irvin Wiley

Disciplines

History

Abstract

When most people think of the American Civil War, they recall the agonies and ecstasies of combat, envisioning the bombardment of Fort Sumter, the glorious folly of Pickett’s Charge, or the ravages of Sherman’s March to the Sea. What gets left out of the history books is what the common soldier experienced more than anything else: camp life. This study sheds renewed light on what the soldiers of the Union and Confederacy did to pass the time between battles. It focuses specifically on what they did for fun, addressing three categories of recreational activities: sports, music, and literature. It finds that baseball, brass bands, and dime novels played a not insignificant role in the life of the Civil War soldier, who engaged in such pastimes for a myriad of reasons. Additionally, this study analyzes the extent to which the Civil War impacted leisure trends in nineteenth-century America. The examination of ante- and postbellum pastimes reveals the catalytic effect of this conflict, which furthered developments already in place by the time war erupted. When Walt Whitman commented that “the real war” would “never get in the books,” he was referring to the experiences of the ordinary soldiers who waged this bloody conflict. This study thus contributes to an area that remains under-addressed, drawing attention to the “real war” lurking between the lines of standard Civil War histories.

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