4 - Perilous Years

Summary

It is commonly assumed that the first half-decade after any war presents veterans their severest trial. Distinguishing between those who “belonged” and others, a local Massachusetts official declared that most residents “glided smoothly and splendidly into the quiet duties of civil life.” Evidence from two towns shows that veterans actually ranged themselves along a continuum. Married men who returned to their towns were only one-fifth of the original residents; the remaining majority had varying combinations of marital status, disability, and location. Veterans’ fate also changed over time, as some apparently well-adjusted men eventually went to insane asylums or died by suicide. Physical disabilities and lack of a fixed residence sometimes formed an insuperable barrier to a satisfying civilian life: wartime disabilities doubled the likelihood of death for white veterans and quadrupled it for African Americans, and others began a long institutional odyssey. Administrators of insane asylums dismissed the war’s effect on veterans’ mental health, but suicides suggest otherwise. In Massachusetts, Union veterans were considerably more likely to commit suicide than were their civilian peers from 1866 to 1870. The leading attributed motive was marital discord or rejection by a lover, hinting at the destructive force of wartime separation.