
Did Civil War Soldiers Have PTSD? - rfreytag
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ptsd-civil-wars-hidden-legacy-180953652/?utm_source=smithsonianhistandarch&no-ist
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irishcoffee
Odds are I'll get downvoted for this.

Did calculus Exist in 3 B.C.?

Did the Earth orbit around the Sun in 2800 B.C.?

Did dinosaurs exist way, way back in the day?

My point being, does discovering something suddenly mean it exists? Perhaps
things do not suddenly exist, perhaps they are discovered. Math has always
existed. It still exists to this day. Math is discovered. The rules don't
change.

PTSD exists. It existed the first time Man A saw Friend B die in conflict. Did
it have a name? Did it have a definition in a book? No. Did it exist? Yes. Was
it 'discovered?' Recently.

Just like in 100 years, some formal definition of technology addiction will
exist. It will be some extension of ADD or whatever. It was always there, it
just didn't have a name.

~~~
jedmeyers
> Math has always existed.

I would say that laws of the Universe that math describes always existed but
not math. Math is more of a language to describe something, and you can't say
that the word "apple" always existed and was only discovered later. Apples
existed long before the word got invented to describe it, though.

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mml
This brings to mind the 19y/o with the 1000yd stare I met not long ago. Shell
shock isn't just something that happened a long time ago to your uncle who was
in 'Nam. It lives with us here and now every day, and it's sad as hell. That
kid will never function normally again most likely.

Much of modern combat personnel management (rotations, leave etc) revolves
around minimizing the inexorable insanity that comes from exposure to
mechanized slaughter.

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classicsnoot
Food for thought: of late, the 'D' in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is being
left off. The reasoning behind this is two fold: to feel nothing substantial
after traumatic experiences is more of an indicator of problems and the term
'disorder' is unnecessarily negative

I support this fully and I would like you all to consider it. Ino way am I
advocating Political Correctitude. I hate that shit.

~~~
meepmorp
Being emotionally affected by traumatic events is normal for humans. Being
affected to the point where you're unable to live your life, when minor
stressors make you feel as though you're under attack and respond accordingly,
where you're abusing drugs and alcohol to get by - that's where it becomes a
disorder.

> Ino way am I advocating Political Correctitude. I hate that shit.

There was zero need to include this, it's entirely irrelevant to your point.

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coldcode
No matter how brave you are, spending time killing other people and watching
your friends blown to bits will affect you for the rest of your life.

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FireBeyond
This was covered somewhat in Peaky Blinders (series set in post-WWI
Birmingham). One of the secondary characters suffers PTSD (or shell shock, to
use the parlance of the time), up to and including psychotic breaks resulting
in violence.

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xacaxulu
Some of them, probably. Did cavemen have insomnia from time to time? Probably.

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jqm
No, I don't think they did. Nor did their kids have ADD nor their wives
depression.

Instead the whole family had moral character flaws... (probably the thinking
at the time).

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sogen
tl;dr

Yes? No?

~~~
eric_h
Of course they did. It would be silly to assume differently - the value of
this article is not the yes or no answer, but its exploration into how PTSD
was perceived (poorly) and how it was treated (again, poorly).

I'd recommend reading the article, it's interesting.

~~~
Someone
Given what happened in the civil war, it must have mentally broken many
people.

But if you live in a society where it is fairly normal for mothers to die
giving birth, or for children or friends to die or be maimed for life (and
where it must have been fairly common to see corporal punishment of slaves)
seeing healthy men die suddenly in horrible ways may have had a smaller effect
than it does today.

But of course, outside the battle field, they had it way worse than present-
day soldiers (at least those for rich countries such as the USA). No
antibiotics, no rescue helicopters, no air-conditioned hospitals, etc. That
may well have compensated for that.

~~~
tmuir
What always fascinates me about the Civil War is the sheer number of deaths,
and how quickly they mounted. Wikipedia estimates 215,000 deaths in a roughy 4
year period.

The Battle of Gettysburg saw over 4000 dead on each side in a 3 day period.
That means, in 3 days, more US soldiers died than in 13 years of the
Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

~~~
ubernostrum
People forget that about the American Civil War, quite often.

It's estimated that the Normandy landings on D-Day had 14,000-19,000
casualties total (all sides).

The Battle of Antietam had 22,000 casualties in a single day. Cold Harbor may
have had up to 7,000 in a matter of _minutes_.

At Gettysburg, Pickett's division suffered around 60% casualties in their one
charge, including a 100% casualty rate among regimental and brigade
commanders, prompting his famous comment to Lee (on being told to prepare his
division for a possible Union counterattack) "General Lee, I have no
division".

It was a relentlessly and almost unbelievably bloody conflict, and yet both
sides found the will to keep it going for four years. What sticks out to me is
Grant's comment after the first day at Shiloh (which had been close to a
massacre of the Union forces) in response to Sherman, who said to him "Well,
Grant, we've had the Devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant simply said "Yes.
Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

And he did. In the end it was that stubbornness and willingness to keep
pressing on in spite of the horrific casualties that won the war.

