{"product_id":"the-war-for-the-common-soldier-how-men-thought-fought-and-survived-in-civil-war-armies-littlefield-history-of-the-civil-war-era-9781469664033","title":"The War for the Common Soldier: How Men Thought  Fought  and Survived in Civil War Armies (Littlefield History of the Civil War Era)","description":"\u003cp\u003eHow did Civil War soldiers endure the brutal and unpredictable existence of army life during the conflict? This question is at the heart of Peter S. Carmichaels sweeping new study of men at war. Based on close examination of the letters and records left behind by individual soldiers from both the North and the South  Carmichael explores the totality of the Civil War experience  the marching  the fighting  the boredom  the idealism  the exhaustion  the punishments  and the frustrations of being away from families who often faced their own dire circumstances. Carmichael focuses not on what soldiers thought but rather how they thought. In doing so  he reveals how  to the shock of most men  well-established notions of duty or disobedience  morality or immorality  loyalty or disloyalty  and bravery or cowardice were blurred by war.  Digging deeply into his soldiers writing  Carmichael resists the idea that there was a common soldier but looks into their own words to find common threads in soldiers experiences and ways of understanding what was happening around them. In the end  he argues that a pragmatic philosophy of soldiering emerged  guiding members of the rank and file as they struggled to live with the contradictory elements of their violent and volatile world. Soldiering in the Civil War  as Carmichael argues  was never a state of being but a process of becoming.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45652237025333,"sku":"ByrdShop_1469664038","price":30.48,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781469664033.jpg?v=1781850189","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-war-for-the-common-soldier-how-men-thought-fought-and-survived-in-civil-war-armies-littlefield-history-of-the-civil-war-era-9781469664033","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}