The Good Death

1. The Good Death • [Before the Civil War,] the faithful looked forward to what was called a Good Death, with time to see the end approaching, accept it and declare to friends and family members their belief in God and his promise of salvation. • The battlefield brutally truncated that serene process, and soldiers and their families alike worried about what that might mean for their chances in the afterlife. Survivors tried to provide reassurance. • When one Union soldier was killed during the siege of Richmond, a comrade told his mother that while her boy had died instantly and without the opportunity to declare his faith, he had told his fellow soldiers the previous summer that he “felt his sins were forgiven & that he was ready and resigned to the Lord’s will & while talking he was so much overjoyed that he could hardly suppress his feelings of delight.” • But sometimes candor trumped comfort: one Georgia soldier worried in a letter home that while his dying brother had “said that he hoped he was prepared to meet his God in a better world than this,” he was also aware “he had been a bad, bad, very bad boy.” • The Civil War saw the deaths of countless unidentified soldiers whose entry into the afterlife was accompanied by horrific brutality and bloodshed, rather than stately funerals and without time to review their lives or contemplate their spiritual state.

2. The Good Death • Many people of the 1800’s imagined the “good death” being at home surrounded by your family and loved ones…saying your last good byes. • What is your idea of a good death? • Do you think that Civil War soldiers adapted their ideas of the good death? • How do you think they could still feel they would get a good death?

3. Hospital Sketches • After watching over one lad, she left him for just a moment to fetch him some water… • But the pails were gone to be refilled and it was some time before they reappeared. With the first mug fulI hurried back to him. He seemed asleep, but something in the tired, white face caused me to listen at his lips for a breath. None came. I touched his forehead. It was cold. Half an hour later, the bed was empty. It seemed a poor requital for all he had suffered and sacrificed. That hospital bed, lonely even in a crowd. For there was no hand to lead him gently down as he vanished. I felt bitterly indignant at the carelessness of the value of life and the sanctity of death. -Louisa May Alcott

4. The Last Words

5. Bloodstains Written by a dying courier for General Hethin the battle near Spottsylvania Court House. Bloodstains

7. Spottsylvania Co.   10th. May, 1864 Dear Father: This is my last letter to you. I went into battle this evening as courier for Gen. Heth. I have been struck by a piece of shell, and my right shoulder is horribly mangled, and I know that death is inevitable. I am very weak, but I write to you because I know you would be delighted to read a word from your dying son. I know death is near, that I will die far from home and friends of my early youth, but I have friends here, too, who are kind to me. My frier Fairfax will write you, at my request, and give you the Particulars of my death. My grave will be marked, so that you may visit it if you desire to do so, but it is optionary with you whether you let my remains rest here or in Miss. I would like to rest in the graveyard with my dear mother and brothers, but it is a matter of minor importance. Let us all try to re-unite in Heaven. I pray my God to forgive my sins, and I feel that His promises are true- that He will forgive me and save me. Give my love to all my friends- My strength fails me- My horse and my equipments will be left for you. Again, a long farewell. May we meet in Heaven. Your dying son, J. R. Montgomery.