Academic Earth, Civil War and Alcott’s Hospital Sketches

We’ve mentioned Academic Earth previously for a single lecture but decided to expand on its course offerings broadcast from various colleges. Here is another example of what’s offered at this site:

The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877.

This course explores the causes, course, and consequences of the American Civil War, from the 1840s to 1877 … Four broad themes are closely examined: the crisis of union and disunion in an expanding republic; slavery, race, and emancipation as national problem, personal experience, and social process; the experience of modern, total war for individuals and society; and the political and social challenges of Reconstruction.

A lecture from that course is Why Does the Civil War Era Has a Hold on the American Imagination? is an introduction to the larger course, given by Yale’s David W. Blight.

One of the books the professor is using is Louise May Alcott’s experiences as a nurse in civil war hospitals, Hospital Sketches. It can be read in its entirely at Gutenberg:

“He lay on a bed, with one leg gone, and the right arm so
shattered that it must evidently follow: yet the little Sergeant was as
merry as if his afflictions were not worth lamenting over; and when a
drop or two of salt water mingled with my suds at the sight of this
strong young body, so marred and maimed, the boy looked up, with a
brave smile, though there was a little quiver of the lips, as he said,

“Now don’t you fret yourself about me, miss; I’m first rate here, for it’s nuts to lie still on this bed, after knocking about in those
confounded ambulances, that shake what there is left of a fellow to
jelly. I never was in one of these places before, and think this
cleaning up a jolly thing for us, though I’m afraid it isn’t for you
ladies.”

…

To me, the saddest sight I saw in that sad place, was the spectacle of a grey-haired father, sitting hour after hour by his son, dying from
the poison of his wound. The old father, hale and hearty; the young
son, past all help, though one could scarcely believe it; for the
subtle fever, burning his strength away, flushed his cheeks with color,
filled his eyes with lustre, and lent a mournful mockery of health to
face and figure, making the poor lad comelier in death than in life.
His bed was not in my ward; but I was often in and out, and for a day
or two, the pair were much together, saying little, but looking much.
The old man tried to busy himself with book or pen, that his presence
might not be a burden; and once when he sat writing, to the anxious
mother at home, doubtless, I saw the son’s eyes fix upon his face, with
a look of mingled resignation and regret, as if endeavoring to teach
himself to say cheerfully the long good bye. And again, when the son
slept, the father watched him as he had himself been watched; and
though no feature of his grave countenance changed, the rough hand,
smoothing the lock of hair upon the pillow, the bowed attitude of the
grey head, were more pathetic than the loudest lamentations. The son
died; and the father took home the pale relic of the life he gave,
offering a little money to the nurse, as the only visible return it was
in his power to make her; for though very grateful, he was poor. Of
course, she did not take it, but found a richer compensation in the old
man’s earnest declaration:

“My boy couldn’t have been better cared for if he’d been at home; and God will reward you for it, though I can’t.”