"I Love Country but I Love Family and Self Much Better": The Emotional World of Civil War Family Men

Abstract

"I Love Country but I Love Family and Self Much Better"The Emotional World of Civil War Family Men John Patrick Riley Clabern L. Townsend was a Confederate who enlisted with the Florida Light Artillery from Tallahassee. At thirty-three years old, he left behind a wife, Liza Jane, and three children. As his service took him far from home, to Kentucky and Mississippi, Townsend admitted that he suffered from homesickness: "You must be cheerful & lighthearted in my absense I intend to see you & Laura & Cullen & My little babe again & live with you all once more I am cheerful enough except lonesomeness from you all." In the same letter, Townsend provided careful instructions for his children; Laura was to be a good scholar and study daily, and Cullen was not to fight with other children. Both were to obey their mother during his absence and give her no trouble. To sweeten the deal, he offered a vague bribe for their good behavior: "Pa will give you a great many more things than was to if you was not to mind your ma." He then instructed Liza Jane in the care of their youngest child until he could return: "My very heart is overflowing on these considerations."1 By April 1862, just a few months into his term of service, Townsend confessed to his wife that he had made a mistake enlisting and not putting his family first: "I love country but I love family & self much better. I believe I ought to love them before country & I believe I done wrong in volunteering when I did but I can't help it now."2 Townsend's letters home reveal the painful emotional conflict prompted by his enlistment in the Confederate army.3 Although he honored the call to duty to [End Page 255] his fledgling country, his decision hindered his ability to care and provide for his family, his primary responsibility as a man, husband, and father. His letters bare the concerns and anxieties created by the wartime conflict that emerged between allegiance to nation and obligation to family. Townshend's correspondence can be viewed as a desperate effort to fulfill his role as patriarch in absentia; he delivered direct instructions for his wife, professed love and affection, offered educational advice for his children and inducements for their good behavior. Ultimately, though, he recognized the inadequacies of his attempts to parent from afar and confessed regret that he could not be there with his family. Townsend's constrained efforts to assert paternal authority via letters unmasks a soldier's emotional struggle between commitment to country and family, a struggle shared by other soldiering family men in the American Civil War. The American Civil War presented a dilemma for fathers and husbands. Tapped to volunteer their service to the state through appeals to duty, honor, and patriotism, these men nevertheless remained their families' primary breadwinners and legal heads of household.4 In the nineteenth century, martial duty in time of war was the responsibility of every man, but fulfilling this obligation jeopardized the safety and security of soldiers' families. Military service physically separated family men from their homes. Unable to exercise the control they could during peacetime, these soldiers acutely felt the separation caused by their service. Consequently, family men employed numerous tactics in efforts to maintain complex interpersonal relationships with their wives and children and to continue to fulfill their responsibilities as providers, caregivers, companionate spouses, and devoted fathers. The contents of soldiers' letters gives evidence to the collective fears and concerns of Union and Confederate family men: wives might make poor financial decisions or mismanage the household affairs; children could grow up without adequate guidance or [End Page 256] spiritual nurturance; loved ones may fall ill or die, all of which highlighted Civil War soldiers' powerlessness to provide for, protect, and control their families as they believed they ought.5 The emotional turmoil that engulfed soldiers as evident in their wartime correspondence reveals the extent to which nineteenth-century American men embraced their roles as devoted husbands and fathers. Their letters are a window into their deep emotional attachment for their families, made even more poignant by the loss...