Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams during the Civil War by Jonathan W. White

Abstract

Reviewed by: Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams during the Civil War by Jonathan W. White Angela M. Riotto Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams during the Civil War. Jonathan W. White. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-4696-3204-9. 296 pp., cloth, $34.95. Arguing that scholars have overlooked the importance of sleep and dreams in their study of the Civil War's effect on ordinary Americans, Jonathan W. White offers an original examination of Civil War Americans' daily and nightly experiences. White contends that dream reports provide unique insight into Civil War America that no other primary source can—dreams, according to White, "can help us see what they saw, feel what they felt, and hear what they heard" (xiii). By examining hundreds of unpublished and published diaries, letters, and memoirs, White argues that both Northerners and Southerners sought to make sense of the changing world around them by recording and sharing their dreams. For White, analysis of sleep patterns is essential to understanding dreams. He begins his book, then, by analyzing the sleep patterns of Union and Confederate soldiers. By starting with the court-martial cases of several sentinels who fell asleep while on post, White sheds light on the widespread exhaustion among Civil War soldiers. Sleeping arrangements, weather, bunkmates, and animals all wrought havoc on soldiers' sleep. Yet, as the war progressed some soldiers acquired the ability to sleep anywhere and anytime. White points out, for instance, that by the 1864 Overland Campaign, some soldiers fell asleep while marching or in battle. Soldiers often recorded their sleep and dreams in diaries and letters. According to White, dream reports allowed for a certain level of intimacy with loved ones at home even as soldiers prepared for battle or languished in prison camps. Although dreams served as a form of pleasurable escape from the drudgery of soldier or prison life, soldiers also suffered from nightmares. Fear and feelings of guilt and loneliness also materialized in dreams as nightmares or premonitions of adultery, abandonment, capture and imprisonment, injury, and death. White closes with a brief discussion of veterans' dreams and war trauma. Although veterans' dreams of war could also be joyful or romantic, many struggled with nightmares of battle or prison even decades later. [End Page 199] White does not limit his analysis to soldiers, as civilians also desired to maintain an emotional connection with their loved ones through dream reports. Yet, they also feared that sharing troubling dreams with soldiers in the field might have a harmful effect. White finds that despite these worries, some civilians preferred to disclose too much rather than too little—hoping their correspondence would bring comfort rather than distress. More significantly, White uncovers one substantial difference between the dreams of Northerners and Southerners. As the war dragged on, many Confederates increasingly endured suffering in both waking and sleep. Southern women, especially, dreamed of swarming Yankees. The war's frequent appearance in civilians' dreams further verifies the conflict's all-encompassing nature for Southerners. White also dedicates a chapter to the dreams of slaves. Although the source base is, not surprisingly, thinner in this chapter, White shows how the horrors of slavery frequently infiltrated slaves' dreams. Additionally, White explores African Americans' dreams as part of their public rituals and professions of faith. As the nineteenth century progressed, many whites modified their practices and privately shared their dreams, while African Americans continued to interpret and share their dreams publicly as part of their religious practices. In an effort to make his study more comprehensive, White also offers chapters on dreams in popular culture and President Lincoln's dreams of death. For instance, White explains that images of soldiers sleeping and dreaming had an incredible mass-market appeal. Northern printmakers, for example, created such idealized images to reassure civilians of soldiers' fidelity to home and country. Just as the war infiltrated the actual dreams of Americans, it also intruded on the fictional dreams in prints, songs, and poems. Following his discussion of dreams in popular culture, White includes a case study of Lincoln's dreams, particularly his prophetic dreams of death. Just as soldiers and civilians' dreams exposed...