The Boxing Boys in Blue: Gloved Sparring and Bare-Knuckle Prizefighting in the Union Army, 1861–65

Abstract

Abstract In 1860, American heavyweight champion John C. Heenan traveled to England to face Tom Sayers in a bare-knuckle prizefight for the championship of the world, sparking unprecedented interest in boxing throughout the United States. In the wake of the Heenan–Sayers contest, gloved sparring and bare-knuckle prizefighting attracted a bevy of new practitioners, eager to emulate their fistic heroes. On April 12, 1861, however, Confederate forces in Charleston, South Carolina, fired on Fort Sumter, commencing the American Civil War. Thousands of northern men promptly enlisted in the Union Army to extinguish the southern rebellion, carrying their sporting preferences into their military service. Within the context of the Union Army, this study approaches boxing as not merely a passing form of distraction but rather a complicated social and cultural practice, used for a multiplicity of purposes by soldiers, including the development of masculine identities, preservation and improvement of health, fraternal entertainment, and camp-based dispute resolution.