Thousands of Steuben men served in the Civil War, and hundreds died, leaving hundreds of widows and orphans. Sickness had taken more lives than battle causes, and official counts are low — men who were very sick or badly wounded were discharged, so they didn’t appear on official lists when they died.
While most Americans didn’t write or speak in these terms, those losses left huge gaps not only in families but in communities. Just as samples, Clayton’s 1879 History of Steuben County lists 36 Civil War dead for Avoca (some of whom starved to death as prisoners); 29 for Urbana; 17 for Caton; and 6 for Hornby.
The psychological effect of all these losses must have been crushing, especially for the military-age cohort. Down in Addison, Stephen P. Chase wrote on his return, “I feel very lonely to find so many who went into the army with me are not here. They rest in a soldier’s grave.” Chase further wrote, “I do not enjoy my mind very well” — his description of recurring deep depression. Later he commented, “I thank God I have the right use of my mind after 4 years of terrible war.”
He found relief to a certain extent by going to church and by working in the field, but there was really no help (or even terminology) for emotional and psychological problems. Spiritualism boomed as people tried to contact lost loved ones. Funerals became elaborate rituals. Sentimental songs abounded, such as “The Empty Chair” and “Faded Coat of Blue.”
Depression and “survivor’s guilt” were no doubt widespread. Those who had been in combat, and those who had been prisoners of war, were prime candidates for what we now know as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Russell Tuttle of Hornellsville wrote years later that the cry of a whippoorwill always filled him with horror, bringing back ghastly memories of Chancellorsville — a clear P.T.S.D. trigger.
Many veterans suffered physical wounds. In Hammondsport Monroe Brundage had lost an arm at Antietam, and Hezekiah Ripley had lost a leg at Missionary Ridge. R. C. Phillips in Prattsburgh and John P. Faulkner of Dansville suffered no amputations, but each lost the use of one arm at Gettysburg. Barry Dexter of Caton was “deaf and dumb” for the rest of his life, after being caught in the blast of a bursting shell.
While many veterans couldn’t wait to get home and stay there, others found that they no longer belonged in Sonora, Buena Vista, or Coss Corners, or even in Corning, Bath, and Wayland. Some would head west, some went south to help with Reconstruction, while others gravitated to Rochester, New York, or other booming cities.
Many of the public were terrified that a million trained and experienced killers were about to be unleashed on the population. Could they settle down to civilian life? As time went on, that fear turned in some cases to loathing — they wanted BENEFITS? Only lazy parasites would behave that way.
The veterans came together in local, state, and national groups as the Grand Army of the Republic. This gave them psychological and emotional support (not that they’d have used those terms). It also educated the public about veterans’ need, and helped change the mood on benefits and support systems — the G.A.R. was a major force behind creating the New York State Soldiers and Sailors Home in Bath (now Bath V.A.).
A group of returning soldiers drank themselves drunk and rioted in Bath, hunting down and attacking African Americans, presumably under the alcoholic “reasoning” that since the war had been about the condition of African Americans, that made them responsible for the soldiers’ sufferings.
As a whole, though, the veterans as organized in the G.A.R. became increasingly angry at seeing their victories on the battlefield thrown away in peacetime. (The organization itself was one of the few groups in America to be racially integrated.) They agitated for the rights of African Americans, and fiercely opposed the Ku Klux Klan. Perhaps their last gasp as a national pressure group was in joining others against the Klan-glorifying film The Birth of a Nation. Most of the “boys in blue” were gone by the 1920s, but we imagine that those who were left were at once enraged and heartbroken as their grandchildren, here in Steuben County, joined the Ku Klux Klan in droves.