Every man and boy (and a few girls) who died at Gettysburg had a story... as I pull them out with my database work, I've found that while all are tragic, a few of them are extra poignant and stand out as such. This morning I was looking up the stats on Pvt. Philo Peck, a laborer from Massachusetts. He was with Company G, 2nd MA. (I will do a separate post on what happened to that regiment at Gettysburg.) Pvt. Peck was 20 years old (almost 21). His little brother had drowned in 1857 so the family wasn't a stranger to tragedy. Less than a year before Philo died at Gettysburg, his brother Chauncy died at the Battle of Winchester (August of 1862.) That's not even the end of it because still another brother, Albert, died in 1864. Being a mom myself, I always end up wondering how those women of that era could survive this degree of heartache. This morning as I read that these boys' mama also died in 1864, I found myself wondering if a broken heart and crushed spirit really can sometimes lead to a parent's death. I have no documentation that it's what happened, but I can't help but wonder....
That is so true, I don't know if there was a different way of feeling back than, but the fact is that most mother lose their kids and husbands at the war, should have been really painful.
I don't think there was a different way of feeling... grief is grief over all generations... but this war wiped out whole families. Everyone who was able either enlisted or was conscripted. This is every male from 18 up... but often 15 and 16 year old boys enlisted. And families were much larger. If there was a family with 5 or 6 sons, off they went to war maybe even with their dad, and sometimes none of them came home.
Yes, pain is pain no matter in which time is located, but if that happened now I think that it would be felt in a different way by our society, we would not allow it I think.
