Abstract
Although it has disappeared as a clinical diagnosis, a Disability Studies perspective on Civil War nostalgia offers an opportunity to recover the process by which understanding around a medical event occurs. By incorporating and examining the interplay between and among participants in the conversation surrounding nostalgia as they operate within various site specific temporal and social contexts, this method of analysis offers an opportunity to arrive at an understanding not only of the factors that contribute to different perspectives on an illness, but also into how some voices become ascendant in constructing medical understanding and why others become subordinate, dismissed, or disappear.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, George Worthington. 1952. Doctors in Blue. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Anderson, David. 2010. "Dying of Nostalgia: Homesickness in the Union Army during the Civil War." Civil War History 56 (3): 247-282.
Anderson, David and Godfrey Tryggve Anderson. 1984."Nostalgia and Malingering in the Military during the Civil War." Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 28 (1): 156-166.
Bartholow, Roberts. 1863. Manual of Instructions for Enlisting and Discharging Soldiers. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co. https://archive.org/details/62430200R.nlm.nih.gov.
-----. 1867. "Various Influences Affecting the Physical Endurance of Men in the Volunteer Army." In Sanitary Memoirs of the War of the Rebellion, edited by Austin Flint. 3-41. United States Sanitary Commission. http://archive.org/details/contributionsrel00flinuoft.
Calhoun, Theodore. 1863. "Rough Notes of an Army Surgeon’s Experience during the Great Rebellion." The Medical and Surgical Reporter X (17): 229-230. http://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/medicalsurgical101863phil.
-----. 1864. "Nostalgia as a Disease of Field Service." The Medical and Surgical Reporter XI: 130-132. http://books.google.com/books?id=zjegAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA150#v=onepage&q=nostalgia&f=false.
Chipley, W.S. 1865. "Feigned Insanity, Motives, Special Tests." The American Journal of Insanity 22:1-24.
Clarke, Frances. 2007. "So Lonesome I Could Die: Nostalgia and Debates over Emotional Control in the Civil War North." Journal of Social History 41 (2): 253-282.
Dedrick, Henry. Henry H. Dedrick Civil War Papers. Accessed 17 July 2014. <http://digitalcollections.vmi.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15821coll11/id/2014>.
Deutsch, Alfred. 1944. One Hundred Years of American Psychiatry. New York: Columbia University Press.
Devine, Shauna. 2014. Learning from the Wounded: the Civil War and the Rise of American Medical Science. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
"Discussion on Nostalgia." 1864. Medical and Surgical Reporter XI (10): 150-152. http://books.google.com/books?id=zjegAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA130#v=onepage&q=nostalgia&f=false.
Doyle, Patrick. 2013. "Understanding the Desertion of South Carolinian Soldiers during the Final Years of the Confederacy. The Historical Journal 56 (3): 657-679.
Dyer, J. Franklin. 2003. The Journal of a Civil War Surgeon. Edited by Michael B. Chesson. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Fahs, Alice. 2001. The Imagined Civil War. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press.
Hofer, Johannes. 1688. Medical Dissertation on Nostalgia. Translated by Carolyn Kiser Anspach. Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine 2 (6): 376-391.
Jackson, John. Letters. Manuscripts of the American Civil War. Accessed 9 July 2014. < http://www.rarebooks.nd.edu/digital/civil_war/letters/jackson/5017-10.shtml>.
Keen, William, S. Weir Mitchell, and George Morehouse. 1864. "On Malingering Epecially in Regard to Simulation of Diseases of the Nervous System." American Journal of Medical Science 48: 367-394.
Lewis, James K. Letter cited in "The Awfullest Fire I Was Ever Under Yet." Comp. Robert Krick. Civil War Times, 52 Apr. 2013. Academic Search Premier. Accessed 6 June 2014.
Lonn, Ella. 1928. Desertion During the Civil War. Gloucester, Mass: American Historical Association.
Marrs, Aaron. 2004. "Desertion and Loyalty in the South Carolina Infantry, 1861-1865. Civil War History I (1): 47-65.
Matt, Susan. 2011. Homesickness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller, John. Civil War Letters. Manuscripts of the American Civil War. Accessed 8 July, 2014. <http://www.civilwararchive.com/LETTERS/miller.htm>.
Mitchell, Reid. 1988. Civil War Soldiers. New York: Viking Press.
Mitchell, S. Weir. 1881. Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System, Especially in Women. Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea's Son and Company. https://archive.org/details/lecturesondiseas00mitc2.
-----. 1897. "An Analysis of 3000 Cases of Melancholia.” Transactions of the Association of American Physicians 12: 484-485. http://books.google.com/books?id=9sMCAAAAYAAJ&q=mitchell#v=onepage&q=mitchell&f=false/.
-----. 1897. Clinical Lessons on Nervous Diseases. Philadelphia: Lea Brothers and Company. http://archive.org/details/clinicallessons00mitc/
-----. 1913. "The Medical Department in the Civil War: Address Before the Physicians Club of Chicago." https://archive.org/stream/medicaldepartme00mitcgoog/medicaldepartme00mitcgoog_djv u.txt.
Moore, Tara. 2009. Victorian Christmas in Print. London: Palgrave.
"Nostalgia." 1899. The Lancet 153 (3956): 1727.
Ordronaux, John. 1863. Manual of Instructions for Military Surgeons On the Examination of Recruits And Discharge of Soldiers. New York: Van Nostrand.
Peters, De Witt. 1863. "Remarks on the Evils of Youthful Enlistments and Nostalgia." American Medical Times 6:75-76.
Reed, Josiah. "Union Letters." Accessed 8 July, 2014. < http://www.thetroyhistoricalsociety.org/military/Josiah_Reed%20Letters.htm>.
Robertson, James. 2006. "The Civil War’s Common Soldier." Civil War Series. http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/civil_war_series/3/sec4.htm.
Rosen, George. 1975. "Nostalgia: a Forgotten Psychological Disorder." Psychological Medicine 5: 340-354.
Rosenberg, Charles E. 1989. "Body and Mind in Nineteenth-Century Medicine: Some Clinical Origins of the Neurosis Construct." Bulletin of the History of Medicine 63 (2): 183-197.
Scott, Newton. Letters. The Civil War Archive, Letters Home from the Civil War. Accessed 15 May 2014. < http://www.civilwarletters.com/letters_toc.htm>.
Tanner, Thomas, Frank Petrie, and W. H. Broadbent. 1882. An Index of Diseases TheirSymptoms and Treatment. http://archive.org/details/anindexdiseases00broagoog
Taylor, John. 1888. "Nostalgia." In Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion,Vol. 1, Part III. https://archive.org/details/MSHWRMedical3n: 884-886.
"The Soldier’s Farewell." 1863. Harper's Weekly. http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/february/army-potomac-reorganization.htm.
Thrall, Seneca. Letters. The Civil War Archive: Letters Home from the Civil War. Accessed 10 July 2014. < http://www.civilwararchive.com/LETTERS/thrall1.htm>.
Tripler, Charles. 1863. Official Report as Medical Director of Army of the Potomac. Accessed 10 May 2014. <http://www.civilwarhome.com/tripleror.htm>.
Weitz, Mark. 2000 . A Higher Duty Desertion among Georgia Troops during the Civil War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kelly, L.D. Managing Memories: Treating and Controlling Homesickness during the Civil War. J Med Humanit 39, 285–301 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-016-9395-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-016-9395-3