For Cause And Comrades Analysis

From reading For Cause and Comrades, I learned about several motivations and reasons that soldiers from the North and the South fought in the Civil War. Overall, the soldiers and their respective sides fought for very similar reasons and motives. Both sides were fighting for their views on slavery, how the states should govern laws, and how the economy should operate. I plan to analyze and compare the motives for the North and the South and show how each side was fighting for remarkably similar reasons. Through the reasons and motives listed above, we will be able to see the similarities but, also we will be able to see how each side was different as well. One of the central reasons that the Civil War began was because of the different views on slavery in the United States. During this time, slavery was legal and was a vital part of the southern life. On the other side, in the North, slavery was not as important and slaves had more freedom and were treated more like humans than in the South. Northerners believed that slavery was unconstitutional and called for …show more content…
Many soldiers wanted to prove their manhood and support for their respective sides. The book mentions several quotes from soldiers that show that they had to fight to prove their manhood to their family and others around them. This reason really stood out to me because most of the time we hear about soldiers who decide to fight in wars because of their stance on the issues at hand, but we never really hear about soldiers fighting because of their manhood. In For Cause and Comrades, a letter from a soldier describes the reasons that men faced bullets and it states “Simple manhood, force of discipline, pride, love” (McPherson, 1997). Manhood was a key personality trait during this time, and those who chose not to were looked down upon by others. Many soldiers, North and the South, joined the war to defend their family names as