By Taylor Hagen
This journal belonged to a man named Edward H. Fitzgerald, an army officer between the years 1834 and 1852. He wrote in this journal while he was stationed in both Tacubaya, Mexico, during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), and in Florida, during the Second Seminole War (1835-1842). The journal gives historians a rather intimate view of Fitzgerald’s life, hinted by the bolded word “PRIVATE” on the front cover as well as by the abundance of original poems dedicated to numerous women. In one of Fitzgerald’s earlier journals, he states how he is using the journal at the request of another person, signifying that this journal was most likely used as a coping mechanism for his struggles with mental health and loneliness while serving in the military.
Both of the wars Fitzgerald fought in are described as being some of the United States’ most devastating wars, leaving the soldiers who fought in them with a plethora of physical and mental health issues. However, during this time period, mental health was not a widely known subject and many physicians were ill-equipped to properly treat mentally ill patients. According to the University of Toledo Libraries, people who suffered from mental illnesses were often subjected to “prisons, almshouses, or inadequate supervision by families,” and it was only during the early-1800s that reforms were begun for more research and better treatment of mentally ill patients.1 During the 1800s, soldiers would often be diagnosed with what doctors claimed was “homesickness” or “nostalgia,” in which they were no longer able to perform their daily functions due to an uncontrollable longing for their family. Oftentimes, this was an indication of how soldiers had simply reached their mental limit after experiencing the level of horrors witnessed during the wars. David Anderson, a researcher studying mental health among Civil War soldiers, claims that soldiers would form intimate familial bonds with specific items in order to maintain their emotional and mental stability.2 He describes how younger Union soldiers stationed in the deep South were especially susceptible to this “homesickness” because it was many of their first times away from home, and being so deep in enemy territory made it increasingly difficult to deliver letters between the army and their families back home. Without a physical reminder of their families, many soldiers fell under the heavy burden of the military as there was nothing to ground them. Fitzgerald and whoever gifted him the journal understood this obscure side effect of being a part of the military, and therefore did everything they could in order to prevent Fitzgerald from succumbing to the same fate.
The romantic poems and numerous women mentioned within the journal also indicate how Fitzgerald might have suffered from loneliness while in the military. One example is the letter displayed below, written to a woman named Betty Taylor in 1846. In the poem, Fitzgerald describes how tragic it is that they will never meet again, but that the memory of her will keep his spirits up.3 There was little to no physical stability among the soldiers due to them constantly being moved around the country, therefore forming relationships with people outside of the military was incredibly difficult. Although camaraderie among the soldiers is important, it is not the same as marrying someone or starting a family. Longing for the domesticity of being at home with their families was another factor that drove the wave of “homesickness” among soldiers, according to Anderson. Fitzgerald again probably unconsciously realized this and vented about his frustrations through his journal instead of bottling them up and ignoring the inevitable explosion of emotions. He knew he needed to keep his mind sharp and ready for the battlefield, and having his mind constantly occupied with a longing for his family was only going to hurt himself or others.
Being a soldier requires many things, and keeping your mental state in check is one of the most difficult requirements. Fitzgerald, and likely many others like him, understood this and therefore took action in a journal to be able to express all their fears and desires without jeopardizing their safety while on the battlefield. This coping mechanism reveals how the soldiers understood that they had to keep their minds sharp if they wanted to survive the ordeal, even if they never fully understood their mental state as a whole. This journal, and others like it, shows us the intimate struggles of soldiers that often go unnoticed among researchers and reveals how the soldiers thought to protect themselves.
References
- Floyd, Barbara. “Mental Health.” From Quackery to Bacteriology: The Emergence of Modern Medicine in 19th Century America, The University of Toledo Libraries (2022).
- David Anderson, “Dying of Nostalgia: Homesickness in the Union Army During the Civil War,” Civil War History, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Sept. 2010).
- Edward H. Fitzgerald, “journals” (1834-1852); v. 2; March, 1846; Tacybaya, Mexico and Florida.