Given the then-tradition of raising and keeping units from particular towns and areas, the ACW saw that the demise of an entire unit also meant the demise of most of its corresponding town's fighting-age men. What happens to the widows and children of these men during the ACW and following the ACW?

Thank you very much for this AMA.

How would white (in particular southern) children have reacted to African-Americans in Union uniforms? How would the ingrained Confederate concept of white hegemony be understood by children at this time?

I have noticed a massive difference between the ages of Southern antebellum brides and post-war brides: from mid-teens to near thirty. Was this a result of a shortage of men after the war? How did the war affect marriage rates? Was there a higher rate of "old maids" relative to other periods? Do historians think first wave feminism was significantly affected by post-war marriage trends?

There's a famous picture of FDR in a pink(?) dress in his childhood. Was this common for children in the US and Europe at that time?

When children 'played war' in the Civil War era, did we have records of them imitating current events specifically? Or were they less well informed about individual battles? How much did they know of the war and its events - I remember watching the Gulf war coverage a lot when I was 5, but there was no CNN on 1865 or newsreels.

Thank you for doing this AMA.

Does there seem to be a difference in outcomes between the veterans of either side. For example, did a soldier who had fought for the north seem to cope better or worse after the war than one who had fought for the south? If so, how would you account for this?

Were there many illegitimate children in the South fathered by northern soldiers during the Civil War? And after when northern garrisons remained? How were they and their mothers/family treated as a result? I'm thinking of both white and black mothers for both questions.

Compared to other civil wars, both of the era and later, the US civil war seems to have been relatively civil, despite the old saying "civil wars are anything but civil".

Why was that?

My ancestors who fought in the Civil War on both sides walked into battle, and walked home again afterwards. After the war, one fellow stopped walking about halfway, found work, got married, and raised his family, without ever returning to his home state. Was this fairly typical of young vets after the war? To never go home again?

Was there an understanding of anything like PTSD after the Civil War? Or any sense that war "changed" people or damaged them psychologically in some way?

How did parents in the US speak to children about death during the civil war? Did they try to protect them from the knowledge of death?

Please forgive my ignorance on this subject.

Growing up in the South and hearing largely laudatory praise of why the Civil War had to be fought (state's rights, they said), I've always wondered how quickly the mythos of the South came about.

After WWII, Germany went through a period of self-reckoning. Do you know of whether the South undertook a similar project? If so, in what ways?

Thanks so much for doing this AMA. The answers have been fascinating!

You are a 10 year old orphan in 1876 with $20 in your pocket. Say you are in Philidelphia. What would you do to try and find a career that is better than straight manual labor? Where there many options?

I've got one about the era, not exactly about the war. We are often shown homesteaders hanging vegetables from the ceiling in order to dry them for the winter, but I wondered how much food one really needs to survive the winter, and how The diet went over the course of the year. I know that during the Civil War era a lot of families were disrupted and the food was scarce in the winter, because of lack of time to grow crops and store food. What years before and after the Civil War did food production restabilize?

Did life go on as normal when the war happened? Im thinking of the movie glory where there is a huge party during the war.

Knowing that children had many more adult-like responsibilities 100 years ago, what's your perspective on kids today? Does knowing how kids used to contribute more to the household effect how you see kids today?

How prevalent were mammy dolls with southern troops? When did they rise and fall from popularity?

Thanks for doing this, professor Marten! I'm curious if you've run across any texts or documents on children in Alaska during the 19th century. I've got Backhouse's Children of the Klondike, but I don't know if there's anything out there that would cover the topic.

If not, what sort of secondary material do you recommend for the childhood experience on the American and Canadian frontier?

How likely was it for kids to be involved in the bootlegging trade? Is that too late of a time period to ask about?

As someone whose family is from richmond va, how would reconstruction have affected my ancestors in the years following the war. They were lower middle to upper middle class.

Hi there. I just wanted to pass on a book I read this past spring, which you will quite likely read with great interest. The title is "Lucy Breckinridge of Grove Hill: the Journal of a Virginia Girl, 1862-1864".

It's a fantastic view of the time through the eyes of a young woman, and what life was like for her. It's a great read.

Given how religious America was at the time, how did Southerners reconcile their defeat with their faith? What impact did the war have on American religion?

I'm going to sign off now, folks. Thanks for the great questions and discussion. It's been a fun day!

Did any escaped or freed slaves return to the south from the north after the Civil War? If so, how we're they received in the larger context of southern life?

In a documentary, I once heard the line, "...before the civil war, people said 'the US are', and after the civil war, people said 'the US is'" due to the change in mentality people had about the country. I am skeptical of this and assume it was a more gradual change. What do you know/think about it?

By the way, I live in France, and here they still say 'les Etats-Unis sont'(the US are).

During industrialization (including farms), would children experience dangers that could cause maladies today? Is there any sort of assessment or primary source survey that can shed insight into the day in the life of...

Which children would have had a tougher first five years: Southern children born in the middle of the war, or immediately after, during Reconstruction?

Thanks for doing this AMA! I've heard that in Alabama and Tennessee during the war, there was a movement to create a free, union state called "Nickajack". How strong was unionist and abolitionist sentiment in the South, and how did the secession of states and the following war affect it? Did the war strengthen or weaken these sentiments?

During the American Civil War were boys in reform schools given an opportunity to serve the war effort? I ask this as if they were given a choice, either stay in reform school, or serve? If so were any forced? Was there ever a push to reform delinquents by sending them off to war?

Hope I'm not too late. Can you provide any information on how the Civil War might have changed (or not) the perception of "State" or "Nation" for more recent arrivals to the US prior to the Civil War. You've mentioned that you've studied the lives of children during the era, so perhaps I could phrase the question: "did the Civil War change the way in which parents passed on or dispensed of ethnic identities?"

I'm asking because in my town (an industrial city in New England during the Civil War), I've found some interesting documents from the era that claim the War helped assuage some of the bitter ethnic/religious tensions within the town itself (namely Yankee protestants vs Irish Catholics). I know there were many all-German units as well. Now, there are other local documents that claim the the First World War had a far greater "Americanizing" influence, but I've always assumed that was due to greater immigration and ethnic diversity in the post-Civil War era, but it would be interesting to hear how the experience of the Civil War affected (or didn't) our concept of nationality - in brief, obviously.

Hi,

Thanks for doing this. One thing I've been looking at recently from a layman's perspective is the Independence/freedom children have had in different cultures and eras, compared with today's US culture. (E.g. today there's this whole Free Range Kids thing and the reactions, etc. I'm trying to understand the history of how childrearing was done, and the expectations for children, parents, and the communities they lived in).

Obviously 1910 and 1810 were very different times, and different areas had different norms within that temporal context. However, would you mind giving sort of a thumbnail sketch here of the aforementioned expectations (or just a handy dandy citation to read! :-) )?

Why were Union generals and soldiers who were active abolitionists and actively protected black rights able to go out and conduct brutal campaigns against Native Americans after the war?

How were young boys who went off the fight in the Civil War either as drummer boys or lying about their age, viewed by their peers/communities (either Union or Confederate)? There is kind of modern-esqe romanticized view of this group and haven't heard much about how much their departure impacted individual families.

Conversely. How were young boys who didn't go fight regarded in their community. Would a 13 year old be accused of lack of patriotism for not going to fight or otherwise supporting the army?

What was music education like for these children? Famous songs of the era? I would love to have your sources as well.

Why didn't more soldiers in the civil question the ignorant methods enforced by their commanders of open field firing and charging? I feel like the new technology should have changed warfare but neither the Union or Confederacy operated much differently than wars waged 100 years previous.

What sort of fathers did the Civil War veterans make? Did wartime experience alter the way that men approached fatherhood?

What would go on in the daily life of a young (10-12) Native American boy? This is something I would love to know, since I've always loved learning about different cultures.

What were the views on the Civil War in the western territories and states, and what was the extent of their involvement in the war? I believe California and Oregon were states when the war started, and Nevada became one during the war. Did those states send many soldiers? Were the people mostly pro Union or were they divided? What about in the territories, like modern day Idaho, Washington, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado? Did they have much involvement? What was the popular sentiment in those areas?

I'm particularly curious about the Mormon settled areas. They would have moved west not long before, after being persecuted back east. Did they feel any connection to the war and any loyalty to either side, or did they just want to be left alone to do their own thing?