I think that the firepower of the Civil War, the numbers of bodies that were left to rot, the numbers of amputations in the Civil War, all of this created threats to the understanding of the human being as an integral soul, as a body and soul that could be united.

Americans in the Civil War period were very interested in Heaven and what it might be like, because they were having to face the fact that many of their loved ones were gone and many of their loved ones, they hoped, were in this other realm called Heaven.

Probably half the cases of Civil War dead were not identified. And so there was no way to let loved ones know, and there were no regularized processes in either Northern or Southern Army for notifying next of kin.

Drew Gilpin Faust Quotes