This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War

Pick a Civil-War-themed poem of Walt Whitman’s and show how that poem exemplifies some of the issues raised in This Republic of Suffering.

Describe in detail the various ways soldiers and civilians encountered difficulties in producing accurate body counts.

What happened on a battlefield after the battle was over? What groups showed up there, and what purpose did they serve?

Analyze the various ways that technology—or the lack thereof—posed a barrier to proper burial.

Explain some duties that soldiers and civilians shared in dealing with the dead.

Describe some of the ways that efforts to do right by the dead were different in the North than they were in the South.

Disease during the Civil War killed nearly as many people as weapons did. Why was this?

What were the kinds of obligations that survivors felt they owed to the dead?