War Communication to the Home Front During the Civil War

It's amazing how far we've come in the past 150 years with regards to how military families communicate with their loved ones while they are overseas. This topic means a lot to me and my fellow students as many of them have been a member of a military family and we live in a military town. The next three posts will look at how military families communicated during the different time periods that we have been studying in class.

First, I would like to talk about communication during the Civil War. We made amazing technological advancements around this time period that allowed people to communicate faster and over longer distances. During the Civil War, the most prominent form of communication was the Telegraph. The telegraph charged by word and messages were therefore kept very short, much like Twitter is today. Movies like 'Gone With the Wind' showed us how telegrams were used to convey soldier deaths to the families and from immediate families to extended families.

Pictures also developed greatly over this time period. While they were not mass produced, pictures of the war and the soldiers were available for books and newspapers to show the public what it was like behind the scenes of the battlefront.

While telegrams were certainly faster to recieve than letters, it was still a while for families to wait for news about their loved ones. One can only imagine what it is like to wait for days or weeks to find out if your loved one is still alive.