African American Dreams

The experience of slavery had an indelible effect on the dreams of black Americans. Some slaves dreamt of escape, or of loved ones who had been sold away. Former slaves sometimes had vivid dreams of being returned into slavery. Whether slave or free, African Americans often looked to their dreams as signs from God or as confirmation of their conversion to Christianity. White Americans tended to look down on African American dream practices as superstitious, but in fact, white and black Americans had a shared dream culture that stretched back into the colonial era.

Civilians’ Dreams

Men and women on the home front experienced a wide array of dreams during the Civil War. Women in the South and Border States often dreamed of Yankee soldiers invading their homes, while women in the North dreamed of going to battle to fight. Anxiety also often manifested itself in women’s dreams, as they worried about their husbands who were far away at war. These dreams placed wives in a difficult situation. They wanted to seek comfort by sharing their bad dreams with their husbands, but they did not want to discourage or demoralize their menfolk in the army.

Epilogue

“Thank God that I have lived to see this!” Abraham Lincoln remarked upon learning of the fall of Richmond in April 1865. “It seems to me that I have been dreaming a horrid dream for four years, and now the nightmare is gone. I want to see Richmond.”...

The Soldier’s Dream

More than anything else, Union and Confederate soldiers dreamed about home. Usually these were pleasant dreams of loved ones, but sometimes they reflected soldiers’ deepest anxieties, such as fears of death or marital infidelity. Soldiers also had nightmares of battle, and some soldiers saw increasing amounts of violence in their dreams. But on the whole, most soldiers experienced pleasant dreams about their wives and children durign the Civil War.

Lincoln’s Dreams of Death

Abraham Lincoln believed that dreams had some predictive capacity—that, perhaps, in dim ways, they could reveal the future. Several stories survive of dreams that he had that portended his death. This chapter delves into the history of those dreams, showing how some are true and others are likely fabrications. Why do Americans believe stories that seem so unlikely to be true? Because extraordinary stories about Lincoln tend to confirm for Americans that he was a great man—perhaps even embued with supernatural favor.

Dreams of the Dying

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of soldiers had dreams, presentiments or premonitions that they would be killed in battle. Whether or not most of these prophetic visions actually occurred can never be known. Their significance, however, lies in that so many soldiers remembered them years after the firing had ceased. Indeed, veterans’ postwar remembering of these dreams reveals how Civil War Americans clung to a sense that God had providentially superintended their lives and deaths—and that their sacrifices on the battlefield had been with purpose.

The Soldier’s Rest

Campaigning and fighting during the Civil War caused Union and Confederate soldiers to lose a tremendous amount of sleep. Battle, weather, animals, noises, drill, and rolicking comrades all conspired to deprive soldiers of their much needed rest. Despite this hardship, soldiers found bedtime to be a moment each day when they could commune with loved ones at home. In letters home soldiers loved to describe their beds, or remark on the quality of their sleep. They intuitively understood that sleep was a common experience that civilians back home could relate to and understand.

Dreams in Popular Culture

The concept of “the soldier’s dream of home” was ubiquitous in American popular culture during the Civil War era, showing up in poems, prints, songs, envelopes, newspapers, stationery, and other places. These sorts of popular depictions of soldiers dreaming resonated with Union and Confederate soldiers—and their wives—because the scenes on paper captured the daily expectations and nightly experiences or ordinary soldiers. In a practical sense, the concept of “The Soldier’s Dream” became a comfort to lonely spouses who were separated by war—a representation of the communication they longed to have, and often did have, in their dreams.