How did Civil War Soldiers Spend their Free Time?

Did you know …

Soldiers in the Civil War didn’t fight every day. There were lots of days when they fight at all. So what did they do when there were no battles?

They played games

Checkers was a very popular game for the soldiers. Backgammon was another board game they enjoyed. They also liked to play card games, such as cribbage and euchre.

They made pipes and rings

Sometimes the men wanted to have something to help them remember a particular army camp or a battlefield. Many of them smoked, so they made pipes from mountain laurel roots. They often decorated the pipes with their corps badges, which identified them with a certain area of the army.

They also made rings out of ordinary materials such as bone, dried horn, or hoof.

They wrote letters and read books

Newspapers were sold to the soldiers. They bought them to find out what was happening back at home and in other areas of the war. Many of them carried a Bible or just the New Testament. Since they didn’t have many books, they read them over and over.

The soldiers also wrote many letters to their loved ones back home and looked forward to receiving letters in return.

– Sandra M. Hart