American Civil War And The Culture Of "Good Death"

The cruelty of the American Civil War and the resulting mass deaths have shaken the concept of "good death" before the Civil War.Although the comrades-in-arms of the dead,medics,nurses,and many priests are still working in various ways to maintain the pre-war end-of-war culture,the sudden mass death itself has left the living in despair and unable to understand the significance of the Holocaust And triggered a crisis of faith.However,the disposal and resolution of the victim's body has also changed US national functions.Such a large-scale death during the war would make it impossible for any individual,family,charity,or business organization to dispose of the dead body in a timely manner,which would force the federal government(in the south,the state government)to change its functions and take over the deceased The responsibilities of the family members and the proper and reasonable treatment of the victims are the national cemetery systems that were successively established during and after the war.This paper is mainly divided into 5 parts:Chapter 1: "Good Death" culture and its historical origins.It mainly explains the background,specific content and historical evolution of the traditional "good death" culture.Among them,the "good death" culture has a close relationship with Christian culture.How was the new "good death" culture born,its basic content and the connection and difference with the traditional "good death" culture.Chapter 2: The "Good Death" culture during the American Civil War.When Christianity's "good death" culture is very contradictory to the death of a large number of soldiers in real life,it reflects the psychological response of soldiers.In the face of death in the civil war,people are not passive victims,but actively participate in the interpretation of death,and make new adjustments to the traditional "good death" culture.For living people,mourning the dead has also become a political culture,pushing Americans' belief in "the destiny of heaven" to the peak.Chapter 3: The living thinks about the "Good Death" culture.The impact of the "good death" culture on the living is even more profound and long-lasting,which has caused Americans in the mid-nineteenth century to think about the nature of death and the meaning of death-what is death,why do people die,how should they understand and accept death Wait.Faced with a huge death,people no longer regard death as the end or disappearance of life,but instead regard it as a "travel" or transformation of life.In short,death does not exist,and death is no longer terrible;instead,death can be meaningful and death can be said to be purposeful.Chapter 4: The change of attitude towards the war dead after the outbreak of the American Civil War.With the expansion of the death scale,attitudes and treatments towards the war dead have changed.This is the result of the interaction between the soldiers killed and their relatives,civil society organizations and the government.At the beginning of the civil war,under the influence of the "good death" culture,relatives of the deceased began to search for the remains of relatives.Since then,commercial interest groups have taken advantage of this opportunity to make huge profits.Subsequently,civil society organizations joined in.The two most influential institutions were the Christian Council and the Health Council.Finally,the federal government's intervention in the bodies of the war dead was promoted.Chapter 5: The Impact of the "Good Death" Culture on the United States.The treatment of war dead did not stop with the end of the war.After the end of the civil war,the federal government launched a civil war veterans pension system to provide living support to the families of those killed in the civil war.With the support of Congressional legislation and funding,the federal soldiers' post-war reburial program was launched.The federal government is working to find,verify,register and bury every federal soldier who died in the civil war and bury them in the newly formed national cemetery.Soldiers in the southern states were also reburied in the south,mostly by groups of private women.Conclusion: The new "Good Death" culture was quickly used by the federal government to combine soldier death with political needs,explain the death of soldiers as a necessary condition for the country's survival,and combine the "good death" Christian culture with the secular "patriotism" Get up and form a political belief based on the pursuit of justice and allegiance to the country.Death ties religion to politics,revealing the impact of the "good death" culture on American politics and religious cultural transformation.The United States National Cemetery has become a symbol of American nationalism.Through the ritual drill,the construction of memory space was realized in the national cemetery.The construction of this symbolic space is of great significance to revolutionary mobilization,social integration,and the formation of a modern nation-state consciousness.It has inherited the spirit of the American nation,condensed the power of the American nation,raised the national awareness of the American people,and aroused the nation of the United States Identity has important meaning and value.