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Birth of a National
Pastime
Email: Michael
Aubrecht Website:
Pinstripe
Press
Reference Sources: From
Pastime to Passion, Baseball in Blue and
Gray, Civil War Digest, Fort Ward
Museum
IT IS
CONSIDERED America's
National Pastime. Far more than just a
mere sporting event, baseball has become a
major part of the American culture and has
often been responsible for bringing people
together in times of crisis. During war,
following natural disaster and in the
midst of economic hardship, the game has
always provided an emotional escape for
people from every race, religion and
background who can collectively find
solace at the ballpark. Therefore, it
somehow seems fitting that the origins of
modern baseball can be traced back to a
divided America when the country was in
the midst of a great Civil War. Despite
the political and social grievances that
resulted in the separation of the North
and South, both sides shared some common
interests such as playing baseball.
Although baseball was
somewhat popular in larger communities on
both sides of the Mason Dixon line, it did
not achieve widespread popularity until
after the war had started. The mass
concentration of young men in army camps
and prisons eventually converted the sport
formerly reserved for "gentlemen" into a
recreational pastime that could be enjoyed
by people from all backgrounds. For
instance, both officers and enlisted men
played side by side and soldiers earned
their places on the team because of their
athletic talents, not their military rank
or social standing. Both Union and
Confederate officers endorsed baseball as
a much-needed morale builder that also
provided physical conditioning. After long
details at camp, it eased the boredom and
created team spirit among the men. Often,
the teamwork displayed on the baseball
diamond often translated into teamwork on
the battlefield. Many times, soldiers
would write of these games in letters home
as they were much more pleasant to recall
than the hardship of battle.
Private Alpheris B. Parker
of the 10th Massachusetts wrote:
The parade ground has been
a busy place for a week or so past,
ball-playing having become a mania in
camp. Officer and men forget, for a time,
the differences in rank and indulge in the
invigorating sport with a schoolboy's
ardor.
Another Private, writing
home from Virginia recalled:
It is astonishing how
indifferent a person can become to danger.
The report of musketry is heard but a very
little distance from us...yet over there
on the other side of the road most of our
company, playing bat ball and perhaps in
less than half an hour, they may be called
to play a Ball game of a more serious
nature.
Sometimes, games would be
interrupted by the call of battle. George
Putnam, a Union soldier humorously wrote
of a game that was "called-early" due to
the surprise attack on their camp by
Confederate infantry:
Suddenly there was a
scattering of fire, which three
outfielders caught the brunt; the
centerfield was hit and was captured, left
and right field managed to get back to our
lines. The attack...was repelled without
serious difficulty, but we had lost not
only our centerfield, but...the only
baseball in Alexandria, Texas.
It has been disputed for
decades whether Union General Abner
Doubleday was in fact the "father of the
modern game". Many baseball historians
still reject the notion that Doubleday
designed the first baseball diamond and
drew up the modern rules. Nothing in his
personal writings corroborates this story,
which was originally put forward by an
elderly Civil War veteran, Abner Graves,
who served under him. Still, the City of
Cooperstown, NY dedicated Doubleday Field
in 1920 as the "official" birthplace of
the organized baseball. Later Cooperstown
became the home to the National Baseball
Hall of Fame.
One of the biggest
attended sporting events of the nineteenth
century occurred on Christmas in 1862 when
the 165th New York Volunteer Regiment
(Zouaves) played at Hilton Head, South
Carolina with more than 40,000 troops
looking on.
Doubleday was an 1842
graduate of West Point (graduating with
A.P. Stewart, D.H. Hill, Earl Van Dorn and
James Longstreet) and served in both the
Mexican and Seminole wars. In 1861, he was
stationed at the garrison in Charleston
Harbor. It is said that it was Doubleday,
an artillery officer, who aimed the first
Fort Sumter guns in response to the
Confederate bombardment that initiated the
war. Later he served in the Shenandoah
region as a brigadier of volunteers and
was assigned to a brigade of Irwin
McDowell's corps during the campaign of
Second Manassas. He also commanded a
division of the I Corps at Sharpsburg and
Fredericksburg as well at Gettysburg where
he assumed the command of I Corps after
the fall of Gen. John F. Reynolds, helping
to repel the infamous "Pickett's Charge."
Strangely, his outstanding military
service has been all but forgotten yet his
controversial baseball legacy still lives
on. Regardless of really being (or not
being) the actual "inventor" of the modern
version, Doubleday did apparently
organized several exhibitions between
Union divisions and was an apparent
student and fan of the game. Many of these
contests were attended by thousands of
spectators and often made front-page news
equal to the war reports from the
field.
In 1861 at the start of
the war, an amateur team made up of
members of the 71st New York Regiment
defeated the Washington Nationals baseball
club by a score of 41 to 13. When the 71st
New York later returned to the man the
defenses of Washington in 1862, the teams
played a rematch, which the Nationals won
28 to 13. Unfortunately, the victory came
in part because some of the 71st's best
athletes had been killed at Bull Run only
weeks after their first game. One of the
biggest attended sporting events of the
nineteenth century occurred on Christmas
in 1862 when the 165th New York Volunteer
Regiment (Zouaves) played at Hilton Head,
South Carolina with more than 40,000
troops looking on. The Zouaves' opponent
was a team composed of men selected from
other Union regiments. Interestingly, A.G.
Mills, who would later become the
president of the National League,
participated in the game.
After the war ended, many
men from both sides returned home to share
the game that they had learned near the
battlefield. Eventually organized baseball
grew in popularity abroad and helped bring
together a country that had been torn
apart for so many years. Coincidentally,
another Civil War icon, General George
Armstrong Custer, was killed along with
two hundred and sixty-four Union Calvary
troopers after engaging the Sioux tribe at
Little Big Horn the same year the first
National League was established. Custer
had fought at the first battle of Bull
Run, distinguished himself in both the
Peninsular campaign as well as Gettysburg
and was selected as the Union officer to
receive the Confederate flag of truce at
Appomattox Courthouse. It has been
reported that many members of the U.S.
Calvary, most of them veterans of the
Civil War, also engaged in baseball games
to pass the time while protecting the
western territories.
Today, over a century
later, baseball is still a popular
American institution and remains a
testament to both "Billy Yank" AND "Johnny
Reb" who laid down their muskets to pick
up a ball and help establish a National
Pastime.
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