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The Blue and the Gray
by Michael Aubrecht, Copyright 2004
Also online at Baseball-Almanac
BIRTH OF A NATIONAL PASTIME
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.
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.
WAR
GAMES
Although early forms of baseball
had already become High Society's pastime years
before the first shots of the Civil War erupted at
Fort Sumter, it was the mass participation of
everyday soldiers that helped spread the game's
popularity across the nation.
During the War Between the States,
countless baseball games, originally known as
"townball", were organized in Army Camps and
prisons on both sides of the Mason Dixon Line. Very
little documentation exists on these games and most
information has been derived from letters written
by both officers and enlisted men to their families
on the home front. For the hundreds of pictures
taken during the Civil War by photography pioneer
Matthew Brady, there is only one photo in the
National Archives that clearly captured a baseball
game underway in the background. Several newspaper
artists also depicted primitive ballgames and other
forms of recreation devised to help boost troop
morale and maintain physical fitness. Regardless of
the lack of "media coverage", military historians
have proved that baseball was a common ground in a
country divided, and helped both Union and
Confederate soldiers temporarily escape the horror
of war.
AFTER APPOMATTOX
At
least 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and
some experts say the toll reached 700,000. The
number that is most often quoted is 620,000. At any
rate, these casualties exceed the nation's loss in
all its other wars, from the Revolution through
Vietnam. The Union armies had from 2,500,000 to
2,750,000 men. The Confederate strength, known less
accurately because of missing records, was from
750,000 to 1,250,000.
Baseball played during the war was
very different than the game we know today. Some
rules included: The Striker (batter) gets to choose
where he wants the pitch. The Pitcher must throw
underhand. No leading off the bag. No base
stealing. No foul lines. All balls are fair.
A
report published in 1908 by the Spalding Commission
(appointed to research the origin of baseball)
credited Union General Abner Doubleday as being the
"father of the modern game". It stated: "Baseball
was invented in 1839 at Cooperstown, NY by Abner
Doubleday-afterward General Doubleday, a hero of
the battle of Gettysburg-and the foundation of this
invention was an American children's game call one
old cat."
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