Re: Could the average soldier read a book?
From Robert Miller's "Both Prayed to the Same God" (2007, Lexington Books):
(In discussing the role of various soldier support agencies, North and South)
" Rev. B.B. Ross found hospital patients 'greedy, yea ravenous, in their appetite for something to read....they take the tracts with delight."
"Numerous agencies were formed to meet these 'spiritual nouishment' needs, with the Evangelical Tract Society of Petersburg, Virginia being the largest and most prolific. During the war, it issued more than one hundred different tracts, with a total print run estimated at some 50 million copies!" (p.90)
(On the role of Chaplains)
"Chaplains played a wide variety of roles in both armies, and the best chaplains were those who became 'jacks of all trades' for their men - comforting the homesick, counselling the sorrowful, teaching reading and writing,, writing letters for the hospitalized, maintaining libraries, becoming postmaster, carrying men and equipment on marches,, foraging, digging wells, and rifle pits and more." (p.98)
It would appear that many could read, and did. Not all, to be certain, but more than we might commonly assume.
From Robert Miller's "Both Prayed to the Same God" (2007, Lexington Books):
(In discussing the role of various soldier support agencies, North and South)
" Rev. B.B. Ross found hospital patients 'greedy, yea ravenous, in their appetite for something to read....they take the tracts with delight."
"Numerous agencies were formed to meet these 'spiritual nouishment' needs, with the Evangelical Tract Society of Petersburg, Virginia being the largest and most prolific. During the war, it issued more than one hundred different tracts, with a total print run estimated at some 50 million copies!" (p.90)
(On the role of Chaplains)
"Chaplains played a wide variety of roles in both armies, and the best chaplains were those who became 'jacks of all trades' for their men - comforting the homesick, counselling the sorrowful, teaching reading and writing,, writing letters for the hospitalized, maintaining libraries, becoming postmaster, carrying men and equipment on marches,, foraging, digging wells, and rifle pits and more." (p.98)
It would appear that many could read, and did. Not all, to be certain, but more than we might commonly assume.
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