According to sources at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, Doubleday was in the area from the summer of through the Battle of Fredericksburg in December, and the Battle of Chancellorsville in May of Perhaps a more realistic accolade would credit him with the promotion of the exercise as opposed to the invention of it. Many of these contests were attended by thousands of spectators and often made front-page news equal to the war reports from the field.
Ultimately, the Civil War helped fuel a boom in the popularity of baseball, evidenced by the fact that a ball club called the Washington Nationals was born in — years before a Major League Baseball team in Washington, D. In , 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— When the 71st New York later returned to man the defenses of the capital in , the teams played a rematch, which the Nationals won 28— One of the largest attendances for a sporting event in the 19th century occurred on Christmas in when the th New York Volunteer Regiment Zouaves played at Hilton Head, South Carolina.
Mills, who would later become the president of the National League, participated in the game. According to George B. These matches were followed by great crowds of soldiers with intense interest.
It had its early evolution when soldiers, North and South, were striving to forget their foes by cultivating, through this grand game, fraternal friendship with comrades in arms. It calmed the restless spirits of men who, after four years of bitter strife, found themselves at once in a monotonous era, with nothing at all to do. Very little documentation exists regarding these games and most information has been derived from letters written by officers and enlisted men to their families on the home front.
Of the hundreds of pictures taken during the Civil War by photographers, 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. Or, if the Ball be ticked or knocked, and caught on the opposite side, the Striker shall be considered out. But if the ball is not caught after being struck at three times, it shall be considered a knock, and the Striker obliged to run.
Should the Striker stand at the Bat without striking at good balls thrown repeatedly at him, for the apparent purpose of delaying the game, or of giving advantage to players, the referees, after warning him, shall call one strike, and if he persists in such action, two and three strikes; when three strikes are called, he shall be subject to the same rules as if he struck at three fair balls. Prisons also held them as POWs struggled to escape the hopelessness of their situation and combat the mind-numbing boredom that confronted them each day.
One such institution was Salisbury Prison, located in North Carolina. The compound was established on sixteen acres purchased by the Confederate Government on November 2, The prison consisted of an old cotton factory building measuring 90x50 feet, six brick tenements, a large house, a smith shop and a few other small buildings. Day-to-day life was tough, but prisoners had a large yard with plenty of room to move about. One of the favorite activities before the prison became overcrowded was baseball.
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So prevalent was the game at Salisbury that it was captured in an print. The illustration was penned by Otto Boetticher, a commercial artist from New York City, who had enlisted in the 68th New York Volunteers in at the age of He was captured in and was sent to the prison camp at Salisbury. During his time there he produced a drawing that depicted the game in a more pastoral than prison-like setting. A field reporter named W. Bates mentioned the presence of baseball at Salisbury in his Stars and Stripes publication.
Claims have been made that these were the first baseball games played in the South. More than a decade after the Civil War ended, the National League was developed. Coincidentally, it was the same year that General George Armstrong Custer was killed, along with Union Cavalry troopers, after engaging Indian warriors at Little Bighorn.
It has been reported that many members of the U. Cavalry, most of them veterans of the Civil War, engaged in baseball games to pass the time while protecting the western territories. Some of them returned home to witness the likes of Ross Barnes of Chicago hit the first National League home run, which was an inside the park variation. Regardless of its location, whether in prison camps or in the field, baseball provided an escape from the harsh realities of war and ultimately improved the morale of troops who were obviously homesick, scared, and in some cases, traumatized by the horrors they had witnessed on the battlefield.
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. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, and give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses and be a blessing to us.
Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime During the Civil War
The following table represents a few of the games that had been recorded for historical significance either by participants or observers. For simplicity, all forms of the game including "townball" and "roundball" will be referred to as baseball. NJ lost 13 to Southerners One game recorded ended with the Confederates winning Reminiscences of the 19th Massachusetts Regiment. Wright and Porter, Battling on the Diamond. Princeton University Press, The rules have changed, the game has evolved, and the growth of our national pastime still continues to this day.
Here are some interesting expressions of yesteryear along with their modern counterpart:. Do you have questions about baseball history you want to ask? Decades later, Union general Abner Doubleday would be credited wrongly with baseball's invention. The Civil War period also saw key developments in the sport itself, including the spread of the New York-style of play, the advent of revised pitching rules, and the growth of commercialism.
Kirsch recounts vivid stories of great players and describes soldiers playing ball to relieve boredom. He introduces entrepreneurs who preached the gospel of baseball, boosted female attendance, and found new ways to make money. We witness bitterly contested championships that enthralled whole cities. We watch African Americans embracing baseball despite official exclusion.
Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime During the Civil War
And we see legends spring from the pens of early sportswriters. Rich with anecdotes and surprising facts, this narrative of baseball's coming-of-age reveals the remarkable extent to which America's national pastime is bound up with the country's defining event. Baseball in Blue and Gray: The file will be sent to selected email address. It may takes up to minutes before you received it.
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