Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and Opiate Addiction

Core Thesis: This article by Jonathan S. Jones argues that opiate addiction among Civil War veterans caused overwhelming suffering specifically because the state of "slavery" to drugs violated nineteenth-century ideals of manhood, morality, and mental health.
Historical Context and Scholarship:
- Previous Scholarship: Historians have known about veteran addiction since David T. Courtwright’s influential 1978 essay, "Opiate Addiction as a Consequence of the Civil War."
- The "Army Disease" Debate: Courtwright established the causative link between war-related medical care and postwar addiction, settling debates on whether the war was the primary driver.
- New Methodology: Jones utilizes mass digitization of primary sources—including medical journals, pension records, and asylum records—to create a composite portrait of 100 addicted veterans, a task previously hindered by the difficulty of sifting through handwritten manuscripts.
Case Study: Albert Wymer Henley:
- Military Background: A lieutenant in the Thirty-sixth Mississippi Infantry.
- Origin of Addiction: Contracted chronic diarrhea and typhoid fever after the Siege of Vicksburg; resigned in November 1863.
- The Experience: He used morphine for relief, but it fastened an "iron grip" on his vitals, holding him "enchained and enslaved for near fifteen years."
- The Metaphor: Henley described his condition as a "cruel bondage" to a "relentless and terrible task-master."

Ideals of Masculinity: During the Civil War era, manhood was defined by independence, self-mastery, sobriety, and the ability to stoically endure pain. Dependency on a substance was viewed as antithetical to these traits.
The "Slavery" Metaphor:
- Antebellum Roots: Descriptions of addiction as slavery originated decades before the Gilded Age, drawing on temperance and abolitionist rhetoric.
- Racial Dimensions: White manhood was defined by being "predisposed to independence." Addiction was described as a condition of servitude analogous to that of enslaved blacks. One doctor claimed opium slavery was "worse than African slavery."
- Xenophobia: In the Gilded Age, Chinese immigrants were portrayed as naturally susceptible to opium, making white veteran addiction appear as a "white racial decline."
Violations of Character:
- Intemperance: Opiate addiction was categorized alongside habitual drunkenness. It branded the veteran as morally condemnable.
- Emasculation: Overreliance on painkillers suggested a man was too weak to endure physical suffering with "hospital courage."

Essentiality of Opiates: Military surgeons viewed opium as the "one indispensable drug on the battlefield," comparing its importance to that of gunpowder.
Union Supply Data: The Union military requisitioned approximately $5.3 \times 10^{6}$ opium pills and $2.8 \times 10^{6}$ ounces of opiate preparations during the war.
Clinical Applications:
- Used to mitigate pain from gunshot wounds and amputations (mitigating spasms of "stumps").
- Used to arrest vomiting, internal bleeding, and inflammation.
- Primary treatment for diarrheal ailments, which often lingered for decades postwar.
Iatrogenic Addiction: Many addictions were "doctor-induced."
- Silas Weir Mitchell: A Union surgeon at Philadelphia’s Turner Lane hospital reported administering some $40,000$ morphine injections in a single year.
- Self-Medication: Soldiers like George H. of Alabama swallowed morphine before battles to cope with "fatigue" and "stress," leading to long-term dependency.

Tolerance and Dosage:
- Veterans required ever-increasing doses to stave off withdrawal.
- One veteran reported taking between $12$ and $16$ grains of morphia per $24$ hour period (approximately $1,000\,mg$ ).
Hypodermic Use and Self-Harm:
- The introduction of the hypodermic needle allowed for faster relief but led to ghastly physical outcomes.
- A. F. Swann: Injected morphine up to $20$ times a day for six years; his arms were covered in discolored punctures and indurated tissue.
- George W. Gardner: A Union sailor whose needle wounds covered his entire body from "neck to toe."
Emaciation and the "Perfect Man":
- Opiates caused anorexia and severe indigestion.
- Gardner dropped from a healthy weight of $150\,lbs$ to less than $100\,lbs$ .
- This skeletal appearance violated the Gilded Age ideal of the muscular, vigorous man.
Sexual Dysfunction: Prolonged use often resulted in total impotence. One physician estimated that the ability to desire or perform the sexual act was destroyed in $98\%$ of observed cases.

Failure as Breadwinner: Addiction often left veterans bedridden or unable to perform focused white-collar or manual work.
Financial Burden: Opiates were expensive, often costing up to $10$ dollars a month—a significant portion of a veteran's income. One veteran spent $1,800$ dollars over $18$ years on drugs and failed "cures."
Inversion of Gender Roles:
- Case of John Tackett Goolrick: A Confederate veteran and lawyer whose addiction forced his wife, Frances, to seize control of family affairs. Their son had to quit school at the Virginia Military Institute to support the family.
- Social Stigma: John’s relapses eventually forced Frances to resign from her presidency of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) because his condition reflected poorly on her "dignity."
Patent Medicine Exploitation: Figures like Samuel B. Collins marketed "Painless Opium Antidotes" to veterans, capitalizing on their desperation to regain "health and manhood."

Pension Bureau Restrictions:
- The US Pension Bureau scrutinized morality; addiction was considered a "vicious habit."
- Joseph A. Lazelle: Admitted to taking $120$ grains of opium a day since his release from Andersonville; the Bureau rejected his pension claim in $1900$ on grounds of bad character.
- James Ladson Hall: After his fatal overdose in $1870$ , the Bureau denied his widow’s pension, lecturing her that her husband should have exercised "caution" rather than taking laudanum intemperately.
Exclusion from Soldiers' Homes: Many homes (e.g., the Tennessee Confederate Soldiers Home) explicitly asked if applicants used "intoxicants."
Involuntary Commitment:
- Nineteenth-century medicine linked "extreme intemperance" to insanity.
- John Fisk: An ex-colonel discovered to have an "opium habit" at a National Home was promptly committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC, for "chronic dementia."
- Robert B. Andrews: A North Carolina veteran committed in $1889$ for dementia caused by opiate addiction; he remained in the asylum until his death in $1919$ .
Presidential Condemnation: President Grover Cleveland famously vetoed a pension for the widow of Clinton Smith, an addicted Indiana veteran, labeling the dead soldier as "intemperate" rather than a wounded hero.