Kinesiology Commons^™

The Demise Of Officer Involvement In Soldiers Sport During The American Civil War, Lawrence W. Fielding, William T. Weinberg, Brenda Pitts, Richard A. Fee

Kinesiology Faculty Publications

During the American Civil War a few officers in the Army of the Potomac became involved in organizing sport for soldiers. They had ulterior motives. In each instance officers intended to use sport to improve soldier morale, assuage despondency and doubt, and to overcome homesickness. Officers chose sport because they believed that sport entertainment had the capacity to create excitement, excitement that drew men's minds off immediate problems and left a generalized "good feeling" among the men. Once officers had assigned a use value to sport, they began to consider ways to maximize sport's usefulness as a morale booster. To …