When General Robert E. Lee formally surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 8th, 1865, soldiers across the South laid down their arms as the news spread. But peace didn’t come for everyone. Too many Civil War soldiers who survived their battlefield wounds and camp illnesses returned home to fight another battle: dependency on the opioid-based medicines that had helped save their lives.
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| 19th Medicine Bottles |
I first heard of laudanum when I watched the movie Amazing Grace about William Wilberforce’s eighteen-year battle to end the slave trade in Great Britain. Wilberforce played a pivotal role in ending the slave trade and eventually slavery itself in Britain by speaking, campaigning, and introducing bills into the British parliament. However, Wilberforce was also addicted to laudanum, a tincture of opium.
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| William Wilberforce by Anton Hickel |
It wasn’t his intention to become dependent upon a drug. A doctor prescribed it to him when he was twenty-nine years old for ulcerative colitis and other health ailments. Laudanum was used to treat a number of health issues and ailments in the 18th and 19th centuries, and no one, including doctors, had much understanding about addiction and dependency. The word addiction didn’t even exist as we use it today. But the soul-deep struggle was very real for too many people, even a man of faith like Wilberforce.
Addiction is pernicious, and laudanum took its toll on Wilberforce. He suffered physically, mentally, and spiritually from its poisonous effects.
But in the midst of his battle with the drug’s hold upon him, he poured his heart and strength into seeking reforms in many areas of British society, including the abolition of slavery; factory conditions; curtailing violence; educating children in reading, hygiene, and the Bible; and preventing cruelty to animals.
Years later, I learned that even some of the nineteenth-century authors that I admire, such as Louisa May Alcott and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, also struggled with laudanum dependency.
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| Louisa May Alcott |
In the nineteenth century, doctors and the public viewed opium, in its various forms, as an essential medical tool. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were wounded in the American Civil War, and many more suffered from debilitating and potentially life-threatening illnesses. A Civil War medical manual, quoted in Dr. Jonathan Jones’s Opium Slavery, states that opiates were as “important to the surgeon as gunpowder to the ordinance [military weapons].”
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| Civil War Convelescent Camp (Library of Congress) |
Unfortunately, the medicine that saved their lives, too often, enslaved them for years after the war. According to Dr. Jones, “Veterans, their families, and communities struggled to cope with addiction’s health and social consequences, which included much victim-blaming that compounded suffering unnecessarily.” Too often, society’s reaction hindered instead of helped the men’s recovery.
My heart went out to Wilberforce, the tens of thousands of soldiers, and others enslaved to laudanum or other substances through no fault of their own. For many, once infected, it could be a lifelong battle, one that many did not win on their own. But there were victories.
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| Broken shackles |
And I love to write about soul-deep struggles and victories. That is why I chose to write Texas Reclaimed.
Addiction still enslaves today, but that doesn’t have to be the end of the story.
Recently, I asked a friend of mine about his own deliverance from addiction. He had this to say, “It was a lifetime ago, my addiction was strong, but my pain was stronger. I’ve lost so much in my life, but then I found that God’s love was deep, and He was even bigger to forgive. Out of His mercy He set me free, and through His grace He healed me from my past.”-Rev. Mark Little Elk
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| Sunrise by Becca Herbstritt |
That is my prayer for all of those who struggle.
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| Sherry Shindelar |
Originally from Tennessee, Sherry loves to take her readers into the past. A romantic at heart, she is an avid student of the Civil War and the Old West. Sherry is a multi-award-winning writer. She currently resides in Minnesota with her husband of forty-one years.
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| Texas Reclaimed |
Can love blossom between a woman haunted by her family’s past and a man with a war-scarred heart?
Cora Scott is determined to hold onto her family's Texas ranch and provide a stable home for her young half brother, Charlie, despite the mounting challenges of post-Civil War frontier life. But when a scheming creditor threatens to seize their land, she must accept help from Ben McKenzie, a former Yankee soldier sent by her late brother. Though Ben's generosity and strength draw her, the man's private struggle she stumbles upon—too reminiscent of her father's alcoholism—makes her question whether she can trust her heart to him.
Ben McKenzie arrives in Texas intent on fulfilling his promise to his dying friend to protect Cora and Charlie. While using his inheritance to save their ranch, he battles not only the loss of their cattle but also his dependency on laudanum—a medicine that turned into a curse after his imprisonment at Andersonville. As his feelings for Cora deepen, he must choose between his promise to his father to take over their Philadelphia newspaper and his growing dream of a life with Cora in Texas.
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