Date of Award
8-31-2026
Document Type
Open Access Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
First Advisor
Bonnie Miller
Second Advisor
Heidi Gengenbach
Abstract
This thesis examines parcel exchange between Civil War soldiers and the households and communities that continued to sustain them after military service removed them from ordinary domestic provision. Drawing on forty published collections of Civil War correspondence and diaries, it follows references to boxes, parcels, food, clothing, money, medicine, and useful goods across camps, hospitals, prisons, and home front networks. It argues that parcels from home were neither incidental sentimental tokens nor simple supplements to the ration, but a recurring practice of civilian sustenance shaped by affection, scarcity, infrastructure, and loss. The chapters trace the routes through which parcels moved, the household and relief labor that made food and goods portable, and the carceral conditions that could delay, inspect, confiscate, or transform aid before it reached prisoners. By placing the box from home at the center of Civil War foodways, this study shows that soldiers’ bodies were sustained through a broader provisioning economy than official military supply can reveal. The ration, the household, the route, the letter, and the parcel must therefore be studied together.
Recommended Citation
Migneault, Kathleen, "Civilian Sustenance: Parcel Exchange, Household Provisioning, and Soldier Foodways in the American Civil War" (2026). Graduate Masters Theses. 995.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/masters_theses/995
Included in
Military History Commons, Other American Studies Commons, Social History Commons, Women's History Commons
Comments
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