Shook over Hell

Post-Traumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil War

Eric T. Dean, Jr.

  • Award for the Best Book in Political Psychology of the American Political Science Association

Acknowledgments

Introduction: "Terbacker Out"

"Unwelcome Heroes": The Agony of Vietnam

"Every Man Has His Breaking Point": War and Psychiatry

"Dangled over Hell": The Trauma of the Civil War

"A Gizzard Full of Sand": Reactions to Violence

"For God's Sake Please Help Me": Post-Traumatic Stress

"Dying of Nostalgia": Official Diagnoses

"This Must End Sometime": The Fate of the Civil War Veteran

"Tramping by Night and Day": Indiana Veterans

"I Am Glad I Served My Country": Vietnam Reconsidered

Conclusion: "A Spectacle Grand and Awful to Contemplate"

Appendix A. The Indiana Sample

Appendix B. Casualty Statistics: The Company Sample and Regimental Data

Appendix C. Nineteenth-Century Indiana Insane Asylums and Involuntary Commitment Procedures

Appendix D. Confederate Veterans

Notes

Index

  • Cover: Shook over Hell
  • A photo of the author

Eric T. Dean, Jr., is an attorney who has recently been awarded a doctorate in history from Yale University.