Civil War-style Baseball

With all the documentation of battles and emotional challenges that Civil War soldiers faced, it’s not surprising that people are often unaware of one of the biggest problems of daily life: boredom. Sometimes encamped for months at a time before being sent to their next fighting engagement, soldiers yearned for entertainment and recreation. Sometimes this threatened morale and led to discipline problems.

We have had some fighting in camp lately. An artillery man stabbed one of the 9th and got knocked, kicked and bayoneted for it. . . .They have a skirmish every day.
- C.W Wills, Union soldier from Illinois

To discourage mischief, some officers encouraged men to form organized sports leagues. Among the best-liked sports was baseball. The game played by Civil War soldiers was very different from baseball as we know it today. They chose between two versions of the game: New York style and Massachusetts style. The New York version would evolve into modern baseball that we know today, but the Massachusetts version is the one the soldiers preferred.

Massachusetts Baseball vs. Today’s Baseball*
Note to teachers: play this game with a soft ball made of yarn or some other material. Students will be throwing it at each other.

Each team gets only one out per inning instead of 3.
To get a player out, an opposing player must hit them with the ball
Most teams didn’t have a bat so they used fencepost or some other stick-like item.
A ball was made of yarn wound around a cork and then covered with smooth calf-skin or fabric.
A batter can only strike out if all 3 strikes are caught by the catcher.
There were no flat bases; wooden sticks were driven into the ground instead.
The diamond is not a diamond, but a square. The batter stands in-between the 4th and 1st base to hit. He then runs counter-clockwise around the bases.
Up to 15 people can play in the field.
There was no such thing as a foul ball. Every ball hit was fair.
There was no 9 inning limit. The team that reached a previously agreed-upon amount of runs would be the winner.

*Beyond the Battlefield, edited by David Madden, p.99