St. Louis Baseball and the Civil War: 1864/1865
The St. Louis Arsenal
At long last, we've reached the final year of the war. I ran the series through April of 1865 and just lumped those posts, chronicling the last few months of the war, with all of the 1864 stuff. I also included a couple of posts about the death of Edward Bredell, the co-founder of the Cyclone Club.
It's entirely possible that the final year of the war was the busiest baseball season in St. Louis history. There were more known clubs active that year than in any other season and there were almost as many known match games that year as in 1863. The interesting thing about the data is that I was expecting to find evidence of the Civil War depressing baseball activity in St. Louis and, while we seem to find that in 1862, the game rebounded in 1863 and 1864, to the extent that those two seasons were, without a doubt, the two most active seasons in St. Louis history up to that point.
I think that this is extremely unique, as we simply don't find that kind of data in any other city. The St. Louis data doesn't fit the pattern that we see elsewhere and that brings into question the conventional wisdom regarding the effect that the Civil War had on the growth and evolution of baseball.
Below, you'll find links to all of the posts presenting the 1864/1865 data:
On To 1864
Umpire Tom Oran
The St. Louis Base Ball Club
War Is Hell
The Hickory Base Ball Club
Field Exercise
Invited To The Field
Picnic Season
Resolute
The Resolutes Were A Bunch Of Cheaters
The Year Of The Empire Club
April 9, 1865
The Last Day of the War
Measure For Measure: The Death Of Edward Bredell
These Countless Graves: William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust, and the Final Resting Place of Edward Bredell
Looking at the Final Year of the War
It's entirely possible that the final year of the war was the busiest baseball season in St. Louis history. There were more known clubs active that year than in any other season and there were almost as many known match games that year as in 1863. The interesting thing about the data is that I was expecting to find evidence of the Civil War depressing baseball activity in St. Louis and, while we seem to find that in 1862, the game rebounded in 1863 and 1864, to the extent that those two seasons were, without a doubt, the two most active seasons in St. Louis history up to that point.
I think that this is extremely unique, as we simply don't find that kind of data in any other city. The St. Louis data doesn't fit the pattern that we see elsewhere and that brings into question the conventional wisdom regarding the effect that the Civil War had on the growth and evolution of baseball.
Below, you'll find links to all of the posts presenting the 1864/1865 data:
On To 1864
Umpire Tom Oran
The St. Louis Base Ball Club
War Is Hell
The Hickory Base Ball Club
Field Exercise
Invited To The Field
Picnic Season
Resolute
The Resolutes Were A Bunch Of Cheaters
The Year Of The Empire Club
April 9, 1865
The Last Day of the War
Measure For Measure: The Death Of Edward Bredell
These Countless Graves: William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust, and the Final Resting Place of Edward Bredell
Looking at the Final Year of the War
