How exactly the Civil War helped, hurt or otherwise affected the young sport of baseball is a difficult historical question. We have many anecdotes about baseball games played by Union troops, Confederate troops — even some between the two. But most of these were published decades after the fact, when hearts and minds and softened. That matters. Here is an example.

In his 1899 memoir Captain John G. B. Adams of the 19th Massachusetts tells the story of a Civil War “baseball” game that he recalls playing in in 1863. Other accounts verify that the game was played, but because the Massachusetts game was sometimes referred to as baseball, we cannot be entirely sure which bat and ball game Adams is talking about. You would think that soldiers from eastern Massachusetts in 1860 would be playing the Massachusetts version — a game native to the Boston area that was ultimately dropped in favor of the New York game (what we call “baseball”) — but then again, some men of the 19th Massachusetts came from southern Maine, where, oddly enough, they played the New York game. And their opponents were drawn from a Michigan unit that was full of transplanted New Yorkers. You have to be skeptical that Adams really saw Confederate troops playing baseball, but his story is even more far-fetched if he meant that they were playing the Massachusetts game, “just the same as we were.”

Winslow Homer’s painting of Union soldiers passing a lull in the fighting with a game of quoits.

“While in camp at Falmouth [Virginia],” Adams writes, “the baseball fever broke out...It started with the men, then the officers began to play, and finally the 19th challenged the 7th Michigan to play for sixty dollars a side...The game was played and witnessed by nearly all of our division, and the 19th won. The $120 was spent for a supper, both clubs being present with our committee as guests. It was a grand time, and all agreed that it was nicer to play base than minie ball. What were the rebels doing all this time? Just the same as we were. While each army posted a picket along the river they never fired a shot. We would sit on the bank and watch their games, and the distance was so short that we could understand every movement and would applaud good plays.”

It is easy to hope that this story is true.