What Happened After The Civil War

South Sudan Works To Aid Wildlife That Survived War

South Sudan is poised to become the world's newest country in just a few weeks. Two decades of civil war cost more than 2 million lives and wiped out much of the region's wildlife — but not all of it.

A few years ago, conservationists made a surprising discovery: large herds of antelopes and elephants. The government of South Sudan and the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society are now trying to protect animals that were once thought lost to war.

Wildlife filled South Sudan as recently as the early 1980s. Back then, Kolor Pino was a second lieutenant in the southern rebel army and fought in the bush.

"I see many, many animals," says Pino. "I see oryx, I see zebra and I see giraffe."

Pino and his fellow soldiers didn't have much food, so they ate the animals by the thousands, including buffaloes, lions and hippopotamuses.

"(Hippo) is very delicious," Pino recalls. "It is like a cow."

The war ended six years ago, although fighting continues to this day.

Pino, now a brigadier general, serves as game warden in South Sudan's Boma National Park, where he tries to protect the animals he once slaughtered.

It's not easy. The park is more than 10,000 square miles — an area about the size of Massachusetts — but has just 150 rangers.

Surveying The Savanna

To protect animals over such a vast expanse, South Sudan is relying on help from Paul Elkan and the Wildlife Conservation Society. Elkan and his team began surveying Boma and other parts of South Sudan four years ago as part of the first wildlife census in more than two decades. Flying across South Sudan in a single-engine Cessna, Elkan explains what happened during the civil war.

"Those species which were hit the worst were those that don't migrate," he says. "Species like buffalo, hartebeest — they got hammered."

While many animals died during the war, some migratory ones fled the fighting and hid out in swamps or remote areas.

On aerial surveys of the vast savanna, Elkan found that far more animals had survived than anyone thought. He says the surviving species include 800,000 white-eared kobs and 200,000 tiang — types of antelope — and an additional 300,000 Mongalla gazelles. At least an estimated 5,000 elephants also survived.

Elkan is putting radio collars on a small number of elephants to track their movements and help South Sudan figure out how to protect the animals from poachers and development.

What Happened to Civil War Soldiers After the War? | Civil War Voices

Much has been written about the hardships of soldiering during the Civil War. However, what of the soldier when he returned home after the war? How did he reintegrate into society and what was left waiting for him? By the 1880s soldiers began to reminiscence about the war in memoirs and regimental histories. But yet there was still a population in both the North and South that drifted from soldier home to soldier home, from town to town, jail to jail and some (perhaps many) living their last days in insane asylums.

Most returned home, picked up the pieces, and moved on. But some could never find that peace.

The first step was returning home. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers traveled by train, horse and foot. Southern soldiers often had the hardest time getting back to their loved ones. Upon returning home, some soldiers might have found that the life they had left behind was gone.

James S. Dupray served honorably with the 12th Iowa Volunteer Regiment, he returned home to “find neither wife or children to greet me.” But that was not the truly stunning news for his “children [were] scattered one in one place and [one] another” and his “Dear wife in her grave.” The loss was almost more than James could bare, “I had nothing to live for and I wanted to lie down in the grave by her side…” Still for his children he soldiered on, selling all the property he had left (totaling $600) and putting it all into an investment property.” When home one of the more difficult adjustments involved those who did not “do their duty” and fight for the Union, or was Dupray put it when asked about those “loyal men have enlisted & gave in defence of their country, leaving the traitors at home to rule matters there."

Families were often waiting well for the return of love to discover that the young boy who went to war returned almost unrecognizable. Polly Razey McColley wrote to his son on the return of the war of his brother:

The soldiers who were either unwanted or unwilling to stay at home derived from one place to another. Many found their way West and at the border. There are some newfound peace, bought land and settled. However, others, like a veteran name "Len" found themselves in deep trouble. He was put on trial for murder and it was found that “He is not violent but seems to be almost wholly devoid of his mental faculties.

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