Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America’s First Opioid Crisis Saturday, April 18, 2026 | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PMLocation: Education Gallery (First Floor) Join The National Civil War Museum for a powerful and eye-opening program with author Jonathan S. Jones, as he discusses his new book, Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America’s First Opioid Crisis. During the Civil War, opium and morphine were widely used and considered essential to battlefield medicine. These powerful drugs eased pain, treated illness, and saved lives. Yet when the war ended, thousands of veterans returned home physically wounded—and unknowingly dependent on the very medicines that had sustained them. In the decades that followed, addiction—often described in the nineteenth century as being “enslaved” to opium—became a hidden epidemic among former soldiers. Veterans and their families struggled with the medical, social, and emotional consequences of dependency. At the same time, prevailing cultural attitudes framed addiction as a sign of moral weakness, unmanliness, or mental instability, limiting effective treatment and deepening suffering. Drawing on veterans’ firsthand accounts, hospital and asylum records, government reports, newspaper coverage, and contemporary advertisements, Dr. Jones uncovers the largely forgotten story of America’s first opioid crisis. His research sheds new light on […]
