Instructions and orders given to Private Thomas D. Oliver, Lucas’s Battery, Missouri State Guard, before his Confederate service and up through his death at Corinth in June 1862. The selection of your hat depends on what you wear, where you are from, and the occasion for which you are selecting it. To understand, consider theContinue reading “How to Live and Die as a Southern Gentleman and Soldier”
Tag Archives: Civil War
Say Hi, Robert
They were back in Southern territory, and word was that the enemy was on the other side of these woods. It was spring, and the day had started cool but ended warm. Will was coated in sweat in the late afternoon when orders came to halt their march and set up camp for the night.Continue reading “Say Hi, Robert”
The Day of Your Reward
The opening of Saving Private Ryan has a reading of the famous Bixby Letter. The letter was allegedly written by Abraham Lincoln to a Boston mother of five boys who had allegedly died in the service of the Union. It appears that Mrs. Bixby did not lose five boys for the cause, and it alsoContinue reading “The Day of Your Reward”
April Is the Cruelest Month
He was raised in the home of Master Baker Boswell DeGraffenried and only knew himself as Hank. His mother was a housemaid to Mrs. DeGraffenried, and she went by Ginnie. It wasn’t until he was nearly ten that he heard a field hand call her “Virginia,” and he said, “Why does he call you that,Continue reading “April Is the Cruelest Month”
More Value than the Sparrows
He visited the scene twenty-four hours after the shooting stopped, and thereafter, one detail burned itself deep into his mind. Over the years, that detail had grown nonsensical, a cosmic joke told by a darkly comic creator. He could revisit the shade of that moment anytime he pleased, and for the first two decades, heContinue reading “More Value than the Sparrows”
She Cannot Forget You
Reverend Mrs. Clute carried a secret. Or rather, it was a secret growing inside her. To be clear, it was not her second child who was indeed growing inside her and becoming obvious to others. No, this baby boy was not her secret, and yes, she was certain it was a boy–she had had aContinue reading “She Cannot Forget You”
An Inside Joke by Me for Myself
The first time I saw the boy, he had soiled his pants, and I says to him, I says, “Boy, you done soiled your pants” and he says to me, “I ain’t the only one that done that–they was others who did it under fire at Perryville cuz we was all green,” and I says,Continue reading “An Inside Joke by Me for Myself”
The Virtue of Slaughter
Swift, blazing flag of the regiment, Eagle with crest of red and gold, These men were born to drill and die. Point for them the virtue of slaughter, Make plain to them the excellence of killing And a field where a thousand corpses lie. –Stephen Crane, “War is Kind” The table was covered in bloodContinue reading “The Virtue of Slaughter”
The Ballad of Johnny Mather Sloan
[Sing to the tune of the “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”] Young Johnny Mather Sloan Lived on the Texas range. Stole a horse when six years old; His brother thought him strange. Y’all never heard the tale of the boy soldier from the heart of Texas. Damn shame. That boy and his story are asContinue reading “The Ballad of Johnny Mather Sloan”
Angel Glow
As the light faded, so did the sound of artillery, and the musket fire was only sporadic. The sounds they had been masking all day now pierced the night–the moans, howls, screams, and curses. The man was sitting up against a tree, his left thigh useless from a wound, his right shoulder blade also immobileContinue reading “Angel Glow”
The Living and the Dead, by Gordon Laws 