Literature always reflects every change in society and it stands to reason that American literature of the nineteenth century was strongly influenced by the tragic events of the Civil War of 1861-1865. Many authors were involved or to some extent interested in the war events, they used their war experience in their works and tried to help their readers to get a clear idea of war itself and its challenges. Writers drew great inspiration from the gory and brutal battle scenes and created their image of those events, relying on things they heard from the theatre of war. Many writers even were witnesses to the battle scenes or lost relatives and friends during that bloodshed.
Some of them preferred to show the war’s so-called “romantic side” (if this expression is acceptable in such a context), whereas others attempted to bring out the whole futility of war. Nevertheless, we cannot say that American literature was divided into two parts because a true artist always remains on the side of justice, but not politics. In this essay, we shall try to show the war through the eyes of people who were on the opposite sides of this conflict.
Speaking about the most prominent writers of civil war literature, we should mention Stephen Craine and his famous novel “The Red Badge of Courage” It is believed to be one of the best literary works in American Civil War Literature literature. The novel, in which a young soldier in the American Civil War is faced tête a tête with the cruelty of war, has won Craine international recognition. Even though the author was born after the war and could not see battle scenes firsthand, this work is viewed as an example of realism.
The main character of the novel is a soldier Henry Fleming. As a rule, Craine calls him “the young soldier” or “the youth.” Both the good and bad features of Henry’s youth are noticeable in him. In contrast with the veteran soldiers whom Henry meets in his first battle, Henry is not exhausted. He has faith, perhaps a little bit candidly, in some traditional ideals of honor and courage. He has some rather romantic views of dying in battle (Craine, 33).
He remembers the tradition of ancient Greeks to lay dead soldiers upon their shields. On the other hand, due to his young, Henry has not yet experienced enough to test these ideas. Consequently, his most passionate beliefs are mostly based on his dreams and fantasies, and it makes him seem vain or perhaps egoistic.
Henry’s grounds for desiring to achieve fame on the battlefield are very far from being noble. The ethical motives of the war do not stimulate him; moreover, we cannot say that the main character had any personal sense of what is right and wrong. Instead, the only thing that Henry hankers for is a reputation. He cherishes the hope that his impressive performance on the battlefield will give immortality to him as a hero among men who, due to the domesticating effects of religion and education, rarely prove themselves so brightly.
It is ironic, after escaping from the battlefield; Henry feels practically no guilt about using his own commonsense to exonerate his cowardice. Henry thinks that the soldiers who remained to fight were fools who were not “wise enough to save themselves from the flurry of death.”(Craine, 43) This is how he regains so easily his vulnerable self-esteem. When he goes back to camp and lies about the nature of his wound, he has doubts about neither his courage nor his right to behave as haughtily as veteran soldiers do. Henry is lacking in a true moral sense and it is quite noticeable in the light of the honor and fame that he longs for. He feels no responsibility to win these accolades. If other soldiers believe him to be a hero, Henry thinks he is one.
When the main character finally finds himself on the battlefield, nevertheless, he feels a “temporary but sublime absence of selfishness.” A dramatic change occurs in Henry: as he fights, he is almost entirely deprived of his sense of self. He is no longer interested in achieving the praise or some kind of attention of other soldiers; instead, Henry lets himself disappear into the commotion and become a constituent part of a great war machine. When the main character finds himself entirely absorbed in battle, the significance of acquiring reputation vanishes into thin air, because “it was difficult to think of reputation when others were thinking of skins.” Ironically, then, that he gains his reputation of a goof soldier exactly at these moments.
Officers who were witnesses to his brave fighting believe that he is one of the best soldiers in the regiment. It turns out he does not swindle his way to the fame and honor that he so desperately desires at the very beginning of the novel; instead, the main character deserves it. This shows tremendous spiritual growth in his character. He learns to learn a lesson from his mistakes, such as his earlier retreat, without false bravado and gives up the hope of ostentatious heroism for a less pompous, but sufficient, understanding of “what it means to be a man” (Craine,122).
Now we should present the other side of the argument. As far as literature is concerned, it is quite possible to single out one of the rarest of all Civil War books first edition of William A. Fletcher’s recollections “Rebel Private: Front and Rear”. In 1908, the author published his memoirs of being in two of the Confederacy’s most renowned regiments: Hood’s Texas Brigade and Terry’s Texas Rangers.
The first edition of this book was a very small copy published by the Press of the Greer Print of Beaumont, Texas. Fletcher passed away in 1915 nevertheless the majority of his writings remained in his family house that was completely devastated by fire in 1924. Most of his books were irretrievably lost in the fire and the few that survived the blaze were damaged.
As the historian of the Civil War Robert Krick believes “Fletcher wrote with rambunctious good humor and deadly realism” and even “reported his own drunken sprees.” Besides, Fletcher showed an “unmistakable relish over the number of dead Federals in evidence at Fredericksburg.” Fletcher wrote, “the more dead the less risk.” While the book is undoubtedly renowned, not all critics agree with the accuracy of Fletcher’s memoirs.
David Eicher in his famous The Civil War in Books characterized Rebel Private as quite “entertaining reading” but then warned that the book “bears the marks of much-embellished stories and so must be viewed and used with caution.” A famous historian Nevins was also not so convinced by this book he writes that “what it omitted was more valuable than what it contains.”
Fletcher does not join the army just because of a sense of duty, for he is not so “agitated by politics.”(Fletcher, 17) Evidently, according to his notes, the main character left home just in quest of adventure. Fletcher undoubtedly left with no delusions as to the possible outcome of the war. His father had warned that the South would be “worn out” in the long run. His son’s story became a record of their defeat (Fletcher, 35).
“Rebel Private” is noticeably different from other memoirs, especially the Southern ones, for its lack of sentimentality. The author went to war because he “wished to be as far away from home and relatives as possible.”(Fletcher, 22) Analyzing the image of the main character practically cannot see any sign of inner development. He realizes that his quest for adventures was entirely futile. He is swept into this vortex of war but he cannot get out of it. It turns out that his struggle was in vain. However, we can say that the main character is not entirely devoid of good qualities for instance mercy when his companions decided to whip a soldier for his alleged cowardice Fletcher showed pity and dissuaded them. In the hospital, he feels compassion for those suffering soldiers.
Thus having compared two novels of the civil war literature we may conclude that the main idea that the two authors tried to convey is the futility of war and bloodshed. Naturally, they did it in their peculiar way but still, the message remains the same.
Bibliography
Crane S The Red Badge of Courage Pearson Education, 2000.
Fletcher W. Rebel Private: Front and Rear: Memoirs of a Confederate Soldier. Penguin Group, 1997.
Stamps. R. One Rebel’s Dramatic, Unsentimental Memoirs The Washington Times. 1998.