Scars to Prove It: The Civil War Soldier and American Fiction

Conclusion: Grief Crowded the Secret Rooms of Their Hearts: Haunted Veterans in The Judas Field

160 And while my imagination is like the weaver’s shuttle, playing backward and forward through these two decades of time, I ask myself, Are these things real? did they happen? . . . Did I see those brave and noble countrymen of mine laid low in death and weltering in their blood? Did I see our country laid waste and in ruins? Did I see soldiers marching, the earth trembling and jarring beneath their measured tread? —Sam R. Watkins, “Co. Aytch, ” Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment : or, A Side Show of the Big Show (1882) It is believed that what is herein written will appeal largely to a common experience among soldiers. In full faith that such is the case, [these sketches] are now presented to veterans, their children, and the public as an important contribution of warp to the more majestic woof which comprises the history of the Great Civil War already written. That history, to date, is a history of battles, of campaigns and of generals. —John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee; or, The Unwritten Story of Army Life (1888) Sam Watkins and John Billings fought on opposite sides during the Civil War, and their published narratives differ widely in content, style, and delivery. In Co. Aytch, Watkins told of his own experiences in camp and battle, remembering old friends and reflecting on episodes that were sometimes humorous and often horrific. By contrast, Billings avoided the arena of battles. He created instead a documentary-like account of common soldiers as they ate, slept, foraged, and drilled in the Army of the Potomac. Conclusion Grief Crowded the Secret Rooms of Their Hearts Haunted Veterans in The Judas Field Conclusion 161 Today Co. Aytch and Hardtack and Coffee remain two of the most popular soldiers’ accounts of the conflict. Each fills its own niche within the written history of the struggle, and each offers the same underlying vision: that of ordinary Americans caught in the storm of a vast and impersonal war. As captured in the previous passages, the metaphor of the weaver appealed to both men. Watkins relied on the “shuttle” of his imagination to weave a steady pattern out of memories that were traumatic, jarring, and occasionally surreal. In turn, Billings conceived of his collected sketches as “warp,”thesupportingthreadsnecessarytomakesenseofthe“moremajestic woof” of Civil War history. Readers today may be forgiven if they miss Billings ’s arcane reference to threads crisscrossing over a weaver’s loom. After all, the term “majestic woof” would strike many as an apt way to describe the enormous size and decibel of soldiers’ writings about the conflict. But as the memoirs and fictions discussed in this book prove, not all narratives of the war amount to grand but incoherent barking. Watkins and Billings were joined by thousands of soldiers, of every rank and branch of service, who wrote articulately about the war’s human experience. In their massive contribution to American letters, Union and Confederate veterans argued that to understand the Civil War one must explore the thoughts, motivations, and relationships of its participants. Crane and Shaara responded to that vision with narratives about soldiers grappling with a war that threatened not only their nation but also their own families, friendships, and lives. If writers such as Faulkner, Gordon, and Mitchell have attended to men and women not in uniform, they have nonetheless done so in the spirit of military memoirists who understood the complexities of their society in terms of personal experience. Each of the Civil War fictions examined here—whether told from the vantage point of uniformed troops or of Southern women and children—grants readers the opportunity to transcend the role of spectator and live the past vicariously through the sensations and voices of those who experienced it firsthand. But what of Civil War fiction first published during the last few decades? How has the genre evolved since the publication ofThe Killer Angels in 1974 and the close of the Vietnam War, one year later? I would argue that recent Civil War fiction reflects especially the lessons learned from America’s twentieth-century wars about the psychological burdens borne by soldiers. The Vietnam War, in particular, fostered a national discussion about the effects of prolonged trauma on combat troops. New war memoirs have contributed to that conversation by providing compelling first-person 162 Scars to Prove It accounts of suffering and loss. Since the late 1970s several Vietnam memoirs have attracted...