The minimum age for recruitment into the Union army was 18, but recruitment officers weren't particular.  It's estimated that there were nearly 100,000 soldiers in the Union army that were not yet 16 years old.  The picture here is of William Black.  William was 11 years old when he enlisted.  He was shot in the left arm during battle.  At 12 years old, he is thought to be the youngest combat soldier to be wounded during the Civil War.

-SDJ-

   "Had he and I but met
    By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
    Right many a nipperkin!

    But ranged as infantry,
    And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
    And Killed him in his place."

Excerpt from the poem "The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy, English novelist & poet
(June 2, 1840-January 11, 1928).

Ambrotypes of unidentified Confederate & Union soldiers from the Liljenquist Family Collection, Library of Congress.
  

"That night I lay beside the Charles Town Pike and watched until morning the grimey columns come pouring up from the pontoons.  It was a weird uncanny sight and drove sleep from my eyes.  It was something demon-like, a scene from an inferno.  They were silent as ghosts, ruthless and rushing in their speed, ragged, earth-colored, disheveled and devilish.  The shuffle of their badly shod feet on the hard surface of the pike was so rapid as to be continuous like the hiss of a great serpent.  The spectral, ghostly picture will never be erased from my memory."

From the diary of Captain Henry Hastings Ripley, dated September 16, 1862.

 

I had something to say about the Civil War, and with this novel, I've said it as clearly and vividly as my ability as a writer would allow.  My responsibility is done.  I leave the fate of my tale to the power of the reader's imagination.

-SDJ-
 
Link to amazon.com....read Ethan's Peach Tree!
http://www.amazon.com/Ethans-Peach-Tree-ebook/dp/B00A4OONK0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355013600&sr=8-1&keywords=ethans+peach+tree

I came across this "tintype" photo while going through the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photos on the Library of Congress site.  Thousands of young Americans answered Lincoln's call to arms in 1861, not just as drummer boys or buglers, but as "soldiers of the Line."  Look at this photo...really look...sixteen at most, and yet, it was boys like him who saved our great Republic in its time of great peril.  I look at this tintype, into his face, and can't help but feel an enormous pride.

-SDJ-

"...the stride of every soldier was quick, full of energy, as they kept time to the fifes and drums that accompanied them into the fight.  The ranks advanced in good order, the Rebels shoulder to shoulder, their step a vast swinging movement, as if every man was part of a huge machine spiked with bayonets and battle flags."

"Muzzle flashes pierced the tumbling clouds of smoke, and along the Union line could be heard the whiz-zip-wheat! of minie balls, the hard slap of lead striking flesh.  Soldiers in blue twirled and fell, doubled over, leaped like drunken dancers..."

From Ethan's Peach Tree

     "Nathan spurred Yorktown into the thickest of the fight, where Colonel Bendix and the eight men of the color guard were defending the Regiment's flags against a rush of Confederates.  A giant of a Rebel, his eyes wild in his slablike face, came at Nathan with leveled bayonet.  Nathan reached for his Colt revolver..."

 

From Ethan's Peach Tree

"The negro suddenly peeked at Nathan from behind the doctor's pony.  The whites of his eyes were bold in his dark face when, in a slow heavy drawl, he asked, 'Is Abraham with y'all?'
     A spattering of laughter broke out, and he shrank back, staring wide-eyed at the officers in blue around him.  Nathan silenced the laughter with just a hard glance.
     'No, Lincoln is not with us,' Nathan answered.
     Rawlings pointed at the negro and explained: 'This is Ned.  After I convinced him that he'd been lied to, that Yankees don't have horns and an extra eye in the back of their heads, he decided to follow along with us.  I could use a strong man around the hospital wagons...'"

From Ethan's Peach Tree

Confederate Infantry on the March

The lead regiments of the Army of the Potomac approached the crossroads where their new commander sat his horse.  Once again, badly mauled by General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia, the Army of the Potomac had just suffered 17,500 casualties at the Battle of the Wilderness.  These lead regiments expected their new commander to point north like all their other defeated generals had done, so the army could take protection near Washington and its forts...but as they came to the crossroads their new commander pointed south.  This new commander had told Lincoln "There would be no turning back," and he was keeping his word.  The regimental bands began to play, and the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac took heart and began to sing.  Finally, they had a General who was willing to fight on.  Grant had taken command.

"Nathan and his chief of staff, Lieutenant Isaac Prentiss, continued along the clay-paved road and were soon among the regimental encampments.  Rows of tents glowed canvas-white in the darkness, some bright with internal candlelight that placed shadows of soldiers on the coarse cloth.  On the cool breeze was a fragile and lovely sound, the tenor voice of a soldier singing the love song 'Lorena,' and sleepless soldiers sat around crackling fires of pine knots, staring into the flames and listening..."

From Ethan's Peach Tree
Encampment of the 150th Pennsylvania Infantry.

     "Doctor Rawlings picked shrapnel from wounds, tied off arteries, probed with his fingers for bullets, and sawed through the bone of legs, hands, feet, and arms beyond his ability to repair.  These body parts made a bloody mound in the back of a medical wagon pulled up near the live oak.  Doing his work there at the operating table, Rawlings' feet began to slip and slide.  The ground beneath him was muddy from blood, guts, contents of bowels loosened by agony and death.
     'Orderly!' Rawlings called out.  'Throw some straw down here, I can barely keep from falling.'
     The orderly put down a deep carpet of straw, and Rawlings stepped onto it and went back to work...

From Ethan's Peach Tree
Photo by James F. Gibson in Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865. Library of Congress.

While visiting Antietam Battlefield some years ago, my brother, Ben, and I recognized a rock formation as being familiar.  I compared the photo we took with a photo Alexander Gardner had taken after the battle...There is no doubt that we were standing in the footsteps of history.

"...above the crash of battle, Nathan said to his staff, "Gentlemen, arm yourselves."
     Blades and barrels flashed.
     "Bugler Watkins, sound the charge!"
     Nathan spurred Yorktown directly toward the breastworks.  Yorktown's hooves pounded the ground, and when the Rebel works loomed before him, the war horse launched himself into the air as if powered by an engine filled with fire and pressure.  Nathan and Yorktown sailed through the smoke above the breastworks..."

From Ethan's Peach Tree
This print of Grant can be found at the War is Hell Store @ fineartamerica.com

The Rain - Scott Miller

Sherman had a deep respect for General Joseph E. Johnston.  Sherman described him as a "dangerous enemy," and Johnston proved him right by inflicting 25% casualties on Sherman's army at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.  Bitter enemies during the war, as so often happens between warriors, Sherman and Johnston grew to respect each other.  After the war they became friends, wrote to each other, and on many occasions had dinner together.  Johnston would not allow an unkind word to be said of Sherman in his presence.  When Sherman died in the winter of 1891, Johnston served as an honorary pallbearer, and during the funeral kept his hat off in the cold rain.  A friend, out of concern for the old General's health, asked him to put on his hat.  Johnston replied, "If I were in his place, and Sherman were standing here in mine, he would not put on his hat."  Johnston caught a cold that day.  He died ten days later of pneumonia.

Frog in the Well- Old Zip Coon

It isn't easy to be an honest writer.  Without sentimentality, an honest writer must take out the ax and go to chopping at the very words he has come to love.  I hope my readers find that what my ax has left for them to read, deserves to be read.

-SDJ-

 

 

 

 

 

"...Nathan paused to look out over the battlefield.  There were so many wounded along the slope that it looked as if the ground was moving, and their cries sounded like those of the damned suffering their agony in this war-torn landscape that looked like hell without the flames.  A Rebel lurched to his feet, then hobbled away, dragging a broken leg.  Nathan looked down at a dead Union solider.  His mouth was wide open as if he'd died screaming, and among the broken muskets, tufts of hair, pieces of uniform around him, was one of his legs, the torn tendons and muscles looking like the unraveled end of a thick rope.  Nathan looked up, and..."

From Ethan's Peach Tree

Private Hiram M. Kersey, 44th Iowa Infantry is shown here with musket, bayonet, knife, and revolver, ready to take his place in the line.  The 44th Iowa Infantry was mustered into service in Davenport, Iowa and served in the area of Memphis.  The Regiment was mustered out of service on September 15, 1864, and Hiram returned to the family farm near Liberty, in Marshall County, Iowa.

76,242 Iowa men served in the Civil War.  13,001 would die of wounds or disease.  No state, North or South, had a higher percentage of its male population serve in the military during the course of the war.   

Hand-colored tintype from the Liljenquist Family Collection.

"...Major Hazard Kidd turned in the saddled, leveled his revolver at one of the many Rebels running toward him screeching like coon hunters gone mad, and pulled the trigger. The revolver kicked hard in his hand, flamed and smoked, and just as his target started to give the rebel yell, the bullet struck him in the roof of the mouth, drilled through his brain, and burst out the back of his head, taking with it bits of bone and brain pulp. Kidd spurred his horse into a casual trot.
      'No sir, by God," he growled, 'Never let those pigfuckers see you run.'"

From Ethan's Peach tree

"If you leave the farm, Nathan, ye'r gonna learn that there's very little kindness and goodness in the world. People are only kind and good if it serves them well." Horatio put a hand to his head and rubbed as if he had a headache. "No, Nathan, there's great hurt out there," he waved a hand toward the horizons, "and most people are weak of spirit, they learn nothing from it, only try to pass the hurt on."

From Ethan's Peach Tree

"Tess looked up at Nathan then. She touched his cheek with her fingertips so gently that he felt his heart tremble. Her sweet affection weakened him in a way the violence of the battlefield never could..."

From Ethan's Peach Tree

"With spinning wheels and flashing spokes, the batteries of twelve-pounder Napoleons and ten-pounder rifled Parrott guns swung off the road. Horses strained, drivers lashed with whips, trace chains jingled, and cannons, caissons, and limbers bounced over the uneven ground. The artillery pieces were soon swinging and skidding into line on top of the rise, and gun crews..."

From Ethan's Peach Tree