Testament: A Soldier's Story of the Civil WarThe story of the author's great-grandfather's Civil War experience, based on a remarkable set of newly discoverd letters—a powerful, moving addition to the firsthand soldiers' accounts of the Civil War. Dear Mother, I was very glad to hear from home this morning. It is the first time since I left Otterville. We marched from Sedalia 120 miles....I almost feel anxious to be in a battle & yet I am almost afraid. I feel very brave sometimes & think if I should be in an engagement, I never would leave the field alive unless the stars & stripes floated triumphant. I do not know how it may be. If there is a battle & I should fall, tell with pride & not with grief that I fell in defense of liberty. Pray that I may be a true soldier. Not since Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage have the trials and tribulations of a private soldier of the Civil War been told with such beguiling force. The Red Badge of Courage, however, was fiction. This story is true. In Testament, Benson Bobrick draws upon an extraordinarily rich but hitherto untapped archive of material to create a continuous narrative of how that war was fought and lived. Here is virtually the whole theater of conflict in the West, from its beginnings in Missouri, through Kentucky and Tennessee, to the siege of Atlanta under Sherman, as experienced by Bobrick's great-grandfather, Benjamin W. ("Webb") Baker, an articulate young Illinois recruit. Born and raised not far from the Lincoln homestead in Coles County, Webb had stood in the audience of one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, become a staunch Unionist, and answered one of Abraham Lincoln's first calls for volunteers. The ninety-odd letters on which his story is based are fully equal to the best letters the war produced, especially by a common soldier; but their wry intelligence, fortitude, and patriotic fervor also set them apart with a singular and still-undying voice. In the end, that voice blends with the author's own, as the book becomes a poignant tribute to his great-grandfather's life -- and to all the common soldiers of the nation's bloodiest war. |
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Page 5
... brother , John , born on December 20 , 1843. The two boys grew up together with a kind of closeness that even among brothers might be counted rare . Though Webb never put much stock in pedigree , there was also a touch of ancestral ...
... brother , John , born on December 20 , 1843. The two boys grew up together with a kind of closeness that even among brothers might be counted rare . Though Webb never put much stock in pedigree , there was also a touch of ancestral ...
Page 9
... brother and would subsequently join the 123rd . The ties among them all ran deep , and even before marriage bound them formally together , they were nearly kin . Meanwhile , Webb had grown into a strong , able , self - reliant if ...
... brother and would subsequently join the 123rd . The ties among them all ran deep , and even before marriage bound them formally together , they were nearly kin . Meanwhile , Webb had grown into a strong , able , self - reliant if ...
Page 21
... brother , John , were among them , having come up with their mother , grandparents , and an uncle that morning in a farm wagon from Hutton , ten miles away . As the day promised to be a long , hot , sticky one , they had brought with ...
... brother , John , were among them , having come up with their mother , grandparents , and an uncle that morning in a farm wagon from Hutton , ten miles away . As the day promised to be a long , hot , sticky one , they had brought with ...
Page 25
... brother and their elders slowly made their way back home to Hutton , just as dusk was falling , along the crowded dirt road that looped south- eastward toward their farm . The election was close . Lincoln ran ahead in the popular vote ...
... brother and their elders slowly made their way back home to Hutton , just as dusk was falling , along the crowded dirt road that looped south- eastward toward their farm . The election was close . Lincoln ran ahead in the popular vote ...
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advance affectionate army artillery Atlanta B. W. Baker battle began boys Bragg brigade brother Buell camp Capt cavalry Charleston Chattanooga Coles County command Confederate corps Creek Cumberland Cumberland Gap Curtis Dave Adams Davis division Douglas expect Federals field fight fire flank force Frémont front Grant ground guns hear hope Hutton Township Illinois infantry Joe Neal John Kansas-Nebraska Act Kentucky killed letter Lincoln Lookout Mountain Louisville McCook Meanwhile miles Missionary Ridge Missouri morning Mountain Murfreesboro Nashville night North Pea Ridge Perryville quoted in ibid railroad rain Rebels rebs regiment regt retreat River road Rolla Rosecrans seemed sent Shelbyville Sherman shot Sigel skirmishing slave slavery soldier South Springfield tell Tenn Tennessee tents Thomas thousand told took town troops Truly Union Union army victory wagons Webb Dear Mother Webb's unit week West wounded wrote his mother
Popular passages
Page 116 - If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?
Page 115 - If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.
Page 116 - Fondly do we hope -fervently do we pray -that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the...
Page 18 - I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.
Page 13 - When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood.
Page 83 - But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution.
Page 83 - The whole South is in a state of revolution, into which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn; and though I recognize no necessity for this state of things, and would have forborne and pleaded to the end for redress of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had to meet the question whether I should take part against my native state.
Page 13 - While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant, that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise.
Page 23 - I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife.
Page 114 - We may have our own opinions about slavery; we may be for or against the South; but there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South...