Subject of American War - Essay Example

?Corporal, Don’t You Weep There were pieces of trees lying around him. His head hurt. He felt as if in a daze. He tried to move, but every movement he made sent shimmers of pain through his body. Into his eyes the bright rims of the sun fell. He closed them and passed out again. In an hour or so when he had awakened, images of the great battle began to fall among him and he could remember. This time he was able to edge himself up on his hands and knees. He looked about him and couldn't believe it. There was a terrible scene of dead bodies all around. Something inside of him pulled out, he couldn't stop it. He had to let it go. And it was a deep and mourning cry. It came from his stomach reached his throat and his scream hit the trees and the bodies and the mules lying on the ground. Beside him was the dead and mangled body of Sergeant Fleming. Prescott stayed on his knees. He knew he had to control himself get himself together. How could he start crying. He wasn't a girl. He remembered the woman the Sergeant had told him about. It was a dark image, and the Sergeant had spoken of how after the war he would go back to that farm. That woman had given him a special look. She had been meant for him. The other soldiers had laughed. There was one, Wilson, the quieter one. He had only smiled and had grabbed the Sergeant and had tussled him. Prescott knew the feeling of friends from the quiet Wilson and the strong and brave Fleming. And now the Sergeant was gone. Prescott's felt his hands come together. On his knees he bowed his head. Prayers began to come from his lips. "Dear God, I am but a man. Please take the body of Sergeant Henry Fleming into your pearly gate. Dear God, take his spirit and his soul and his heart and let it be filled with new life. Look over Sergeant Fleming." Behind him he could hear some rustling. This would be the hospital crew coming to bury the dead and to lift the wounded. Around him he heard some of the wounded. There was moaning and some cursing. He looked off into the pines and his eyes opened clearly. The approaching men were not Union blue. It seemed they were ... yes, they were. Confederate gray. Prescott's body went limp again. He fell motionless to the ground. He closed his eyes and stopped moving. He thought of his father back on the small Quaker farm in Pennsylvania. He remembered his little sisters. "When you coming back Press." His father hadn't said a thing. He had only looked at him in his new uniform. His father had grabbed him to his big chest. He held the little girl back from running to Prescott as he left the farm. His father had spent days arguing with him about the war. He told him that he must not go. That God would not look kindly among those who would go out and harm their fellow man. Prescott was close to his father. But when the yellow fever took his ma and had dangerously began to doubt God. And then his two other sisters and his one brother too. All these had been wiped away by the scourge of the yellow disease. There was nothing that Prescott could believe in anymore. Among the soldiers Prescott had felt lonely and unable to speak with the other soldiers. Sergeant Fleming had befriended him. He had said, yes there was death and violence, and many times the men did not know what they were fighting for. He had explain how stupid the southern boys, the Johnnies were. They were in the war to defend plantation owners when many of the southern soldiers had been forced off the plantations and could hardly manage to sell their own cotton at the mill. The plantations had taken over. Prescott felt his body being turned around. "Look at this one Sergeant. Look at all that blood. This one got hit with a miracle ball Sergeant." Some people laughed as Prescott felt the heel of a boot fall upon his chest. He dare not open his eyes or flinch. "Sergeant, there's one. Look, just the trouser's are gone, but the blouse is still good, and look it's got Sergeant's stripes." Then there as a gruff voice. "Yeah, take that one Yellow, but check it on the back. We want to make sure their ain't no holes in it from our sharp shooters. You know the way them blue boys be running away from battle." There was a rustling about him. Henry remained still. He did not move. "How's that Sergeant." "Hmmm.... to me, it's okay. It feels all right. Well boys, do I look like one of them black lovin union pickannanies?" There was a muffled laughter. "Okay, you Carolina boys. Yall gather around. We got an important plan and we gonna do it and stop this almighty devil, that terrible man. If the picket boys are right his camp should be just over there on yonder hill. Now listen you boys, yawl don't say a thing unless yall talk in them union accents. Ha! It's like yall been pickin’ too much cotton, and especially since red man Lincoln done set the black idiots free. If we don't stop this thing, yall be going back and pickin' your own cotton. How's that!" There was a chorus of agreement. The gruff voice continued. "Now look, we gonna split up into two units. I want you four under going under Gregg, Yall go to the northeast. And you four men, yall come with me. We will approach from the southeast." Prescott couldn't believe it. But these were Johnnie boys and they were taking uniforms of the dead Union soldiers. They were putting them on and were about to hatch some hideous plot. The group left him. He heard them moving over the weeds. He refused to look at his side. But he knew Henry Fleming laid there violated. The most important thing was what the spy Johnnies were up to. He had to find out. The sun glared in his eyes. His throat was parched and dry. Prescott picked up a dead man's canteen and began to drink upon it. He suddenly spit out the liquid. The water had a dark mixture of blood and guts. His stomach heaved. Prescott tried another canteen. There were bits of hardtack on the ground. He drew pieces in his pocket. Out in the distance he could see the hill the Johnnies were talking about. There was something over that hill they were trying to get to and he had to find his Union soldiers and warn them. Prescott picked up a Springfield rifle and a bag of balls. He retrieved a revolver from one of the dead soldiers and placed it in his belt. Up ahead there was a river that ran in front of the hill the Johnnies had spoken about. That river right in front was pretty deep and the Johnnies would have to spend some time to find the place where to ford it. Or else they would have to tie some logs together. He begin to hear a low mumble pouring through the foliage. Yes, it was drums. Up front he saw the thin line approach. It was the troops and it was his regiment. The hospital boys were up front picking up the wounded and the dead into carts. Carrying them off from this part of infernal hell. He suddenly fell tired and leaned against a tree. A corporal came up to him and grabbed his rifle. "Say boy, lean down and let me look at your head." Prescott obliged, felt his head being rustled. "It's a head wound boy. You may have a piece of shrapnel in it. You done loss a lot of blood and got to go back." "Corporal, I got to tell the Lieutenant. I saw them corporal, take me to the Lieutenant." "What you talking about boy. You losing it or what? We got to get you back to the hospital tent. Get that piece of lead out your skull." Prescott remembered that this was the way it had always been. No one would listen to him. And he would talk to God and even God wouldn't listen. Yes there was blood all over his blouse. He had been wounded and now the wound was try. The corporal gave him water from a clean canteen. "I saw them. I got to report it to the Lieutenant. Please sir take me to the officers. They are spys. Look at ... look at the body of Seageant Fleming, they took his shirt." "Sergeant Fleming." The corporal almost screamed. "What you talking about, boy, what you saying?" Prescott pointed in the direction of the naked torso. The legs had been blown away. The Sergeant dropped to his knees. "Oh Lord, this is not true. How could you lord? Dear God, what are you doing?" Prescott felt his hands on the should of the crestfallen soldier. Behind them the mass of mules and wagons were picking up the dead. "They did this? They took his shirt and God done taken his legs. How could you God?" Then something happened. It was like thundered came down and stretched the sky. The ground moved. Prescott felt his chest throw out his heart upon the soldier. "Soldier. No, it is not God's fault. It is ours. We did this. We have violated the earth. Please soldier take me to the Lieutenant." The corporal looked at Prescott. "Did you feel that, it was like the earth moved?" Prescott said, "Yes, I felt that. God is telling us something. That he is alive." "That he is alive?" "Yes," said Prescott. Sergeant Fleming is alive and he wants us to go on and get those devil Johnnies before they create havoc upon the earth. The rain began to come down upon the field, washing the blood and the anger of men into the gullets of dirt. The corporeal got up from his knees and the dead body of Sergeant Fleming. Prescott picked up the Union flag that was beside Fleming's body. He covered the body with it. They said a prayer that in the now advance pour of rain was heard by no one. Prescott felt the worse of his loneliness had now been taken by God who had answered him. The corporeal led him to the lieutenant and he explained what he had heard and saw. The Lieutenant said, "Boy do you know who's on that camp" "No sir." "That's General Grant's camp boy. It looks like the Johnnies were going to go after the general to help and try to kill him." The Lieutenant summoned a group sharpshooter cavalry. He asked Prescott did he want to go with them. They would get to the river before the Johnnies. Meanwhile he dispatched a messenger on a Pony Express horse to go and inform the General's guards. In order words, the Lieutenant explained, the Johnnies would be heading themselves into a trap. They would get crush from the sharpshooter cavalry and the General Grant's line of guards out front. "How you feel boy. Do you think you can ride a steed and go with the cavalry boys to identify the spies?" Prescott was sick of it then, all this war. And God had just spoken to both of them and now God's tears were falling all over the earth. What was he telling them.?Prescott wanted to go back home and tell his father that he no longer believed in war. He wanted to tell his father that he had seen what it had done to the bodies of men. But the Lieutenant was looking at him hopefully. The Lieutenant was trusting him. The corporal was crying, telling the Lieutenant what he had found of Sergeant Fleming, the regimental symbol. Fleming had had a hard time. He had explained to the men that fighting was an ugly thing and being afraid was normal and regular. There had been that special night when the soldiers had being around the campfire. Their haversacks were on the ground and they were drinking course coffee and eating hardtack. They could not believe Sergeant Fleming when he told them he had run away from his first battle. He had run away and had played like he had been wounded. No one could believe this. But Sergeant Fleming took off a wag of Virginia dirt cut tobacco, chewed and spit it into a ground. “If there ain’t no fear in a man. Then he ain’t a son of God. Sergeant Fleming knew what he was talking about. All the men stood up and joined Sergeant Fleming in prayer. Sergeant Fleming had a red badge and it was a badge of courage. "You would do this for Sergeant Fleming. You will go and identify them yellow rascals and help us capture them and save the life of General Grant. Go follow young man," said the Lieutenant. This would be his last effort, thought Prescott, and it would be monumental. He told God he was trying to save the life of a General who may help end the war. There were rumors that General Grant was nothing but a butcher of men. That he wheeled wholes squads of regiments into actions and that he was an alcoholic too. But there was also the rumor that President Lincoln trusted General Grant and that he would get the job done. No matter what it took, he would get the job done. There was a chorus of drums rumbling the pine trees. The rains had slowed to a dry mist in the air. Looking toward the far off hill a phosphorescent glow of a rainbow began to form. From his pocket Prescott took out the folded bit of paper. It was a map. It was the location of the farmhouse where Sergeant Fleming had seen the dark-eyed girl. Prescott saw the spot where Sergeant Fleming marked where the girl was. He had said, “If anything happens to me Prescott, you go back and tell her that I have loved her.” Prescott jumped up on the steed, a large quarter house. It was enough to take his friend too. He looked at the corporal and grabbed his hand, lifting him up to sit behind him on the horse. He said, “Com’on, corporal, we got work to do.” In the background the regimental burglar began the long song refrain for Sergeant Fleming as the sharpshooter cavalry rode off into the distant. It was led by a young man who had hole his head, riding a horse with a weeping corporal. Defense of Story In defense of my story I ask myself what was it that I could have written and how may I improve it and where did some of the ideas come from. Taking the last question first, the idea of course came from The Red Badge of Courage, from the main character in the story, Henry Fleming. I placed him on the battleground and I killed him. His body is discovered by my main character, Prescott. And then I wrote about Fleming had stood as a positive character for his entire unit, showing bravery and all those positive things after he had first ran away from battle. I made Fleming a Sergeant and then as an afterthought I had him reveal his deepest moment to the troops at large. They couldn't believe he had been a coward. If I were to go back and rewrite my story, first I would take off that melodramatic ending. That was placed in as an experiment to see if I could do it. The only thing I didn't do was to place Henry's flag in his hand as he rode off into the mountains. But that ending would have been rewritten with a view on Prescott's character. I would have clarified his character a little more and have shown more why he felt isolated. I think I started in a good way, the yellow fever had taken over his family and had killed his ma and sisters and he no longer trusted in God. This was okay, but the break between him and his father could have been clearer based on that reason. I do like the way this was theme of alienation and isolation was developed in Henry. I wanted him to feel the pain of war. I once saw this a drawing of a painting of someone emitting a scream. The scream seemed to take up the entire painting with lines of distress. This is the scream I wanted Henry to have. Another way of improving this story was to draw out the character of the corporal more. The corporal was also affected deeply by the death of Henry Fleming. This brings out the point of what did this death actually mean. Hence I had to make sure that the qualities of Fleming had been understood and appreciated by the whole regiment, even the Lieutenant. I had a good time writing this story. It was about how horrible war was. It should have went all the way to the end and have involved Prescott more directly with the Johnnies. And then there could have been an actually view of General Grant. However I wanted to cut it at the end and that was why I made it so melodramatic like in that movie Glory. Another good thing about the story and something that could have been clarified and done better, I think, was the role of God and also of the father as a Quaker. Then the story could have been better seen as a conflict thing with Prescott fighting his belief and disappointment in God and going back and somehow finding hope. But I didn't want it to be a super religious story I wanted it to be realistic. Read More