Book Analysis: My Brother Sam Is Dead

My Brother Sam Is Dead Essay

Since the American Revolution, one million, one hundred thousand people have been killed while serving in the United States armed forces. Many wars could have been resolved without conflict, including the American Revolution. My Brother Sam Is Dead, written by Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier, is set during the time and place of the Revolutionary War. Throughout the book, the two authors made various points on war. In the end, readers can conclude because of the text, that war is vain.

The authors prove through their writing that war can be unfair. For example, Tim Meeker, the narrator asks,”Jerry? He is dead?” While his mom replies,”Nobody understands it. They put him on a prison ship, and he got sick and he died within three weeks” (Collier and Collier 166). Tim, presumably about twelve, had his best friend Jerry

captured seemingly without cause, and shipped off to a prison ship.Tim’s brother Sam Meeker is also executed by the side he served as a soldier for. The irony in it, however, is that he was caught for stealing his own cattle and shot by the side of the war that he served for for three years. As if this was not enough, Tim’s father, Ephialet, is captured by criminals who claim that they are Patriots. There is even more irony in this, as he died on a British prison ship, even though he was loyal to Britain himself! In the text, Tim is innocent, yet he has many unfair things happen to him because of war raging where he lives.
Tim’s way of life is messed up even more once the war began, because war divides up families as well. His father is loyal to the British king, while Tim’s brother Sam is a Patriot Rebel. This meant that both of Tim’s role models chose different paths of the war. Throughout the war, Tim sees the reasons of why his brother and father chose their sides of the conflict. When his father is captured by the cow-boys, he admitted that, ”We’re mostly Tories here” and thought, “Suddenly I realized that I was. Father’s capture had done that (Collier and Collier 139).
His view on the war changed again when he witnessed a skirmish between the Patriots and the redcoats. The British had killed all the patriots, the noticed that,”When the British had all the things in the house, they set the house on fire. I turned and ran down the road to Dr. Hobart’s. i did not feel much like being a Tory anymore (Collier and Collier 145). Tim is torn with which side he must join. Another consequence of war, the division of families can hurt a close relationship with anyone.
War can be unfair and divide families, but the things war can do to individuals can be horrible.

When Jerry Sanford is captured, Tim’s mother says”They put him on a prison ship and he got sick and died within three weeks...They sunk his body in Long Island Sound in a weighted sack, so his parents can not even get him back (Collier and Collier 166). The way Jerry, a ten-year-old boy, dies is horrific. During the skirmish Tim witnessed, he saw the beheading of a Negro Patriot soldier, Ned. Tim watched as “He slid his sword into Ned’s stomach, and jerked it free...Ned’s head jumped of his body and popped into the air (Collier and Collier 144).” This scene that Tim witnessed is equally disgusting. After discussing Jerry’s death, Betsy Read, Sam’s girlfriend, lists everyone who had been killed by the war. Your father is dead. Jeremiah Sanford is dead, Sam Barlow is dead, David Fairchild is dead, Stephen Fairchild is wounded, and more,” she said (Collier and Collier 167). All the people Betsy knew, and many were dead because of the war. These scenes are gruesome, and they are all the result of

war.
The fact that war is vain is observed by readers in the book My Brother Sam Is Dead. They can cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives, even though many can be avoided. Throughout the book, comments on war’s consequences are stated as Tim Meeker suffers because of the American Revolution. All and all, the world would be a better place if war was gone.