Every Drop Of Blood Collier Character Analysis

With Every Drop Of Blood by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier is based on the Civil War. In this novel they talked about the white-black relationships during this time period. In the novel Johnny’s father went off to fight in the war, and was shot at Cedar Creek to be sent back home for a short amount of time before he passed due to his injuries. When Johnny’s father died Johnny promised him that he would not run off to fight, that he would stay and help his mother with the farm, the house, and Johnny’s little brother Sam and his little sister Sarah. Before Johnny’s father passed Johnny asked him what the reason for the war was, and his father told him it was for ‘states rights’.
Not long after Johnny’s father passed, Johnny traveled down to Stanardsville to deliver cider to a local store there. Jeb, a teamster from Stanardsville, told Johnny about a wagon train planning to bring food into Richmond.“The pay will be mighty good ‘cause there’s a risk to it.” Jeb told Johnny (page 44, paragraph 4) Johnny was immediately interested because most Confederate or Rebel families didn’t have much to get by with during the Civil War due to the lack of crops and

money because of the war and the Union Cavalry rummaging through the Confederate countryside taking anything and everything they needed or wanted, so it was a good opportunity to provide for his mother and the little ones in Johnny’s eyes.
Once Jeb told Johnny that Mosby’s were coming along on the wagon train Johnny was sure he could persuade his mother to let him go then. Mosby Rangers were famous during the Civil War, around Virginia. Colonel Mosby had a group that would fight on their own in Virginia, they lived off the land racing into Union camps and taking whatever was laying around loose and shoot the camp up before the Union Army knew it. All of the teamsters thought the wagon train would be safe if they had Mosby’s.
Johnny saw this as a chance to get even with the Union for what happened to his father, but his conscience was rough on him since he promised his father that he wouldn't run off and fight. Jeb told him how they weren’t aiming to fight but to just deliver the supplies to Richmond for the Confederate Army. Johnny knew there was a chance fighting could occur (it is a war after all) but he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that the money would be good for his family.
Johnny left a week later. The wagon road went through the Blue Ridge Mountains and by Swift Run Gap and up and over hills. Johnny wasn’t worried because he had his great grampa’s sword on his side. His hope of the sword soon ran out when some of the teamsters that had joined the wagon train laughed at him saying that a sword wouldn’t do no good against a Yankee soldier who had a bayonet rifle, that he would get shot before he could even stick them with it.
When night fall arrived that evening the teamsters sat around fires and talked before resting. They were having a conversation about how Jeb did or didn’t know the months or how he knew them but didn’t know the exact order. Johnny soon chipped in and said each month in the exact order they were in, and that was an example I felt like showed just how little people during the Civil War had proper education. While they were sitting around the fires, they were talking about the reasoning for the war. Johnny continued saying ‘states rights’ from what his father told him. But the other teamsters had multiple different reasonings themselves on what the war was truly about. States rights, blacks having the same rights as whites, and how if God wanted them to be treated the same he wouldn’t have made them black and so on and so on. All throughout the story this question is brought up about what the true meaning or reasoning of the Civil War was.
During the wagon train the Mosby’s didn’t due to well at their job and a lot of the teamsters were wounded, killed, or captured by black soldiers of the Union Army which were escaped slaves from the South.

Johnny was one of the teamsters who happened to have got caught and was taken by a black soldier named Cush. Johnny and Cush didn’t become friends right off of course due to the white-black conflict or relationship during the Civil War. But, later on Cush makes a deal with Johnny that if Johnny helps him learn to read he would spare him meals while he was captured rather than to let Johnny starve. Johnny was shocked by this offer and immediately curious as to why a black would want to learn to read. “I sure ain’t gonna spend the rest of my life plowing, planting, and picking for somebody else’s

table.”
Johnny agreed to teach Cush but not the right way. He told him ‘equal’ was pronounced ‘eagle’ and ‘forefathers brought’ ‘forth fighters broke’ and ‘conceived in libraries’ ‘conceived in liberty’. Johnny took his parents word that no black man should be equal to a white man. City Point was the final destination for Cush and Johnny and Johnny would be sent off to a prison camp for Confederates up North. When Johnny and Cush arrived they had become good friends since Johnny got captured even though Johnny tried to make several escape attempts to make it back home to provide for his family he never could make it. City Point was the capital of the Union Camp and where the shipments of prisoners were based during the Civil War.
Petersburg was set along the Appomattox River. Petersburg was an important place in Virginia. “Petersburg had a lot of factories that were making war supplies and had a lot of railroad lines going in and out.” (page 86, paragraph 2) The Appomattox River ran into the James River then on out into the sea. During the Civil War “half of the transportation routes from the South up to Richmond ran through Petersburg.” (page 86, paragraph 2) It was said that if the Union Army took over Petersburg, Richmond wouldn’t hold out for long.
Johnny’s wagon got hit by a Confederate shell and Cush and Johnny both had scratches and cuts but other than the gash on Cush’s leg and the bleeding from Cush’s head they both came out alive and with all of their limbs still able to walk. Before the Confederate shell hit them Johnny was taking in the sight of the battle field from the seat of the wagon.
“Now I could see beyond the breastworks. The hill fell away, the ground dropping off into a shallow valley.Then it rose up, and on top of the next hill, not a hundred yards away, was the Confederate breastworks. And in between, lying on both slopes of the hill, and down in the valley as well, were bodies.” (page 166, paragraph 4)
This shows just how dangerous the wagon train was during the Civil War for the Union and the Confederates just trying to get supplies to their own Army. And just how many different opinions there were about the black-white relationship during the Civil War and it’s reasonings.