The novel Red Cap is about a young boy who joins the army during the Civil War to help protect his beliefs. It is a common tale but each boy has his own story. This historical fiction by G. Clifton Wisler displays Ransom J. Powell’s story in an entertaining and informational manner. This book has no dull moments and beautifully shows the ugly truth about boys fighting in the Civil War and the life of the prisoners of war during this time period. Ransom is thirteen years old when he joins the army. Most of his friends had already joined and died. He decides to join to help protect the Union. Ransom’s parents were against this and warned him not to. The battlefront is not a safe place- much less for a boy of such small stature. Disobeying his parents, he runs away to go join the army and becomes and Private and Drummer in Company I of the Tenth West Virginia Volunteer Infantry. The Yankee soldiers soon find that even though he is very small, he has a lot of heart. Ranse meets Danny Hays and Danny teaches him all of the music he must know. R. J. is a very good musician and sings and ...
More than 25,000 letters and 250 private diaries from men on both side of North and South. Talking about the soldier's ideals for which they fought over conflicts and beliefs of each side. McPherson took all of the soldier’s ideas and beliefs and made this powerful and important book on an often-overlooked aspect of the Civil War. Also, it brought great honor and powerfully moving account for the men that fought in the civil war.
In 1776, David McCullough gives a vivid portrayal of the Continental Army from October 1775 through January 1777, with sharp focus on the leadership of America’s greatest hero, George Washington. McCullough’s thesis is that had not the right man (George Washington) been leading the Continental Army in 1776, the American Revolution would have resulted in a vastly different outcome. He supports his argument with a critical analysis of Washington’s leadership during the period from the Siege of Boston, through the disastrous defense of New York City, the desperate yet, well ordered retreat through New Jersey against overwhelming odds, and concludes with the inspiring victories of Trenton and Princeton. By keeping his army intact and persevering through 1776, Washington demonstrated to the British Army that the Continental Army was not simply a gang of rabble, but a viable fighting force. Additionally, Mr. McCullough supports his premise that the key to the survival of the American Revolution was not in the defense of Boston, New York City, or any other vital terrain, but rather the survival of the Continental Army itself. A masterful piece of history, 1776 is not a dry retelling of the Revolutionary War, but a compelling character study of George Washington, as well as his key lieutenants, and his British adversaries, the most powerful Army in the 18th Century world. When I read this book, I went from a casual understanding of the hero George Washington to a more specific understanding of why Washington was quite literally the exact right man at the exact right place and time to enable the birth of the United States.
Robert Ross is a sensitive, private boy; last person you would expect to sign up to fight in World War One. In The Wars by Timothy Findley, symbols are used in conjunction with Ross’ story to cause readers to reflect on symbols in their own lives, and to allow then to dive deeper into the world of an innocent boy who is placed into a cruel war. The various symbols in The Wars provide for a graphic and reflective reading experience by emphasizing Robert’s connection with nature, his past, and his experiences during the war.
During training Paul and his schoolmates come across Colonel Himmelstoss who teaches them the survival skills needed in the front. During training Himmelstoss tortures the recruits but is indirectly teaching them to become hard, pitiless, vicious, and tough soldiers. Althou...
He arrives back at his town, unused to the total absence of shells. He wonders how the populations can live such civil lives when there are such horrors occurring at the front. Sitting in his room, he attempts to recapture his innocence of youth preceding the war. But he is now of a lost generation, he has been estranged from his previous life and war is now the only thing he can believe in. It has ruined him in an irreversible way and has displayed a side of life which causes a childhood to vanish alongside any ambitions subsequent to the war in a civil life. They entered the war as mere children, yet they rapidly become adults. The only ideas as an adult they know are those of war. They have not experienced adulthood before so they cannot imagine what it will be lie when they return. His incompatibility is shown immediately after he arrives at the station of his home town. ”On the platform I look round; I know no one among all the people hurrying to and fro. A red-cross sister offers me something to drink. I turn away, she smiles at me too foolishly, so obsessed with her own importance: "Just look, I am giving a soldier coffee!"—She calls me "Comrade," but I will have none of it.” He is now aware of what she is
In the Red Badge of Courage, the protagonist Henry, is a young boy who yearns to be a Great War hero, even though he has never experienced war himself. Anxious for battle, Henry wonders if he truly is courageous, and stories of soldiers running make him uncomfortable. He struggles with his fantasies of courage and glory, and the truth that he is about to experience. He ends up running away in his second battle.
Although he is initially fearful, his experiences in Malacandra nurture the growth of his courage and help form him into a better person. His bravery is seen to be lacking in the beginning of the story, such as when he attempts to stop Weston and Devine from harming the boy Harry. Even though he tries, his attempts are weak and lack conviction, as he merely shouts at them. On Malacandra, he lives in almost complete fear for the first part of the story, running and hiding from creatures he knows nothing about. It is only his meeting with the Hross that convinces him that not all the inhabitants of this strange world are hostile towards him. In befriending the Hross, Ransom begins to form a more open mind towards Malacandra, still somewhat fearful but now beginning to see it more and more as a home. He later encounters the creatures he feared most, the Sorns, and learns that they too are not hostile. Gradually, Ransom becomes acquainted with all three species, and in talking to them and seeing their viewpoints on things begins to lose his fear. He even comes to care for Malacandra and its people, to the point where he tells Oyarsa he should kill not only Weston and Devine but himself to protect it. Ransom’s suggestion shows that his courage has blossomed to the point where his willingness to defend is much stronger than it was when he tried to defend the boy Harry, the valuable lessons learned from the
While soldiers are often perceived as glorious heroes in romantic literature, this is not always true as the trauma of fighting in war has many detrimental side effects. In Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front, the story of a young German soldier is told as he adapts to the harsh life of a World War I soldier. Fighting along the Western Front, nineteen year old Paul Baumer and his comrades begin to experience some of the hardest things that war has to offer. Paul’s old self gradually begins to deteriorate as he is awakened to the harsh reality of World War 1, depriving him from his childhood, numbing all normal human emotions and distancing the future, reducing the quality of his life. At the age of nineteen, Paul naively enlists in World War 1, blind to the fact he has now taken away his own childhood.
...as nice to know what the book was talking about when it mentioned places, people, and battles like Cold Harbor, the Battle of Manassas, the Wilderness, Sergeant Evans, General Grant, “Bobby Lee”, etc. I liked the way the author ended the book, the fact that both his friend, Hank, and his father died, made it more realistic. If I were in his shoes, I probably would’ve run away to the army also. It’s sad how their barn house was burned by the Confederates. He must’ve thought there to be a lot of glory in the war to have run away instead of do chores at the farm. I’m sure a lot of young men at that time wanted to be a part of the war just like Jem and Hank. I admire how Jem loved his father so much, and wanted to follow him to the war. He didn’t want to only go into the war for the glory like his friend Hank, but he believed that the slaves should be set free. His family had their share of slaves, but in the book they were treated well. The details of Jem’s daily life as a soldier are interwoven with vivid depictions of actual battles and historical figures in this taut, fast-paced story. And that’s what I like about this book. It brings alive the realities of war and its aftermath.
...it may help us arrive at an understanding of the war situation through the eyes of what were those of an innocent child. It is almost unique in the sense that this was perhaps the first time that a child soldier has been able to directly give literary voice to one of the most distressing phenomena of the late 20th century: the rise of the child-killer. While the book does give a glimpse of the war situation, the story should be taken with a grain of salt.
In the short story “Chickamauga”, the author Ambrose Bierce uses a young boy to connect to his audience with what is the disillusions of war, then leads them into the actuality and brutalities of war. Bierce uses a six year old boy as his instrument to relate to his readers the spirits of men going into combat, then transferring them into the actual terrors of war.
Another boy in the story who was matured by the war was Leper. When he sees the movies about the ski troops, he thinks that it looks fun and he surprises everyone by enlisting. Leper does not quite know what he is getting into when he enlists. He thinks that it looks like a fun ski trip; he can serve his country and ski around the world at the same time.
When the war breaks out, this tranquil little town seems like the last place on earth that could produce a team of vicious, violent soldiers. Soon we see Jim thrown into a completely contrasting `world', full of violence and fighting, and the strong dissimilarity between his hometown and this new war-stricken country is emphasised. The fact that the original setting is so diversely opposite to that if the war setting, the harsh reality of the horror of war is demonstrated.
Throughout time, mankind has forged stories and legends to explain the unknown. As years went along the stories and tall tales were passed down to each generation. Each recount of the inherited stories are always told differently, how the story was told usually depended on the person and their particular region of habitance. Thus leading to hundreds of different versions of a single story told throughout the world, written and told by different people. Not only are these stories told as pure entertainment, they serve as wise life lessons and set examples for children when they were eventually introduced to society. These stories are so prominent in human history that even to this day the same stories that were told to children centuries ago
The story leads up to the summer of 1863, during which the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment led an unsuccessful attack on the Confederate’s Fort Wagner in South Carolina. The 54th regiment was the Nation's first black regiment and because of their skill, courage, and determination, they were credited with paving the way for the successful entry of other black soldiers into the ranks of the Union. In addition, these brave men demonstrated that black men were willing to fight and die both for their country and for their freedom. The setting was primarily outdoors and on the battle