The Reflection Of Chamberlain's The Second Day

Before you read “The Second Day,” we must address some of the content in Chapter 2 “Chamberlain.” In this chapter, the Union soldiers find an escaped slave who has been wounded. Chamberlain, who has always argued against slavery, has an unexpected and unwanted reaction to seeing this man.

The escaped slave does not speak any English and is terrified, and Chamberlain has an initial feeling of revulsion toward this man and even wonders at the man’s humanity. He is shocked and a bit ashamed of his response.

You need to know that the first time I read this novel, this chapter made me very uncomfortable. I almost decided not to read it with my students because it made me uncomfortable and it will probably make you uncomfortable as well. My first reaction was something like, “Why did

I have a cousin who had a behavior disorder when he was younger that was caused by the unique way in which his brain works. I will never forget what my aunt said to me about it. “Kelley,” she said, “we decided long ago that we must ‘face the beast.’ We will not pretend that it isn’t there. We will not pretend that nothing is wrong. We will ‘face the beast,’ conquer it, and move on.”

I have thought long and hard about the idea of “facing the beast,” and I think that, in his own way, Michael Shaara was “facing the beast.” It would have been easier just to write a novel that paints the Union soldiers as being moral and true and the Confederacy as being the “wrong side” that did not treat African Americans as equal beings. But the fact of the matter is that our nation has a sordid, sad, and horrible history of discrimination that extended far beyond slavery.

Yes, the Union sought to free the slaves, and that was wonderful, but were the free blacks given the right to vote? Did the government provide equal schooling, employment and other opportunities to