A Salute to my brother and his son the Marine and to our great-great-great-great-great grandfather the fifer in the Revolutionary war; to great-grandfather Henry Butts, Civil War veteran; our two uncles and cousin, now deceased, who made it home from the Pacific in WW II; and my son who did peacetime duty on a submarine. And a special salute to my grandson now in Iraq, may he live long as a proud veteran. [2010 update. Thankfully he is now back in the states where he will stay until the end of his contract with the Air Force.]
Grave of Civil War Veteran Henry Butts, Danville, Ohio
I have been thinking for quite a while about what I wanted to write about to commemorate Veteran’s Day. My brother, a veteran of Vietnam, thinks I should write about the Civil War. He, my sister-in-law and two nephews (one of whom served in the Marines in Iraq) participate in Civil War Renenactments in California. So obviously, HE is the one who should be writing about books about the Civil War.
I will digress from my usual pattern here and tell a little story of my own, and then list a few books that seem to be worth looking at if you need travel literature to help plan re-enactments of your own.
My Story
My grandfather, William Henry Butts, an Ohio farmer, served on the Union side of the Civil War. We still have some of the letters he wrote home to his wife, unhampered by standardized spelling and punctuation. (In the excerpt below I have seen fit to add periods, just to make it easier on the reader.)
He was discharged for disability after 8 months. Being let go in Nashville, Tennesee, he presumably had to make his way home to Ohio on his own. By October 1864 he had re-enlisted, and he served until July the following year. “Dear Wif” he writes on December 18, 1864 from “Near Savanah, GA”
It is a pleasure to me that i am permited to seat myself to anser your ever welcom letter which came to hand yesterday. i was glad that you and dear little Allen was well. your letters found me well and enjoying myself as well as I can enjoy my self. better since i herd from you for it has bin a long time to me. i must tell you the reason i did not hear from you sooner we started on this march the 15 of november and landed hear on the 10 of this month we had no communication all that time but its all right now. we have had a hard march over three hundred miles. some nights we did not get time to lay down and hardly time to eat but we are through and i em glad this is Sunday. my dear last Sunday i did not think that i wold write to you this day for we laid under the rebels fire boath Saturday and Sunday and the shells and balls flew thick and fast. thear was one shell bursted about ten feet from me and broke three of our guns so i begin to think that was coming rather close.
Henry Butts as an old man
One of the rare lucky ones, he was able to return to his wife and lived a long life, and was buried in the church cemetery outside his small town. We went in search of great-grandfather’s grave, and noticed that in the older section of the church cemetery, Civil War Veteran’s graves spout brass star that indicates service in The War. One star stood beside a grave of a boy who lived to the age of fourteen.
While you think about that, you might also think about taking a road trip to one or more of the many, many battlefields of the Civil War scattered from Pennsylvania down to Georgia. You can drive. You do not have to march.
Books
- Gods and Generals by Michael Shaara. Best book on the Civil War, hands down. When Michael Shaara died before the book found fame and became a movie, his son Jeff took over and completed a trilogy with Killer Angels and The Last Full Measure. Jeff Shaara went on to specialize in novels of war.
- Rise to Rebellion and The Glorious Cause relate the American Revolution.
- The Last Full Measure , covers the gruesome and grueling World War I
- No Less Than Victory, a novel of World War II
I will no doubt be talking in the future about WWI and WWII sites to visit, but here are previous posts about a movie in France, a memoir in Naples,and the underground in Crete all set in WWII. Travel to American revolutionary places were covered in Philadelphia, and Reading for July 4; a guest poster talked about Vietnam during the war.
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About the Author:
A freelance writer who loves to travel. When she is not traveling she is reading about travel. When she is not reading or traveling, she is sharing with the readers of A Traveler's Library, Reel Life With Jane and other websites. Also co-author of a biography, Quincy Tahoma, The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist. Contact Vera Marie by e-mail.
Vera Marie Badertscher – who has written 677 posts on A Traveler's Library.
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Tags: Revolutionary War, road trip, Shaara, veterans, Veterans Day Civil War, World War II, WWII
Thanks so much, “bro” for adding those details about Great-Grandpa. And Kerry, I know about the other battlefields–just trying to save space I think, but you’re right, they are too numerous. There is even a battlefield site in Arizona, and although it is in the vicinity of a state park, it was not a big enough battle to warrant a site of its own.
I have not been to Shiloh, but recently visited Chattanooga and afterward read the details of the battle, although they are laid out more clearly at that National Battlefield than at any others I’ve ever visited.
Thanks for the recognition of generations of American veterans. Shelby Foote’s novel “Shiloh” was a must-read for the family, when I took my sons to Shiloh Park in Tenn. to stand by the monument on the field where their ancestor, a private with the 77th Penn. Volunteer Infantry, helped hold off a Confederate cavalry charge. We tried to imagine what it would be like for those untested farm boys to face that murderous charge. Our Civil War battlefield parks are beautiful places, haunted with the ghosts of pain and valor. Shiloh, where thousands were killed and wounded, means “Place of Peace.” May they all find peace.
thanks for this list, vera! always so important to learn about our past. that is WAY cool abt your grandfather’s letter.
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My husband is a historian and always wants to visit battlefields, so this is a post I will share with him. Thanks for sharing your grandfather’s letter, which was fascinating to read.
battle sites are sad memorials, I think. I’d add, too, that in addition to the area from Pennsylvania to Georgia, there are battle sites from the War Between the States in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Indiana, and several western states.
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I remember reading Across Five Aprils in 4th grade, about the Civil War. It really made it come alive for me