Walt Whitman Wansn't Exactly Right...

Walt Whitman, literary genius and Civil War nurse, once wrote, "The real war will never get in the books." This quote was in regard to his experience working in a hospital during the Civil War.


I disagree with Mr. Whitman. Last week I finished Sam R. Watkin's memoir titled "Co. Aytch." I had no expectations from the book, but was pleasantly surprised over the literary quality of the memoir. Sam Watkins, who was a Confederate soldier in the Army of Tennessee, wrote this book some 20 years after the American Civil War.

This was taken from Wikipedia (it says the same thing in the book):
Watkins faithfully served throughout the duration of the War, participating in the battles of Shiloh, Corinth, Perryville, Murfreesboro (Stones River), Shelbyville, Chattanooga, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Resaca, Adairsville, Kennesaw Mountain (Cheatham Hill), New Hope Church, Zion Church, Kingston, Cassville, Atlanta, Jonesboro, Franklin, and Nashville. Of the 120 men who enlisted in “Company H” in 1861, Sam Watkins was one of only seven alive when General Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Tennessee surrendered to General William Tecumseh Sherman in North Carolina April, 1865. Of the 1,200 men who fought in the First Tennessee, only 65 were left to be paroled on that day.


Insane.

I was particularly disturbed over some of the descriptions used at the battle sites. Men with jaws shot off and their tongues flapping out, brains splattered, men being ripped apart by cannon balls, men freezing to death while standing gaurd, and much, much more. You can't get a good perspective of the Civil War unless you read this book. It totally changed everything I ever thought or knew about the war.