'The Boys' War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk About the Civil War' by Jim Murphy

Murphy, Jim (1990). The Boys' War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk About the Civil War. New York: Clarion Books. ISBN 0395664128 (pb)

Photo by : L. Propes

How old was the youngest wounded Civil War soldier?  Sixteen?  Seventeen?  Try twelve.  William Black, considered the youngest wounded soldier in the Civil War, was wounded by an exploding shell.  He was only twelve years old.

Slightly more than 3 million people fought in the Civil War.  It's been estimated that 250,000 to 420,000 were boys.  Jim Murphy examines the American Civil War from the perspective of some of those boys, who either signed up because they could pass for someone older, had a parent vouch for them, or joined as drummer boy.  A photograph of Johnny Clem, who joined in Michigan as an eleven-year old to be a drummer boy, adorns the front cover.  His thousand-yard stare is a testament to the violence he had seen in the course of a year.  At the time of the photograph, he was twelve years old.

How did so many children manage to join the Confederate and Union armies?  Murphy answers this, and other questions, in his book The Boys' War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk About the Civil War.

Rather than a chronological depiction of the Civil War, Murphy divides it into a series of chapters that each deal with a specific issue facing the boy soldiers, as well as their adult counterparts.  One chapter discusses their experiences in battle, moving from wide-eyed innocence to hardened veteran, unfazed by the sight of death and destruction that had made them ill just months before.  Another talks about life in the camps, and how in the lulls between battles, Union and Confederate soldiers met in the middle for card games and socializing.  Yet another outlines some of the more unpleasant aspects of the war: the hospitals and prison camps.  Details are presented in the voices of the boy soldiers through their diaries, letters, and memoirs.  The chapter that examines the role of drummer boys traces the journey some of the drummers took from playing the drums in the thick of the battle to actually fighting in the next one, like Johnny Clem.  He was a non-commissioned officer by the time he was thirteen.

Photo by: L. Propes

The effect of the structure of the book means that it does not have to be read in order, provided the reader has some basic information about the Civil War.  This book isn't quite the book to read for an overview of the war, but it offers a viewpoint of the war that isn't told very often in history classes.  It's also a perspective told from boys who were neither famous, nor leaders.  Their version is often unvarnished and honest.  Murphy peppers the descriptions of events during the war with the observations of their younger participants, giving them a human voice. Selected photographs (generally one every other page) move beyond the familiar Matthew Brady images seen so often in textbooks.  There are portraits of the boys who appear in the book, their round, smooth faces in contrast to their hirsute commanding officers.  Photographs of life in the camp, like members receiving Mass before a battle, are set in contrast to photographs of the aftermath of a battle, showing bodies where they fell.  The photographs are sepia-toned, which gives students a nonverbal cue of the age of the photographs.  The text is also printed in brown, which complements the photographs and gives the book a unifying appearance.

Murphy's book is well-researched, as evidenced by his selected bibliography at the back of the book.   The book accurately describes what life was like for the average soldier -- boy or adult -- during the Civil War.  It gives a deeper look at an event that is often reduced to a series of battles and a litany of names, punctuated with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in classrooms.  Larger events, like Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia are pushed into the background, or relegated to a less prominent role, in favor of the individual soldier's reactions to them, which is probably the book's biggest strength, as it pinpoints specific voices in what can otherwise be a roaring wall of facts and details.

Photo by: L. Propes

The book does feel a little dry, and the monochromatic nature of the photographs might not hold the interest of some students.  However, the non-linear nature of the book means that students do not have to read the entire book.  Teachers can assign groups to read a single chapter and create a presentation to the rest of the class.  The individual chapters can become an introduction to a deeper investigation of some of the topics presented in the book.

The book can easily be used in parts or in its whole form in a history class studying the Civil War.  It can also be used in an English class to demonstrate the use of primary sources and personal narrative in writing, as well as writing about events.  Psychology or sociology classes can use the book to begin a discussion about the affect of witnessing violence on young children.

Jim Murphy has written several other books about historical events.  The Great Fire, a Newberry Honor book about the 1871 fire that levelled Chicago.  An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793, about an outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia (which can be read in conjunction with Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever 1793).  Murphy has even written a biography of the tuberculosis microbe: Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure.  Texas history teachers might appreciate his book Inside the Alamo.

Books that can be read as part of a unit about boy soldiers with The Boys' War include Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and Sharon McKay's War Brothers as a novel or graphic novel (illustrated by Daniel LaFrance).

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"Making extensive use of the actual words... of boys who served int he Union and Confederate armies as fighting solders as well as drummers, buglers, and telegraphers, Murphy describes the beginning of the Civil War and goes on to delineate the military role of the underage soldiers and their life in camps and field bivouacs...  Private Henry [Graves] and his contemporaries were direct and simple in their observations and possessed, says Murphy, 'an eye for everyday details.'  Their accounts bring to life, as no other versions can, the Civil War and all of its glories and horrors." -- David A. Lindsey, School Library Journal, January 1991

"Jim Murphy draws widely on actual letters and diaries in developing his examination of the participation and experiences of boys under the age of sixteen who fought in the Civil War, whether because of patriotism or a thirst for adventure...  Although the author does not dwell on suffering and death, they are an inescapable focus...  Murphy ranges over the bright expectations of enlistees, the realities of fighting, problems of foraging for food... Finally he looks at the psychological effects of the war on these young men..." -- Margaret A. Bush, Horn Book Magazine, January/February 1991

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Works Cited

Bush, Margaret A. 1991. The boys' war: Confederate and union soldiers talk about the civil war. Horn Book Magazine 67 (1) (Jan): 86-7, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9103182035&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Lindsey, David A. 1991. The boys' war: Confederate and union soldiers talk about the civil war (book). School Library Journal 37 (1) (01): 120-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=12689591&site=ehost-live&scope=site.