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Genre: Historical Fiction Main characters: William Prentiss, Clifton Prentiss, Hetty Cary Time and place: 1861-1865, US (mostly Washington D.C.; Baltimore, Maryland; Richmond, Virginia) Summary: The story begins in 1865 in one of the hospitals in Washington D.C. .The Civil War has just ended and the wounded are still being treated. Trying to help them in every possible way is Walt Whitman, shocked at the cruelty of the war and the casualties left in its wake. While ministering to the wounded he encounters a young lad named William Prentiss, an ex Confederate soldier, and they become fast friends, sharing stories with one another. William dies after a few days — not before telling Whitman that his brother is also in the very same hospital, having fought on the Union side and having been wounded in the very same battle. Upon hearing about William’s demise his other two brothers (John and Melville) come to pay their respects. They meet Whitman at the bed of the other wounded brother, Clifton, and they start recounting their tales from the war (Whitman filling in the stories William told him), starting with 1861, the days before anyone knew there was to be a war, and ending with that last battle that killed one brother and wounded another. |
Unfortunately I wasn’t that fond of any of the characters. I liked Clifton but didn’t very much care for William, thinking him quite reckless, letting himself be led by his emotions only, not wanting to hear his father and brother’s voice of reason. Perhaps I liked Clifton more as I felt his position more justified — although it is a bit hard to take sides in that particular war, hindsight and all. I tend to root for the Unionists and see their cause as just, of course — and yet there is a part of me trying to understand the opposite side too. Actually, in a way I do understand them all too well, especially as their point of view is quite well presented in the book (or at least that is how I understood it): all the Secessionist States fight for their freedom to take their own decisions (including on the matter of slaves), as granted by the US constitution. And yet, try as I might my feelings for William remain the same, namely I do not very well understand his dismissal of his brother and his father’s feelings. A thing probably very well accounted for by his young age, about 21 at the time (and I, being older, tend to side with the older ones :P )
As of the three belles (Hetty, Jenny and Connie): I could tell they were there to inspire and impress, make the reader like them and admire them. I saw them as overrated bordering on annoying. They were supposed to be both courage and beauty personified — but they weren’t that interesting at all! Everyone fell over themselves to show them appreciation (Carys Invincibles? please), and I couldn’t get the reason — to me their so-called courage was nothing but recklessness (especially as Hetty is used to getting out of troubles before simply because she is beautiful). Speaking of Hetty Cary, she too existed and looked like this (I was, understandably enough, quite curious to see how such a beauty actually looked like). She seems a lot more interesting when one reads her Wikipedia page — actually, the existence itself of a Wikipedia page about her is a sign she was someone out of the ordinary in her day and age (Clifton for example doesn’t have one). I think my opinion about her is partly due to the fact that the author has tried to imagine the chit chat such girls could have, the things they might have thought about, and, being a guy, has only succeeded in make them seem lightheaded and shallow.
The strongest point of the book is the fact that the author is trying to offer the reader an accurate image of both sides of the war lines: the North, opposed to slavery, perhaps because they relied mostly on manufactures; the South, still needing workers for their cotton fields. Getting to view both sides of the war was an interesting exercise as it made easier for the reader to see beyond the mere ideas, to the actual men who supported them. In the end, everyone did what they thought was best for their country. As the author himself put it, “Southerners viewed their struggle as a second war for independence and Northerners fought to preserve the union created by their forefathers.“.
What I liked most: Given that up until reading this book I only knew there was a Civil war between North and South and it had to do with slavery you can bet I learned lots and lots of things from this book. The author has done his best to relay the events as detailed as possible and the writing style, especially during battles, makes one think one was right in the middle of it all.
Also, I have found it fascinating when I have discovered that all the main characters have actually existed! For example see this quote from nytimes.com :
The brothers Prentiss were brought to the Armory Square Hospital in Washington, and their nurse, Walt Whitman — that Walt Whitman — was stunned by this coincidence of war. Whitman wrote that the brothers were ”brought together here after a separation of four years.” William succumbed on June 24; Clifton on Aug. 18. ”Each died for his cause,” Whitman wrote. Soon they were side by side at Green-Wood.
(click to see the full article)
(a curious thing is that they seem to have gotten the dates all wrong; Mr. Jones offers at the end of the book a lot of clippings that sustain his version, i.e. Clifton dying on Aug. 20)
What I liked least: I think the author would have been a lot better off if he’d chosen to write a non-fiction book. As it is the pages/character distribution could have been (in my opinion of course) a lot better. One would expect to find, according to the title, the story of two brothers. Alongside William and Clifton we also have Hetty as a main character and Walt Whitman, the rest of the Prentiss brothers, and the rest of the belles as secondary ones. But, if these are the characters, why isn’t the book more about them? Why are them all being left out from at least one third of the pages?
This is a clear case of too much documentation gone awry: the author didn’t know what to leave out. For example, if I am reading a book about a soldier, why do I care about what a particular General’s wife said and did on one of her trips? Or about the dialogue between the officers regarding their orders at Gettysburg? While I am, of course, interested to see the effects of these events on William and his mates, I don’t need to know the actual words. Not to mention that William had no way of knowing them and neither did Whitman, so how did they ended up being narrated in the first place?
I very often had the feeling that the author is simply trying to show off, as he keeps dropping names completely unimportant in the circumstances. Here’s a random example:
The 6th Maryland Volunteers came under a heavy barrage from Rebel artillery. Among the first to fall mortally wounded was Sergeant Houston T. Murray, the regimental color-bearer. Lieutenant William H. Burns, the nearest man to him, picked up the regimental colors and marched forward, holding the lag high above his head. It was but a short time later that a cannon ball decapitated Lieutenant Burns, his body crashed to the ground, and a torrent of blood gushed over the folds of the 6th Maryland colors beneath him. Sergeant John L. Jones dropped his musket, dashed forward, and rolled the lieutenant’s body of the crimsoned blue lag. Gripping the flagstaff with both hands, Sergeant Jones raised it before him and led the regiment forward.
Recommend it to? Everyone interested in the Civil War, as the book is filled with various details about it. Historical fiction buffs might want to give it a try too.
See also:
Pictures of the actual gravestones of the two Prentiss brothers (scroll down a bit, they are somewhere in the middle)
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