Scars to Prove It: The Civil War Soldier & American Fiction
by Craig A. Warren, Kent State University Press
Part of the war’s fascination lies in the abundance of literature it spawned, from letters and memoirs to historical and biographical accounts. In Scars to Prove It, Craig A. Warren addresses the role of fiction in understanding the war, particularly regarding whether, in view of firsthand accounts, it is “necessary reading.” Based on just the first of seven out – standing examples, Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, Warren suggests the answer is yes.
Veterans’ accounts often concealed as much as they revealed. Many recognized the fear and horror described by Crane as what they had felt, but could not or would not admit to in their own memoirs. Others criticized him for the paucity of references to the causes for which they fought, but Warren suggests that much of the emphasis on causes arose in retrospect.
Warren credits Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 Gone With the Wind as the first real acknowledgment that Southern women were veterans in their own right—a fact reiterated later in Caroline Gordon’s None Shall Look Back. William Faulkner’s emphasis on the civilian experience is explored in Absolom, Absolom! and The Unvanquished, as well as more recent efforts, in the form of Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels and Howard Bahr’s 2006 The Judas Field, which Warren sees as one of the best Civil War novels in the past 30 years.
Scars to Prove It offers considerable food for thought regarding how much fiction has to offer toward fully understanding the national cataclysm. It might also inspire many history buffs to reread novels with a fresh eye.
Originally published in the February 2010 issue of Civil War Times. To subscribe, click here.
