Somebody's Darling: Essays on the Civil War

208 Pages·2002·0.952 MB·English

by  Kent Gramm

Somebody’s Darling

Somebody’s Darling
Essays on the Civil War
Kent Gramm
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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∫ 2002 by Kent Gramm
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
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information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permis-
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Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gramm, Kent.
Somebody’s darling : essays on the Civil War / Kent Gramm.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-253-34081-0 (alk. paper)
1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Influence. 2. United States—History—
Civil War, 1861–1865—Social aspects. 3. United States—History—Civil War,
1861–1865—Literature and the war. 4. Gettysburg (Pa.), Battle of, 1863.
5. Wilderness, Battle of the, Va., 1864. I. Title.
E468.9 .G74 2002
973.7—dc21
2001006085
1 2 3 4 5 07 06 05 04 03 02
For Somebody’s Darlings
and for Alan Nolan

Into the ward of the clean white-wash’d halls,
Where the dead slept and the dying lay;
Wounded by bayonets, sabres, and balls,
Somebody’s darling was borne one day.
Somebody’s darling, so young and so brave,
Wearing still on his sweet, yet pale face—
Soon to be hid in the dust of the grave,
The lingering light of his boyhood’s grace.
Somebody’s darling, somebody’s pride.
Who’ll tell his mother where her boy died?
Give him a kiss but for somebody’s sake,
Murmur a prayer for him soft and low;
One little curl from its golden mates take,
Somebody’s pride it was once you know;
Somebody’s warm hand has oft rested there,
Was it a mother’s, so soft and white?
Or have the lips of a sister so fair
Ever been bath’d in their waves of light?
Somebody’s darling, somebody’s pride,
Who’ll tell his mother where her boy died?
—‘‘Somebody’s Darling,’’ 1864
My subject is war, and the pity of war.
—Wilfred Owen

C O N T E N T S
Introduction: What Was It Like?
xi
The Gettysburg Nobody Knows
1
Somebody’s Darling
12
Ghosts of Gettysburg
20
A Ghost Story
25
The American Iliad
36
The Song of God
50
Wilderness
58
The Real War
89
‘‘Nothing but Omnipotence’’
98
A Soldier’s Grave
106
A Soldier’s Bones
115
Face-to-Face
133
Witnesses
143
CONTENTS
‘‘. . . You Cannot Refine It.’’
150
The Road to Gettysburg
154
Epilogue: Les Terribles
160
Notes
177
Acknowledgments
183
Index
185
x