One of my favorite poems from the Civil War era was one written by an author whose name remains unknown, an ode to the unheralded, uncelebrated common soldier (reproduced in this post). One of the points it makes so poignantly is that the officers, the generals, the politicians– they are well represented in the histories (perhaps overly so), to the detriment of that private in the ranks who, though legion, often blends in to become just one face in the crowd. That focus on the officers and leaders does a grave disservice to the vast majority of men who fought, suffered, bled, and died in service to their country. As the poem states (in part):
Nobody cared, when he went to war,
But the woman who cried on his shoulder;
Nobody decked him with immortelles:
He was only a common soldier.Nobody packed in a dainty trunk
Folded raiment and officer’s fare:
A knapsack held all the new recruit
Might own, or love, or eat, or wear.Nobody gave him a good-by fete,
With sparkling jest and flower-crowned wine:
Two or three friends on the sidewalk stood
Watching for Jones, the fourth in line.
One such common soldier is one that I have based some of my impression on–indeed, he was the first such private I began to research when I became involved in Civil War reenacting six years ago; this fellow by the name of Edwin Henry Charles Wentworth. His is a peculiar tale that leads him through some very challenging events during the war. Unlike many of the more celebrated figures, and in contrast to the heroic image many would prefer to paint, Wentworth was a flawed individual. He was part of one of the ‘first blood’ moments of the war. He battled in the botched Peninsula Campaign under McClellan and nearly was captured or killed in the largest Confederate assault of the war (Gaines Mill). He deserted the army, only to return under an assumed name, under which he fought before Petersburg and in the brutal trench warfare. He saw the war through to its end.
