It’s not just that warfare is an important part of our history. Draw up a quick mental list of the wars we’ve been in and you have a country that has been surrounded and consumed by the build-up to, the fighting of, and the aftermath of brutal conflict. But rarely do we ever speak truthfully about war to young readers.
And that’s how I came to be writing two books about war at the same time: A SAVAGE THUNDER: Antietam and the Bloody Road to Freedom and TRUCE: The Day the Soldiers Stopped Fighting.
I began with a simple mission — to write books that were honest, informative and dramatically involving, and largely focused on the experiences and emotions of those who were actually in these conflicts. In other words, I wanted to avoid doing the sort of histories I grew up reading, what I call “my father’s history”: fact laden, formal texts that talked almost solely about important individuals making important decisions, discussed battles as if they were well-mannered chess matches, and, in effect, said that the politicians and commanding generals (for our side, of course) did what was best for the country and its soldiers.
An immediate concern was how to sift through the enormous amount of information available on the Civil War and WWI and choose what to include. I began by reminding myself often of the concept of historical contingency (sometimes simply called contingency), an idea I’ve used since writing THE LONG ROAD TO GETTYSBURG (1992). Historical contingency is a way to look at how history comes about. It suggests that the notable events in history are usually not the result of a single individual making a momentous decision. Instead, history is made by a wide range of often random factors including good and bad luck, mistakes and strange coincidences, well thought out decisions and others that are impulsive and inexplicable, all of which involve a wide variety of individuals, from the mightiest to the most common.
Using historical contingency forces me to look at the big and small turning points leading up to a particular event which in turn helps put the focus on the people involved. (An interesting additional bonus is that this approach creates a natural story line, a step by step journey that builds drama and involves readers.) Anything and everything can come into play, though people are always at the center. The Battle of Antietam had its origins in the nasty interactions between Abraham Lincoln and one of his commanding generals, George McClellan, and because Confederate General Robert E. Lee had little respect for McClellan as a fighting general. World War I was pushed forward by the way Germany’s paranoid Kaiser Wilhelm I prodded the aging and indecisive leader of Austria to confront more directly his neighbors.
Holding a magnifying glass to history like this often turns up even more personal, yet still vital human moments. Antietam took place because an obscure Union corporal wandered off the road to rest and discovered Special Order 191, Robert E. Lee’s instructions to go against accepted military practice and divide his army into three parts. World War I was set in motion (needlessly as even Wilhelm admitted at the time) because Wilhelm failed to read important state documents until it was too late.
All of these moments give readers a context for the unfolding events, but it’s following the participants into battle that pulls readers deeper and deeper into the situation. Their personal recollections, spare but beautifully written and sometimes scribbled during the chaos of battle, are at the heart of understanding real combat and its terrible consequences. Union Private Johnathan Stowe was severely wounded at Antietam and unable to move, but managed to add a few last words in his pocket diary: “Battle Oh horrid battle. What sights I have seen. I am wounded! And am afraid shall be again as shells fly past me every few seconds carrying away limbs from the trees….” Or what a British private felt as he charged headlong across No Man’s Land to assault a line of deadly German machine-guns: “I moved past the stumps of trees, past other things; men passed by me, carrying other men, some crying, some cursing, some silent. They were all shadows, and I was no greater than they. Living and dead, all were alike….”
Writing about war — by letting readers march into the fighting shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers and officers who were actually there — provides a palpable and emotionally memorable substitute for the real experience. It also offers the kinds of vivid images that will never leave the minds of the readers.
It’s important to add here that some battles and wars, as horrible as they might be, do change the world in positive ways. Antietam was enough of a victory that it allowed Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing over four and a half million men, women, and children from the bonds of slavery. The long term effects of other wars are often much more debatable. Did the deaths of over eight million soldiers and six and a half million civilians during WWI accomplish anything that honest and sincere negotiations couldn’t have? Showing combat in a realistic, but hopefully not ghoulish way puts these results in high relief, lets readers look at them in a stark, bright light and, I would argue, lets them see how truly miraculous an event like the massive Christmas Truce of 1914 really was.
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