I’ve always been fascinated by the Civil War, and so was very excited to read “Soldier’s Heart” by Gary Paulsen. This is the true story of Charley Goddard who joined up with the First Minnesota Volunteers when he was just fifteen years old, after walking a distance from his hometown so no one would know him and then lying about his age.
Charley was the oldest in his family. His father died some years before, leaving Charley, his mother, and his little brother to fend for themselves. There had been rumors of war for some time, but they didn’t think it would be a very big skirmish – the rumors also indicated it would be over before fall. When Charley heard that the Army would pay eleven dollars a month, and in gold at that, he realized what a difference that kind of money could make to his mother, and so he set off.
His first several months were pretty boring. The men drilled, and marched, and learned how to load and shoot. Their meals were dull, consisting of beans and salt pork. Charley wrote home to his mother that there was nothing going on, and that she had no need to worry about his safety. But the next thing Charley knows, he’s in the Battle of Bull Run, famous for being one of the most brutal, bloody battles ever fought. He’s stunned by the raw carnage all around him, feeling at once far too old and far too young.
He sees a few other battles during his time in the Army, each full of death and fear. He finds, though, that the more he fights, the more he wants to fight. He’s already accepted the inner voice which has told him he’s going to die, and now it’s just a matter of discovering which battle will be the one to finally do him in.
The Battle of Gettysburg commences, a battle in which more men were killed than in all previous wars combined. Charley is hit several times and is sure that his time has come, but the surgeons are able to patch him up well enough to send him into a few more battles before the end of the war. The patches were just that, though – the cure wasn’t complete and it didn’t last. Charley died at the age of twenty-three back in his hometown, never able to fully recover from his wounds.
The author is quick to point out that while most of Charley’s experiences are based on historical fact, he did take a little bit of license, making this a work of historical fiction rather than nonfiction. I appreciated the looks into Charley’s thoughts and emotions as speculated upon by the author; we often hear stories of bravery without fully understanding the minds and hearts of the men who have exhibited it.
(This book was published in 1998 by Delacorte Press.)
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