Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin: NY, 1990. Jim Murphy describes
the American Civil War through the eyes of youth soldiers using
excerpts of first hand accounts. The excitement and adventure
that the boys expected upon enlisting is depicted as well as the
dreariness and deprivation of the camps and horrors of the war.
Not only does the book accurately depict the Civil War,
including pictures from it, but also war in general. The
realities of war as described ought to be emphasized more in
school studies, including the involvement of children and
civilians, since they are standard in all wars, not anomalies.
The Civil War is the best example Americans have of what war is
really like, and if it were truly taught, it would serve as an
indication of why our country ought to be trying more seriously
to avoid war. War does, in fact, devastate the region it is
being waged in, always. The Civil War was the last war in which
large numbers of young American boys were involved, because rule
changes were made soon after. H