Up until now my favorite Civil War novel was the 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning March by Geraldine Brooks. While Brooks employed the fictional Mr. March from Little Women to create a Civil War masterpiece, Erin Lindsay McCabe relied on journals and letters of real soldiers to shape her tale of a wife who disguises herself as a man to fight alongside her husband.
McCabe found about 250 accounts of women passing as men during the Civil War and used those writings to help create Rosetta Wakefield, a new bride who could not fathom life on her husband's family farm after he leaves to join the Union army. She was strong and capable, more comfortable with fieldwork or barn chores than the tidy women's work her mother-in-law insisted she perform. Before her marriage to Jeremiah, Rosetta was the son her father never had. Outdoor work among the animals and crops suited her, but it's a life long gone now that she's married and living at Wakefield Farm. Once Jeremiah leaves to join the 97th New York Volunteers mustering in Utica, there's only one thing for her to do.
She grabs shears to cut her hair and needle and thread to cut down Jeremiah's old clothes to fit her five foot two-frame. With a map, some socks, flannel rags, hard boiled eggs and bread, she sets off.
Rosetta becomes Ross Stone, Jeremiah's "relative" from back home and brings her hardscrabble, can-do attitude into the camps. She learns to drill and shoot and blend in among the men. Jeremiah insists she leave but eventually succumbs to his wife's determination to stay.
Here's an excerpt from Rosetta's early days in camp that offers a glimpse of her connection to the land and the routine of the troops awaiting orders:
"I never had so much of nothing to do before in my whole life. No cows needing milking. No chickens needing scraps. No troughs to fill. No garden hungry for manure or fences for mending or laundry for scrubbing. There is just mustering for drill, or roll, or inspections, all of which means getting up before the sun even though it seems to me there ain't a thing to be done in our company that needs such early rising."
This is a women unaccustomed to idleness or time wasted. But in no time the guns arrive, and she's thrust into a whole new set of challenges. The weight of the gun and cartridge boxes will be a heavy burden. Aiming and then shooting while on the run? Even Rosetta can see she's in for mighty upheaval.
Before the company sees action they move south into Virginia, and Rosetta accompanies the Captain's wife to a hospital for the most gravely injured. She is drafted into nursing chores but is nearly overcome by the sights and smells and sounds of the ailing soldiers. At one point she must dress the wounds of a soldier with no hands. Rosetta balks but then settles to the task: "I ain't got the knack.....But I can do a thing that needs doing."
Rosetta had grit, and her resolve inspired me. Her devotion to Jeremiah touched me. Their love was deep and abiding. How they protected and nurtured each other during fleeting moments of privacy warmed my heart, and their tenderness was in stark contrast to vivid battle scenes McCabe recreated at Bull Run and Antietam. If Rosetta didn't get into the fray, she helped tend the injured and bring water to those close to death lying in the killing fields.
I Shall Be Near To You is a great book and ideally suited to anyone interested in the Civil War or the untold stories of women who joined the fight. But at it's heart, in the midst of all the blood and violence and death, there is a love story that will burrow deep inside of you.
The Push From the Book: I'm now a bit obsessed about these women serving in the Civil War. So many questions. I really need to talk to Erin Lindsay McCabe........stay tuned.
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