The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy

Bell Irvin Wiley seems to have been the first historian/writer to realize that the Civil War was not just about Lee, Pickett, Grant or Stuart or any of the other guys with stars on their shoulders. The real truth about what happened on those battlefields had to do with the guys in the tattered uniforms and the rotted shoes, trying to fight with defective rifles. As in his companion book, "The Life of Billy Yank", "The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy" is an unflinching look at the seemingly endless plight of a Confederate soldier. This is a very sobering account, and some of the letters the soldiers wrote home are nothing short of heartbreaking. Even as defeat was becoming more and more apparent, the courage and determination of these men did not waiver. This is a truly admirable account of men who were more than common soldiers. I believe they were really common heroes.

This is an excellent book if you're looking to read about "The Life of Johnny Reb." For once, the title of the book reflects what it really is about ; )Clearly Wiley has done his homework. You will walk away having learned pretty much everything there is to know about fighting for the CSA.I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I started reading as far as style went. I wasn't sure if it would read like a memoir or rather collection of memoirs. The style was actually more along the lines of a research paper. It's a very nuts and bolts portrayal of every day camp life with each chapter focusing on a certain element (Why, Who, How, etc.). You don't get the pit in your stomach or wind in your hair sort of sensation, but you do get a very accurate read of the life and times of those soldiers.If you're looking for more of a "romantic" or spirited read, I think you'll be disappointed. You're probably better off going with a true memoir. "The Life of Johnny Reb" does not read like a story or memoir. What's great about it is that each chapter stands on its own, so it would be easy to pick up and read from time to time.In any case, as I mentioned the research is impecable and clearly after reading I can say that I understand the common soldier of the CSA.

Like the companion to this book (LIFE OF BILLY YANK) Bell Wiley has done an outstanding job recording the life of the common soldier of the Civil War. And, like BILLY YANK, Wiley was able to interview scores of aging Confederate veterans. With topics ranging from food to even (GASP) SEX, Wiley manages to paint a portrait that few will ever excell. As with BILLY YANK, reenactors will find a wealth of information for their impressions. Wiley does not judge these men by 20th Century values and standards, but lets them speak their own words. The documentation alone is worth browsing!

Bell Wiley was blessed with unusually good eyesight, which he used to read the faded letters written home by thousands of otherwise anonymous Southern foot soldiers and cavalrymen. Keep in mind that after 1862, the C.S.A. had very little good-quality paper or ink. A typical Rebel missive was written with homemade vegetable ink on the margins of a used business letter. It was under these discouraging circumstances that the men who wore the gray told their families, wives, and loves ones of the reality of Civil War (War Between the States) combat. "The Life of Johnny Reb" is drawn from these thousands of letters, as well as contemporary newspaper articles, court-martial records, medical accounts, and regimental histories. Wiley was in all phases of his research a severe realist who was not interested in romanticising his subjects. When he admires the common soldier of the Confederacy, it is admiration that is due on the basis of the facts and nothing but the facts. Wiley, himself a Southerner, uses some of the euphemisms required of writers of his day. Slaves are routinely called "servants", for example, and if one of his men writes a few lines of obscene poetry, Wiley will sometimes refuse to quote them in print. Many of us believe that the C.S.A. was not a worthy cause for which to fight. All the more honor, then, to those common soldiers of the Confederacy who fought, bled, and died for it in increasing awareness of the fact that they were likely to lose. Whatever the ultimate justice of their cause, they did their best.

Bell I. Wiley grew up in Tennessee surrounded by veterans of the Confederate Army. Around the front porch he learned the history of the Civil War from the men who had fought it. After acquiring a Ph.D. at Yale, Wiley taught at Ole Miss where as he later told a class of Civil War students at Emory, "the only person I knew who was writing books was Bill Faulkner." Nonetheless Wiley undertook to write about the Civil War from the perspective of its true heroes, the common soldiers who endured the mud, marches, food, diseases, enemy, and officers.Drawn from the letters and diaries of ordinary soldiers Wiley created an enduring work. Unlike most of the Civil War histories of its time, The Life of Johnny Reb refused to focus on the generals, or the battles, or the politicians or even the causes of the Civil War. Rather, Wiley depicted the rock-hard life of lonely men. These farmers, masons and blacksmiths in gray were sometimes hungry, often cold, and always dusty. Capable of fiercely engaging in the most horrific fighting the world had ever seen, they remained loyal and devoted fathers, husbands and sons. For these men, this war was not about slavery for few of them were slave owners. Rather the war was about home and family and the land that their family plowed. Can there be a scene more melancholy than that of Union and Confederate troops huddled around the night fires and singing songs and hymns out across battle lines to each other even as they prepared themselves and their weapons for the morrow and its carnage? While Civil War era soldiers were not always the best spellers or grammarians, they had no trouble depicting army life to those they left behind with candor, understatement, humor and occasional exasperation.Bell Wiley rightfully deserves his place among the great historians of the Civil War. This, truly, is a book for the ages.