A letter and a journal entry...

This is the result of an english task for school, but I figured since it is creative writing I'd see what some people here think. The main thing I'm hoping for is someone that is familiar with the events of the American Civil War, since that is the setting of these writings. Enjoy.

Personal Communication Task

The following are the writings of a Union soldier and general in the American Civil War, on the eve of an attack by Confederate forces.

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General’s Logue

22nd of July, 1865.

We are camped near the border of North Carolina, in a valley about 10 miles from the victorious battlegrounds we have recently departed. We are surrounded by hills on the east and west, and I dare not take the road that leads back north, least of all to discourage the men by showing that we are retreating. They deserve peace of mind from a General that remains unflinching so near Confederate borders. I must admit, the growing quiet is unnerving, but this lack of activity can only mean that the Confederates have left the area entirely. There are reports of a mass of Southern forces gathering for an attack, but my gut tells me that we shall face very little resistance from here on in. After all, my gut has proved trustworthy thus far.

The men are restless, but they have no reason to be. I have told them time after time that the Confederate curs are retreating back toward Georgia, but they will not listen. Have they no faith in their General? Their country? It pains me to think that there are some that do not share my patriotism, but I do not feel any disappointment in them. Rather, I feel sorry for them. A man without devotion to his country must lead a hollow existence. What kind of years can be spent without something bigger than themselves to devote their lives to? I don’t think I could live that way, and I struggle to see how others can.

Yesterday I caught one soldier saying to another that he ‘wants to go home and be done with the war.’ Naturally, I brought him to my tent to instill the beliefs that my country gave to me into him. It took three hours, but I managed to get him to say, and believe, that if the United States of America wants him to die so she can live, he would happily face the end. That boy will thank me when he becomes an officer himself one day.

I am sure that the day of total victory draws near. When we crush those Confederate sons of whores with the mighty sword of justice that no enemy can defy when it swings at their throats, giving them exactly what they deserve. That day will be the happiest day of my life, happier than even my wedding day. I hope Margaret is well, but I have more important things on my mind as the days go by. I will return home to her when the clarion call of triumph rings throughout the country, but until then the only one I love is my country and the liberties that she allows me.

The sun has gone down, and my candle burns low, so I must finish here. Let this day be recorded as the day that I, General Harold Walton, state that we are now in the closing days of the war, and that the Confederacy will soon be defeated wholly and without hesitation. Our nation, under God, will prevail time and time again, and these are the days where our men will live, and die, as heroes, for the ages to remember in silent admiration.

-General Harold Walton

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Dear Helena,

They’re coming for us in the morning. I might not live past midday tomorrow, so if this letter is to be my last words to you, I’ll always be with you in these words; never forget that.

I’ve been thinking about what to write for hours now, but it all comes down to one simple thought: I love you. That night we met was such a night that I thought only existed in poetry and the hearts of hopeless romantics, like myself. I was out in the meadow to gaze at the stars, out of boredom or wonder, I never was sure. The darkened pasture was immersed in moonlight, causing it to drown delicately in shades of melancholy green and grey. Nothing existed that was not of the arrogant heavens above me, or the indifferent hell of grass below me. Laying in that field, feeling, more than ever, the need for something more in my life, I saw you through the darkness. It was like they were finally sending angels to atheists. Suddenly the stars were mundane as specks of yellow dust on a black sheet, and everything else around me was blurred out of recognition by this lost woman, just visiting from the next town. I told you I’d help you back to the village, as long as you showed me the route you’d taken here from heaven. You smiled and said, “Believe what you will, sir, but I can assure you that angels would not walk barefoot through dewy grass. My feet are ever-so freezing.”

I took you to my home and kept you warm all night. You kept me warm for all those years after that. Warmth doesn’t exist here without you, even in the sweltering July daylight.

General Walton is an idiot. It’s because of him that I, like so many other men here, will never see their homes and loved ones again. Why I’ll never see you again. It’s not because he is cruel and refuses to show mercy to his men, it really is because he is an idiot. He’s convinced that the men from the South are retreating, despite numerous reports from men that have seen massing hosts of Confederate men, that they are indeed advancing. They will be here in the morning. They will come thundering down the side of the valley like a martial avalanche, while the other men and I watch in quiet desperation, knowing that this is the end. And all because of a thickheaded General whose brain won’t function properly because of that tourniquet of stars and stripes that has cut off the circulation to his head. He is not fit to look after himself, let alone an army.

The Union is going to win this war, I know it, but is that all I’m to die for? Patriotism and a sense of survival do not co-exist, and I want to survive tomorrow more than I want to throttle General Walton. I want to see you again, but my country won’t let me. They said this was for freedom, for peace, for the good of the nation, and they were right. We need these things to live, but they are not the things we live for! We live for happiness, for love, for lives of simplicity and pleasure in our own ways. Yesterday Dunbar, the soldier I share a tent with, told me that if the United States of America wants him to die so she can live, he would happily face the end. I thought to myself, “then what difference is there between the Union and the enemy, if they both want us to die?”

I hope this reaches you; otherwise you’ll never know that my last thoughts, and every thought between now and when they get me, is of you. While I’ve been writing this I have finally been able to put my head to rest, long before they do my body. But not the rest that lives on the mysterious paths from holes in the ground to castles in the sky, no. My head now rests with the resolution that I’m coming home. I’ll walk out of here with my head high, not escaping, but leaving to attend to more important duties. My wife needs me alive, and that is much more of a priority to me than a country that wants me dead. I may have to make the journey home on foot, so the messenger will reach you long before I do, but I am coming home. The Art of War teaches not to stand in the way of desperate forces on a journey home, and I am that desperate force. I’ll bring down the enemy by myself, in the name of the salvation that I believe in. Not America, but my wife, my love, Helena.

Yours sincerely,

John Howe,

A desperate soldier on the way home.