Rebel Private Front and Rear is a line soldier's account of the
Civil War without heroics. Private Fletcher tells how at Gettysburg
he was overcome by a "bad case of cowardly horror" when an order
came on the third day to get ready to charge. "I tried to force
manhood to the front, but fright would drive it back with a
shudder," he confessed. The attack of jitters lasted about fifteen
minutes, and then he fell asleep while awaiting the order to
advance. But Fletcher could be brave to a fault. He was restless
and venturesome and during the lulls between fighting would
sometimes ask for permission to go on dangerous scouts into enemy
territory. Once, just before Fredericksburg, he slipped out to a
haystack in the no-man's-land near the Rappahannock so that he
could watch the Yankees build a bridge. And in his last fight at
Bentonville he risked his life on a rash and futile impulse to
capture a whole squad of Federals. At Second Manassas, Fletcher was
struck by a bullet that grazed his bowels and lodged in his hip.
His detailed description of his subsequent sensations and
experiences is one of the most interesting portions of his
narrative. He begged the surgeons to operate, but when they started
cutting he howled so profanely that they threatened to abandon him.
His reply was: "It don't hurt as badly when I am cursing." Wounded
again at Chickamauga, Fletcher was incapacitated for further
infantry service and was transferred to Company E, Eighth Texas
Cavalry, and served with Terry's Rangers until the end of the war.
In north Georgia he participated in a number of thrilling
skirmishes with mounted forces of Sherman's command, and in one of
these encounters he lost his horse. A short time later, in a daring
effort to capture a mount from the Yankees, he was taken prisoner.
The story of the forming and execution of his plan to escape by
jumping from a moving boxcar is full of suspense and excitement.
Rebel Private also reveals Fletcher as something of a philosopher.
The narrative is sprinkled with dissertations on unexpected
subjects, such as God, justice, and war. He reflects on the
rightness and the necessity of "foraging," in home as well as enemy
territory, but he tells with evident relish how he and his "pard"
of the occasion "pressed" whiskey, honey, and chickens. Fletcher
set down his experiences some forty years after the close of the
Civil War. His story is told with the artlessness of the natural
raconteur. Though the style is unpolished, the memoir makes lively
reading because of the author's eye for detail, his straightforward
language, and his sense of humor. One of the most frequently cited
narratives written by soldiers of Lee's army, it derives its value
as a historical source mainly from Fletcher's honesty, his close
observations, the richness and variety of his experiences, and the
sharpness of his memory.
General
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