Kenneth W. Noe, ed.. A Southern Boy in Blue: The Memoir of Marcus Woodcock, 9th Kentucky Infantry (U.S.A.). Knoxville: University of Press, 1996. xxvi + 348 pp. $32.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-87049-921-0.

Reviewed by Randall C. Jimerson

Published on H-CivWar (September, 1996)

One reason that the Civil War remains fasci‐ fantry (U.S.A.), rising from the rank of private to nating to many Americans is that it presents an al‐ frst lieutenant. most infnite variety of new perspectives on a crit‐ Woodcock's service was confned to the west‐ ical period in the nation's history. No other period ern theater. Two distinctive features set it apart is so richly textured by personal narratives, di‐ from other memoirs: the rare perspective of a aries, letters, and memoirs of ordinary men and southern Unionist from a region other than the women engaged in both extraordinary exploits Appalachians, and its immediacy of tone and per‐ and mundane routines. This memoir of Marcus spective. Written largely during the spring of Woodcock, a native of north-central Tennessee 1865, the memoir at times discusses the war as an who fought for the Union, adds yet another valu‐ ongoing event and comments on Lincoln's assassi‐ able perspective to our understanding of this nation as recent news. This perspective means complex era. that Woodcock's account does not partake of the William Marcus Woodcock was born in 1842 consensus view of the war that developed by the in Macon County, Tennessee, located in the central 1880s, and that it does not sugarcoat the horrors highlands adjacent to the Kentucky border. His fa‐ of battlefeld and hospital or devote excessive at‐ ther was a yeoman farmer and self-educated doc‐ tention to defending or impugning the reputa‐ tor, who "seems to have moved in and out of the tions of military and political leaders. Although slaveholding class" (p. xiv), according to editor many passages are clogged with purple prose and Kenneth W. Noe. The eldest of eleven children, self-conscious literary afectations, the story has Marcus Woodcock was both a Democrat and a the vigor and forthrightness found more often in Unionist, and when Tennessee seceded, he joined wartime letters and diaries than in memoirs. a number of his neighbors in crossing the nearby A Southern Boy in Blue thus presents the best state line to enlist in Kentucky's Home Guards. For of both genres. It has the candor and immediacy three years he served in the 9th Kentucky In‐ of contemporaneous letters and diaries, coupled H-Net Reviews with the sense of perspective and refection federate charge at Stones River is rendered with shown in the best memoirs. Most of Woodcock's dashes for punctuation, as though composed in memoir is based directly on his wartime diaries, the heat of battle. Yet this contrasts with his ac‐ although his commentary and elaboration clearly count of the beginning of that day and his eager‐ extend beyond what the diaries recorded. In Au‐ ness just before hisfrst battle, clearly written gust 1862 he lost his diaries, and the account of with a veteran's hindsight: his early months in service are therefore based "I had never yet realized the horror and entirely on memory. The diference is clear. His bloodshed that are met with in battle--felt not the diary-based accounts are less self-conscious, more usual dreads and eventual suferings that are pe‐ direct, more detailed, and less stilted than the ear‐ culiar to the veteran soldier, for my imagination lier passages. had not pictured the battle with half its horrors-- The benefts of this are seen most clearly in the crash of the skirmishers' musket, or the boom his vivid, detailed, frst-hand account of the confu‐ of the heavy cannon did not cause that feeling of sion and roller-coaster emotions he experienced uneasiness and fear to creep over my limbs as it during the battle of Chickamauga. After a self-con‐ always did in subsequent actions" (p. 121). scious literary efort to recreate his thoughts on Woodcock's memoir, however, is more than a the eve of battle, his lengthy description of the running account of battles and engagements. His contest presents almost a minute-by- minute ac‐ description of joining the Kentucky Home Guards count of a single soldier's perspective on the in September 1861 illustrates the confused and progress of the battle. It is both excellent litera‐ fuid situation that existed in the border states. In ture and superb personal narrative--one of the traveling the few miles from his Tennessee home best frst-hand battle accounts one could fnd. across the state line, he had to avoid Confederate During the second day of fghting, Woodcock ob‐ troops and partisans; yet his father was able to served the desperation of Union soldiers trying to visit him in camp, and he stopped at home before avoid defeat: leaving for the front. Later, when his regiment "Oh the terrible feelings that must have pos‐ reached the Unionist enclaves in eastern Tennes‐ sessed the heart of any witness of this scene-- see in November 1863, Woodcock rejoiced in the there were less than three hundred men, regard‐ hearty welcome he received: lessly throwing themselves into the scale against "To day we began to fnd some of the people thousands of the enemy, who were rendered that were so long the prominent subjects of rebel more furious by their recent success on our front tyranny--loyal East Tennesseans. All along the lines -- every man seemed willing to sacrifce his road they seemed to welcome us as deliverers and life if it would in any way retrieve the fortunes of received us with all possible demonstrations of the day which we now saw was surely lost with‐ joy" (pp. 243-44). out some almost superhuman efort.--I saw tears Woodcock also documents and comments on streaming from many an eye as the poor boys many of the common views and experiences of would cast their eyes to the right, left and rear, Union soldiers: Southern political demagogues; and see unmistakable evidence that the day was camp life and routines; the importance of writing lost" (p. 206). and receiving letters; sickness and disease (Wood‐ Woodcock also ofers a detailed depiction of cock missed Shiloh because of an almost fatal at‐ the battle of Stones River (Murfreesboro) and an tack of measles); execution of a deserter; pillaging excellent account of the storming of Missionary of Rebel property; emancipation and the use of Ridge. His seemingly breathless account of a Con‐ black soldiers; and the 1864 election.

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One of the most signifcant and interesting as‐ the untenability of my position" (p. 273) and tore pects of his memoir is its depiction of his chang‐ up his address. After this complete change in his ing views on slavery, blacks, and national politics. principles, he cast his ballot for Lincoln. It is the unprovoked attack on a black man by his Marcus Woodcock was wounded in May 1864 fellow soldiers that prompts Woodcock to recon‐ at Pickett's Mill, during Sherman's Atlanta cam‐ sider some of his racial prejudices. "Many a time paign. His memoir ends abruptly on June 4 with has my blood fairly boiled with rage when I have an account of his trip home to recover from his seen some of these poor fellow[s], whose only wounds. The remainder of his military service is fault is a black skin, and the fact that they have al‐ described in a brief epilogue, written by the edi‐ ways been slaves, stunned by a stone thrown by tor. No clear explanation is given for the narrative some specimen of the noble and magnanimous break, although Woodcock himself clearly did not Anglo Saxon race" (p. 147). intend this to be the end of his memoir, for it has Although his family had from time to time no fnal summation or conclusion. It ends, uncere‐ owned one or more slaves, Woodcock strongly de‐ moniously, with a comment about maggots under nounced slaveowners. In February, 1863, he the blankets of the railway car in which he trav‐ wrote: eled home from the front, with no indication that "Yes, they are waging a most terrible and this was the end of his war service. bloody war which is costing our country the lives Woodcock returned to his regiment near At‐ of thousands of patriots and millions of treasure lanta in July 1864. When his three-year enlistment that they may enslave an unfortunate race which expired in 1864, Marcus Woodcock decided not to is decreed by heaven shall be free. But we will re-enlist. He was mustered out on December 15, come victorious out of this struggle, and if our 1864, and arrived at his home on Christmas Day. country's history is stained with the black spot of In March 1865 he won election to the Tennessee one civil war, it will be the brighter by the re‐ House of Representatives. The former southern moval of the blacker one of slavery" (p. 149). Democrat had become a Radical Republican who Despite growing sympathy for blacks and ha‐ supported "Parson" William G. Brownlow, the tred of slavery, Woodcock opposed the initial new governor of Tennessee. Soon after arriving in plans to recruit black soldiers for the Union. How‐ Nashville, Woodcock began transcribing his di‐ ever, he reports this as an opposition that he no aries, expanding the account into a full wartime longer maintains: "I had not yet got rid of all the memoir. Although most of the memoir was com‐ prejudices to the negro race that had been in‐ pleted in early 1865, there is evidence that por‐ stilled into my mind as a consequence of living in tions were written later that year. a Southern State, and therefore I was violently op‐ Woodcock dabbled in politics for several posed to having any negro troops in our Army" years, but his varied career involved work for a (p. 147). Unfortunately, he does not provide any Nashville newspaper, for several hardware frms, explanation of when or why his views changed on as U.S. Collector of Internal Revenue, and as an this issue. iron and steel industry executive. He also became During the 1864 election campaign, Wood‐ increasingly involved in religious work, and he cock initially supported Gen. George McClellan. served for many years as treasurer of the Tennes‐ He spent considerable time studying the issues see Baptist Convention and of the Baptist State and writing an address on behalf of McClellan. Mission Board. He married Ellen Waters in 1868, However, after trying to fnd objections to re- and they had eight children. Woodcock died in electing President Lincoln, Woodcock fnally "saw February 1914 at the age of seventy-two.

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Kenneth W. Noe has edited Marcus Wood‐ and opinions of an intelligent and articulate cock's memoir with proper attention to accuracy young man forced to choose between loyalty to and with a due concern for letting Woodcock tell his state and neighbors or to his country. It marks his own story. For the sake of readability, Noe has a valuable addition to our Civil War literature. divided the work into eleven chapters. His brief introductions to each chapter provide useful con‐ text for Woodcock's account and link his personal perspective to the broader sweep of military and political events. The chapter introductions and other editorial notes are based on solid research in both secondary and primary sources. They are informative--particularly for readers who are un‐ familiar with the campaigns and battles Wood‐ cock describes--without being obtrusive. Noe has taken to heart Gary W. Gallagher's valuable admonition "not to impose the type of pedantic scholarly apparatus that sometimes overpowers" such works (p. xxvi). His notes iden‐ tify people, places, and events mentioned in Woodcock's narrative. Noe also identifes a few points at which Woodcock presented difering ac‐ counts of the same event in his memoir and in a later reminiscence, written in 1911. As with any account based on memory or on a limited knowl‐ edge of overall military strategy or tactics, Wood‐ cock makes a number of errors in recounting events, and Noe uses notes efectively to correct his mistakes. On at least one occasion, however, Noe only partially explains a reference made by Woodcock. In a note describing the Fort Pillow massacre, which Woodcock mentions, Noe dis‐ cusses Union charges that Nathan Bedford For‐ rest's troops "shot, burned, and even buried alive Federal prisoners" (p. 330); but he does not state that these atrocities were committed against black troops. It is a signifcant omission, even though Woodcock himself does not link the massacre to racial motivations. A Southern Boy in Blue should take its place as yet another fascinating personal narrative of the Civil War. As the account of a southern Union‐ ist from north-central Tennessee, it provides an instructive look into the experiences, thoughts,

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Citation: Randall C. Jimerson. Review of Noe, Kenneth W., ed. A Southern Boy in Blue: The Memoir of Marcus Woodcock, 9th Kentucky Infantry (U.S.A.). H-CivWar, H-Net Reviews. September, 1996.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=606

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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