The Hogs of Cold Harbor: The Civil War Saga of Private Johnny Hess, CSA

by Richard Lee Fulgham

"This book is a discovery. It gave me so close a sense of what it was like to be a Confederate soldier in the Civil War that I began to think of my own army experience. Old fears old excitements, even memories of my old equipment, and with it all, vivid as the sound of gunfire, came the smell of battle in the air of the book. I loved reading The Hogs of Cold Harbor. I was in the Civil War on the Southern side. That is no small education for a Northerner like me."

-Norman Mailer

The wild hogs of Virginia are vicious. They attack, kill and devour. They show no mercy and eat their victims alive. The wild hogs are smart. They strategize with their enemies. They are worthy adversaries. But the wild hogs have honor. They will not hurt or destroy their own.

In the minds of some, this last, simple fact raises the wild hogs of Virginia to an ethical level far above that of Man. A hog will not kill its own. But Man will and has.

The Civil War brought man against man, family against family, and brother against brother. Some fought for their God, others for freedom and liberty, still others to protect their homes and loved ones. Young men fought for the pride of their land and country and heritage.

But in the battlefields, looking upon the mountains of dead and wounded, seeing the enemy’s face and recognizing it as your own, a man begins to question the true meaning of honor. As the wild pigs feast upon the slaughtered masses of men, yet show compassion and solitude with their own kind, field soldiers may begin to look deep into their souls at their own morality and purpose.

John Henry Hess joined the confederate army with his heart filled with pride. He would fight for his country, for his wife and unborn child, and for the right of the Lord to rule over His great land. There was not a Rebel more proud than Johnny Hess was.

But in those dark fields, young Johnny Hess came to realize that there were stunning similarities between Man and Animal. The body of a man, blown apart by gunfire, is almost identical to that of a hog. There was little difference between the yearly slaughter of the farm hogs and the slaughter of men on the battlefield. Except that a hog would not kill its own, as he had done.

The Hogs of Cold Harbor implores readers to question our history as well as themselves. Author and historian Richard Lee Fulgham, M.A. crafted this haunting tale of the good and evil that dwells within us all based on the diaries of Southwest Virginian John Henry Hess, Pvt., CSA (Company G, 29th Virginia Infantry Regiment, Pickett’s Division, Longstreet’s Corps, 1862-1864). Is Man truly no better than the animals he commands and destroys? The Hogs of Cold Harbor is a powerful, haunting story in which Richard Lee Fulgham delves deep into the timeless questions of our existence. Are we Man? Are we Animal? And what is the difference?

Genres: Civil War

341 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

b. Germany
Raised: GA
Current Home: Bel Air, MD

Retired newspaper writer for "The Lebanon News, Inc.", SW Virginia; also wrote for "The Columbus Times, Inc", Columbus, GA.; and the
"Ledger/Enquirer, Inc.", Columbus, GA.

Journalism Awards:
VSCB 2000 "Hall of Fame" for Educational Writing;
VIRGINIA PRESS AWARD, 1993;
VIRGINIA PRESS AWARD, 1995;
Ninth District Soil % Water
Conservation Corps: Brass Plaque
for environmental writing;
RCEC: Brass Plaque for environmental
writing.
"Real" Books:
"Appalachian Genesis: The Clinch River Valley from Prehistoric Times to the End of the Frontier Era", history, (TN: Overmountain, 2001).

"The Hogs of Cold Harbor: The Civil War Saga of John Henry Hess, Pvt., Co. G, 29th VA Infantry, Pickett's Division, Longstreet's Corps", (Pittsburgh: Whitmore, 2005".

Magazine publication: Sports Afield, Norman Mailer Review, Defenders of Wildlife, Fate, Writers Digest, Reincarnation Digest, Maryland Conservationist, Virginia Sheriff, Georgia Teacher, Annapolis, Spectrum, Ledger/Enquirer's SUNDAY Magazine.

Reviews

[George R. Wentz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an exceptional work of emotional catharsis.

Without a doubt, the Civil War has come to represent a deeply divisive aspect in American historical thinking, assuming collective proportions and seemingly symbolizing some sort of moral or ethical bifurcation in the national psyche. Over 600,000 American men died during the Civil War, a quarter of all white Southern men of military age had been killed or maimed and - in the pitiless words of the economist - "the state of Mississippi had to spend twenty per cent of its revenue on the purchase of artificial limbs for Confederate veterans."

Richard, in his transcription of a Confederate private`s war diary, advances with a bucolic attention to detail and a spirit of pastoral scholarship rare in a writer of history. The Hogs of Cold Harbor is a model of exploratory and meticulous investigative procedure. It is vibrant with detail - be it domestic, culinary, sartorial, anatomical, agricultural, botanical, carnal or otherwise. The amount of minutiae, particulars, specifics and 'trivia' derived from the conventions of the age, is extraordinary and sometimes totally hilarious. And it all seems to spring naturally from the narrative rather than consisting of contrived or superimposed impedimenta. Indeed, his contemporary account of Russell County`s Hog Killing Day adds a great deal of indigenous, local information to what may have seemed an elapsed folkloristic tradition, even if it is presented in his unrelenting, sometimes stomach-churning vivisection.

There is absolutely no attempt to sanitize indigenous tradition in order to make it more palatable to twenty-first-century sensibilities, and I defy anyone to experience Richard's indefatigable capacity for painstaking adherence to intense and sometimes gruesome detail without feeling queasy. Nor does he shy away from the South's political blindness about the Federal Union or its own unthinking endorsement of the sanguine nonsense of ultimate military victory. The reality of it was, in fact, that the Confederacy had only two million men of military age against the North's seven million, and that is not taking into account the hundreds of thousands of Negroes in the North who might well be allowed to serve. The other advantage the North possessed was the extent of its industrial capacity. Private Johnny Hess makes no attempt to hide his distaste for the disingenuous "holier-than-thou" Unionists, or deprive his age of the testimony he gives of the "Godless Yankees".

It is acceptable, no doubt, to disagree with the Private, though I fully endorse the gist of Richard's Fulgham's own reservation about the North's excessive self-righteousness. Nor does he allow individual sentiments to obscure historical facts, but simply to illustrate the narrative. The South's uncomfortable legacy is a part of the general malaise of America`s past, as were government policies against the Native Americans, who were placed on reservations and taught white ways, or the enduring extremes of racial segregation and subsequent international "imperialisation" of the Globe. Nevertheless, this long, bloody and intimately narrated chronicle does what one expects history to accomplish: tell a tale of long ago that throws a prickly and uncomfortable light on an immutable truism of history: That the struggle to survive creates monsters!

Frankly, if the educational authorities ever considered a cure for the fallacy that being Southern means being reactionary they could do a lot worse than go for the honest approach and make this book recommended reading in all American schools.

Richard Fulgham's homage to the hogs, however, comes in other ways: "The hogs were smart in an all-too-human way..." And there, in an unholy juxtaposition, lies the author's central challenge: how to convey the inherent swinishness of man? His solution, indeed, is imaginative and ingenious, even if it is exceedingly predatory. But then again, it is incontrovertibly inherent in the nature of the beast - indeed reverting to it. Man-eats-Hog! Hog-eats-Man! It sounds improbable but, trust me, it works. The overlapping destiny of these hordes of swine and men scavenging for victuals on battlefields inundated by the tidal wave of death, are eerily recorded. Given the entirely unreasonable circumstances, "Human warfare was just God's way of slopping the hogs."

Private John Henry Hess epitomizes America's bucolic youth, emphasizing rugged patriotism and pioneering self-reliance. Richard's touching vignettes about Johnny Hess' life with his young daughter and her blemished but loving mother suggests the unexplored tenderness of someone who can rewardingly illuminate the beauty of the human face with a redeeming love for its imperfections. The book might have profited had he kept some of its bathos off its pages but, on a much more elevated scale, there are moments of penetrating poetry. The liberating fluidity of the transformation of a "hand-sized, blood-red stain covering the left side of her face" into "a beauty made that much more awesome because it was so terribly flawed," leaves one with the certainty that the author's second vocation may well lie in writing about the more redemptive qualities of the human beast.

But this cathartic, educational and scrupulously researched "nonfiction novel" is, nevertheless, the result.

[Susan Stans · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have given "The Hogs of Cold Harbor" a much higher rating had the book been edited better. I am confused about what was actually in Johnny Hess's Journal and what was filled in by the author (?) or Johnny himself. For instance Johnny's
Description of seeing the hogs and his trial in Powhite's Lake are suspenseful and visually alive with the horror of war but the actual diary is much less descriptive. Has author Fulgram turned the account into fiction. If he is going to do that he could have at least described what parts are made up. It does add depth to the main character. I would like an introduction regarding his creation of the story and liberties he took. The actual diary transcription is lacking much deep reflection described by Johnny.

[George W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

First thing, the Author should fire the proof reader and editor. Other than that the book is a wonderful read, despite the graphic brutality of the Civil War. The Author writes a book about war, that at the same time is an anti-war book. From a purely philosophical perspective, it asks many questions that people have pondered during times of war. Whose side is God on? Does the honorable side win? What is honor? Does anyone other than Satan win in wars? Meticulously researched, the battle dates, and soldiers and officers involved are accurate.
John Henry Hess, enlists in the CSA, as a naive young man, caught up in Patriotic fervor with his life long friends. Like many young enlisted, he believes his cause is righteous, he’s fighting for home, country, honor. There is no doubt God is on the CSA side in his mind.
This book and its author shook the Civil War buffs up on both sides of the conflict. The book is written based on Johnny Hess’ actual daily diary book. It is a work of historical fiction.
If I had to guess, I’d say the author is an atheist or agnostic. Having enlisted in the Navy during the VIETNAM WAR, at the age of 17, I can relate to the mind games the realities of war play on your head, and conscience.
In the end young John and his two best friends, endure countless hardships, cruel superior offices, love, loss, and fight not only the Union soldiers, but keeping a grip on their own sanity.
This book won’t be for everyone. There is some sexual content, and language, drunkenness, to be expected in a book about war. Others may find it harsh on the leadership of the North or the South at times. It is taken from a common soldiers perspective, and his views change as time and the horrors of war affect him.
The book is dark, no question about that. Could have been written by Poe, or more perhaps Ambrose Bierce.
I enjoyed the book, and was compelled to keep reading it, and at the same time glad to finish it. I don’t believe I would reread it. But, I’m glad I read it.
The book doesn’t have a lot of reviews.