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Modern War Studies
Hard Marching Every Day: The Civil War Letters of Private Wilbur Fisk, 1861-1865
As a war correspondent, Wilbur Fisk was an amateur, yet his letters to the Montpelier Green Mountain Freeman comprise one of the finest collections of Civil War letters in existence. "Literary gems," historian Herman Hattaway calls them. "It would be believable that some expert novelist had created them."
But Fisk was no novelist. He was a rural school teacher from Vermont, primarily self-educated, who enlisted in the Union Army simply because he believed he would regret it later if he didn't.
Unlike professional war correspondents, Private Fisk had no access to rank or headquarters. Instead, he wrote of life as a private—as one of the foot soldiers who slept in the mud and obeyed orders no matter how incomprehensible. "As for the plans our superiors are laying out for us to execute," he wrote, "we know as little as a horse knows of his driver."
Between December 11, 1861 and July 26, 1865, Fisk wrote nearly 100 letters from the battlefield to the Green Mountain Freeman, all of them signed "Anti-Rebel." At the beginning of the war he was exuberant and eager for contact with the enemy. In his first letter he boasted, "This regiment would relish a fight now extremely well."
Two years later, after the battle of Gettysburg, Fisk was disillusioned and war weary. "The rebel dead and ours lay thickly together, their thirst for blood forever quenched. Their bodies were swollen, black, and hideously unnatural. Their eyes glared from their sockets, their tongues protruded from their mouths, and in almost every case, clots of blood and mangled flesh showed how they had died, and rendered a sight ghastly beyond description. I thought I had become hardened to almost anything, but I cannot say I ever wish to see another sight like that I saw on the battlefield of Gettysburg."
Fisk wrote as eloquently on the moral and political issues behind the war as he did on the everyday hardships of life in the Army of the Potomac. He saw the war as a question of right and wrong—of freedom against slavery and democracy against aristocracy—and he continued to believe that the war had to be fought, even after he was well acquainted with its horror and pointlessness. "When they have done their killing, there remains the question to be settled the same as before. They might as well have settled it before the shooting as afterwards."
In this volume editors Ruth and Emil Rosenblatt have included all of Fisk's existing letters to the Freeman, along with three speeches from the 1890s in which Fisk looks back on his wartime experiences from the vantage point of an older man.
But Fisk was no novelist. He was a rural school teacher from Vermont, primarily self-educated, who enlisted in the Union Army simply because he believed he would regret it later if he didn't.
Unlike professional war correspondents, Private Fisk had no access to rank or headquarters. Instead, he wrote of life as a private—as one of the foot soldiers who slept in the mud and obeyed orders no matter how incomprehensible. "As for the plans our superiors are laying out for us to execute," he wrote, "we know as little as a horse knows of his driver."
Between December 11, 1861 and July 26, 1865, Fisk wrote nearly 100 letters from the battlefield to the Green Mountain Freeman, all of them signed "Anti-Rebel." At the beginning of the war he was exuberant and eager for contact with the enemy. In his first letter he boasted, "This regiment would relish a fight now extremely well."
Two years later, after the battle of Gettysburg, Fisk was disillusioned and war weary. "The rebel dead and ours lay thickly together, their thirst for blood forever quenched. Their bodies were swollen, black, and hideously unnatural. Their eyes glared from their sockets, their tongues protruded from their mouths, and in almost every case, clots of blood and mangled flesh showed how they had died, and rendered a sight ghastly beyond description. I thought I had become hardened to almost anything, but I cannot say I ever wish to see another sight like that I saw on the battlefield of Gettysburg."
Fisk wrote as eloquently on the moral and political issues behind the war as he did on the everyday hardships of life in the Army of the Potomac. He saw the war as a question of right and wrong—of freedom against slavery and democracy against aristocracy—and he continued to believe that the war had to be fought, even after he was well acquainted with its horror and pointlessness. "When they have done their killing, there remains the question to be settled the same as before. They might as well have settled it before the shooting as afterwards."
In this volume editors Ruth and Emil Rosenblatt have included all of Fisk's existing letters to the Freeman, along with three speeches from the 1890s in which Fisk looks back on his wartime experiences from the vantage point of an older man.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 19, 2009
Well written letters sent to a Vermont paper about the common soldier. Even better there is a Minnesota connection. The gentlemen ends up moving from Vermont to a life in lovely Minnesota later in life and is buried here. Good sections on a convalescent hospital and hospital guarding...oh the poor 6th Corps
January 7, 2014
The author of this book wrote this set of letters for publication in a northern newspaper. The letters are more public than a lot of letter collections and is pretty much reporting from camp on the march and on the line of battle. I've wanted to read it for years and now I'm glad I did.
January 22, 2022
This was another interesting books about the Civil War. It is quite unique in that the letters are being written to a newspaper editor as apposed to the typical family or loved ones.
It is a reminder of how much we look at our nation as a whole these days compared to how much they were seen as States within a Nation at the time. As with many letters, the toughest and best fighters are the ones from their own state, in this gentleman's case, Vermonters are the best and toughest there are. Much of the letters are about the lesser thought about boredom of soldiers life as the time between battles is often vast. More often or not they were picketing, or sitting around camp building up their amenities before being shipped to the next location.
Interestingly Private Fisk spent very few time on the front line and was often stationed in Guard duties at varying locations, which leads to an even duller experience of the war. Private Fisk was also a staunch abolitionist, which is not something I have read much about in many of the letters and journals and seems much rarer to read. He certainly saw the fact that slavery had propped up the South financially allowing for them the option to break from the union and respected Lincolns decision to free the slaves in order to quell such ordeals from happening again. He was certainly not about equality, but far fewer would have been in that time Union or otherwise.
Its certainly a unique read due to the audience it was written for and for that reason its worth reading for a different pace from your typical Journals & Letters from the Civil War.
It is a reminder of how much we look at our nation as a whole these days compared to how much they were seen as States within a Nation at the time. As with many letters, the toughest and best fighters are the ones from their own state, in this gentleman's case, Vermonters are the best and toughest there are. Much of the letters are about the lesser thought about boredom of soldiers life as the time between battles is often vast. More often or not they were picketing, or sitting around camp building up their amenities before being shipped to the next location.
Interestingly Private Fisk spent very few time on the front line and was often stationed in Guard duties at varying locations, which leads to an even duller experience of the war. Private Fisk was also a staunch abolitionist, which is not something I have read much about in many of the letters and journals and seems much rarer to read. He certainly saw the fact that slavery had propped up the South financially allowing for them the option to break from the union and respected Lincolns decision to free the slaves in order to quell such ordeals from happening again. He was certainly not about equality, but far fewer would have been in that time Union or otherwise.
Its certainly a unique read due to the audience it was written for and for that reason its worth reading for a different pace from your typical Journals & Letters from the Civil War.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews