Remember the toll of war

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Remember the toll of war				February 12, 2011

In December 1862, poet Walt Whitman traveled to Virginia in search of his brother, who had been wounded in the Battle of Fredericksburg. He found him and spent much of the rest of the war in Washington, where he cared for other wounded soldiers. In 1864, Whitman made yet another battlefield visit, this time to the area around Culpeper.

On one of his trips to Virginia, Whitman came across the grave of an unknown soldier, which occasioned the following poem:

As toilsome I wander'd Virginia's woods,
To the music of rustling leaves kick'd by my feet, (for 'twas
      autumn,)
I mark'd at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier;
Mortally wounded he and buried on the retreat, (easily all
      could I understand,)
The halt of a mid-day hour, when up! no time to lose—yet
      this sign left,
On a tablet scrawl'd and nail'd on the tree by the grave,
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.

Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering,
Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life,
Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt,
      alone, or in the crowded street,
Comes before me the unknown soldier's grave, comes the
      inscription rude in Virginia's woods,
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.

By the time the war was over, the Confederacy had lost 258,000 soldiers either in battle or to disease. Union losses are estimated at over 322,000.

As we embark upon the sesquicentennial remembrance – I hesitate to say celebration – of the Civil War, we would all do well to recall, as did Whitman, that no matter how many seasons go by, or wherever we may be, there remain graves strewn throughout Virginia’s woods, some known, some unknown, that hold loving comrades killed in battles waged for the sake of secession and slavery.

What was in the mind of the friend who, in his haste to retreat, quickly scrawled on a tablet in some unknown woods this remembrance of his comrade we’ll never know. The rather odd combination of “bold” and “cautious” seems, at first glance, contradictory. Yet, there is a balance within those traits that, in the midst of battle, might well be indicative of someone whose boldness is tempered with caution, who thinks before he leaps.

What the writer seems to be most impressed by, however, is something much more personal. He has just lost a “true” friend and a “loving comrade.” That he omits his comrade’s name or the side for which he was fighting perhaps seems rather thoughtless. Yet, in his haste to retreat he tells us everything he feels about a wartime relationship that transcended battlefield exploits. His comrade’s body lies forever in Virginia’s soil. That’s all he, and we, need to know.

Literary history is filled with writers who have described the incredibly destructive nature of war in terms of the almost intolerable grief felt by those who have lost battlefield comrades.

One need only read Homer’s “Iliad,” whose theme deals much more with the Greek hero Achilles and the tremendous loss he feels when Patroclus, his friend and comrade in arms, is killed on the battlefield of Troy than it does with the Trojan War. The gory battle scenes Homer constructs melt away in their senselessness when compared to the grief of one man who loses a friend.

And so, I suspect, was the case with our tablet writer, who may well have asked himself if all the battles fought were worth the loss of that one loving comrade who now lies buried next to a tree bearing a friend’s hastily written inscription.

As we note the passing of 150 years since the Civil War, perhaps that’s the question we should be asking not only about that life-sacrificing conflict, but about all wars. While we may think we are being bold in our rush to conflict, should we not, like our dead warrior, give at least some heed to caution?