The American Civil War was the bloodiest time in American history. It's the period that truly established the U.S. as a nation rather than a mere union of independant nation-like states. It's also a time that saw the rise of the first inter-racial civil rights movements in Abolotionism and The Underground Railroad.
The Civil War is the stage upon which Scarecrow's story is set. It's a time when cousins fought and killed cousins just because of loyalties to the homestate. A war such as the Civil War is easy to look at as black and white, the North fighting to abolish slavery and the South fighting to uphold slavery. But the story and people's motivations are infinitely more complex, as is almost invariably the case when delving into history below the intro level. Men on both sides were fighting for their home culture, for their own versions of freedom. Drafts were not necessary, when your state went to war you enlisted as a matter of duty to stand with your neighbors and face down agression. Desertion was one of the worst crimes a soldier could commit, the punishment for which ranged from the branding of a letter "D" on the deserter to hanging by the neck until dead.
The Hanging of a Deserter
Scarecrow is also told from the Southern side, from the perspective of a Confederate soldier, during a battle placed somewhere in the South not far from the Mason Dixon line. Inspiration is drawn from several battles, most notably the Battle of Antietam at Antietam Creek, Maryland, and the Battle of Chattanooga in Tennessee. The reason we did not focus on a specific battle is that Jack's story is a metaphorical journey rather than a litteral retelling. His story, and the emotions he experiences, might belong to any soldier on any side on any battle in history or in present day.
THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM
In the opening year of the conflict, Abraham Lincoln held that the war was being fought not in order to abolish slavery, but to hold the Union together. Haunted by an extremely low approval rating, Lincoln did not believe that emancipating the slaves of the southern states was a position with enough support in the North. Furthermore, the Union Army was not doing well in the war.
In late 1862, Lincoln decided that the abolition of slavery had become a necessary inevitability and moral imperative. However, he needed a Union win on the battlefield to boost support for such a measure.
On September 17, 1862, the Confederate and Union armies met in battle at Antietam Creek in Maryland. It is the bloodiest single day in American history with 23,000 casualties. There was not a clear victor on the field, but General Lee’s Southern Army was halted and turned back, changing the momentum of the war and giving President Lincoln the impetus he required to successfully issue the Emancipation Proclamation, lending to the outcome of the war real moral stakes. |
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Slaves bury the Confederate dead after
the Battle of Antietam. |
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The battle of Antietam is also known for its fighting in the cornfields:
“At an early hour of the morning of the 17th September the
different regiments were set in motion… On emerging from the
woods, the columns of the three advance regiments were deployed,
and immediately opened upon the enemy, who were in strong force
in a corn-field about 250 yards from our front.”
- Col. Joseph F. Knipe, Report on The Battle of Antietam |
Dead soldiers next to the Cornfield in Antietam |
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THE BATTLE CHATTANOOGA
This battle, which also consisted of the Battle of Lookout Mountain and the Battle of Missionary Ridge relates to Scarecrow because the troops had to deal with quite a bit of fog during this campaign. In fact, the morning fog that rolled down Lookout Mountain and covered the troops in the valley below during that skirmish caused much romanticizing and was the source of that battle's nickname, "Battle Above the Clouds."
While researching this Tennessee battle, screenwriter/director Patrick Knipe found a first-hand account that was strikingly descriptive about what it's like to go into battle, and it seemed very relevent to Jack Wren's story:
And there…right there in those cold, muddy trenches, officers and men together, we huddled for forty-eight wretched, anxious, interminable hours…No conceivable suspense surpasses that of lying under arms hour after hour waiting in cold blood to go into action; dreading the battle, yet longing for it to begin in order the sooner to get it over with. I have read, and I have been told, of men who enjoyed battles and who gloried in fighting, and men have told me the same about themselves (when there was no war). Personally, I have never known such a man. With me a battle was what I was there for, and it had to be gone through with. But at the moment of going under fire my heart and lungs and stomach never felt right (though I have been in forty-eight battles and skirmishes), and it is my belief that that is so of every man. Once the battle begins, the hurry and noise, the confusion and excitement, are so tremendous that a man becomes, mentally and physically, abnormal and hence gets through with it. But as for enjoying a battle—don’t believe it.
Morning brought with it a drizzling rain, the coldest, most penetrating that ever I felt; but for us no order to advance, or, indeed, to do anything. Behind us the valley was veiled in mist and rain, and Lookout Mountain was completely blotted out. The rain soon ceased, and the mist lifted from the valley only to make the gray wall between us and the mountain all the more impenetrable. Then, very early in the morning, from out of this mist arose the roar of battle… There under our very noses was being fought a fierce battle that was as invisible to us—save for yellow flashes and red glares in the fog—as though it were being fought in another continent.
Ever the roar grew. Now it came muffled by the fog, a great, dull rumbling that shook the heavy air and rose and ebbed; then suddenly it would swell for an instant, through some displacement of the mist, into the sharp crackle of musketry and the crash of bursting shells—great waves and torrents of sound…
-Michael V. Sheridan, Brigadier General, U.S.A.
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THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
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