(March 28, 2018) A Civil War novel that gives readers sympathy for the followers of William Quantrill is surprising enough, but the language and mannerisms captured by Daniel Woodrell in his Woe to Live On add new magic to his tale of Missouri Bushwhackers. As a bonus, director Ang Lee faithfully brings the story to the screen in his 1999 movie, Ride With the Devil.
The protagonist is a teenaged German immigrant named Jake Roedel who sides with the Missouri Rebels because his best childhood friend was the son of a plantation owner. As the war progresses his new best friend becomes Daniel Holt, a slave. Like Roedel, Holt joined his white childhood friend to be with the Bushwhackers.
The antagonist is another Rebel named Pit Mackeson who distrusts Roedel because most German immigrants sided with the Union.
* * *
Jake Roedel explains to Holt why the Rebels fight: [The Yankee] is the cut of man who if you say the sun is high, he will say, no, you are low. That is nothing in itself to war over. But then he will say, I believe my way, my life, and person have more loft to them than yours do, so be like me. . .The Rebel is not the man you want to say that to. He don’t care for it. . . The Rebel will fight you if you try to force him to your way. And it don’t matter too much what your way is, neither.”
“Is that good?” asked Holt
“Holt, to me it is the best that can be said of any man—he had his convictions and he backed them up.
(As the conversation continues Holt explains he does not know his precise age.)
“Holt, we are the perfect age for not cottoning to being invaded and shoved around.”
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Early in the story Jake writes: “Pit Mackeson glared at me wrinkle-nosed as if I were something hogs had vomited.”
Later he describes meeting a former Rebel named Clark who tired to escape the war by getting a minor wound. At the Battle of Wilson’s Creek he put the toes of one leg in front of a rolling enemy cannon ball and lost his whole leg to become a cripple. Jake met him later and described their departure: “I stared down [from my horse] at Clark, a cripple by bad choice and felt certain he would not last long, as death offers so many opportunities to nitwits.”
After a blow to the forehead leaves Jake with blood-filed blister: “The blood blister on my brow throbbed and throbbed as if it might crack open to reveal a condor.”
Reacting to a thunderstorm: “The universe sometimes makes war seem a mere chigger in comparison, but that is no way soothing to the one who has the itch.”
Commenting upon a dour woman: “Perhaps joy did not come her way much of late, as the Happy Train of life had long been derailed in these parts.”
After Jake becomes sympathetic toward a group of Federal captives by reading their letters his best friend Jack Chiles says: “Oh, hell, Jake. Too much knowledge is only a form of torture. You can do nothing with it but recognize a wider variety of agonies.”
Describing a Bushwhacker’s speech impaired by a wound: “He was a good man, but mocking him was not a safe idea.”
On meeting the beautiful Sue Lee: “She flung a great big smile my way that put the cats to scratching in my belly.”
Describing an obvious conclusion: “That was clear as cow patties on a snow bank.”
* * *
Watching as Sue Lee revealed her interest in Jack Chiles: “Then she did this thing that I would have plunked down five cents to see if I hadn’t gotten it for free. . . Romance is a sweet enough enterprise but it makes you lonely to watch it. . . [It left me] just about as useful as a Christian impulse at an ambush.”
“My God,” I said. “Where’s your manners, Chiles?”
“Gone to Texas. Now, you and Holt give us some privacy.”
Jake and Holt left the cabin: “I felt wounded and left by the roadside. . . [The taciturn] Holt was barely more company than a rock.”
Later Chiles is wounded: “Well, Sue Lee and me together were about as good a doctor as a blind drunk moron from Egypt. . .We burned the ragged wound closed . . . the smell don’t bear discussion.”
They had to amputate one of Chiles’s arms: “The job was miserable. It was no good. It was way down there past terrible.”
* * *
During the Lawrence Massacre Mackeson intends to kill and old man and a boy, but Roedel intervenes:
“Bring those men in the yard,” commanded Mackeson. “I want to show them something.”
“We’ll take care of them,” said Jake.
“Why you little Dutch [German] son of a bitch,” said Mackeson. “You do what I tell you, or I’ll kill you.”
In response, Jake cocked his pistol and put it in Pit’s face. “When do you figure to do this mean thing to me Mackeson? Is this very moment convenient for you? It is for me.”
“Ah, hell with it,” he said. “There’s plenty other houses to burn.”
*
The Lawrence Raid made me queasy. There are lines you can’t go over and come back the same.
Jake describes the preacher who marries him to Sue Lee: “The man had several pistols on him, as he was aware that the Lord works in mysterious ways and some of them require the blasting of others.”
Civil War Chat 