Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith

First published: 1957

Type of work: Historical fiction

Themes: War, death, friendship, and politics and law

Time of work: 1861-1865

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma

Principal Characters:

• Jeff Bussey, a Kansas farm boy, who volunteers in the Union Army to fight against the local attacks of proslavery Missouri bushwhackers
• Noah Babbitt, a tramp printer, who befriends Jeff in the Union Army
• Asa Clardy, Jeff’s unscrupulous company captain, who continually harasses him
• Lucy Washbourne, a young Cherokee woman, who falls in love with Jeff
• Stand Watie, a Native American general who leads the Confederate Cherokee Cavalry

The Story

After his family suffers repeated attacks by Rebel bushwhackers, Jeff Bussey joins the Union forces in the American Civil War. Jeff is befriended by Noah Babbitt, a tramp printer from Illinois. He almost immediately becomes entangled with the vicious Captain Asa Clardy over a misunderstanding in orders, setting the stage for many subsequent altercations between the two throughout the rest of the war.

Much to his dismay, in his first year of service Jeff never becomes directly involved in battle. The war drags on, and his illusions of a quick, glorious victory end. The distinction of being a soldier is marred by the demeaning conditions and activities of his company: a lack of uniforms, constant marching, foraging for food, and an especially humiliating detail of punishing the families of Rebels who have violated their paroles by collecting the “spoils of war.” Doubt begins to creep into Jeff’s mind about the virtues of the conflict.

This theme is magnified when Jeff, on detail to procure meals from the local residents of the Rebel Cherokee town of Tahlequah, meets the Washbourne family. Their humanness is contrary to all he believes about the “bloodthirsty” enemy. Mr. Washbourne, the father, and his son Lee are serving the Confederacy under General Stand Watie, while the women are left alone after all their slaves have fled. Jeff becomes intrigued by and infatuated with the youngest daughter, Lucy.

The Battle of Prairie Grove is the first infantry action in which Jeff becomes involved. He and Noah aid the artillery when they notice that nobody is left to man the cannons. The dogged Union effort drives back the Rebels, and both Jeff and Noah receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for their service.

Jeff’s disillusionment with both sides in the war broadens after an illuminating discussion with Lucy reveals a variety of other reasons for the fighting beyond his own rather narrow perspective. He is swayed even further by the savageness he sees on both sides. A cruel Watie raiding party murders a Union soldier on furlough and leaves his family homeless, while Captain Clardy orders an unwarranted execution of a Confederate spy who proves to be Lucy’s brother Lee.

Jeff’s heroic deeds at Prairie Grove proved his abilities as a soldier, and he is recruited as a scout and sent behind enemy lines to obtain information concerning enemy troop movements. He and his partner, Jim Bostwick, are captured. To avoid execution as retribution for Lee Washbourne’s death, they concoct a story predicated on their desire to join Watie’s outfit. After spending some time with the Rebels, Jeff is again impressed with the humanness of the enemy.

After obtaining the information he wanted, however, he prepares to carry out his duty and sets off for Fort Gibson. Struck by severe stomach cramps caused by malaria, he convinces a slave named Leemon Jones to carry the dispatch for him. His recuperation lasts several months, during which he stays with the Jackmans, a kind Southern family.

Jeff returns and observes the sale of much-desired “repeating” rifles to Watie’s regiment. The sale is carried out by a traitorous Union officer, who is revealed as the villainous Asa Clardy. Jeff is identified by Clardy and is forced to flee. His one-hundred-mile trek north ends when he meets a squadron of Union cavalry on patrol from Fort Gibson.

When the war ends, Jeff returns to his home in Kansas, vowing to help restore peace in the divided country and rekindle his relationship with his beloved Lucy.

Context

Most works concerning the American Civil War are concerned solely with the issues surrounding slavery. It is generally assumed by schoolchildren that the main reason for the fighting of the war was to free the slaves. While this was a major concern for the Abolitionists of the day, Harold Keith presents a different perspective in Rifles for Watie. He shows how a variety of motives could exist within the framework of the same struggle. Divided loyalties became a theme in subsequent Civil War books written for juvenile and young adult readers, most notably Irene Hunt’s Across Five Aprils (1964), William O. Steele’s The Perilous Road (1958), N. A. Perez’s The Slopes of War (1984), and Patricia Beatty’s Turn Homeward, Hannalee (1984).

Keith’s research lends a remarkable authenticity to the work. He interviewed twenty-two Confederate war veterans, two of whom served under General Stand Watie. The character of Noah Babbitt had a real-life counterpart, while the military officers used in the story were fictionalized only in their contacts with the fictional main character, Jeff Bussey. Keith’s use of actual historical events again adds genuineness to the work. For example, when his accounts of the Battles of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove are compared to those in history books such as James M. McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom (1988), events, names, and strategies correspond.