Scarecrow in Gray by Barry Yelton Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Scarecrow in Gray
Book Review: A Tiny and Precise Miniature of the Civil War
Summary: 4 Stars
This is one of those lyrical and beautifully told stories of the Civil War, of a volunteer who came down from his deeply loved mountains and joined the Confederate Army in the last year of the war, even as it became clear that the Confederacy was all but lost. Francis Yelton never owned a slave and wanted nothing more than to farm his few acres and make a living for his wife and daughters. Proud, stubborn and hot-tempered, he does not want to be thought a coward... and so he volunteers, along with his friend Whit Whitaker, and finds himself in the Army of Northern Virginia, at the siege of Petersburg.
He becomes accustomed to the dirt, the privations and the bad food; and he becomes a soldier, one of Lee's Miserables. But he does not fight for the South, as much as he fights for his friends; Whit, and Preacher and Sergeant Cas and the others. The privations of camp life and the final bloody, brutal skirmishes as Lee's army dissolved are closely and simply observed. The writer has a fine ear for the wry and self-deprecating way that 19th century men had of speaking of themselves: Francis describes Whit's affinity for scrounging food and supplies as coming from "the dead Yankee general store".
There are no heroic martial deeds and adventures in "Scarecrow in Grey"; only the challenge of surviving a 19th century battlefield with some kind of honor and dignity as a human being. It is not one of those grand, sweeping panoramas; it is a miniature on ivory, related in tiny and precise detail.
Book Review: A Well-Told Civil War Story
Summary: 4 Stars
Barry Yelton's story, Scarecrow in Gray, is a fictionalized account of his own great-grandfather's service in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. We first meet Francis Yelton as he's plowing his fields and thinking what a lucky guy he is: farm, good wife, two beautiful daughters. He knows the war is going on, but hasn't felt any urge to join up. He's not a slaveholder and doesn't particularly agree with slavery, but he just wants to continue with the bucolic life he's living.
However, war does impinge on his life. Local men have taken on the task of conscripting (drafting) any male of more or less the right age and physical condition. Francis doesn't want to be thought a shirker, so he decides to enlist rather than be conscripted.
Francis goes off to sign up with his neighbor Whit. They end up spending their entire service together for the last few months of the war. By this time, the Confederate Army is almost a shambles, still fighting only through the stubbornness of the Generals. Robert E. Lee is worshipped by his men, but I have a very difficult time sympathizing with the leaders on either side of this war. Lee continued the war well past any decency, all for some mystical "honor." What is honorable about sending wounded and starving men against the well-fed and well-equipped Federals?
But this isn't really a story about war, but about one man's experience of it. Francis is an honorable man; that's why he continues the fight. He feels regret at the killing and sympathy for even the dying Union man from whom he asks forgiveness. Francis knows full well that the scenes of war and his role in it will haunt him the rest of his life.
Mr. Yelton clearly wants to paint a sympathetic portrait of his great-grandfather. We can only hope that his positive portrayal of Francis was close to the truth. The fact that Francis did not join the Confederacy until late in the war shows he was a reluctant soldier. Mr. Yelton describes many incidents of Francis showing humanity and sympathy for both his fellow soldiers and even the blacks he's fighting to keep enslaved. He shares food with a black man and is beaten up by some of his fellow soldiers for doing so. He asks a dying Union soldier to forgive him. It's clear that Francis does not relish war or killing.
"Band of Brothers" is an apt description of the real reason why men fight in wars. Do they ever fight for their country? They might say so, but men go to war for very personal reasons. The man fighting next to them, their mothers and fathers back at home, their wives and children.
This is what Francis Yelton did and we can sympathize with him, no matter what we feel about a war waged to enslave another people.
Now, to the mechanics. Is the book well-written? Yes. I was very pleased with Mr. Yelton's writing ability. He's darned good. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in Civil War lore. I'll warn that some of the fighting scenes and the aftermath are fairly graphic, but no more than you might see in PG-13 movies. Descriptions are vivid and on-point. Just a note here about what that means. I've found more than one book that takes an extended break from anything having to do with the characters and storyline. This annoys me. I don't want a multi-page gap in the story describing mountains or flowers. Stick to the point and you'll keep me reading. Mr. Yelton puts in just the right amount of descriptive information to keep you in the scene.
Very well done. I'm glad I had a chance to read it.
Book Review: A proud but reluctant warrior
Summary: 5 Stars
Barry Yelton has woven a masterful tale based on his Great-grandfather Francis Marion Yelton who served with the 18th North Carolina during the last year of the war.Mr. Yelton has done an outstanding job of bringing his character to life by using actual and fictionalized characters and by using local areas such as Rutheford County and Burke County, NC.I especially enjoyed the part of Camp Vance, considering I live about three miles from the site of the camp.
Francis is a reluctant soldier with a beautiful wife and two small daughters who enlists in the Confederate Army with a neighbor, Whit, in August 1864.These two men have a wide variety of adventures and meet and serve with some outstanding soldiers.I will not reveal anything more but I do highly recommend this book if you like details of battle and camp life.
I feel that this book should be in our middle school library and required reading for 8th grade NC History students.
Book Review: A well researched, well written story ....
Summary: 4 Stars
Francis Yelton didn't want to go to war, but in the waning months of the Civil War, the Confederacy, desperate for manpower, was conscripting those who wouldn't volunteer to fight a war that was already lost. Not wanting to be thought a coward or a shirker, Francis joins up against his better judgement and becomes a soldier in spite of himself. In this fictionalized depiction of a real person's service in the Army of Northern Virginia, Barry Yelton has done his great grandfather proud.
This first person narrative not only tells a memorable story of life in the last days of that doomed army, it illustrates well the fact that Francis, like most every other infantry soldier in the world, wasn't fighting for a cause - he never owned a slave and didn't know anybody who did - he was fighting for the guys in the trenches with him.
Well researched and well written, I recommend this book to anyone interested in the Civil War. The surrender at Appomattox Court House is particularly well done.
Book Review: Author really knows his way around the Civil War
Summary: 4 Stars
Francis Yelton (actual ancestor of the author) is a reluctant participant in the last months of the Civil War. He would much rather stay on his North Carolina farm, but, he also does not want to be known as the 19th Century equivalent of a draft dodger. Along with Whit Whitaker, his neighbor and fellow farmer, Yelton joins the Confederate Army.
These are desperate times for the Southerners. The men are haggard, exhausted collections of skin and bones. Starvation is an everyday concern; when there is food, which is rare, it is usually moldy and inedible. More men are lost to disease and desertion than to northern artillery. Deserters are usually shot on sight. The war's outcome is a foregone conclusion; it's only a matter of time.
Alongside small pockets of humanity, Whit and Francis see the horror of war, up close and personal. The first Union soldier that Francis kills in hand-to-hand combat is only a teenager, who forgives Francis as he dies. Both Francis and Whit are injured, so they experience a field hospital. It's a place where the main medical activity seems to be amputating of limbs, and the only available anesthetic is whiskey. Whit loses one of his eyes, and the eye socket has to be cleaned out, to prevent the onset of gangrene. Both men are at Appomattox Court House to witness the official end of the war. On their way back home, both men are distressed to learn that the killing does not end just because the war is over.
As much as possible, this is a historically accurate novel, and it shows. It was written by someone who really knows his way around the finer points of the War Between The States. By all means, read the official histories of the Civil War. To get the point of view of the average soldier, the reader could do a lot worse than start right here.