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Chapter 7
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Across Five Aprils, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
The Realities of War
Self-Determination
Personal Conviction
Hardship, Suffering, and Beauty
Summary
Analysis
Although the spring of 1862 caused the Creighton family a lot of worry and grief, Jethro understands from the papers how its battles helped the Union Army toward breaking the Confederate line at the Mississippi River. But the fall brings a shift; Confederate forces regain ground in Tennessee as the Union Army seems ever more “disorganized and hopeless.”
The longer the war goes on, the more Jethro realizes how accurate the prediction of his elder—mother, father, Shad—were: far from being an easy romp for Union soldiers, it proves to be long, brutal, and uncertain.
Active
Themes
Despite the war, life on the farm goes on much as usual. In September, dozens of men descend on the farm to raise a new barn. Ross Milton comes, too; although he is far too disabled to actually help, be brings a load of logs from none other than Dave Burdow. Burdow’s reputation in the neighborhood has improved since he saved Jethro’s life. At midday, the men devour a feast that Ellen, Nancy, and Jenny prepared. And for the hour that the meal lasts, it seems almost as if there is no war.
The shift in community perceptions of Dave Burdow confirms the lessons Jethro receives from elsewhere that a man’s actions demonstrate his character. And Milton’s presence despite his debilitating arthritis offers a potent reminder of the beauty of camaraderie and support in a life defined by hardship and suffering.
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Themes
But in the afternoon, Jethro overhears conversations about the battle at Antietam. President Lincoln gave General McClellan another chance to prove himself there, but he failed. According to the gossiping barn-raisers, McClellan cares more about bragging than winning. Some of the men suspect that McClellan—and even President Lincoln—doesn’t actually want to win. One of the adults ruffles Jethro’s hair and tells him to be glad he doesn’t have to deal with these adult troubles. Jethro, knowing his place, doesn’t dare to contradict the man, although he resents being treated as an ignorant child when he is anything but one.
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Finally, the family receives a letter from Shad, who saw his first action at Antietam under the leadership of General McClellan. This letter contains no youthful love-talk. Shad describes how the soldiers treat the dashing McClellan with an almost religious devotion. They dislike it when newer recruits fail to share their hero worship. Shad has a guarded opinion of McClellan, whom he believes to be personally brave and generally devoted to the cause. But he fears that the general considers his reputation before the best interests of the Union cause when he makes battlefield decisions. In the fall of 1862, Jethro thinks Antietam a costly victory for the Union Army; only in later years would he understand the degree to which it was marred by Union failures.
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If Antietam was horrific, the Battle of Fredericksburg causes even more despair throughout the North. The commanding Union general sacrifices wave after wave of men to reach Confederate troops entrenched atop the surrounding hills. Jethro and Jenny wait anxiously until a letter finally arrives from Shad. In it, Shad bitterly expresses his wish that the congressmen and their ladies who treated the war’s first battle (Bull Run) as a day’s entertainment had been there to see thousands of soldiers “falling like toy soldiers,” mown down by Confederate fire. The men who commanded these “simple soldiers” are, in Shad’s opinion, little more than common murderers.
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Early in 1863, John sends a letter home after the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee. Although technically a Union victory, it cost 13,000 lives. John wearily writes Nancy that “the sufferin and scenes of deth was sech as to make a mans hart hate war.” The cost of battles like Fredericksburg and Stones River make soldiers and citizens at home alike begin to fear that the great nation gloriously birthed during the Revolutionary War must dissolve into two weak countries. And deserters begin to return home by the thousands.
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