Like Grass Before the Scythe: The Life and Death of Sgt. William Remmel, 121st New York Infantry

Edited by Robert Patrick Bender
Illustrated, notes, index, hardcover, 200 pp., 2007. The University of Alabama Press, Box 870380, 20 Research Dr., Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, $39.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Jonathan A. Noyalas
Jonathan A. Noyalas is a history professor at Lord Fairfax Community College in Middletown, Va., and the author or editor of four books on Civil War era history.

Review:
When Bell Wiley released his classic study The Life of Billy Yank in 1952 he concluded that a majority of soldiers who fought in the Union Army were literate. They craved reading material and incessantly wrote letters to stay connected with loved ones.

Among the thousands of Union soldiers who fit into Wiley's paradigm is the 121st New York's Sgt. William Remmel, whose thoughts and experiences appear in Robert Patrick Bender's ably edited volume Like Grass Before the Scythe: The Life and Death of Sgt. William Remmel, 121st New York Infantry.

While Civil War soldiers penned numerous letters oftentimes the value of their historical content to scholarship varies. Many soldiers' letters discuss mundane topics such as weather and reveal little about wartime experiences, political leanings, combat, camp life, etc.

Fortunately, when Sgt. Remmel's nephew, Harmon Remmel, donated the Remmel letters to the University of Arkansas in 1986 he bequeathed a rich collection that adds to our understanding of the common soldier's experiences and thoughts.

Bender, who earned his Ph.D. at the University of Arkansas and is now a history professor at Eastern New Mexico University in Roswell, has compiled Remmel's letters and presented a first- rate volume. The editor does not repeat the mistakes of other editors in turning this collection into a regimental history.

He provides a short and well-written introduction wherein he clearly outlines Remmel's background as a German immigrant and enlistment in Col. Emory Upton's 121st New York in late August 1862. Bender then organizes the letters into three chapters which cover the years of Remmel's service, 1862-1864, and introduces each chapter with a brief contextual synopsis of Remmel's military experiences during that year.

The editor's chapter introductions and explanatory endnotes enhance the text and do not burden the reader, allowing Remmel's words to take center stage.

Although Remmel discusses typical topics in his letters, such as general conditions in the army, pay issues, information about battle experiences, need for additional clothing, and sickness, the letters reveal much about the impact the Union Army of the Potomac and later Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's Army of the Shenandoah had on the civilian population.

For example in a letter to his parents in late August 1864 Remmel laments how the residents of the Shenandoah Valley will survive constant destruction. "The war is making terrible havoc here in the valley’ĶI hardly know what the people will live on the next year in this quarter, for everything is taken away from them," Remmel explained.

The letters also reveal much about how soldiers in the field not only had to cope with issues before them on the front lines, but also had to deal with pressing matters at home.

Sgt. Remmel's letters come to a halt on October 16, 1864. According to some accounts he was either killed or captured three days later at the battle of Cedar Creek which effectively ended campaigning in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Although how his life ended is shrouded in an ethereal historical mystery, Bender spends some time in the epilogue addressing what might have happened to Remmel. The editor also examines the postwar fates of the family members with whom Remmel communicated during the war.

Like Grass Before the Scythe has tremendous worth. While more military-minded historians might find Remmel's letters of limited value as they do not contain detailed battle descriptions, social and political Civil War historians will find this volume quite useful as it brings to light an immigrant soldiers views on politics, familial issues and the war's impact on the Confederate civilian population.