March: A Novel of the Civil War by Doctorow

Introduction

It is easy to understand why the American Civil War would appeal to a gifted fiction writer such as E. L. Doctorow. This immense conflict began in 1861 and ended in 1865, a period that saw the destruction of much of the American South and the manumission of its slaves. What is more difficult to grasp in a time of such tumult is its impact upon individuals. It is true that participants in the American Civil War were perhaps the most literate group of soldiers in history up to that time. They generally wrote well, and they wrote often; however, the historical record is largely silent regarding those who were simultaneously the most marginalized and the most deeply affected by the conflict, African Americans. Unlike modern wars, a relatively small number of civilians died as a direct result of the conflict, but few were untouched by the economic and cultural maelstrom it created. This paper discusses “March: A Novel of the Civil War” written by Doctorow.

Discussion

Without question, the most chaotic period of the war — and the portion most devastating to the South — was the long march of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman and his sixty thousand-man army to the sea in the closing months of 1864. The general's goal was twofold: to subdue the forces of Confederate General Joseph Johnston and to destroy the South's ability to wage war by pillaging large sections of it. In addition to the turmoil one would normally expect from war, there was also the matter of thousands of newly freed but homeless slaves. All of this is fertile ground for fiction. Doctorow has covered similar ground before. In Ragtime (1975), he dealt with the turmoil of early twentieth century America, with its waves of immigrants and explosive race relations. It is appropriate that Doctorow has selected the Civil War South as the setting for The March, for in it one can find the seeds of the racial oppression so painfully elucidated in Ragtime. (Doctorow125)

Up until November of 1864, when The March begins, the Confederacy had resisted the overwhelmingly superior forces of the Union Army, despite the fact that its cause was all but hopeless. Sherman's solution was to bring the horrors of war to the farms and large plantations whose products enabled the Confederacy to survive. While Sherman's forces had standing orders to seize whatever goods were deemed necessary without causing collateral damage, in practice the Army of the West had carte blanche to lay waste to anything in its path. To Sherman, this was a necessary act of war; to the slaves, the Union Army was a force of liberation. (Wilson 78-80)

The novel opens at the center of this whirlwind, with a young slave girl named Pearl viewed at the moment of manumission. Doctorow's description of the approach of Union forces is masterly and is worth quoting: “And, as they watched, the brown cloud took on a reddish cast. It moved forward, thin ...