Write A Letter To My Mother
The Civil War was not as simple as North vs. South:
•Every Confederate state except for South Carolina had white battalions fighting for the Union. Those from South Carolina joined battalions from other states.
•West Virginia became a separate state from Virginia in 1863, halfway through the war.
•During the Battle of Vicksburg there were 17 Confederate battalions and 22 Union battalions all from Missouri.
Here are some charts to help you see this division:
Border and Confederate States
Union States
Territories
In some cases, families split apart and brothers fought against each other or fathers fought against their sons.
“Write a Letter To My Mother” is the story of a soldier’s last words supposedly based on a true incident.
From "Songs of The Civil War" by Irwin Silver and Jerry Silverman:
An officer captured at the Battle of Bull Run related the following story:
"After our capture I observed a Federal prisoner tenderly cared for by a Rebel soldier. I gleaned from their conversation that they were brothers. The brave boy, while battling for the Union, received his death wound from his own brother, a private in the Rebel ranks: never shall I forget the look of utter despair depicted upon that Rebel's face. They dying boy, with a smile of holy resignation, clasped his brother's hand, spoke of their father who was then fighting for the dear old Flag, of mother, of home, of childhood, then requesting his brother to "Write a letter to Mother," and imploring him never to divulge the secret of his death, then young boy yielded up his life."
Write a Letter To My Mother
Written by E. Bowers and P.S. Isaacs
Singer: Leroy Troy
1. Raise me in your arms, my brother,
Let me see the glorious sun.
I am weary, faint and dying.
Now is the battle lost or won?
I remember you, my brother,
Sent to me that fatal dart.
Brother fighting against brother,
'Tis well, 'tis well that thus we part.
Write a letter to my mother,
Send it when her boy is dead.
That he perished by his brother,
Not a word of that be said.
2. Father's fighting for the Union.
You may see him on the field.
Could you raise you arm to smite him?
Oh, could you bid your father yield?
He who loved us in our childhood,
Taught the infant prayers we said.
Brother, take from me a warning:
I'll soon be numbered with the dead.
Write a letter to my mother,
Send it when her boy is dead.
That he perished by his brother,
Not a word of that be said.
3. Do you ever think of Mother
In our home within the glen?
Watching, praying for her children,
Oh, would you see that home again?
Brother, I am surely dying.
Keep the secret, for 'tis one
That would kill our angel mother,
If she knew what you have done.