Story Synopsis

For many young Southern men, the dawn of 1861 brought an air of elation few had dared dream of with the news of South Carolinians firing on Fort Sumter, at last offering secession. Soon afterward, William Fletcher of Beaumont, Texas an eighteen year old farm boy eagerly fell in with friends marching off to war, bursting with zeal to defend hearth and home, while doing his part to form a new country.

William Fletcher's 1908 memoirs provide memorable insight and perspective. "Both North and South were about the business of providing a justness of cause, through Bible and Constitution, though Mr. Lincoln seemed not too worried over the Constitution portion if it. Our preacher knew God was with us, as he found it in the Lord's testament, however, I must say I have never seen such particular page. So, with this character of education, there was being reared a generation of warriors". William Fletcher.

Rebel Private is a coming of age story which depicts early adventures and evolving horrors of war, experienced by seven young Southerners, ranging in age form thirteen to nineteen and one black man. Camaraderie developed through their nearly four years of combat, cements an intense emotional bond, woven over the fabric of the Southern experience. Black Confederates are to most incompatible with the Southern effort, however, Rebel Private illustrates such a historical figure of the Texas Brigade, a black Confederate soldier devoted to cause, ever as his comrades.

The story of the youthful common soldier is as old as human existence. Aptly, the concept, "old men start wars, young men fight them", applies throughout history. Early in any war, young impressionable boys march off to glory, gathering at train stations, surrounded by waving flags, patriotic bands, cheering crowds and the kiss of a fair maiden. Reality soon unimaginadly arcs, as the closest thing to hell on earth is unleashed through the ravenous dogs of war.

Rebel Private is the common soldier's story. A Confederate combat soldier's view from the dirt. To most, the average persons "Civil War" is focused only on slavery, no doubt an issue unequaled, however, not by any means the story in its entirety. Few realize only 6% of Southerners were slave owners and mostly the poor, common Southerner fought to create a country and protect his home as passionately as their forefathers had done in the American Revolution. Ironically, for generally the same reasons. William Fletcher was such a boy man, racing off to war with the fervor of righteous conviction, combined with a naive passion of youth. As so many before him, he was the universal soldier, not unlike those of countless wars before and those yet to come. "There will always be wars and rumors of wars".

Rebel Private is a Southern poem, a Texas Braveheart at the level of an ordinary soldier, suffering and personal intensity the bedfellow of all. The furor of battles in which Bill participated with the Texas Brigade, The Seven Days Battle, 2nd Manassas, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, fighting Sherman's bloody march through the South with Terry's Texas Rangers and countless skirmishes in between, were mostly fought on Southern soil. Often forgotten to history, the South was unjustly invaded, thus providing strong motivation for young men such as Fletcher to take up arms.

"Rebel Private, Front and Rear", by William Fletcher, is the memoir of an unassuming, yet, wildly successful man. Written late in life to communicate his part in the great drama which was the American Civil War, his story resonates a reality not often proclaimed. In reality, a war to most Southerners more properly called, The War for Southern Independence. This simply written, yet, complex book was one of only a very few set to paper by the Southern enlisted man and as such offers a perspective often left untold in the politically correct world of today, one so riveting that Margaret Mitchell used it extensively when writing, Gone With The Wind. By the early nineteenth century, Fletcher had become one of the wealthiest men in Texas. Writing the memoir for his family, it would have been lost to the ages but for his great granddaughter, Vallie Fletcher Taylor, republishing it in 1996.

Rebel Private touches the very soul of how any common soldier experiences war, all war. An experience filled with a range of ecstatic joy, raw animal blood lust, a physical marathon of pain, unequaled terror only the constant threat of a horror filled death can offer and personal sacrifice difficult for the modern American to fully understand. Rebel Private is a window on the Civil War which you have not seen. It will perhaps make you think differently of the Southern effort for independence.