Carrying The Flag: The Story Of Private Charles Whilden, The Confederacy's Most Unlikely Hero [Hardcover]

Gordon C. Rhea (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 23, 2003

For forty years, Charles Whilden lived a life noteworthy for failure. Then, in a remarkable chain of events, this aging, epileptic desk clerk from Charleston found himself plunged into the brutal battlefields of the Wilderness (May 57, 1864) and Spotsylvania Court House (May 820, 1864). In an astonishing act of bravery, he wrapped the flag around his body and led a charge that won critical ground for the Confederates, changing the course of one of the war's most significant battles.Gordon C. Rhea combines his deep knowledge of Civil War history with original sources, such as a treasure trove of letters written by Charles Whilden, to tell the story of this unusual life. Growing up in a prominent family that had fallen on hard times, Charles received a good education, and his letters reveal flashes of intelligence. But he failed at the practice of law in his home state and in his endeavors elsewhere, including copper speculation, real estate ventures, and farming. After the attack on Fort Sumter, Charles returned to Charleston to enlist in Confederate service, only to be turned down until the rebellion was on its last legs. Even then he saw only a few weeks of combat. But in that time, he discovered a bravery within himself that nothing in his former existence suggested he had.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The battle of Spotsylvania Court House was the Civil War's ghastliest, a day-long, rain-sodden struggle for control of a Confederate trench line so brutal that the dead were "pulverized into mush that resembled jelly instead of men." Rhea (The Battle of the Wilderness) finds heroism in this hellish setting in the guise of Charles Whilden, a sickly, 39-year-old regimental flag-bearer, repeatedly rejected for service but finally inducted by a Confederate army desperately short of men, who briefly rallied the Southerners and helped save the day for Lee's army. Rhea styles this tale of an insignificant man rising to the occasion a celebration of the "capacity of the human spirit to shine," but there's little uplift to be gleaned from the story. A feckless ne'er-do-well who died a year after the war when he suffered an epileptic fit and drowned face down in a mud puddle, Whilden could be, with a very slight shift in perspective, an absurdist anti-hero whose moment of glory merely prolonged the death throes of a futile cause. Fortunately, Rhea uses his life mostly as a peg on which to hang an otherwise absorbing account of Spotsylvania and the preceding battle of the Wilderness. His well-paced and vividly detailed narrative moves easily from lucid considerations of Grant and Lee's grand strategies to the common soldiers' view of the chaos and squalor of the fighting, and includes engaging background material on camp life, the social background of Confederate soldiers and race relations in the ante-bellum South. The result is an evocative retelling of a Civil War epic.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Fascinating.... Even though it reads like a small novel, this is pure history." -- Noah Andre Trudeau, author of Bloody Roads South

"Gordon C. Rhea knows his topic and writes about it in stunning terms." -- Topeka Capital-Journal

"Readers will scarcely be able to put this book down." -- James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (December 23, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465069568
• ISBN-13: 978-0465069569
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,289,907 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN UNLIKELY HERO, April 14, 2005

By 

E. E Pofahl (HUNTINGTON, WV USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Carrying The Flag: The Story Of Private Charles Whilden, The Confederacy's Most Unlikely Hero (Hardcover)

The author, Gordon Rhea, notes in the INTRODUCTION that "....books about privates are rare" and continues "None tell a story half as fascinating as that of Charles Whilden...." The text is a brief account of Whilden's life stating that his first forty years were characterized by mediocrity and failure. However, Whilden's brief fifteen minutes of glory came at the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania Court House where he vividly demonstrated the capacity of an insignificant player "to alter the course of history."

Chapter 1 gives a short review of the 1864 strategic conditions in central Virginia which "By most estimates, 1864 loomed as the war's decisive year." In March 1864 President Lincoln made Grant commander-in-chief whose aim was the destruction of the Confederate armies, not to capture territory. The author observed "Thus the stage set for the Civil War's decisive campaign....The campaign would be a duel to the death between Grant and Lee, the best generals either side could field. The prize was the fate of two nations." Chapter 2 presents a concise account of pre-Civil War Charleston, S.C. stating the source of Charleston's wealth was rice and that the city's affluence "rested on the back of slaves." The author gives an interesting review of the area's concern about a slave rebellion and continues "As the Carolina Low country's slave population grew so grew the white minority's unease about servile insurrection."

After a unsuccessful brief career as a lawyer, Charles moved to Detroit where his lack of success continued to plague him.He left Detroit in 1855 and accompanied Colonel Grayson to Santa Fe, New Mexico as the colonel's personal secretary. In Santa Fe his mediocre success continued. When the Civil War commenced, Charles began the long trip home to Charleston. The ship he was on heading for the Carolina coast was badly damaged; and his health was compromised; for the rest of his life he suffered from epileptic seizures. In Charleston he tried to enlist a number of times; but due to his epilepsy he was unsuccessful in enlisting. By January 1864, Confederate manpower shortages were critical; and at age 39 Whilden was at last able to enlist as a private in Company I of the 1st Carolina at Orange Court House in February 1864.

Author Rhea uses Whilden and the 1st Carolina as the narrative vehicle for an interesting account of the battles of The Wilderness and at Spotsylvania. Whilden's unit was "destined to the worst of the campaign's carnage." Whilden received his baptism-under-fire on May 5 in the Battle of the Wilderness, had not run and was appointed as flag barrier when the flag barrier was wounded. Rhea observes "The post of flag bearer was important, not only for sentimental reasons but for practical ones as well." Charles career as a color barrier was off to a bad start as Union General Hancock troops overran Charles's unit. Only the last minute arrival of Confederate General Longstreet on May 6th saved the day. On the night of May 7-8 Grant's and Lee's armies moved south to the vicinity of Spotsylvania Court House where Lee erected sophisticated earthworks. The text briefly narrates Grant's fruitless efforts over the next three days to break through Lee's battlements.

Lee had erected a salient, nicknamed The Mule Shoe, and Grant had selected it for a massive attack by Union General Hancock on May 12. Union troops soon overran the pickets and the outer earthworks including the high ground, referred to as "the angle", to the Confederate left. The author gives a chilling account of the gruesome, bloody chaotic fighting as the Confederates fought to regain the angle and survive. Lee ordered General McGowan's brigade into the Mule Shoe. Charles, "still wracked by seizures" clearly understood the situation and fixing his eyes on the angle, carried the flag never expecting to reach the angle alive. When the flag was shot from its pole, Whilden wrapped the flag around his body. Behind him followed a "motley band of rebels." By ten o'clock in the morning Charles led his fellow Southerners to take over the Bloody Angle thus saving the battle for the Confederates. The butchery of May 12 was horrendous with the two armies suffering approximately seventeen thousand causalities. While Lee had won another battle, "the war in Virginia settled into a siege that would last ten months....but Grant had won the campaign, destroying the Army of Northern Virginia's offensive capacity."

His epilepsy making him unfit for service Charles returned to Charleston in August 1864 and was discharged after only eight months of duty. On September 25, 1866, during an epileptic seizure he fell facedown in a mud puddle, and drowned. While there are no monuments to Charles Whilden, his heroic action on May 12, 1864 at the Bloody Angle lives on as a tribute to the potential of an insignificant player who altered the course of Civil War history.

Gordon Rhea has done considerable research on the campaigns of 1864, having previously written several books on these campaigns. This is an easy book to read. Civil War buffs who want a brief/limited account of the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court and a private who won his fifteen minutes of fame in 1864 at the Bloody Angle, will find this book interesting.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly excellent read!, February 28, 2004

By 

Aaron Clift "amc757" (dana point, ca United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Carrying The Flag: The Story Of Private Charles Whilden, The Confederacy's Most Unlikely Hero (Hardcover)

Author Gordon Rhea produced a non fiction book that reads like a historical novel. The reader follows the life of an unlikely soldier that became a true hero for the Confederacy, while also being taken through the Civil War battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House in 1864. Mr. Rhea accomplishes a personal interest story along with a definitive work of historical reference. I have traveled to the places described in the book on many occasions, but Mr. Rhea's descriptions of Civil War sites has me planning my next vacation for further Civil War tours. It takes quite a bit to mesh battle descriptions with the ability to generate page turning exitement, but Mr. Rhea accomplishes it in this work.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful and Informative, October 7, 2004

By 

Paul A. Jones (Neenah, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Carrying The Flag: The Story Of Private Charles Whilden, The Confederacy's Most Unlikely Hero (Hardcover)

"Carrying the Flag" is a gem of a little book telling the story of an otherwise anonymous Confederate Private who found 15 minutes of fame in 15 hours of improbable glory. While Private Whilden's exploits at Spotsylvania's Bloody Angle were unique in their specifics, one can only imagine hundreds, if not thousands, of equally heroic deeds over the course of the war by similarly obscure infantrymen.

Private Whilden's battle experience was limited to the Wilderness and Spotsylvania. Accordingly, much of author Rhea's book details just how unexceptional Private Whilden was. The material, which seemingly holds little promise, in fact makes for an appealing window on the "middle class" antebellum South. In the end, if you can't applaud Private Whilden's take on the world and his place in it, you can surely understand it and, perhaps even applaud the depth of his commitment to it.

One of the most attractive features of the book, for me, is the compelling way in which Private Whilden's two battles unfold. There is the usual blood and gore, but more important, the narrative, complemented by just one map of each of the battlefields, is as clear as any I've read. The tactical story is the focus, but the operational and strategic context is cogently sketched in as well. Indeed, I would recommend the two battle sequences as among the best, most comprehensible short summaries of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania that I have read.

A very nice, very readable addition to the literature; highly recommended.