My Brother Sam Is Dead

“I couldn’t take my eyes off him; he looked so brave. he was wearing a scarlet coat with silver buttons and white vest and black leggings halfway up to his knees. Oh, I envied him.”

Tim Meeker is impressed with his older brother Sam’s flashy uniform, beginning the novel with false glorification of war. Tim is young, and he equates Sam’s appearances with bravery. In addition, it is ironic that Sam is wearing a scarlet coat but persists in calling the British soldiers “Lobsterbacks” and “Redcoats.” The authors suggest that the differences between the British and Patriot soldiers is smaller than Sam may think.

“Mother always said, ‘Sam isn’t really rebellious, just too quick with his tongue. If only he’d learn to stop and think before he spoke.’ But Sam couldn’t seem to learn that.”

Mother makes an excuse for Sam’s rash statements. She “always” says this, and it implies that Sam often speaks without thinking, regardless of the consequences. It foreshadows the fact that Sam will get into arguments that he will later regret and puts himself and others into danger. Tim’s comments show that despite being the younger brother, he understands Sam perhaps better than Sam understands himself.

“I was at Louisbourg the year before you were born. Oh, it was a great victory. They celebrated it with bonfires all over the colonies. And I carried my best friend’s body back to his mother—sewed up in a sack. Do you want to come home that way?”

Father served in the British Army during the French and Indian War years before the book opens. As a veteran, he knows first-hand what battle is like. When he calls the Battle of Louisbourg a “great victory,” he is speaking ironically. The British did win the battle, but in Father’s mind, the cost was too great. He does not want to lose Sam or have him deluded by glorification of the war.