Rifles for Watie

Jeff’s father, Emory has raised Jeff to believe in a free state and the abolishment of slavery. Emory is well-versed in the history of Kansas as well as the formation of the United States and the politics of the war. His reasons for supporting the Union are ideologically-based, and particularly centered on slavery. Jeff learned a great deal about slavery because “it was all his father discussed at mealtime” (16). In 1859, Emory took Jeff to hear Abraham Lincoln speak during his presidential candidacy. Emory fought in the Mexican War under Jefferson Davis’s command and named his son after Davis before Davis became the president of the Confederacy. Emory walks with a limp because of an accident in which he dropped an anvil on his foot. This prevents him from helping Jeff with the more labor-intensive farm work.

Edith is Jeff’s mother. She is from Kentucky and finds Kansas to be a less pleasant place to live. Edith married young and gave birth to Jeff at the age of 17. Like Emory, Jeff, and Jeff’s sisters, Edith helped to build the family’s house. She keeps the Bussey home, cooking and sewing, and is protective over her son. She is also brave, joining in the fight with the bushwhackers by throwing a plate of food at one of the men. Edith weeps when Jeff decides to enlist in the army. At the end of the novel, his mother cries again when Jeff returns home because Jeff has grown up and is no longer the boy he was.

The younger of Jeff’s two sisters, Mary is 12 years old at the beginning of the novel. In the fight with the bushwhackers, she helps by throwing boiling water at the intruders. Four years later, when Jeff returns home, Mary is married with a baby and no longer living on the family farm.

Bess, the elder of Jeff’s two sisters, is 14 at the beginning of the novel. When the bushwhackers attack the Bussey household, Bess sounds the alarm that brings Jeff back to the house. She is strong and tough, and Emory sends her to ride to the neighbors and solicit help, which she does successfully. When Jeff comes home after the war ends, Jeff sees Bess and thinks she is Mary because she has changed so much over the course of four years.

As Jeff makes the long walk to enlist at Fort Leavenworth, he passes John Chadwick who is chopping wood. Chadwick decides to join Jeff without telling his parents since he is 18 and his parents have been fighting his efforts to join the war. When, after training, Jeff and the other Kansas volunteers are given furlough to visit their families before heading toward the conflict, Chadwick decides not to go since he expects his parents to be angry. Chadwick serves alongside Jeff for the duration of the war, except for spans of time when Jeff’s duties or punishments cause their paths to diverge. At the end of the war, he travels back to Kansas with Jeff. Like Jeff, he has graduated to cavalry and now has a horse. His family welcomes him back happily, their earlier resistance to their son’s enlisting forgotten.

Like Chadwick, David Gardner decides to join Jeff on his long march to Fort Leavenworth to join the army. His father had died three years before of Typhus, and his family is poor. Without Gardner, the farm work will fall to his mother. Gardner decides to leave without telling her but tells his brother to pass along the message that he is joining the army. His brother tells him that he is too young and will die. At Fort Leavenworth, Gardner fails to fit in. He is miserable and performing poorly, ostracized by the other enlistees. Gardner decides to run away, but his mother will not let him come back home. He returns and turns himself in for deserting. Although the punishment for deserting was often death, Gardner receives leniency in the form of hard labor. Jeff meets him again when he is punished by Clardy with a period on the prisoner work crew. Later, at Fort Gibson, Jeff meets Gardner again and he has been trained as part of the cavalry. Gardner is a boy who was not fit to be a soldier but who is broken down and remolded to serve competently. At the end of the novel, he returns home and his mother welcomes him with the news that he has a new stepfather.

From the first moment that Jeff finds himself under the command of Captain Clardy, Clardy is cruel and unreasonable. He abuses his power and takes an immediate disliking to Jeff when he learns that Jeff is named after Jefferson Davis and feels no shame for it. Emory Bussey knows Clardy from the Mexican War and remembers him as petty, vindictive leader. Sparrow, the cook in the Union camp, knows Clardy from home and claims that Clardy once killed a woman and stole her money. When Sparrow ends up murdered, it is clear that Clardy is the culprit although there is no evidence. Clardy repeatedly punishes Jeff both officially and by singling him out for unpleasant duties.

Clardy, who is fictional, is an unscrupulous villain throughout the text. He kills a Confederate prisoner because the man is injured and won’t stop screaming. Clardy orders the execution of Lee Washbourne, an unnecessarily harsh punishment for someone who has been captured and no longer poses a threat. When Jeff discovers that a Union officer is betraying his army by selling rifles to Watie, Jeff discounts Clardy because he believes that Clardy despises the Confederacy too much to aid them. But Clardy turns out to be the traitor and tries to get Jeff killed to save himself. In the end, Clardy is murdered. It isn’t clear if he was killed because he executed Lee Washbourne or if his own men turned on him.

At Fort Leavenworth, Jeff envies the cavalrymen who get to ride horses into battle. Because Jeff has no horse, he is relegated to the infantry. However, Jeff grew up with horses and offers his help to Mike Dempsey, an “old teamster” (40) of about 60 who takes care of the stables. The Irishman is impressed by Jeff’s ability with the horses. Later, as Jeff’s outfit camps in Cherokee country on the way to Fort Gibson, Dempsey accompanies Jeff and Bill Earle on a foraging expedition. When Jeff is questioned by the sentry for returning with a cat, Dempsey steps in and bribes the officer with a goose carcass. He also takes care of Jeff’s horse after Jeff sends her back with Leemon Jones.

Sparrow is the cook for the Union camp until he is murdered while on sentry duty. Sparrow knows Captain Clardy from before the war and harbors the secret that he witnessed Clardy at the home of a woman on the night she was murdered. Jeff meets Sparrow when he is being punished by Clardy with kitchen duty and Sparrow hints that he knows a secret that would force Clardy to back down. While drunk, Sparrow tells Jeff what he knows. When Jeff threatens Clardy with the information, Clardy backs down. But after Sparrow is murdered, Jeff feels responsible for his death.

Babbitt is based on a historical figure, “a real-life itinerant printer and pedestrian of the early 1870s who occasionally wandered through Kansas, setting type for the Wichita Eagle” (8). There is no evidence that the real Babbitt fought in the war. The fictional Babbitt serves on the Union side. He is very tall and is at first very awkward on a horse. Babbitt is Jeff’s closest friend in the army, and he saves Jeff’s life when Jeff fights in his first battle. It is on Babbitt’s suggestion that Jeff goes with him to help the artillery squad, which leads to both of them receiving a Medal of Honor. During Jeff’s first scouting mission, he is able to return the favor and save Babbitt when he falls off his horse. Babbitt is older and sager than Jeff, and often offers him advice. While many of the boys who join the Union are naïve and grow up through their experiences in the war, Babbitt has no illusions. Except for the time that Jeff is with the Confederacy, he and Babbitt are constant companions. At the end of the novel, Babbitt is one of the first to see and recognize Jeff upon his return to Fort Gibson.

Jeff meets Jimmy Lear when Lear, who is only 14, lies about his age and enlists. Lear is distraught when he is discovered, but instead of being sent home, Lear is placed as a drummer in the band. Despite his youth, Lear is unwavering and proud to serve. In his first battle, which Jeff is forced to miss, Lear takes up an abandoned gun and joins the fighting. When Jeff finally goes to battle, he notices Lear playing his drum and is impressed with his focus and determination. But after the battle, Jeff visits a Confederate hospital and finds Lear dying, having been shot. Although Jeff has had firsthand experience with death at this point, Lear’s death strikes him as particularly unfair given his youth. While dying, Lear tells Jeff that he has no family and asks him to take care of his drum, which has become his most prized possession. He begs Jeff to stay until he dies, but Jeff has to leave. Lear dies on Christmas day.

When Millholland is elected sergeant by Jeff’s company, Jeff is skeptical as he believes that Millholland is sloppy and undisciplined. But Millholland earns Jeff’s respect as a wise and reasonable leader. Jeff is devastated when Millholland is killed by Watie’s men while the Union soldiers are foraging for food and supplies in a Confederate town. At the end of the novel, as Jeff makes the long walk back to Fort Gibson, he remembers Sergeant Millholland’s assertion: “You can always go farther than you think you can” (370), marveling at the fact that someone can still speak to you even when they have been dead for years.

Another of Jeff’s Union compatriots, Earle is a singer. When he sings by the campfire, the rest of the soldiers are entranced and a singer from the rebel camp joins in. Later, it becomes clear that the rebel singer’s tune was meant to be a secret signal to Clardy. On the way back to Kansas, Jeff, Chadwick, and Gardner travel with Earle and spend the night at his Aunt Phoebe’s home. Earle is one of Jeff’s close friends throughout the war.

A member of Jeff’s unit and another of Jeff’s friends, Mitchell was captured by Watie’s men and escaped after several months as their prisoner. Like Jeff, he is from Kansas. When Clardy kills the injured prisoner, Mitchell is the first to back Jeff up when Jeff castigates Clardy. Mitchell is outspoken and uninhibited about voicing complaints.

A squad leader in Jeff’s outfit during the Battle of Wilson Creek, Lonegan tells the boys who are heading into their first battle that the rebels “wear horns” (71) and eat babies. Jeff is jealous of Lonegan’s muscled physique and skill in weaponry and fighting. Lonegan begins to taunt Zed Tinney for praying before the battle, but Sergeant Pete Millholland intervenes. Despite his bravado, Lonegan throws away his rifle at the start of the battle and runs off. Jimmy Lear, the 14-year-old drummer, takes up his abandoned weapon and fights in his place.

Zed Tinney is “a quiet, religious boy” (76) in Jeff’s outfit. As they head into the Battle of Wilson Creek, which was to be Jeff’s first battle until Clardy gave him an alternate assignment, Jeff is surprised to see Tinney praying furiously. Jeff doesn’t understand why Tinney expects to die. Tinney is killed right away in the battle.

At the Battle of Wilson Creek, Noah Babbitt sees Ford Ivey, a boy in Jeff’s outfit and one of Jeff’s friends, fall and reports that he died. But when Jeff is on ambulance duty, he sees Ivey who is alive but seriously hurt. Ivey tells Jeff about the horrors of laying injured on the battlefield all day amidst the dead and dying. Ivey’s leg requires amputation, and Jeff last sees him begging Jeff to stay with him and to stop the doctors from taking his leg.

Jeff finds Belie, an elderly woman, fishing at a creek near Tahlequah. She tells Jeff that she has grandsons fighting for both armies and has no interest in choosing sides. She even attempted to enlist on both sides, but neither would accept her. When Lee Washbourne is executed, Jeff gives Babbitt money to hire Belie to return Lee’s body to his family.

While stationed in Missouri, rations are low, and Jeff discovers the McComas home, surrounded by apple trees, while walking Dixie. He asks Mrs. McComas for apples in exchange for chores, and although she supports the Confederacy, she relents because Jeff is polite and looks too young to be a soldier. She gives him bread and apple butter and some apples to bring back to his friends. Later, Jeff finds himself on the detail that comes to confiscate the McComas’s family cow because Mr. McComas, formerly a prisoner of the Union, defied the conditions of his release by rejoining the army. Mrs. McComas turns on Jeff, angry at what she sees as his betrayal despite his apologies. That night, she is grateful when Jeff steals her cow back and returns it, rewarding him with more food. Mrs. McComas is Jeff’s first real interaction with a Confederate civilian.

Jeff meets Lucy Washbourne, a beautiful mixed-race Cherokee girl, when the Union army is stationed at Tahlequah. Lucy is fiery, proud, and a staunch supporter of the Confederacy. Jeff immediately falls for her, but she rejects him. Lucy is stubborn, and her sister tells Jeff that she is lashing out at him because her father and brother are serving in the war and she is worried about them. Jeff wins Lucy over, although their differences seem insurmountable, when he returns Lee’s body to the family. Jeff nearly decides to stay with the Confederacy when he realizes that he can be with Lucy if he does so, but decides that he can’t, even if it means that he never sees her again. Lucy agrees to wait for him until after the war, and the end of the novel suggests that the two will be married.

Jeff meets Lucy Washbourne’s two married sisters, one of which is referred to only as Mrs. Adair. Unlike Lucy, who can be volatile and unpredictable, Mrs. Adair is calm and even-keeled. While Lucy is reluctant to accept Jeff’s help, Mrs. Adair thanks him and explains Lucy’s explosive response to Jeff’s presence in the house. Although it is never explicitly stated, her married name suggests that her husband might be Major William P. Adair of Watie’s army, or potentially a relative.

The matriarch of the Washbourne family, Mrs. Washbourne is “large and motherly and, like all of them, carried herself with dignity and poise” (200). When Jeff is injured in the fight after helping the Washbournes with their cow, Mrs. Washbourne responds as a parent and insists on cleaning his wound. The Washbournes hesitate before allowing Jeff into the house, but Mrs. Washbourne is the one who takes charge and invites him in. Her husband, son, and two sons-in-law are fighting for the Confederacy. She offers her sincere gratitude to Jeff for returning Lee’s body to the family and is beset by grief over the loss. After the war, Mrs. Washbourne decides to open a boarding house for Union officers near Fort Gibson, having decided that many of the officers were good men after all after Major Thompson was polite when asking the Washbournes to feed the officers.

Jeff hears about Lee Washbourne, Lucy’s brother, when Mrs. Adair informs him that Lee went on a scouting mission and did not return. Lee and Lucy are close, and Jeff sets out on a short-lived mission to gain intel on Lee’s whereabouts to ease Lucy’s mind. Lee becomes the unfortunate victim to Clardy’s maliciousness when he his captured and executed. When Jeff sees Lee, who he only knows as an anonymous rebel scout at the time, bound and facing the firing squad, he is struck by his youth. Jeff is also amazed at how brave Lee is in the face of death. Jeff accepts arrest and punishment rather than taking part in shooting someone who has been rendered helpless.

Based on a historical figure, General Blunt is a former doctor who takes control of Jeff’s regiment before the Battle of Prairie Grove. Jeff first meets Blunt when he presents Jeff with a Medal of Honor. He responds to Jeff’s indecorous response with a hint of humor. Jeff respects Blunt as a leader for both his strategic prowess and his dismissal of military decorum. Blunt has a dog, which is a point of commonality between Blunt and Jeff, and he doesn’t bother to reprimand Jeff when Dixie sneaks up and puts her face in Blunt’s tea. Blunt assigns Jeff to become a scout and writes to Jeff’s family when he doesn’t return. When Jeff does return, he writes another letter to the Bussey family commending Jeff for his service. He rewards Jeff in his absence for the valuable information he sends with Leemon Jones.

Lieutenant Orff leads Jeff’s first scouting mission across rebel lines. He is capable and ruthless and shows Jeff the new type of rifle that allows the bearer to shoot seven rounds without reloading. This is the same type of rifle that Clardy will traffic to Watie across enemy lines. When Jeff returns to Fort Gibson near the end of the novel, Lieutenant Orff is the one who greets him at the gate.

On Jeff’s second and final scouting mission, he is sent with Jim Bostwick, an experienced scout. Bostwick is easygoing and quick-thinking, offering the lie that lands Jeff in an undercover position serving in Watie’s army. In their first battle with the rebels, Bostwick is sent to the front lines where he dies, leaving Jeff alone in enemy territory. Bostwick’s canteen, which is filled with real coffee (a resource unavailable to the Confederates), which exposes him as a spy after his death and nearly exposes Jeff.

Known at first as “Surly Voice,” Fields is the sergeant who captures Jeff and Bostwick. Fields is immediately mistrustful of the pair but backs off. Fields nearly outs Jeff as a spy after discovering that Bostwick was undercover but allows him the benefit of the doubt when Heifer reminds him that Jeff just saved Field’s life. Fields remains wary of Jeff, watching his behavior. When Watie’s men take the supply ship, Fields stares apprehensively at Jeff when he hesitates to tear up Federal money. Heifer informs Jeff that Fields is suspicious of everyone since his best friend, Lee Washbourne was executed, and that Fields is determined to catch and kill a Union spy as revenge.

Heifer, the cook for Watie’s men, is described as old and ugly. He is also an excellent cook. Heifer adopts Jeff, treating him like a son. He offers Jeff shelter from the rain when no one else does. Heifer takes up for Jeff when Fields is suspicious of him. He gives Jeff extra food and cares for him when Jeff becomes ill with malaria. Heifer travels to the Jackman home to collect Jeff after his convalescence, and procures Flea Bite, Jeff’s well-loved horse. When Jeff rides into the first rebel battle as a combatant rather than a horse-holder, Heifer rides along with him, willing to risk his life for the sake of protecting Jeff. Jeff feels particularly guilty knowing how betrayed Heifer will feel knowing that Jeff is a spy. Lucy describes Heifer as lonely. Heifer is unfailingly good-hearted and takes Jeff’s horse to give to Patricia Jackson as a replacement for her beloved horse which was taken by Union looters.

Hooley Pogue is a goofy, easy-going mixed-race Cherokee soldier, serving as part of Watie’s outfit. Pogue is shot when the rebels attack the Union supply ship, and Jeff saves his life by holding him on his horse so that he can make it back to camp. Later, after Jeff escapes, Pogue is unperturbed by the discovery that Jeff was a spy after Jeff saved him. He jokes, however, that the bloodhound Sully had better not return or Fields might have him court-martialed.

Major Adair is based on a historical figure. He is a Native American and one of Watie’s close friends and trusted officers. While Jeff is recovering from his illness at the Jackman home, Adair is promoted to colonel. Although he is an officer, Adair spends his off-time participating in the revelry of the rest of the men, enjoying their music and dancing.

Jeff meets Leemon Jones, a slave, while patrolling near a churchyard. Leemon tells Jeff that although his masters are kind to him, he hopes to one day be free. Jeff informs him that the black men at Fort Gibson are not only free, but they fight in the Union army in a segregated battalion. When Jeff becomes ill and realizes that he won’t make it all the way to Fort Gibson, he entrusts Leemon with the knowledge that Jeff is a Union spy and sends him to take his important message to General Blunt. Leemon agrees and delivers the message perfectly, deciding to stay and fight with the Union army. He is injured but survives the war.

Jeff passes out from malaria and wakes up in the Jackman home. Mrs. Jackman is the lady of the house, running the home while her husband fights for the Confederacy. The Jackmans are wealthy, and Watie calls Mrs. Jackman “Aunt Maggie” (306). Jeff describes her eyes as “so wise and knowing that Jeff felt a twinge of panic, wondering if she were on to his masquerade” (306). She prepares the family and Jeff to move from their home to a safe location in Texas for the duration of the war and makes the decision to stop early when the family locates a suitable empty home to inhabit. Mrs. Jackman is resolute and determined, taking Jeff’s advice to use poor livestock to pull their wagons and deter thieves. She treats Jeff like one of the family as he recovers from his illness. The family is mixed-race Cherokee.

Mr. Jackman is fighting for one of Watie’s regiments, but he visits his family at their new location in Texas. Jackman inadvertently gives Jeff the intel that Watie is obtaining new, more efficient rifles. However, although Jeff waits for more information, Mr. Jackman doesn’t betray anything else during his visits with his family.

Jill, 18, is the oldest of the unmarried Jackman daughters. She is proud to have a boyfriend who is fighting for Watie’s outfit.

Janice, 16, is the second-oldest of the three unmarried Jackman daughters. Like her sister Jill, Janice is proud to have a boyfriend fighting under Stand Watie.

Patricia, the youngest Jackman daughter, is 13 years old. She has a horse named Barney who she raised from when he was a foal, and she shows him off to Jeff. Patricia is devastated when Union looters steal him. Before Jeff leaves to rejoin the rebels, he lets Patricia take Flea Bite, his new horse, for a ride. In the end, Heifer gives Flea Bite to Patricia to replace her lost horse.

One of the two oldest Jackman sisters, Marjorie has a husband fighting with the Confederacy and babies at home. She grows hyacinths and plays the piano.

One of the two oldest Jackman sisters, Sophie, like her sister, has a husband fighting with the Confederacy and babies at home. Sophie receives word that her husband has been killed in the Battle of Perryville.

When Jeff wakes up from the worst of his first bout of malaria, Hannah, a Jackman family slave, is the first person he sees. Hannah is warm, friendly, and nurturing. She takes on the bulk of Jeff’s caretaking needs. When the Union soldiers raid the Jackman home, Hannah is the only slave who chooses to remain with the family.

Based on a historical figure, Stand Watie, referred to alternately as General and Colonel, is a mythicized unseen character for most of the novel. Jeff associates Watie with brutal raids on Union homes and camps. But Watie’s men are extremely loyal to his outfit, and never desert. Watie allows men to take some of what they pillage as a reward, and to bring those resources as supplies for needy refugee families. Throughout most of the book, Jeff imagines Watie as a larger-than-life figure, and is surprised when he finally meets him and discovers that he is a small older man who he finds sleeping on the ground without a bodyguard. Watie shows no mercy when fighting but is a fair and wise strategist. He bargains with Clardy to buy rifles, a move that likely would have turned the tide of the war had it occurred. Watie is a persuasive speaker, convincing the Cherokee tribal council to increase the scope of the draft.