If you have watched Ken Burns’s miniseries The Civil War, you might have been struck, as I was, by a reading done by author Shelby Foote near the end of Episode 9. Foote shares a passage from the war memoirs of Sgt Berry Benson, a South Carolina soldier, in which Benson seems to imagine the resurrection of both his old comrades and those they fought on the battlefield. They relive their battle experiences, but after it’s over all the soldiers stand up together unharmed. In some ways, this excerpt reminds me of what takes place at modern-day Civil War reenactments, or perhaps some of the scenes that might have occurred at post-war reunions.

I had read Berry Benson’s Civil War Book, published by Benson’s descendants (first in 1962, I think). Curiously, I did not find the reverie recited by Foote in The Civil War. Foote does quote Benson’s imaginative scene in Volume 3 of his The Civil War: A Narrative, published in 1974 (Kindle version, page 1047). A very similar quote is also found in the earlier 1965 book Never Call Retreat, by Bruce Catton (Kindle version, location 7674). Foote, as always, provides no source for the quotation. Catton, however, does acknowledge Benson’s reminiscences held in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina.

Wondering whether UNC might have a more extensive version of Benson’s memoirs, I wrote to the Wilson Library and was able to receive PDF versions of Reminiscences of Berry Green Benson C.S.A (1843-1923), a typescript apparently prepared by Benson’s family after his death, based on a manuscript left by him.

Since the quotation that I refer to as “Berry Benson’s Reverie” has never been, to my knowledge, published in full with complete source citation, I obtained permission from the Wilson Library to do so here. The complete source citation appears at the bottom of this article.

This excerpt is taken from Volume 1 of Benson’s Reminiscences, pages 250-1 in the typescript. He is here describing his unit’s departure from camp in the spring of 1864.

Berry Benson’s Reverie

“And so the spring drew on; we were wakened in the morning by the reveille; and at the tap of the drum we formed the ranks and went out to drill and dressparade, and the tattoo sang us to sleep. But one day (May 4) in the beginning of May, the long roll beat for a deeper purpose, and, falling in, we marched away from our log cabins forever. Left them forever. Yet, who knows? Who knows but it may be given to us, after this life, to meet again in the old quarters, to play chess and draughts, to get up soon to answer to morning roll call, to fall in at the tap of the drum, for drill and dressparade, and again to hastily do on our war-gear while the monotonous patter of the long roll summons to battle? Who knows but again the old flags, ragged and torn, snapping in the wind, may face each other and flutter, pursuing and pursued, while the cries of victory fill a summer day? And after the battle, then the slain and the wounded will rise, and all will meet together, under the two flags, all sound and well, and there will be talking and laughing and cheers, and all will say: Did it not seem real? Was it not as in the old days? And the performance will be cheered as a play at the theatre. And who knows? Are the marches that we marched, and the flank marches; are the battles we fought; are the victories, the defeats, the retreats, the sharp night attacks, the cheers of wild charges, all the scenes and actions of that splendid time, so rich with color that it glowed like scarlet; are they perhaps but a play we have played, and will we awake some day and say: How real it all seemed. — Ah, sometimes it seems to me now to have been but a dream, — a glorious dream. Yet I did — I did — I did. I did keep the night watch, alone with the moon and the tide, beneath the palmetto; and I did hear the wash and the grind of the waves while the dark, heavy hulls of the ships lay low on the sea; and I did follow Jackson and Lee in their tramps through the Valley; and I have seen the battle-flags, tattered and torn, flare red on the sky; and I have mixed my voice in the roar and the clamor of battle; and it is no dream.”

Source:
Reminiscences of Berry Green Benson C.S.A (1843-1923), typescript in the Berry Benson Papers, #2636, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Volume 1, pages 250-1.

Source for cover image: Library of Congress, drawing by Alfred Waud

Source for photo of Berry Benson: Photographic History of the Civil War

ARB – 2 Feb 2024