Everything you need to understand or teach March by Geraldine Brooks.
Chapter One: Virginia Is a Hard Road
March opens with lines from a letter written by John March, a forty-year-old company chaplain for the Union army, on October 21, 1861, to his wife, Marmee, and to his daughters, after the Battle of Ball’s Bluff in Virginia. March is exhausted but has promised to write her everyday. He admits that although he misses her comforting hand, he does not want her there, and he will not write her the truth about the war.
March watches the burial party collect bodies, claiming, “I had no orders, and so placed myself where I believed I could do most good,” praying with the wounded. He recalls that during the battle, he tried to help a young Union soldier cross the river to safety, but the boy was shot in the process and drowned. Some of the men, including March, made it to an island in the river where March now... View more of the March Summary
