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The Judas Field A Novel of the Civil War Howard Bahr Books

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The Judas Field A Novel of the Civil War Howard Bahr Books

This is the 3rd of Bahr's novels of The Civil War I've read. The others are The Year of Jubilo (my favorite) and The Black Rose. The Judas Field takes a different perspective than the others. Jubilo and Rose told stories of characters involved in the immediate post war occupation of Mississippi and the Battle of Franklin as the events unfolded. TJF is primarily the story of Cass Wakefield, who served as a sergeant in The Army of The Tennessee, and it is a retrospective form 20 years after the war ended.

It is a very powerful story of the damage done to those who fought in the horrific Civil War battles, those who lost loved ones and other unfortunates who lived in or near the conflicts. Bahr especially focuses on the experiences of the soldiers and does a great job of pulling the reader into the nightmare scenario of hunger, deprivation, exhaustion, severe cold and heat and the terror that is a constant in the soldiers' lives. Though I can never understand what it is like to be in combat, Bahr is successful in helping me understand and feel what it was like for those who were. Reading the book was a very emotional experience for me and I highly recommend it as well as Bahr's other CW novels. I haven't read any other works by him but I plan to based on the books I've read.


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The Judas Field A Novel of the Civil War Howard Bahr Books Reviews

"The Judas Field" is about MEMORY! It's about the power of godawful human conflict to wharp, to mutilate, and ultimately to destroy human lives; the lives of those who have lived through the horror of it and "survived." But survived for what? Survived how? NO ONE who faced combat, who "saw the elephant," emerged from our nation's most horrendous conflict without deep scars that lasted for whatever years remained of his life. Bahr is a master at finding, recording and describing those who made it through and what the survival cost them. His descriptive capacity is superior! When I read his works I keep saying, "Yes, yes, that must have been the way it was." In "Judas field" he gives us alcoholism and drug addiction. He also gives us deeply sympathetic characters who desperately want to do the right thing, to care, to make things right somehow. There were probably lots of young men from Iowa and Indiana who went home to lives essentially unchanged from before the conflict. In the South this was certainly not the case. One in four southern men of military age was dead. Statistically, EVERY man who served in the Southern armies and was not killed was wounded. And the world they came home to was devastated beyond anything Americans have experienced since. McMurty says the South is about memory. He's right. Read Bahr's works to know why. "Black Flower" "The Year of Jubilo" and "Judas Field" will make Southerners of anyone. Even this tranplant.
Outstanding book. Among the best I have read in Civil War fiction. Mr. Bahr is very informed and knowledgeable about both the history and the physical location of, the Battle of Franklin, TN. I am quite impressed with this book and found it to be a very good read. I recommend this book highly and also urge the reader to seek out Mr. Bahrs other works "The Black Flower" and "The Year of Jubilo". While interconnected, each can be read on a stand-alone basis. But, why deny yourself the pleasure of reading all three wonderful novels?

Michael Lowe
If Howard Bahr writes about the Civil War I'm there. Bahr really knows how to capture the feeling of the tragedy that was the American Civil War. I was a huge fan of 'The Black Flower' and have read it many times since it was released. His characters were so heartbreaking and the situations so realistic that I knew that he really had captured a bit of what it was like to be in the Army of Tennessee and at the Battle of Franklin and life during the Civil War.

This continues in 'The Judas Field'. I like the cross cutting between the two stories-one set in the 1880s while the other takes place during the Tennessee Campaign of 1864. Bahr is magical with words and his descriptions of the marches and the battles are first rate. Unlike 'The Black Flower' he describes the actual Battle of Franklin in some detail and how it affects his main protagonists. Bahr's Civil War is not romantic and is very gritty but still some dark humor shines through. Also, a description of a battle during the Atlanta campaign is very vividly described as is a very dramatic scene involving a burning down of a house. These are two of my favorite scenes. Bahr is just a master of words.

I highly recommend Bahr and all of his great Civil War novels- 'The Black Flower', 'Year of Jubilo', and 'The Judas Field'. They are quite simply some of the best literature ever written about the American Civil War. I hope he returns to writing about the Civil War in the near future. Very rarely does a author and his subject match so incredibly well!
Magnificent! Mr. Bahr has written a wonderful, poignant, personal view of how the brutality of the Civil War affected those that lived it. War is the ultimate of human endeavors; those who have been embraced by it are changed forever. Brutality on a grand scale that brings into question the essence of the human condition. Mr. Bahr reaches into the very soul of those who have witnessed the carnage and examines how their lives are changed forever. His character development was superb. His use of the pervasive darkness of that era was stunning in its portrayal. Men fought and died not for their nation but for their beliefs in their fellow comrades. Mr. Bahr is a genius at putting into words the timeless love of men and women who lived those desperate hours. War is terrible but man's belief in himself and those who he fights beside transcends the violence of the battlefield.

I highly recommend this classic novel for anyone who wants to briefly glimpse what it is like to taste, hear, smell, and feel the horrors of the battlefield. No gratuitous violence, although the graphic nature of battle is portrayed in all its ugliness. Mr. Bahr's trilogy of the civil war is the best I have ever read on how those that lived it, dealt with its horrors. He is a master at showing how the glories of the battlefield scared an entire generation for years after the guns went silent. A must read.
This is the 3rd of Bahr's novels of The Civil War I've read. The others are The Year of Jubilo (my favorite) and The Black Rose. The Judas Field takes a different perspective than the others. Jubilo and Rose told stories of characters involved in the immediate post war occupation of Mississippi and the Battle of Franklin as the events unfolded. TJF is primarily the story of Cass Wakefield, who served as a sergeant in The Army of The Tennessee, and it is a retrospective form 20 years after the war ended.

It is a very powerful story of the damage done to those who fought in the horrific Civil War battles, those who lost loved ones and other unfortunates who lived in or near the conflicts. Bahr especially focuses on the experiences of the soldiers and does a great job of pulling the reader into the nightmare scenario of hunger, deprivation, exhaustion, severe cold and heat and the terror that is a constant in the soldiers' lives. Though I can never understand what it is like to be in combat, Bahr is successful in helping me understand and feel what it was like for those who were. Reading the book was a very emotional experience for me and I highly recommend it as well as Bahr's other CW novels. I haven't read any other works by him but I plan to based on the books I've read.