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The Journal of Rufus Rowe: A Witness to the Battle of Fredericksburg is a historical fiction book written by Sid Hite. It is the eighteenth entry in Scholastic's My Name Is America. The book was published on October 2003 and was followed by Jim Murphy's The Journal of Brian Doyle.

Dedication[]

"For Janet and Glenn Gibson"

Book description[]

"December 15, 1862
No one knows how many Union soldiers are dead, for they are still counting, but Captain Nelson estimated the Yanks lost upwards of six thousand men opposite the stone wall alone. That's an amazingly high number. The Rebel dead behind the stone wall comes to eight hundred.
When you think no one wants to die and so many did, it's hard to understand the meaning of what happened here. The Confederates won the battle on Saturday, but what did they win? If you were close to one of the men who died, you would not feel as if you had won much. Maybe that's what war is. You lose when you lose and lose when you win.
"

Plot[]

Epilogue[]

Historical Note[]

Characters[]

Main article: List of The Journal of Rufus Rowe characters

Author[]

Main article: Sid Hite

Notes[]

  • The portrait on the cover is a detail from an 1862 ambrotype of a boy named Maximilian Cabanas. The background is a detail from a 19th century woodcut depicting the Confederate Louisiana Brigade at the second Battle of Bull Run.[2][3][4]

References[]

See also[]


External links[]

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