Golden Kite Award
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Some Union and Confederate soldiers were as young as twelve-years-old when they went off to fight in the Civil War and it is thought that as many as ten to twenty percent of all Civil War soldiers may have been under sixteen years of age. Jim Murphy skillfully weaves together firsthand accounts and personal letters of these countless young men with historical context to paint their portrait — young soldiers who, either seeking escape from the drudgery of farm work or embracing fantasies of glory, participated in America’s most brutal and bloody war. The Boy’s War follows these young soldiers through the rigors of camp life and drilling, right into the chaos of the battlefield.
Handsomely produced with numerous period photographs and drawings, the book does not shrink from presenting the stark but moving images of youngsters killed in battle. The first book to explore the role of boys who fought in the Civil War, The Boy’s War is a contemporary classic. No reader’s picture of the Civil War will be the same after reading this book.