The Judas Field: A Novel of the Civil War

By Howard Bahr

In this epic novel of violence and redemption by the author of The Black Flower, a Civil War veteran travels back over old battlefields toward a reckoning with the past

It's been twenty years since Cass Wakefield returned from the Civil War to his hometown in Mississippi, but he is still haunted by battlefield memories. Now, one afternoon in 1885, he is presented with a chance to literally retrace his steps from the past and face the truth behind the events that led to the loss of so many friends and comrades.

The opportunity arrives in the form of Cass's childhood friend Alison, a dying woman who urges Cass to accompany her on a trip to Franklin, Tennessee, to recover the bodies of her father and brother. As they make their way north over the battlefields, they are joined by two of Cass's former brothers-in-arms, and his memories reemerge with overwhelming vividness. Before long the group has assembled on the haunted ground of Franklin, where past and present—the legacy of the war and the narrow hope of redemption—will draw each of them toward a painful confrontation.

Moving between harrowing scenes of battle and the novel's present-day quest, Howard Bahr re-creates this era with devastating authority, proving himself once again to be the preeminent contemporary novelist of the Civil War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jul 24, 2007
• ISBN: 9781466832138

Howard Bahr

Howard Bahr is the author of four novels: The Black Flower (1997), The Year of Jubilo (2000), The Judas Field (2006), and Pelican Road (2008). A native of Meridian, Mississippi, he served in the US Navy during the Vietnam War and worked for several years as a railroad yard clerk and brakeman. From 1982 to 1993, Bahr was curator of Rowan Oak, the William Faulkner homestead and museum in Oxford, Mississippi. His last post was as writer-in-residence at Belhaven University.  

Reviews for The Judas Field

[shesinplainview · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the best, if not the best, books about the Civil War I've read. It is a beautifully written, very sad and wonderful story with realistic characters. A must for anyone interested in this era.

[cathyskye · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

First Line: Cass Wakefield was born in a double-pen log cabin just at the break of day, and before he was twenty minutes old, he was almost thrown out with the bedclothes.Since that rather inauspicious beginning, Cass Wakefield piloted steamboats, married, was a soldier, and became a widower. For the last twenty years, he's lived in Cumberland, Mississippi, and been a traveling salesman selling Colt revolvers.Alison Sansing lost her father and brother in the war, and for the last twenty years, she's lived in that big old house in Cumberland alone. Having just been told by her doctor that she has cancer and hasn't long to live, the thing Alison fears most is being buried in the family cemetery alone. She asks Cass Wakefield to accompany her to Franklin, Tennessee-- where her father and brother died in battle-- to recover their bodies and bring them back to Cumberland to be buried at home.Having fought in the Battle of Franklin himself, Cass has no desire whatsoever to return to the area, but he does... for Alison. Two friends who fought alongside Cass travel with the pair, and the closer they all get to Franklin, the more vivid their memories become.I chose to read this book because my great-great-great-grandfather fought and died in the Battle of Franklin, and the fact that James Henry Brown's uniform was blue not gray, doesn't make a bit of difference. Bahr sets his scene very carefully. The pace felt like a steam locomotive pulling out of the station and gradually gaining speed. A profound sense of sadness, of sorrow, for all that was lost, for all the lives that were forever changed, permeates the book. At one point Alison asks what the fighting was like, and the response is one of the best I've ever read about the impossibility of telling someone who wasn't there what it's like to fight in the midst of the bloodbath of battle: "If we live a thousand years, won't ever find a way to tell it." He coughed , and turned his head to spit. "In a battle, everything is wrong, nothing you ever learned is true anymore. And when you come out-- if you do-- you can't remember. You have to put it back together by the rules you know, and you end up with a lie. That's the best you can do, and when you tell it, it'll still be a lie."The book's sadness turns to heartbreak as the men arrive in Franklin and try to locate where the bodies were buried so long ago. Yes, things have changed, but there are still roads, still buildings, that unleash an overwhelming tide of memory and loss. It's some of the best writing about war I've ever read because Bahr never once lets graphic carnage carry his story. It's a wonderful thing when a writer credits his readers with enough imagination and feeling to fill in the blanks for themselves.Cass Wakefield is a beautifully realized character. One I will long remember, as I will remember The Judas Field. I come away from the book feeling that I now have a tiny idea of what my ancestor went through in that time and place so long ago.

[homan9118 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Last night was a sad night for me. It wasn't totally due to the sadness that Howard Bahr is able to evoke but partly because I have come to the end of his trilogy. The Black Flower, part one, remains near the top of my list of favorite books of all time. It very well could be number one. The Year of Jubilo was a worthy follow up. It wasn't on the level of The Black Flower in my opinion, but it was still a damn good book. I gave The Black Flower 5*'s and Jubilo 4*'s. The Judas Field is on par with The Black Flower. It is just magnificent. There are pages that I would re-read many times and each time I felt the same wave of emotion, understanding, and sympathy that I had the first time. The soldier's referred to death in a spirtual and physical form. They referred to death as The Death Angel. I would like to share a passsage:"The Death Angel was everywhere waiting, counting them over and over, eager to subtract. He marched beside them in the ranks; he moved among them when they slept, peering into their faces. He was eager for the little slip, the moment of weakness or forgetfulness. He courted them all. "......" So they grieved, and more; they were harried by guilt. That, too, was the work of the Death Angel, who chose one and let another live, who dropped this one by the roadside while his comrade walked on. The soldiers traveled always in the company of those who were gone, who were transformed by memory into better men -- gentler, funnier, braver men -- than they might have been in life. The Death Angel reminded the living always of how much promise was lost, and how, beside it, their own possibilities shrank to no consequence. He whispered how they could never do enough, be enough now to be worthy of the gift of life. " And yet, are you not relieved?" he would whisper. "Tell yourself truly -- are you not glad it was him and not you?" The soldiers might speak of tomorrow, of what good deeds they would do, of redemption or love or promise or hope, but deep in their hearts, they knew it to be a lie, a tale they told themselves to beguile their shame. "Treat yourself folks. Treat yourself to Howard Bahr.

[sjmccreary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In 1885 Cass Wakefield was asked by his longtime friend Alice Sansing to accompany her to retrieve the bodies of her father and brother. Alice is dying of cancer and, having never married, suddenly is afraid of being alone forever in the cemetery. Her father and brother had fought in the civil war in the local regiment and died at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee in 1864. Cass, the man she had hoped to marry before he married another, and Roger Lewellen, another local man, served in the same regiment and had helped to bury the Sansing men after the battle. On the journey north from their home in Cumberland, MS, Cass is thrust back into his past and must confront his memories of the war and his actions in it.A gloomy, morose book. Very vivid descriptions of the conditions of the soldiers during the war, and of the horror of the battlefield. Also realistically shows the lingering effects of war on the lives of the soldiers, even 20 years later.My two favorite quotes: "When we finally have enough mistakes to learn from, it's time to die" (pg 240) and "Without the possibility of defeat, the victories would have no meaning" (pg 292).Even though the overall tone of the story is somber, I think that Bahr avoided being too heavy-handed. The descriptions are done in a matter-of-fact fashion, forcing the reader to acknowledge the ugliness that is war, and the inevitable mortality of each one of us.

[minpin3g · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book took a while to read...I think more because I knew how it would evoke such sadness at the end more than anything else. Although I usually do not read this genre of book, The Judas Field is a new favorite for me. I love the way the characters are given so many different dimensions. A very good book.

[macstomes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Remarkable book. Such eloquence rarely seen these days. Very disturbing battle scenes.