A Brotherhood of Khaki and Blue

 With the nation breathlessly watching as the U.S. Army fought the largest single battle in its history in the closing days of World War I, a 76-year-old Civil War veteran named John C. Newnam from Angola, Indiana penned an impassioned letter addressed to the young men “who are fighting for me in the biggest war that was ever fought in this world.”

          “In the war of 1861, I was 18 years old, just growing up in the bloom of life. I was anxious to go to war. I felt it my duty to go. I felt as though I wasn’t excused more than any other young man to face gun powder, shot, and shell. I weighed 118 pounds, was well-muscled, and well-nerved up at that time, but best of all I had in me a heart that said this country must be saved if it costs my flesh and blood,” he wrote.

John Newnam may be standing among these veterans of Co. H of the 44th Indiana Infantry. By the time this image was made in the spring of 1864 at Chattanooga, Tennessee, the regiment had fought in a dozen battles and had marched thousands of miles throughout the western theater. Newnam was one of 61 members of the regiment wounded at Chickamauga.


          Newnam enlisted in Co. H of the 44th Indiana Volunteers, a regiment later given the sobriquet of the “Iron 44th.” Newnam served his three year enlistment, seeing action in numerous battles throughout the western theater including Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Stones River, and Chickamauga. “Some Reb shot out ten teeth for me at the Battle of Chickamauga and shot me across the breast at the same time,” he recalled. “It so knocked the feeling out of my face that I was numb for a year.”

          “I know, too, that war is hell,” he continued. “I feel it my duty to stand by you till this war is over as we are comrades together. I feel sure you will fight just as good as our old coffee coolers did from ’61 to ’65 for this reason: we fought for equal rights and freedom, we fought for honor and justice in every sense of the word and so are you fighting for these things. I feel proud and always will that I was a Union soldier and you will feel proud of your having served the country.”

          “I believe we are going to whip the Germans just as sure as hell,” Newnam continued. “I am only 76 years old and if Uncle Sam wants me to come down there and fight by your side, let me know and I’ll be there. Whenever I see a soldier who is willing to put his life at stake for his country’s cause, I am acquainted with him for he is my brother. I would love to take him by the hand and shake a welcome with my old hand.”

          John Newnam would pass away about two years later, proud to have lived long enough to see the boys in khaki marching through the streets of Angola victorious over the Germans.

The veterans of the Civil War, both Blue and Gray, took immense pride in their grandsons who went off to fight in France and felt a brotherhood marked by the shared experience of military service. Having grown up hearing tales of the Civil War, many World War I vets returned home eager to swap stories of army life with their grandfathers. Charles Gorrell, an Ohioan serving in the 6th Marines, wrote home after being gassed in Belleau Wood in June 1918 "tell old "Dad" for me if he was over here he could have more fun than he had in the Civil War." Other WWI vets came home distraught and shattered by the ferocious experience of WWI combat. Both would agree with Sherman, however, that war is hell. 


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