Charlie's Wives

The year 1864 is turbulent in America. Charlie has returned seemingly unscathed but PTSD and depression are unknown at the time and on the surface he seems fine. He is psychologically scarred by the effects of war - the death and for him needless dying of thousands has hit him hard. Much harder than those of his fellow soldiers. To them he seems delicate, sensitive and these are qualities unknown to them. This puts Charlie at a disadvantage. They look at him with slight disdain and also suspicion.

Charlie is assigned a role to find African Americans to serve. To recruit them he is given an incentive payment but it is not enough and Charlie finds that talking to the African American women may be the key to getting the men to enlist. Whilst he is successful in doing this, it is misrepresented by his commanding officer who is a boor and a coward who tries to undermine Charlie's efforts at every turn.

Charlie helps the women by writing for them. Letters to their husbands giving details of their homes and children and their own feelings because he knows how much he longed for letters himself from his mother and sisters when he was on the battlefield. He also reads the letters that come back from the husbands and through this interchange, Charlie builds up relationships with the women who are quite distant from the other white men of the camp.

Charlie is an outstanding man of the times. Sensitive and compassionate and compared with the others of his camp he is such a good man. Not appreciated of course by his seniors or his peers who do not quite understand him.

Characterizations was spot on throughout the book and the story was a good one, highlighting a part of the war where African Americans were an integral part of the war to win liberty at a time when such liberty was at risk.

The book is also a story based on true events.


Goodreads and amazon review up on 16/1/2017. Review on my blog mid May 2017

A fine addition to any historical fiction fan's reading list. I especially enjoyed the revelations experienced by both black and white characters that their experiences were the same, regardless of race. As Charlie helps Tensie communicate with her husband who is at war, and ultimately other wives in the same position, he also comes to understand the dedication and love between a man and a woman. Recommended.

This book broke my heart on soo many levels. I have wondered for years how different our world would be if PTSD was known about and addressed centuries ago. I have often wondered how different the aftermath of the Civil War would have been in this regard. This book is about the Civil War and Charlie who served for 3 years and then comes to be a recruiter. They need men so he is supposed to be recruiting African American soldiers for the Union. It is a hard and daunting task. He realizes many of them can't read or write. He starts a friendship of sorts with one of the women whose husband he recruited. He soon has more recruits and he finds himself writing letters to them for the wives hence the title 'Charlie's Wives'. His intent is pure as he remembers being on the battlefield and yearning for the letters from home. He is also the reader of the replies and the conveyor or any bad news. Without giving too much away his commanding officer is not keen with the interactions with the women and his letter writing. The book also contains him having episodes that would now be labeled as PTSD and now he could get the resources to help. His interactions with his 'wives' and some other characters show the devastation war can bring to a person. I would definitely recommend this book with a box of Kleenex.