Guns And Death In Coldmountain Essay
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Cold Mountain includes mention of many Civil War-era weapons. Some are standard-issue field arms, such as the Springfield and Enfield rifles, and the Colt army and navy revolvers. Others are rare, specialty items, like the powerful LeMat pistol or Whitworth sniper rifle. The question is, why these particulars out of the hundreds of devices that made a battlefield appearance during the war? There must be something between them that relates to the story and its mood.
All of the weapons, greatly varied though they are, have one thing in common: effectiveness. When used appropriately, they excelled in battle over many other widely-used firearms, especially smoothbore muzzle-loading muskets.
The most mentioned weapon in Cold Mountain is Inman s LeMat revolver. Invented in 1856 by Jean Alexander Francois Le Mat, his pistol became the most famous foreign pistol during the war (Weapons of the Civil War n.p.). The LeMat s was an incredibly deadly weapon in its time. Not only was it a nine-chambered .40 calibre revolver, but it also had a secondary .63 calibre barrel that fired either 18 or 20-gauge buckshot. Some models even had fittings for a full-size shotgun barrel (ibid.). About three thousand of the pistols were shipped to the Confederacy, being used most notably by generals J. E. B. Stuart and P. T. Beauregard (ibid).
Another pistol that receives repeated attention in Cold Mountain is the Colt revolver. The Colt Army version was preferred by Union forces, while the Navy model was more popular in the South. The names of the pistols do not necessarily denote the forces they were used in. The Union army bought more Colt Navys than the Navy did (ibid.). The Colt revolver was reliable and had interchangeable parts for ease of service. A testament to its performance is the fact that the pistol accounted for forty percent of all handgun purchases in the Union army (ibid.).
An example of a rare and powerful Confederate weapon is the Whitworth rifle, a creation of Sir Joseph Whitworth. When combined with its telescopic sight, the rifle had an effective range of 1,500 1,800 yards (Antique Firearm Network n.p.). The Whitworth was unusual in that its bore and therefore its bullet was a twisted hexagon. The ridges of the bullet, known as a bolt, stabilized it in flight, adding to its range. Whitworth sniper rifles were used to great effect by Confederate forces, especially to kill enemy officers. At the battle of Spotsylvania Court House, (in an all-time favorite Civil War Moment) Union general John Sedgwick was killed by a sniper s bolt, cutting short his immortal last words: They couldn t hit an elephant at this dist
A more common rifle was the model 1861 Springfield Musket. The most widely used long weapon of the war, the Springfield fought, on both sides, in every major battle (Weapons of the Civil War n.p.). It brought together all of the major developments in arms into one weapon; a rifled bore, percussion firing system, and interchangeable parts. The Springfield fired a .58 calibre minie ball at a respectable 950 ft/sec (ibid.). A simple but effective weapon at a cost of $15 - $20.
So there is a wealth of weapons in Cold Mountain that function well. How are several tools that quite easily take life appropriate for the story? It seems that death fits well with the cynical, fatalistic outlook that the novel contains and its grim lesson of futility.
Cold Mountain pulls no punches. The entire novel is a series of one hardship after another, staring with the first chapter. A wounded Inman spends his time in a field hospital after a too-hot, stinking train ride from the battlefield (Frazier 6). For his first few weeks there, his neck allowing him no movement, Inman does naught but watch a blind man sell peanuts and newspapers. When well enough to walk, Inman decides to talk to the man, sensing a certain kinship, as the peddler had lived less than whole for a long time (ibid.). During their conversation, Inman admits to times he wished he was blind, most of all the battle of Fredericksburg, where an army of Union soldiers marched across an open field to assault an impregnable position, leading to a slaughter (Frazier 9-14). Inman later reveals his feeling after thinking of a friend: [He] guessed Swimmer s spells were right in saying a man s spirit could be torn apart and cease and yet his body keep on living He was himself a case in point...
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