April Morning

Moses Cooper is Adam’s father, a man of conviction with a love for debate that sometimes rubs people the wrong way. He is, for his station in life, a learned man, and he hates ignorance in whatever form he finds it. He is a simple farmer by trade, but he holds a position of leadership among the Committeemen by virtue of his intelligence and considerable strength of will.

Moses is close to his wife, Sarah Cooper, as well as to his mother, Granny, who lives with the family. He is, of course, head of the household by convention, but he listens to their counsel and even accepts their rebukes when warranted.

While it is never explicitly spelled out, Moses does not hold to the Christian faith as his wife and mother do. He believes in reason as the key to human rights and self-describes as a “Christian-Judaic-materialist” (51) who will not call himself a Christian for fear it would make him sound like a member of the Church of England.

Moses is shot and killed at Lexington when the British attack. However, his presence is felt throughout the book as Adam’s internal feelings and thoughts about his father’s demise are made known to the reader.

Before his death, Moses’s character undergoes profound development when he is told by Sarah that Adam feels unloved by him, and so he makes an effort to let Adam know that he cares about him, just a few hours before he is killed. We discover more about Moses’s more kindly behavior toward Adam as Adam reflects on his late father through the course of the novel.

Granny Cooper is the mother of Moses Cooper. She is presumably widowed; she mentions her husband (Abraham Cooper) once, but nothing more is said about him. She had five sons, all four of whom passed before Moses, although it is never told how they died, nor is it certain if she had any daughters. Adam holds her intellect in high regard, conjecturing that she could even defeat Moses in an argument if she so wished, but that because of her gender she thought it impertinent to do so.

Granny functions as the foil to Moses and Adam’s materialism and spiritual pragmatism. She is a devout Christian and regularly debates Adam about matters of faith. Adam appreciates these discussions because Granny does not get personal in her attacks against Adam or despise him for thinking differently.

She loves all the members of her family, and although she once goes on the attack against Moses in defense of Adam, we are told by Adam that this was not normative. For an elderly woman of the time, she exhibits a good deal of initiative and even bravery. After Moses is shot, Granny and Sarah run from their home, and Granny spits in the face of one of the British soldiers who offers to help them, an action that could have easily been her last. Later, when the soldiers search the Cooper home, she follows them through the house, berating them.

In many ways Granny symbolizes the old order of things that are passing away, the older Puritan norms giving way to the modern world. She has strength of character, values education, and is faithful to God and her family, but she scorns new ideas and anything that smacks of pride. At the end of the novel Adam remarks on how old she suddenly appears to be, Moses’s death having sapped her joy and strength. She asks Adam to stay and not go to war, but she intuits that this will happen regardless of what she wants.

Sarah Cooper is the wife of Moses and the mother of Adam and Levi. She loves her family and is a faithful wife and mother in every sense of the word, as her devout nature mirrors Granny’s. However, she is not as given to debate or argument as the rest of the family. She has a reputation as a skilled cook in the community, and she provides an emotional steadiness that counteracts Moses’s pugnacity.

Her grief upon Moses’s passing is profound. She tells Adam that she will not be the same for a while, that she cannot yet hear his story about what happened in battle, but that she will find her strength again. She represents constancy and maternal affection in Adam’s life, although the dynamic changes somewhat at the end, as Adam realizes his mother will depend upon him to be the man of the household now that his father is dead.

Ruth Simmons is the daughter of Joseph Simmons, Adam’s second cousin once removed and his romantic interest. She is three months younger than Adam, and since their parents are cousins (and neighbors), they have grown up knowing each other and were close friends long before their courtship.

Ruth is on her own parallel journey from maidenhood to adulthood, right alongside Adam. Granny symbolizes the past, but Ruth is the future for Adam, literally and metaphorically. Ruth’s journey in becoming a woman is less traumatic than Adam’s journey toward manhood. Her immediate family survives the battle intact. Moreover, she is more certain of what she wants from her future, namely, a family with Adam, and she has reflected on this potential reality much longer than he has.

Ruth provides comfort and reassurance to Adam, but she is not averse to pushing back against him or arguing with him if she feels slighted or simply in disagreement with something he said. She is (like Sarah and Granny) strong-willed and knows her own mind. She also shares Adam’s dislike for war and violence, and after the battle it is important to her to find out if Adam took any pleasure in it.

Joseph Simmons is Ruth’s father, the local blacksmith, and a second cousin of Adam’s. He is close to the Cooper family, literally and emotionally. He lives nearby with his wife Rebecca. Joseph is present through most of the narrative, and his role in Adam’s life, already significant, is substantially enlarged by Moses’s death.

Joseph’s role as a wise mentor and father figure to Adam is enhanced by his apparent lack of any flaws, significant or minor. He is a man of such unimpeachable principles that he rejects his own brothers when they invest in a slaving ship, never speaking to them again.

During the battle Joseph saves Adam’s life. He also advises Adam as to how to grieve his father in a mature fashion, without pretending as though Moses was perfect. It is Joseph who provides an alternative justification than what Solomon Chandler offers for the war against the British, giving Adam the requisite philosophical underpinnings to fight resolutely without animus toward the enemy.

Along with his admirable character, Joseph also fits Adam’s needs perfectly as a father figure because Ruth is his daughter, and it is likely he will end up as Adam’s father-in-law at some point in the future. There are indicators, too, that Joseph is more of an agnostic when it comes to spiritual matters, which lines up neatly with Adam’s own predilection for rejecting the tenets of the church.

The reverend serves as the representative of the church in April Morning. His symbolic status in this regard is emphasized by the absence of any given name for his character, as well as a dearth of any information about the denomination or theology of the church he ministers in. Nor is there any mention of any other church or clergy member in Lexington.

The reverend is a sympathetic character who shows concern for his parishioners and a willingness to work and fight alongside them in the trenches, quite literally so during the battle. Nevertheless, he is not a strong or effective leader. He seems out of his depth and overwhelmed at several key moments in the drama, and while he has Adam’s affection, he does not command Adam’s respect in the same way that Joseph or his father do.

In this way, the reverend represents the best that faith has to offer, as seen in Granny and Sarah as well. It can be a source of comfort, even of sound principles, but it is ineffective and illogical when faced with the serious challenges of living life in a complicated and evolving world. In this view, reason is the superior teacher, and so it is that Adam never fully puts his trust in the reverend.