Soldiers Heart: Being the Story of the Enlistment and Due Service of the Boy Charley Goddard in the First Minnesota Volunteers

Paulsen uses details from the historical record to depict the setting of the Gettysburg battle in detail. It takes place on a meadow like the previous battles but on a hillside. This time, the Union holds the higher ground and therefore has an advantage, while the Confederate soldiers must cross the meadow uphill while vulnerable in the open. Paulsen shows Charley’s thoughts as he shoots from his sheltered position. This is the first time Charley has been at an advantage during a battle, and he thinks that this is the right way to fight; not in the open with high possibility of being shot, but from a protected, strategic position.

Charley almost feels sorry for the Rebel soldiers; they march forward in lines and are slaughtered in droves as they approach. Paulsen suggests the senseless, almost suicidal nature of such an approach, and causes the reader to question why war was fought in this way. The line between brave and foolish blurs in Charley’s mind. Paulsen shows that strategy and survival did not seem to be a primary concern for the battling armies. Soldiers followed their commanders’ orders into situations that held little possibility of survival.

During the battle of Gettysburg, the First Minnesota Volunteers is ordered onto the battlefield to make a countercharge. In the Author’s Note, Paulsen reveals that this charge is historically accurate. Additionally, when the battle of Gettysburg ended, only forty-seven of the original one thousand First Minnesota Volunteers remained standing. This demonstrates the extremely low survival rate of Civil War soldiers like Charley.

Chapter 10’s title, “June 1867,” tells reader that six years passed since Charley enlisted, and he is now twenty-one. Paulsen points out Charley’s physical youth in contrast with his mental and emotional age. He is “old from too much life” and the sights and sounds of battle and death haunt him (98). Charley’s picnics by the river are a habit, and Paulsen suggests via the presence of the revolver that Charley often contemplates suicide on his picnics. He also depicts a sense of isolation from society, as Charley lives in what others call a “shack” on the edge of town (99). Through these details, Paulsen shows the mental effects that combat can inflict. Even though Paulsen indicates that Charley is near Winona, Minnesota, his hometown, there are no mentions of Charley’s mother or brother in this final chapter. Charley’s life seems full of pain—both physical and emotional—and void of purpose. Instead of going to work, he goes to the river.

A picnic usually suggests idyllic scenery and relaxation, but Paulsen subverts this expectation. Charley struggles to sit on the ground because of his injuries, and brings a Confederate revolver, which he places beside him and thinks about using to kill himself. Although this final chapter is one of the shortest in the novel, it is packed with significant details. In just a few words, Paulsen shows the reader the life and internal world of a soldier who has returned home, but who can never return to the life he once had. Charley is forever altered by what he has seen and done and exemplifies the consequences of the trauma of combat.