True Bits: Hiram’s Ring

(Spoiler alert! You might not want to keep reading if you haven’t finished the book–each “true bit” gives the background on something real that inspired part of the novel: some big, some small)

This first True Bit is a smaller one…

So, you know that ring Hiram carves?

The one made out of a vertebrae he found on the battlefield?

Yeah, that’s something I just couldn’t make it up. It’s a little tidbit that came out of a soldier’s letter that I read in the collection The Soldier’s Pen: Firsthand Impressions of the Civil War. I thought it was the kind of detail that would really show the effects of battle on a soldier, how the horror of war would change a person’s sense of morality.

Here’s the original, in a letter written by Confederate soldier J.M. Tate:

“Dear Sister Mary,
…I rote to darcus last week and inclosed a bone ring in the letter and I will inclose one in this for Ma made by my own hands with an old knife. those sets are pure silver. the bone was found on the Battle field of Seven Pines and all so Darcases was of the same. I have one for you that was found on Mine Town that I will forward in my next letter. Tell the old lady to except this ring in remembrance of her only son and when his sweet harts come to see hir, she can show what hir son did in the army of Northern Virginia.”