Everything I know about the American Civil War I learned through reading the big nose adventure humour series Les Tuniques Bleues.
Has there actually been any American comics series about the Civil War? I can’t think of any off the top of my head. Usually when it comes up it’s to give some antihero like Jonah Hex his background, preferably as some traitor who failed to defend slavery and now is sad the South lost the war or something. Not so much here. As you may expect from something called Les Tuniques Bleues (“the Bluecoats”) its protagonists are on the right side, the Northern side. Though that doesn’t stop it from taking the mickey out of war in general or the stupidity of the Northern commanders either.
Created by artist Louis Salvérius and writer Raoul Cauvin in 1970, the former sadly died a few albums in and he was replaced by Lampil,w ho has done the art ever since. Cauvin himself died in 2021 but the series has continued with new writers. Les Tuniques Bleues stars the hopelessly naive sergeant Chesterfield, proud to be a soldier and a true believer in his cause and government. He’s partnered with corporal Blutch, much more cynical, much smarter and not intending to sacrifice his own life for any cause, no matter how noble. It’s a classic combination you see a lot in Franco-Belgian humorous adventure comics like this. The series actually started as a more generic western comic, with Chesterfield and Blutch part of that famed institution that always arrives too late to be useful in other western comics: the cavalry. It’s only in the second album they move back east to the war.
As a child I loved this series, one of my favourites along with Asterix and Tintin. We even played Civil War soldier with my younger brothers and such. Most of the stories were set in a more or less generic Civil War scenario, but a lot also took place during actual historical events, as you should be able to guess from the title of this particular one, telling the story of 1st Bull Run. Along the way Blutch and Chesterfield also participated in the battle of the monitors, had to escape the Andersonville prison camp and witnessed the siege of Vicksburg.
Not that you could pass a history test by just reading this series, but it did mean that I could recognise various events when I came across them reading James M. McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era…
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