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Rifles for Watie

Harold Keith

3.91 · Rating details · 9,087 ratings · 448 reviews

Jeff Bussey walked briskly up the rutted wagon road toward Fort Leavenworth on his way to join the Union volunteers. It was 1861 in Linn County, Kansas, and Jeff was elated at the prospect of fighting for the North at last.

In the Indian country south of Kansas there was dread in the air; and the name, Stand Watie, was on every tongue. A hero to the rebel, a devil to the Un Jeff Bussey walked briskly up the rutted wagon road toward Fort Leavenworth on his way to join the Union volunteers. It was 1861 in Linn County, Kansas, and Jeff was elated at the prospect of fighting for the North at last.

In the Indian country south of Kansas there was dread in the air; and the name, Stand Watie, was on every tongue. A hero to the rebel, a devil to the Union man, Stand Watie led the Cherokee Indian Nation fearlessly and successfully on savage raids behind the Union lines. Jeff came to know the Watie men only too well.

He was probably the only soldier in the West to see the Civil War from both sides and live to tell about it. Amid the roar of cannon and the swish of flying grape, Jeff learned what it meant to fight in battle. He learned how it felt never to have enough to eat, to forage for his food or starve. He saw the green fields of Kansas and Okla-homa laid waste by Watie's raiding parties, homes gutted, precious corn deliberately uprooted. He marched endlessly across parched, hot land, through mud and slashing rain, always hungry, always dirty and dog-tired.

And, Jeff, plain-spoken and honest, made friends and enemies. The friends were strong men like Noah Babbitt, the itinerant printer who once walked from Topeka to Galveston to see the magnolias in bloom; boys like Jimmy Lear, too young to carry a gun but old enough to give up his life at Cane Hill; ugly, big-eared Heifer, who made the best sourdough biscuits in the Choctaw country; and beautiful Lucy Washbourne, rebel to the marrow and proud of it. The enemies were men of another breed - hard-bitten Captain Clardy for one, a cruel officer with hatred for Jeff in his eyes and a dark secret on his soul.

This is a rich and sweeping novel-rich in its panorama of history; in its details so clear that the reader never doubts for a moment that he is there; in its dozens of different people, each one fully realized and wholly recognizable. It is a story of a lesser -- known part of the Civil War, the Western campaign, a part different in its issues and its problems, and fought with a different savagery. Inexorably it moves to a dramatic climax, evoking a brilliant picture of a war and the men of both sides who fought in it. ...more

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Paperback, 352 pages

Published September 25th 1987 by HarperTeen (first published 1957)

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3.91 ·

Rating details

· 9,087 ratings · 448 reviews

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Jun 05, 2010 Joan rated it really liked it

Q. Why didn’t I read this in junior high?
Q. Why didn’t my teachers make it mandatory?
Q. Why did I ever read anything out of a text book about the civil war?

Rifles for Watie taught me more about the civil war than any junior high American History book I ever endured. If I were teaching Junior High history this would be MANDATORY. It was exciting and not biased. The author did a remarkable job of showing the good and bad sides of both the Union and Confederate Armies. The protagonist Jeff Bussey w ...more

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Jan 02, 2009 Ed rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: historical novel fans/Civil War history buffs

Recommended to Ed by: Reread

I recalled once reading Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith when I was a kid probably over my summer vacation. I believed I had enjoyed the experience, so I decided to have another go at it now and hope the historical novel written for teens still holds up. I am happy to report Rifles for Watie still turns my crank. The author Keith had a wonderful knack for turning descriptive phrases of the landscape, battle scenes, and soldiers' camp life. His protagonist of Jeff Bussey from Linn County, Kansas, ...more

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Nov 19, 2009 Valerie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Valerie by: Cara

Shelves: historical-fiction, male-protagonist, favorites

There are few reasons why I wanted to read this book. One, it was highly recommended to me by my sister. Two, is historical fiction (about the civil war). And three, it is based in the mid-west which is mostly ignored during the civil war, except when they mention "Bloody Kansas" for one paragraph in the textbooks. It was a bit long and it took me a while to read but it was well worth it.

Hoping to prove himself and defend his home Jeff leaves to enlist as a soldier in the Union Army. He has thi ...more

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Nov 01, 2017 Kellyn Roth rated it it was amazing

Shelves: adventurous-books, books-for-children, books-for-teens, historical-fiction, read-for-school

Okay, that was cool. :) Might review it further later.

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Apr 03, 2017 Luisa Knight rated it liked it

Shelves: civil-war, historical-fiction, young-adult, newbery-medal-honor, own

Cleanliness:

Children's Bad Words
Mild Obscenities - 50 Incidents: corn, by jack, shut up, jeepers, darn, darned, dad-gummed, cripes, shucks, stupid, shoot, dang, gosh, gallinippers, heck, h*ll (once)
Name Calling - 21 Incidents: chronic croakers, Free State scum, n*ggers (three times), dom (dumb), big lout, fool, Yankee swine, Yankee liar, foot-sloggers, Buttermilk Rangers, crazy dumb, cowardly swine, stupid, bugger, gray devils, bl**dy-minded shikepokes
Scatological Terms - 7 Incidents: bl**dy (as Cleanliness:

Children's Bad Words
Mild Obscenities - 50 Incidents: corn, by jack, shut up, jeepers, darn, darned, dad-gummed, cripes, shucks, stupid, shoot, dang, gosh, gallinippers, heck, h*ll (once)
Name Calling - 21 Incidents: chronic croakers, Free State scum, n*ggers (three times), dom (dumb), big lout, fool, Yankee swine, Yankee liar, foot-sloggers, Buttermilk Rangers, crazy dumb, cowardly swine, stupid, bugger, gray devils, bl**dy-minded shikepokes
Scatological Terms - 7 Incidents: bl**dy (as in lots of blood - 4 times), bl**dy (swear word - 3 times)
Religious Profanity - 19 Incidents: goshallmighty, for God's sake, Godforsaken, Jeez, Bedad, Bejabez, wish it to God, gawsh, gosh, Lor', praise God

Attitudes/Disobedience - 14 Incidents: A boy brings his dog to bed with him after his parents told him not to. A boy won’t tell his father he’s leaving to join the army because he knows his father does not want him to. Another boy won’t tell his mother he’s leaving to join the army because he knows she won’t let him. A boy is teased for his name but he gets back at the person and “felt repaid.” A boy is asked to help steal confiscated watermelons. He doesn’t want to but gives in to peer pressure. A boy doesn’t want to go home during furlough because he’ll “just have another big brawl with Pa” for joining the army. A boy gets homesick so deserts the army. A boy gets into a fight with his mother when she won’t let him return home and makes him join back up with the army. It mentions that a boy didn’t like officers. A boy lies about his age, saying he’s older than he is, so he can stay in the army. A boy shoots himself in the hand so he won’t have to be in the front lines and lies about it. “Never again, he told himself, would he obey an order that took him away from his comrades.” A boy hates his commanding officer because he is arrogant and a bully. A boy is ashamed of his father’s ugliness so never returns to see his father.

Religious & Supernatural - 1 Incident: When a boy sees the reality of war, he prays and vows to always go to church if he lives.

Violence - 2 Incidents: The main character is in his first battle. He sees a man with both legs sheared off. (This excerpt is an example of how other battle scenes are described). A man “deliberately ground his heel into the helpless rebel’s eye. They dying man’s mouth flopped open. There was a slow rattling in his throat, and his hands clawed and twitched. Then he lay quiet.”

For a full cleanliness report, which includes Conversation Topics, Romance and Parent Takeaway, visit my website. I have hundreds of other detailed reports too, and I also have Clean Guides (downloadable PDFs) which enable you to clean up your book before reading it! Visit my website: The Book Radar. ...more

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Apr 28, 2015 Benji Martin rated it liked it

First, let me say that I get what is good about this book. It's unique. There aren't many decent children's books out there that follow a young soldier around through the entire Civil War, and the ones that do exist are all set in the eastern part of the U.S. I didn't know much about what was going on in the west during the Civil War before I read this book. Most of the scholarship or fiction I've been exposed to has all been focused on the other part of the country.

For it's length, it's a very First, let me say that I get what is good about this book. It's unique. There aren't many decent children's books out there that follow a young soldier around through the entire Civil War, and the ones that do exist are all set in the eastern part of the U.S. I didn't know much about what was going on in the west during the Civil War before I read this book. Most of the scholarship or fiction I've been exposed to has all been focused on the other part of the country.

For it's length, it's a very readable, usually exciting novel. Part of me wishes it was shorter, but in all honesty, it would have been better served by being longer. It wraps up very abruptly and it feels very rushed. The villain of the novel, Clardy, is killed off-screen, and we are denied a big confrontation. The whole ending just seemed really anti-climatic, but maybe that's the way war really is? You fight and march, and everything's all build up and then suddenly it's all over. I don't know. It didn't make for a great novel ending, though.

Now let's play a quick game of Is It Racist? I think there is a definite difference between a racist character and a racist author/omniscient narrator. I'm OK with a racist character existing. There are racist people out there, and of course, they're going to find their way into stories. I have more of a problem when the author or the omniscient narrator is blatantly racist. Let's examine the scenes in Rifles for Watie that made me cringe, and see whether they are reflections of the author's own racism or of they are simply racist characters in a time when the country was very racially charged.

The first scene that made me cringe was when Jeff first meets Lucy, his Confederate love interest. She is half-Cherokee, and according to our narrator, very beautiful. Jeff too, finds her beautiful "even though her skin had a brownish cast." My first reaction to that statement was, "What does that even mean?" The answer of course is that Jeff's ideal of a beauty up until that point was a fair-skinned very Caucasian girl. Lucy was so beautiful that it redefined Jeff's definition of beauty. My first inclination is to say that this is simply character racism. After all, it's Jeff's prejudices that we're dealing with here, but after thinking about it, I changed my mind. The narrator says it in such a matter-of-course way. It's like "Of course dark-skinned ladies aren't usually beautiful, but this girl was REALLY beautiful." That nonchalance makes me think that it's really Harold Keith's prejudices that we're dealing with.

Then there's the dialect. The African-American slaves that the Union soldiers come across nearly always speak like they do on page 150. "Yassuh! Yassuh! Plenty of hams in theah, suh." The Union soldiers don't really talk with much dialect throughout the book, even though they're all farmers from Kansas. I was ready to give Harold Keith another racist stamp for it, but then we meet the White Confederate soldiers, and they all speak with that dumb, exaggerated dialect, too. So, I really think that, to Harold Keith, Americans from the west spoke in a kind of normal dialect. A few contractions here and there, but usually complete, coherent sentences. The moment you cross the Mason-Dixon line and enter the South, everyone, white and black, speaks in a kind of jumbled up, nonsensical manner. In this case, Harold Keith wasn't racist, only regionalist. If he looked down on anyone for the way he thought they talked, it was the South as a whole.

The last scene I want to look at is on page 155. There is a dying slave literally on his death bed. He is holding on to life, so that he can see a Union soldier coming to liberate his people before he dies. Jeff walks into the room, and the man takes a look at his blue uniform, and says, "I bress God." and dies. (Bress. Really?) I call this a white messiah moment. I think that Harold Keith saw his ancestors that served in the civil war as liberators coming in to save the slaves, even though there were men of many races serving on the union side. The whole scene just seemed really condescending to me, and I think the novel would have been better without it.
In the end, yeah. I think Harold Keith was a little bit racist.It isn't overwhelming, but I do think he had some prejudices that came out in his novel.

I liked Rifles for Watie, but I didn't love it. The main issue for me was the anti-climatic feeling I got from the abrupt ending. The uncomfortable feeling I got from those few scenes spoiled it some, too. ...more

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Aug 12, 2009 Terence rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: YA Civil War fiction

Shelves: historical-fiction

A sentimental 4 stars: Rifles for Watie was one of my favorite books when I was young; I don't know how many times I checked it out of the library.

I was pleasantly reminded of it (and another sentimental favorite, The Horse Soldiers) while reading David Donald's Lincoln. I can still remember specific scenes from the book like Jeff's first battle, loading a rifle, the night he spends in a rebel's house, using worthless Confederate dollars to cut out a piece of bread.

Both books have joined the lis ...more

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Jun 28, 2018 Brian rated it it was amazing

Exceptional Civil War story focused on the West and with authentic empathy for a variety of perspectives of the war. Highly recommended for young readers especially.

The Audible.com audiobook is breathtakingly well done.

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Jun 22, 2014 Phil Jensen rated it it was amazing

One child out of a hundred will love this book above all others. The other 99 won't make it through the first chapter. Although I already knew an awful lot about the Civil War, I learned a little from this book. More importantly, the way the main character was written gave me a new perspective on what I already knew. I was also glad that Keith didn't wimp out on the action, and described it with realism. I think he had me after first mention of lice.

This is very well written. In fact, it's proba One child out of a hundred will love this book above all others. The other 99 won't make it through the first chapter. Although I already knew an awful lot about the Civil War, I learned a little from this book. More importantly, the way the main character was written gave me a new perspective on what I already knew. I was also glad that Keith didn't wimp out on the action, and described it with realism. I think he had me after first mention of lice.

This is very well written. In fact, it's probably the first Newbery winner that's written professionally enough for an adult audience, and not just well enough for the kids. The most conspicuous aspect of the book is the impeccable research that went into it and the way that historical and geographical details are seamlessly woven in to strengthen the narrative. The book is action-packed, and Keith's characters feel like real people.

Any Newbery winner before 1970 requires a diversity inspection. Rifles for Watie holds up remarkably well on this front. Although the first Cherokee character speaks with some stereotypical Tonto grammar, that impression is quickly erased by the variety of carefully drawn Creek, Cherokee, and Choctaw characters. Howard Keith spent considerable time interviewing Cherokees for this book, and it pays off with depictions of realistic people living on many different levels of Cherokee society. In fact, the Tonto grammar is probably based on the speech of someone he interviewed.

The portrayal of African Americans is more mixed. Although there are a number of these characters, and they present a variety of personalities and attitudes, they all speak with servile "Yassuh, yassuh," slave jargon. I have no doubt that most Southern blacks spoke this way in the 1800s, and that some still spoke this way when this novel was written. Although Keith makes an effort to describe the slave/master social system, he doesn't do it with nearly the thoroughness that he applies to Cherokee society. The result does not fully explain why African Americans spoke that way in the first place. I also wish that Keith's physical descriptions didn't focus quite so much on rolling, bugged-out eyes.

As a side note, the "n" word gets used a few times in ways that I would describe as historically accurate and appropriate to the sophistication of the rest of the book. A reader who understands the rest of the book will understand that this word is a reflection on the character using it, and not on the author's personal vocabulary.

I enjoyed this book so much that I want to find someone to share it with. I think the right audience for this would be a young man in at least 5th grade who loves action and history and is not intimidated by a 300+ page book. ...more

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Jan 01, 2019 Elizabeth rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-around-the-year-in-52-books, mount-tbr-2019-read

Book synopsis:

Jeff Bussey walked briskly up the rutted wagon road toward Fort Leavenworth on his way to join the Union volunteers. It was 1861 in Linn County, Kansas, and Jeff was elated at the prospect of fighting for the North at last.

In the Indian country south of Kansas there was dread in the air; and the name, Stand Watie, was on every tongue. A hero to the rebel, a devil to the Union man, Stand Watie led the Cherokee Indian Na-tion fearlessly and successfully on savage raids behind the Uni Book synopsis:

Jeff Bussey walked briskly up the rutted wagon road toward Fort Leavenworth on his way to join the Union volunteers. It was 1861 in Linn County, Kansas, and Jeff was elated at the prospect of fighting for the North at last.

In the Indian country south of Kansas there was dread in the air; and the name, Stand Watie, was on every tongue. A hero to the rebel, a devil to the Union man, Stand Watie led the Cherokee Indian Na-tion fearlessly and successfully on savage raids behind the Union lines. Jeff came to know the Watie men only too well.

He was probably the only soldier in the West to see the Civil War from both sides and live to tell about it. Amid the roar of cannon and the swish of flying grape, Jeff learned what it meant to fight in battle. He learned how it felt never to have enough to eat, to forage for his food or starve. He saw the green fields of Kansas and Okla-homa laid waste by Watie's raiding parties, homes gutted, precious corn deliberately uprooted. He marched endlessly across parched, hot land, through mud and slash-ing rain, always hungry, always dirty and dog-tired.

And, Jeff, plain-spoken and honest, made friends and enemies. The friends were strong men like Noah Babbitt, the itinerant printer who once walked from Topeka to Galveston to see the magnolias in bloom; boys like Jimmy Lear, too young to carry a gun but old enough to give up his life at Cane Hill; ugly, big-eared Heifer, who made the best sourdough biscuits in the Choctaw country; and beautiful Lucy Washbourne, rebel to the marrow and proud of it. The enemies were men of an-other breed - hard-bitten Captain Clardy for one, a cruel officer with hatred for Jeff in his eyes and a dark secret on his soul.

My thoughts :
I had forgotten how this book made me feel while I was reading it since its been forever since I read it , in fact the last time I actually read it was way back in Junior High school , and since then I've been looking for it to buy , and I'm so glad I was able to find it on line to buy . I had also forgot that there was parts of this book that made me cry and believe me it takes a lot for a book to make me cry, the author was able to bring to live Jeff and his family , and his fellow solders that he meet , as well as bring to live the battles and how hard it was for both sides . I can say that this is still one of my all time favorite books to read and if you haven't checked it out then you might want to . ...more

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Dec 16, 2018 Michael Fitzgerald rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Long but worthwhile, this story has many twists and turns, and although readers certainly know how the war will play out on the large scale, there is a good deal of suspense regarding individual characters. The details of place, characterizations, dialogue, etc. are first rate, making this stand out from more generic juvenile historical fiction set during the Civil War.

The author manages to deliver a good deal of history and through interesting juxtapositions of the protagonist is able to conve ...more

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Dec 08, 2018 Cheryl marked it as xx-dnf-skim-reference

Anyway, Keith's acceptance speech isn't that interesting. He speaks of his background as sports publicity director for U. of OK as not being helpful, but as writing workshops teaching him the strategies of putting together a successful story.

There and in the introduction in the book itself he speaks of all the interviews he did with the aged veterans of the war. So, yes, the details of how the boys dealt with being soldiers, etc., do ring true.

However.
In the introduction he admits that the nove ...more

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Mar 24, 2019 Sara rated it liked it

Read this years ago and recall liking it.

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Nov 27, 2018 Kerstin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: children-and-young-adult, historical-fiction, 19th-century

Newbery Winner 1958

This is an exceptionally well written novel. It is the story of a 16-year-old farmer's boy who joins the Union Army after his family survives a brush with Missourian Bushwackers. In preparing for this novel Harold Keith had done an enormous amount of research and even interviewed veterans of the Civil War in the 1940s. In an effortless style he weaves into the narrative a tremendous amount of historical detail. The story is also very realistic in its depictions of the hardship ...more

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Nov 11, 2018 Jennifer (JenIsNotaBookSnob) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: newbery-winners, 2018juvenilefiction

Hooray! I'm finally done with this book!

Anyhow, it actually did move along nicely and turn into an interesting book about midway through. I'm glad I put it down months ago and picked it up again a few days ago when I was ready to finally read another civil war era book. It's got some issues in it, like the N word. It's not as prejudiced against Native Americans as one would assume from the cover. In fact, it points out that many Cherokees owned large plantations and homes and were actually assi ...more

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Sep 16, 2018 Erin O'Connor {If The Review Fits} rated it it was amazing

Shelves: my-favorite-shelf

If you are a fanatic about Civil War I recommend this book. If you are guy I recommend this book. It was so well written and really hits on some great parts in our history.

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Aug 24, 2018 Phoebe rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 1860s, civil-war, historical-19th-century, ya

Newbery books are a special breed, and this oldie-but-goodie rings true. Beautiful writing that nonetheless is accessible and down to earth enough for junior high readers carries an exciting story of the Civil War seen through the eyes of a 16 year old Kansas boy. Jeff Bussey is an appealing protagonist, a courageous, sensible teenage boy eager to join the Union efforts and gain battle experience. He has no idea what unusual paths his life will take over the next four years. This makes quite a t ...more

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Jan 19, 2019 Falina rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018-newbery-challenge

I liked this much more than I would have expected to. I'm not a history buff and don't have much interest in American history, but once I got all the terminology straight I was hooked. Keith's portrayal of war and death are dark and meaningful without being "too much" for older children. Jeff is a great character and his coming-of-age progression is complex and well done. I loved his integrity and his understanding and sympathy for both sides by the end of the novel. And the last 50 or so pages ...more

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Jul 30, 2018 Ben Murphy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4.5 Stars, but a little closer to 4.49 than 4.51. Jeff is the absolute perfect lead character. The type of small time hero I personally always want to be. Clardy is a genius villain. Book gets 100x better as soon as Lucy Washbourne is introduced. Very good book.

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Jul 02, 2018 Ava rated it really liked it

This was a really good story, very entertaining, and I will not lie, I enjoyed most of it. But it was very negatively biased against the confederates. Also, there was an over-dramatic, over-descriptive and unnecessary romance.

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Apr 17, 2018 Louise rated it really liked it

Shelves: on-my-bookshelf

Good Civil War novel! I admit I didn't care for it at first but the story went on and it got better.

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Apr 02, 2018 Yiming rated it it was amazing

One of the best historical fiction books ever

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Apr 06, 2017 Colton rated it liked it

It was a decent book but I felt it was more worded for beginner readers even though it was pretty long. I enjoyed the fact that it was easy to read and understand the plot of the book. This book is about Jeff Bussey's encounters in the union army during the civil war and how he learns that war isn't all fun and games. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the civil war or that time period

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Jul 25, 2017 Elizabeth rated it really liked it

Shelves: children-s, historical-fiction

Rifles for Watie starts out with an author’s note that explains the historical research and interviews that Harold Keith conducted in order to make the book as realistic as possible. And that research shows in every area of this book, from the attitudes of the various people to the details of battles to the geographical locations.

It’s fascinating to read a book about the Civil War that is remarkably respectful to both sides (mostly the Confederate side). Nowadays, all you tend to get is “Confede Rifles for Watie starts out with an author’s note that explains the historical research and interviews that Harold Keith conducted in order to make the book as realistic as possible. And that research shows in every area of this book, from the attitudes of the various people to the details of battles to the geographical locations.

It’s fascinating to read a book about the Civil War that is remarkably respectful to both sides (mostly the Confederate side). Nowadays, all you tend to get is “Confederates bad!” and other, more extreme iterations. Rifles for Watie, however, delves into some of the psychology of, at least, the Native American side of the war (many of whom fought for the Confederates) and has an empathetic, wonderful protagonist in Jeff, who realizes that people are people, not nameless pigs to be slaughtered, and that things are confusing in war when it seems that the side you were fighting against might, actually, have a legitimate reason for fighting you. In this case, keeping one’s property. And no, I’m not talking about slaves.

Land and the idea of owning your own property is really the driving force presented in the novel. Jeff is fighting to drive the bushwhackers out and to help his family keep their land without fear of being killed. The Native Americans on both sides are fighting to keep or reobtain their land. While there are slaves, there’s very little mention of slavery as a reason to fight, except when it came to the slave who runs away to join the Union’s all-black regiment. There is, maybe, just a tad too much of the “happy slave” idea, but Keith still treats the subject with respect (and, after all, this was a book for children in the 1950s).

Keith also depicts both good and bad sides of both forces. There’s looting from both armies; there’s corrupt Clardy on the Union side juxtaposed with charismatic Watie on the Confederate side; there’s the friendly Confederate cook; there’s the loyal Union friends Jeff makes; and, of course, Lucy, who is on the Confederate side but has respect (and deeper feelings) for Jeff, a Union soldier.

Overall, Rifles for Watie is a fabulously even-handed book on a war that pitted two ideologies against each other. There’s respect for the great leaders on the Confederate side, even when Jeff (and through him, the reader) disagrees with their ideas. Both the good and the bad of both the Union and the Confederate armies are shown or hinted at (let’s be real here; the Union army most likely did some terrible things to the people living in the Confederate south, looting their houses and taking their livestock being some of the more mild). Jeff is empathetic, does not simply dismiss the Confederates as “bad” or “racist” but recognizes similarities and respects them even as he seeks to combat them. Rifles for Watie can teach people today a thing or two about what it’s like to really put yourself in another person’s shoes and respect them even as you disagree with them. ...more

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Apr 10, 2015 Kathi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: newbery

Five stars for this Civil War historical fiction winner set in Kansas and Missouri, both states part of the western front of the war. Jefferson Davis Bussey, a Union private (despite his name), enters the war after Missouri Bushwackers torment his family in his beloved Kansas. Jeff’s story is believable, from his ignorance of military vocabulary when he joins the Federals to his falling in love with Lucy Washburne, a Rebel Cherokee young lady, as well as from countless details in between. This r ...more

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May 29, 2012 Boatemaa rated it really liked it

Rifles for Watie is a book about a boy named Jefferson Davis Bussey. Jeff goes off to war and fights for the Union after his family is attacked by bushwackers. He works his way up rankings from an infantry to calvary. Soon he meets a lovely rebel girl known as Lucy Washborne. Of course, Lucy is not interested in him because he a Union soldier. Eventually, Jeff is made a scout. He finds out about the reinforcements coming to the Confederates. He also knew that the Washbournes were missing a famil ...more

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Apr 21, 2014 Michiel rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2014, historical-fiction, military, newberry, romance, southern, young-adult

This was quite a bit better than I thought it would be. I wasn't enthusiastic about beginning it, but do want to read all or most of the Newberrys.

One reason that I enjoyed this book so much is that most of the action takes place at or near where I grew up. And to think that the fantastic schools never mentioned this in 12 years of schooling. Unbelievable. This is a whole new aspect of the Civil War that I was completely unaware of. When I think of the field trips, the real, hands-on "history ha ...more

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May 05, 2014 Heather rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, ya-novels, newbery-and-honor, 1001-children-s-books-you-must-read, best-books-for-boys, 1001

This is a terrific book to introduce older children to the Civil War, and it certainly deserves the Newbery Award. I particularly liked how the characters thought and acted appropriately for their time period. There are few things more disappointing in historical fiction to find that the author has chosen to endow the characters with modern progressive thinking, which not only is out of character, but confuses young readers. My one quibble with the book, though, is that the main plot point sugge ...more

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Feb 11, 2014 Taylor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: 12 and up

This is a different take on a civil war novel. Longer than most novels awarded the John Newberry Medal, it recounts the tale of a young Union soldier named Jefferson Bussey. Jeff is a good character. He goes through many different situations during the war, different from most civil war books I have read.
This isn't a long description of all the different battles in the war. It does mention several battles, but is based more on the characters and their stories.
The writing style wasn't my favorit ...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Elisabeth rated it really liked it

Shelves: civil-war, historical-fiction, young-adult

There's a lot to like about this Civil War novel. The young protagonist, Jeff Bussey, is a likeable character, and there's a good portrayal of his experiences as a young Union recruit from Kansas, as he goes from impatience to get a taste of war to eventual disillusionment with the destruction caused by both sides; knowing fear and hardship, forming friendships with good people on the other side of the conflict, and falling in love. The angle of the Cherokee Nation's participation in the war was ...more

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Around the Year i...: Rifles for Watie, Harold Keith	1	5	Dec 30, 2018 04:05PM
Children's Books: The Medal Winner from 1958 - Rifles for Watie - D&A December 2018	18	30	Dec 23, 2018 04:48AM
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About Harold Keith

Harold Keith

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Harold Keith lived his entire life in Oklahoma, a state that he greatly loved and which served as the setting for many of his books.
Perhaps his best known story, the historical novel "Rifles for Watie", was first released in 1957. It went on to win the 1958 John Newbery Medal and the 1964 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award.
In 1998, Harold Keith died of congestive heart failure, in Norman, Oklahoma.