War in Cold Mountain

Although we don’t directly see war as the readers, Frazier illustrates the brutal conditions of war through Inman’s flashbacks and stories. The Civil War was fought in close quarters due to the lower quality of weapons so “since all they had to do was loft the shells fifty feet to where the Federals milled about like pen of shoats waiting for the hammer between the eyes… It was war of the most antique form, as if hundreds of men were put into a cave, shoulder to shoulder and told to kill each other” (124). Frazier demonstrates how war can make a man barbaric. There was no mercy shown for it was men who may have gone to fight for something bigger but they may turn to fight with the natural, animal-like instinct to stay alive. Inman himself struggles throughout the novel of the effects war has had on him “He had grown so used to seeing death, walking among the dead, sleeping among them, numbering himself calmly among the near-dead, that it seemed no longer dark and mysterious” (180). He voices his concern of Ada accepting him for who he is now. He was a civilian. Now he barely takes an extra thought to killing someone brutally if it means it results in his own survival. He has seen and done things people would never want to go through and he doesn’t know if there is any notion for going back to his past self. But throughout his journey on Cold Mountain, he has shown a sense of compassion in all of his acts of kindness so although he may be haunted by his actions and the war, I think he will be able to return to a peaceful life.