My Brother Sam Is Dead

Sixteen-year-old Sam is Tim’s older brother and a student at Yale when the story opens. He arrives at the house announcing that he has joined up with the Patriot cause to fight for independence. Sam is Tim’s foil; he is idealistic and announces that he thinks that it is important to be ready to die for independence. At the same time, the Colliers paint Sam as a teenager in rebellion with his father and influenced by the glorification of the war. His preoccupation with the details of his new uniform demonstrates this, as does his desire to prove himself in battle. He craves being with his friends and being a part of something bigger than himself.

Like his father, Sam is a hot-head, and his mother wishes that he would take a moment to think before he talked: “Mother always said ‘Sam isn’t really rebellious, just too quick with his tongue. If he’d only learn to stop and think before he spoke.’ But Sam couldn’t seem to learn that” (8). Like his father, Sam does not like to be told what to do. A teenage son’s conflict with his father is a well-established literary trope the authors use to further develop Sam’s character and highlight the glorious myths fed to teenagers about war.

Although Sam’s death by firing squad is not the heroic death he imagines for himself, he meets death bravely and stands his ground when fired upon and killed. When Tim writes about his brother on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he says that his brother died “in the service of his country” (209). This statement is ironic: Sam’s greatest service to this country is his death at the hands of his country’s army. Given that Sam is executed by his own army for a crime he did not commit, Tim’s reframing of the event reveals that he believes that Sam’s life and death served a purpose in the fight for independence.

Eliphalet Meeker, referred to as “Father” throughout the novel by narrator Tim, is Tim and Sam’s father. He owns a tavern in the town of Redding and expresses loyalty to the King of England and the English Parliament. He views the Rebel, or Patriot, cause as treasonous. The Colliers use Father as a mouthpiece for a side of the war not often expressed in the glorified historical record: Many colonists opposed the Patriots.

He is a short-tempered man, especially in conflict with his older son Sam. He is furious when Sam tells him that he has enlisted to fight for the Patriots. As a veteran of the French and Indian War, decades earlier, he knows first-hand how brutal war can be and understands The Glorification of War Versus the Reality. Nevertheless, although he is a stubborn, opinionated, and gruff man, he loves his sons dearly, something that is made clear when Tim hears him crying downstairs after he puts Sam out of the house for his insistence in fighting with the Patriots.

Although early on Father is vocal about the importance of remaining loyal to the King, he later says that he does not care about politics but only wants to make a living to support his family. This, however, gets him into trouble later since the best market for his beef is the British Commissary, and he is captured on his way home from selling the beef to the British by Patriot cowboys. Ironically, the men who capture him are in turn captured by the British and they are all thrown into a prison ship where Father dies from cholera.

In addition to playing a mentor and role model for his son Tim, Father is characterized as similar to Sam. Tim states that his father “made me realize where Sam got his rebelliousness from, though. Father didn’t like anybody to tell him what to do any more than Sam did” (51). Father and Sam share not only their rebelliousness but also their stubbornness. Despite these similarities, Father has a very different opinion on the war from Sam. The Colliers use Father to voice the Loyalist point of view.

Susannah Meeker, called “Mother” throughout the story, helps her husband run their tavern. She ignores the talk of war, preferring to take care of the daily activities of life. As the war goes on, however, she cannot avoid The Impact of War on Families. The authors present the domestic perspective of the war through Mother and show that it has far-reaching consequences beyond the battlefield.

When cowboys take her husband and Tim returns home alone, she sheds only a few tears, believing that Father is still alive. However, when the British attack Redding, she shows signs of hardening against the war. She becomes angry when she hears that the British have taken 10-year-old Jerry Sanford prisoner and says that “[w]ar turns men into beasts” (140). This is a sentiment that she repeats a total of three times. She also refuses to let Tim be taken to fight the war with the Patriots, claiming that she has lost enough already. Still, she continues with the tasks of daily living.

When she receives word that Sam has been arrested for stealing cattle, she begins to break. Tim says, “[s]he bore up when [Father] got captured and bore up when we learned he’d died, but she isn’t bearing up now” (186). She loses hope that Sam will be released and grieves deeply over this death. Although she is a strong woman, the war has demanded much from her, and as Tim says, some 50 years later, “[m]other never really got over Sam’s death” (210). Mother’s role in the novel is to illustrate how much sorrow, grief, and hardship women bear during war, although they often do not serve as soldiers.