A Brave Boy A Good Soldier

Story of John C.C. Hill who went away to war in Mexico in 1842, accompanied by his father and brother on the Mier Expedition. He became a prisoner, was adopted by a Mexican general, and then adopted Mexico as his home.

Shortly before his fourteenth birthday, John Christopher Columbus Hill left home with his father and older brother to join the ill-fated 1842 Texas expedition to Mier, Tamaulipas, Mexico, to end any questions over ownership of Texas. The story of John Hill's capture and subsequent adoption by President Antonio López de Santa Anna is one of the most fascinating and curious to come out of this extraordinary episode in Texas history. After a series of escalating events, including Mexican Gen. Adrián Woll's sudden siege of San Antonio, the Texas Rangers sent out a call for volunteers. On Christmas Day, 1842, the Texans encountered the Mexican army at Mier, and the ensuing battle lasted until the next afternoon. During the fight, John Hill killed at least twelve Mexican soldiers; his brother was seriously wounded; and all of the surviving Texans were captured. John was sent back to Mexico City, while his father and brother stayed with the rest of the group. The Texan prisoners subsequently escaped from prison and were recaptured. A furious Santa Anna demanded that they all be executed. The ensuing decision, to execute one-tenth of the group through a drawing of black beans from a jar, is one of the most legendary events in Texas history. In Mexico City, young John Hill asked President Santa Anna to release his father and brother, who were still in prison. Santa Anna agreed, on the condition that he be allowed to adopt John and raise him in Mexico. John's father agreed, and he and John's brother returned to Texas. John stayed in Mexico City and was enrolled at the Colegio de Minería, or College of Mining, from which he graduated in 1850 with a doctorate in engineering and a degree in mining. The story of John C. C. Hill is one of the most remarkable stories to emerge from Texas's struggle for independence. This volume, offered with an educator's guide for classroom use, will appeal to young and old readers alike.

In the modern era, children experiencing grief were encouraged to dry their tears and ‘be good soldiers.’ How was this phenomenon interrogated and deconstructed in the period's literature? Be a Good Soldier initiates conversation on the figure of the child in modernist novels, investigating the demand for emotional suppression as manifested later in cruelty and aggression in adulthood. Jennifer Margaret Fraser provides sophisticated close readings of key works by Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce, among others who share striking concerns about the concept of infantry — both as a collection of infants, and as foot soldiers of war. A phenomenon associated traditionally with Freud, Fraser instead uses a unique, Derridean theoretical prism to provide new ways of understanding modernist concerns with power dynamics, knowledge, and meaning. Be a Good Soldier establishes a pioneering, nuanced vocabulary for further historical and cultural inquiries into modernist childhood.

In a world where little boys feel a strong desire to fight battles, this story teaches them that they can be soldiers helping to fight everyday battles. They can be heroes through their acts of kindness & service. This story shares the values that build up the soldier within them, providing a way for little soldiers everywhere to become big heroes.

A young soldier's initial enthusiasm for the war effort turns to bitterness.

A picaresque series of tales about an ordinary man's successful quest to survive, and a funny but unrelentingly savage assault on the very idea of bureaucratic officialdom as a human enterprise conferring benefits on those who live under its control, and on the various justifications bureaucracies offer for their own existence.