| Reggie Bartlett | |
| Fictional Character | |
| Southern Victory POD: September 10, 1862 | |
| Appearance(s): | American Front through The Center Cannot Hold † |
| Type of Appearance: | Direct POV |
| Nationality: | Confederate States |
| Date of Birth: | 1888 |
| Date of Death: | 1925 |
| Cause of Death: | Shot to death |
| Occupation: | Drug store clerk, Soldier |
| Relatives: | Jasper Bartlett (uncle) |
| Military Branch: | Confederate States Army (Great War) |
| Political Party: | Radical Liberal Party |
Reginald "Reggie" Bartlett (1888-1925) was a citizen of the Confederate States. He served in the Great War, which profoundly changed his views on race in the C.S. After the war, he actively opposed the rising Freedom Party and Jake Featherston, at the cost of his own life.
Bartlett was an assistant to pharmacist Milo Axelrod in Richmond during peacetime. Like most able-bodied men, Bartlett had done a two-year hitch as an Army conscript. In the tense days after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, Bartlett attended a speech given by President Woodrow Wilson, which reaffirmed the Confederacy's commitment to the Entente and declared war on the United States. Stirred by the ideals of democracy Wilson professed, Bartlett enlisted immediately, rather than wait for his regiment to be called up.[1]
Bartlett saw his first action as a soldier on the Roanoke front outside Big Lick, Virginia. His initial patriotism was worn away quickly by the horrors of trench warfare. He was captured by Chester Martin's unit in the second year of the war, and sent to a POW camp in West Virginia. Here he began maturing demonstrably, expressing appreciation for Martin and the way he treated Bartlett. It was also while he was imprisoned that the news came that Confederate ally France had been defeated by Germany at Verdun.
Naval officer and fellow prisoner Ralph Briggs took Bartlett into his confidence, informing Bartlett of his plans to escape. They successfully fled the camp in 1916. Upon returning to the C.S. lines, Bartlett was deployed to Sequoyah. He was captured a second time after being injured in battle. Not in any shape to escape, he rode out the remainder of the war in a U.S. veterans' hospital in St. Louis until the post-armistice exchange of prisoners. While in the hospital, Bartlett interacted with black C.S. POWs. Impressed with these men, Bartlett began to reconsider his ingrained views on race in the Confederacy.
After the war, Bartlett became involved in Radical Liberal Party politics. As Jake Featherston and the Freedom Party grew in popularity, Bartlett actively opposed them, considering their revanchist views dangerous to his country. He supported naval officer Tom Brearley's denunciation of Roger Kimball's sinking of the USS Ericsson, and remained uncowed in the face of Brearley's subsequent murder. Even after the Hampton Affair temporarily halted the Freedom Party's momentum, Bartlett continued to fight the Freedom Party Stalwarts.
However, in 1925, Bartlett was confronted by a Stalwart for tearing down Freedom Party posters. While he was able to ward off the one Stalwart with his concealed revolver, he was ambushed the next day by the same man and two others and shot dead.
References[]
- ↑ American Front, pgs. 29-33, HC.
