Our Standard-Bearer

Our Standard Bearer is one of Oliver Optic’s many novels for boys in his Civil War and military adventure series. The standard bearer position in nineteenth century military units was the soldier responsible for carrying the regimental flag, a particular position of honor and considerable danger because the standard bearer was a primary target for enemy fire. The novel uses the standard bearer position as the framework for the protagonist’s military service and the moral testing that the genre required.

Oliver Optic produced military fiction set in the Civil War across multiple novels and connected series. The standard pro Union framing of his Civil War fiction reflects the publisher market and the wider American cultural context of the post war decades.

For scholars of nineteenth century American children’s literature, of how the Civil War was translated into adventure fiction for the young, or of the wider career of Oliver Optic, the Civil War series is essential. Many of his books are now in the public domain.