Discipline - Dash Shaw

During the Civil War, many Quakers were caught between their fervent support of abolition, a desire to preserve the Union, and their long-standing commitment to pacifism. When Charles Cox, a young Indiana Quaker, slips out early one morning to enlist in the Union Army, he scandalises his family and his community. Leaving behind the strict ways of Quaker life, Cox is soon confronted with the savagery of battle, the cruelty of the enemy (as well as his fellow soldiers), and the overwhelming strangeness of the world beyond his home. He clings to his faith and family through letters with his sister, Fanny, who faces her own trials at home: betrayal, death, and a church that seems ready to fracture under the stress of the war. Discipline is told largely through the letters exchanged between the Cox siblings--incorporating material from actual Quaker and soldier journals of the era--and drawn in a style that combines modern graphic storytelling with the Civil War-era battlefield illustration of the likes of Thomas Nast and Winslow Homer. The result is a powerful consideration of faith, justice, and violence, and an American comics masterpiece.