Private Peaceful

Private Peaceful is a young adult novel by the British writer Michael Morpurgo, first published in 2003. It is about a fictional soldier, Thomas Peaceful, and his service in the First World War.

Morpurgo tells the story in the first person across one night, as Tommo keeps himself awake by remembering. The memories cover poverty in the countryside, a family raised by their mother, work on a large estate, the girl both brothers care about, and the enlistment that took them to the trenches. Underneath the personal account is a documented subject: the British Army executed its own soldiers during the First World War for offences that included desertion and cowardice, and Morpurgo has said he wrote the novel after learning how many men were shot in that way.

The book is one of several he has written about the two world wars, and it is addressed to teenage readers without simplifying the mechanics of a court martial or the grounds on which a soldier could be brought before one.