TALKING SPIRITS
(A woman is on her knees next to a gravestone, pulling up weeds, trimming grass, etc.; she stops after the tour group is set; beside her is a small board with the following inscribed on it: Taylor, Isaac—Co H, 1st Ala. May 5.)
It is shameful what happened here. Regardless of what you think of a man, while he’s alive, he should be given his due respect in eternal death. My boys deserved better. They are my boys. We all come from the same blood. I was born in Louisiana and though I have spent most of my life in the northern climate I am a Southern woman still. I am my father’s daughter, my mother’s girl, the adopted mother of all these boys. Oh, what a clan I have here, what work they have caused me, what joy and sorrow they have brought to me. I was not expecting this to be my life’s work, but when I saw the disrepair to which these resting sites had fallen I knew that I must do something about it. Wouldn’t you? If you were in Europe and saw a potter’s field with the remains of American men who had lost their lives for a lost cause, and you saw that even their names were being covered by overgrowth, would you not do something about it? Would you not get down on your hands and knees and tear those weeds from their roots, and plant the seeds of flowers and trees? That is what I did. I saw a need and responded. These boys around me are all a long way from home. Some of them are from Tennessee, a couple from Arkansas and most are from Alabama. They were prisoners of war, the brave men at Island Number 10, who were taken from there and brought to Camp Randall to die not in battle glory but of mundane disease. Now they are eternal prisoners of the soil. They say it’s the farthest north that any of the southern boys were buried. (She picks up the head board) Isaac Taylor. From Alabama. This is far north for him. How many miles would that be? Does his family still wait for him in Mobile, or Montgomery, or do they know where he is and that he is too far for them to reach? Each time I look around me here I ask myself these questions. What kind of boy do you think he was? I should like to think he was a dutiful son, who wrote home at least once a week, who looked forward to the day when he could return to the cotton fields of his home state and be among loved ones again. He never made it. Instead he lies in fields of snow where cotton cannot grow. He will never again see Dixie sun and Dixie’s son is lost to them. It brings me sorrow to think of it. I like to think he is missed, and I am sure he is. I know most of their names by heart now, but for the five unidentified. Hollingsworth. Stoyner. J. M Edwards. Buttery. I have a story for each one. Even if they are not true it gives me something to hold onto, something to believe. It’s possible there could have been no stories at all, that all of them could have been forgotten for the rest of time. When I first came here there were no flowers. There were only unattended graves. Where my boys were buried their names were marked, but the markings had long been overgrown. Around each of the graves were weeds and long-grown grass that made them look like disheveled moppets laying on the ground, wild boys grown wilder for lack of love or attention. It broke my heart, and I knew that something had to be done to show these boys the respect they deserved. At that moment I got down on my hands and knees and started pulling weeds. Passersby may have thought me a madwoman, but that was of no concern to me. What mattered was that my countrymen laid here in Confederate Rest could not rest forgotten. My blood is Southern and these are my brethren. So day after day I came and day after day I pulled weeds and trimmed grass. The carriage would drop me off early in the morning and all day I would stay. There was so much work to do, and in the early days no one helped me. I shoved stones aside, continued to pull at weeds, and started to plant. It was barren but for the weeds. It needed plants and flowers to enliven it and each thing done had to be done for a reason. For example, the hedge around the perimeter was planted for the season of winter, to keep the cold wind off my boys. Winter here is harsh and unforgiving and I wanted to protect the boys from it in whatever small way possible. Now the hedge, like a lead regiment in battle, takes most of the blows and leaves the men behind it safer. Amid the graves was planted white lilac because it will blossom eternally, even when I am not here to watch them. The butternut trees, they were the best, because where trees grow children will know. I knew the children would come to gather nuts, and then make the place more pleasant by their presence. And they did, so now my boys have adopted children of their own who come to visit. Everything is more pleasant and peaceful now. You can see my work is almost done. I am growing older and I am getting tired. All of my money is gone. My health is not far behind it. When my body gives up I want to sleep here beside my boys, to take care of them through eternity. Who will do it if I do not? But I am getting ahead of myself. My work here is not yet finished. I have been struggling to raise funds to build a stone memorial to these brave boys, so that the weeds will never again obliterate their names, so that in their eternal resting place there will be eternal memory. It will take years, which I am afraid I do not have, to raise enough money to raise the marker. In the meantime, I have to do my best to maintain what has already been accomplished. I have more weeds to pull and grass to trim before my day is done. My boys are waiting for me and I must go.
EMILIE AND EDWIN QUINER
(A young woman is sitting on the grass writing in a diary; her father comes up behind her)
Edwin: What is it you are doing here?
Emilie: News came this morning we lost another battle. I was making note of it in my diary.
Edwin: I heard that also, and it does not make me happy. This Union must be preserved at all costs.
Emilie: I think our country has nothing to fear in regard to the loyalty of her sons and daughters. I’ve seen the future in the school children. If they are an indication, we will be all right.
Edwin: It’s a tough business, war is, and it is a business of the young. They had better be good for the future.
Emilie: Father, I believe it is the business of the old, but supported by the young. Look, it looks like it’s starting to rain. It makes me think of the young men who are already gone. How I pity our poor soldiers in camp. It is so cold and wet I think they must suffer.
Edwin: Yes, I believe they must. Where did you go yesterday?
Emilie: I walked the three miles to the cemetery, stayed all day. I had a pleasant time.
Edwin: This seems a strange place to come for a pleasant time.
Emilie: I come to think. I have been so busy with school work, meetings, and everything else. I come here to ponder. Don’t you ever ponder, Father?
Edwin: Yes, dear, often. Sometimes I think too much.
Emilie: Certainly life must have a deeper purpose. I look for higher views of life, wider and broader comprehensions of its duties and responsibilities.
Edwin: It sounds as though you have been thinking too much.
Emilie: I have decided that I must go.
Edwin: Go? Go where?
Emilie: I believe the soldiers need me, or at least I need to help them.
Edwin: I don’t want to see you go.
Emilie: Father, you know what the needs are. You see every report, every clipping that comes in about this war. You have told me how many injured soldiers there are, men without limbs, blind . . .
Edwin: Perhaps I should have kept these things to myself.
Emilie: Perhaps, but you didn’t. There is a hospital in Memphis that is looking for help. I believe I have a calling to answer.
Edwin: What about your school children? Who will tend to them?
Emilie: Father, the war is what is important now. I love those children. I love every one of them, although some of them have given me trouble and they’ve often seemed ungrateful for all my care and patience with them.
Edwin: How can you leave them?
Emilie: I don’t want to go for good, just for the summer. I want to come back to them. I hope that I may have done them some good. But there are other young people who need me now, in Memphis.
Edwin: You are almost as stubborn as your father. All right. You must do what you must do. Let’s go to some of the celebrations yet today.
Emilie: Oh, Father, I was awakened this morning by the firing of guns and ringing of bells. I saw the procession go by our house at twelve o’clock—34 girls in red, white, and blue to represent the States and nearly 2,000 soldiers representing the fifth and sixth regiments. I heard the Declaration read. It has been quite a day already.
Edwin: There will be parties tonight. Everyone is observing the holiday.
Emilie: This fourth is an important one to us all, and who could look upon the 2,000 brave men who passed through our streets today, volunteers to defend our liberty, and not feel his patriotism well within him.
Edwin: I already gave my blessing to your leaving, and I am going to do the same. You’ve made a generous, good decision, but it will be a difficult task.
(He walks away; she looks at a nearby tombstone)
Emilie: I closed his eyes. They prepared him for the grave and took him away. I shall never forget the sorrow I felt for his death. He was so young, so patient, so lonely and homesick and so grateful for everything I did for him. I shed as bitter tears over his dying bed as I ever have in my life. It is so hard to see our noble boys die here alone so far from friends . . . I shall write to his mother. The saddest duty of our position is this, breaking the tidings to anxious, loving hearts at home.
Dreaming of midnight watches in the dreary drizzling rain,
And the hum of his comrades voices, he never might hear again,
Of the smouldering fires of the bivouac and the sentinel’s measured tread,
Of the smoke and the sons of battle, and the faces of the dead.
Of the smoke and sons of battle, and the faces of the dead.
He saw the face of the maiden grow cold as ice and as pale,
As he sat by her father’s hearthstone, and told her the cruel tale.
“Aye, Aye,” in his sleep he murmured, “she was fair, and he was brave
But she faded away, like a blossom, and we made him a soldier’s grave”
She faded away, like a blossom, and we made him a soldier’s grave.
(She closes the diary and turns away)
John: Did you hear about the newest research?
Beverly: Yes, I did, they are proving what we have always known, over and over again.
John: We could have told them. But no one would have believed us.
Beverly: I can hardly believe it sometimes. Grandsons of the third President of the United States.
John: And nobody knew it, because we couldn’t admit that we were the mingled blood of a President and a slave.
Beverly: Imagine if we had been the descendants of anyone but Thomas Jefferson. Would our father have been freed? Would we have been successful men?
John: We would not have been different men.
Beverly: No, but the circumstances . . . the circumstances would have changed. After all, even mulattos could still be kept as slaves. It’s simply fortunate for us that our grandmother, Sally Hemings, made him promise to free her children.
John: Including our father—lucky for him.
Beverly: And that she herself was more than half-white to begin with, because even free, without the fair skin, our family would have been as slaves. Freedom only has meaning accompanied with privilege.
John: It is interesting that as soon as possible Father left Virginia and moved to Ohio in the North.
Beverly: And later changed his name to Jefferson.
John: That tells me that the President must have treated them well. He did free them.
Beverly: He fulfilled his promised to Sally, but he didn’t free any of his other slaves. That Father changed his name tells me he was looking for privilege. It was common for slaves to take their master’s name. Sometimes it was out of respect, sometimes out of convenience, because they had no knowledge of their own ancestry or family names.
John: But if he were hated, one would think another name would be chosen. And Father said often that Thomas Jefferson was a good man, a man of his word.
Beverly: Yes, he did.
John: He kept his word about freeing Sally’s children. He kept his word to his wife about never remarrying.
Beverly: Do you wonder, how a man who could write the things he wrote, about all men being created equal, how he could keep slaves? It bothers me.
John: He was a man of his times, as are we.
Beverly: Think of all that we have done in our lives, with fair skin and the name of Jefferson, that may have been denied with darker complexion or a different name. Would I have been a Colonel in the war with the South? Would you have been a lieutenant colonel or the owner of the largest cotton shipping industry in the South? Would our sister, Anne, have had the honor of marrying a major? These things may have been denied us.
John: You take what your life gives you and you use it to the best of your ability. Our lives were blessed with good fortune.
Beverly: It is the fate that intrigues me. If our grandfather Jefferson had not been a man of his word, if we had been darker than we are, what then?
John: Does it matter?
Beverly: Maybe not to us. But think of the many others whose families lived in servitude, whose contributions may have been as great, or greater, than ours, but who never got the chance. All I am saying is that we were fortunate to have been the grandchildren of the President of the United States.
John: Even though we could never say it.
Beverly: No, that would have ruined everything, because that could only mean that we were descendants of a slave.
John: And of course nobody believed that anyway. They all passed it off as his enemies trying to destroy him.
Beverly: The truth has no meaning if it is not believed.
John: I believe it. I always have.
Beverly: Me too. I always knew our father was telling us the truth. He knew too much too well.
John: And it is easy to tell when those you love are not being truthful.
Beverly: It is. But people will believe what they want to believe. When that Richmond, Virginia newspaper first published their accusation President Jefferson’s enemies latched onto it and his friends vehemently denied it.
John: And it looks like his friends were right according to this new research.
Beverly: Yes, interestingly enough. The point is, though, that each of them believed what they wanted to believe when confronted with the same evidence.
John: It’s a matter of interpretation, I guess.
Beverly: It’s the same with the new proof. Already, there are some that are saying that just because everything matches it does not prove a relationship. They don’t take into account our family’s oral history or previous historians’ research into the subject. They conveniently ignore the compelling evidence and dismiss each item in order to arrive at the truth they already know.
John: Does it matter to us? Is there more peace resting at Monticello than at Forest Hill?
Beverly: No, I think we are settled into our own truth. I think it matters for the country, though, to know more fully the personality and truth of its third President.
John: He was a man of his word.
Beverly: He was a man of many words and many promises, some of which he left behind for others to fulfill. Those promises, especially that of all men being created equal, have not yet been fulfilled.
John: The time is coming.
Beverly: As the truth is revealed.
John: The time is coming.
Beverly: Alleluia.
John: The time is coming.
Beverly: Everyone, free at last.
John: Free at last.
At the time of the war I was a Lieutenant Colonel and it was a detachment of mostly Wisconsin men under my command and a detachment of Michigan men under Pritchard’s command that captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis. I had been in many skirmishes in the war, but towards the evening of May 6, 1865, when we were encamped about a mile north of Macon, Ga., I received orders to report to division headquarters. General John T. Croxton informed me that Jefferson Davis was making his way south into Georgia, accompanied by 600 to 700 men and that I had been selected to command a detachment of 150 men from the First Wisconsin Cavalry, to capture him if possible. He said if there was a fight, and Jefferson Davis should get hurt, General Wilson would not feel very bad over it.
I then returned to the camp of my regiment and soon had a detail of 150 men selected, all well armed and mounted. I frankly told my men that if we encountered Davis and his escort, they would greatly outnumber us; that they were probably the pick of the Confederate army, and that they would fight desperately - it would be a battle to the death. I added that Jefferson Davis must not be allowed to escape in any event; but as we had never been whipped, I had no fear of being whipped now. All of which was greeted with cheers.
Now, for several months I had been served by an old colored man, whom we called "Bill." He had been a slave, but when the rebels were hustled out of Tennessee Bill got left behind and falling in with us, I employed him. That night, I had scarcely lain down to sleep, when Bill came and touched me. "Colonel! Colonel!" he said, "wake up, I have found a colored man who will tell you something!"
"Well, what is it?" I asked. The stranger said that Jefferson Davis had been in town that day. I said, "How do you know it was Jeff Davis? What makes you think so?"
"Well," he said, "all the gentlemen called him 'President Davis,' and he had his wife with him, and she was called Mrs. Davis." He said they had come over the river on a ferry. I questioned him closely, and his answers appeared straight, but I was fearful of a trick to send me off on some side track.
I said to Bill, "Do you think he is telling me the truth, and that I ought to believe him?"
"Sartin shoor, Kurnel, you kin b'lieve him, he's tellin' ye God's troop!" It will be seen that if Bill had not been with me, we would have known nothing of Davis having crossed our track. We interviewed the ferryman as to who he had brought over the river, but I could get nothing out of him. He was too stupid, ignorant, or obstinate to give us any information of importance. I have always been sorry that we did not throw the old scamp into the river.
As soon as we got back to the bivouac, I called up the men to saddle for a march. It was very dark, and the roads in the pine woods were only trails. We soon became confused and wandered around for some time. Then, picking our road once more, and daylight coming, we struck out on the river road at a rapid gait. Five miles out we found the bridge torn up. While this was being repaired, I strolled up to a log house near by, and questioned a bright little girl standing nearby. She said she had heard one gentleman call the other "Colonel Harrison," and the other was addressed as "Mr. President”. The child's description convinced me that one was an officer of high rank, and the other Jefferson Davis. The bridge being repaired, we again pushed on through the pine woods. The wagon tracks could now be plainly seen, but it soon commenced to rain very hard, and the tracks we had followed were now obliterated.
I sent parties circling around to find the road, but they were unsuccessful. However, they found a horseman, and brought him to me. In reply to my questions, he said he knew nothing, that he was only a poor citizen hunting some lost sheep. I told him that I would take his horse, and he could hunt his sheep on foot. I told him to quit lying and I would let him go with his horse. He confessed the party was eleven miles away and in another direction entirely from that in which we were headed. So, he took us to where the Davis party had been in camp, but they were gone. According to promise, I dismissed the guide and he left in a hurry.
The next morning, we pushed on until we struck the Ochmulge River. Continuing down this stream some distance, we came to another ferry. In our haste to get over, the boat was damaged so that only a half load of horses could be taken over at a time. This delayed us a couple of hours. By inquiring we learned that a party had passed through the town during the night. We shortly came to the place where the Davis party had lunched. They had left so recently that their fires were still burning.
At this time I felt confident that we were in close proximity to the Davis party, and had only halted so as not to come upon them in the night. I expected that the fugitives would camp on the other side of the river, ahead of us, and I reasoned that if we attempted to cross the ford in the dark, Davis would take the alarm and escape. Putting forward an advance guard of a sergeant and six men we moved on. We had made but a mile or so when our advance guard were suddenly fired upon, by what we judged to be twenty or thirty muskets. Galloping forward at the head of ten men, I met the sergeant and his party retreating, with several of his men wounded. He said they had run into the enemy's pickets and had been fired upon. I directed the sergeant to follow, and then dashed on, when we were met with another volley, so close that the fire came right in our faces and the bullets rattled like hail on the trees. Seeing that they were in considerable force, and determined to stand their ground, I got my men into line, and advanced on the enemy. They gave us a third volley, when we opened fire on them, and they retreated into the swamp. At this time, one of our party called my attention to about a hundred mounted men who were coming down on our flank. I cried, "Never mind, boys, we'll whip them yet!"
Forming a line facing them, we opened upon our assailants with our repeating rifles. They were soon thrown into confusion. Just as I was about to give the final order to charge, Sergeant Hoor came running up and said we were fighting Union men; that he had captured one of them, and thus ascertained the fact. At hearing this, I rode in front of our line and shouted "Stop firing!" which soon ceased on both sides. Then going forward, the first man I met was Colonel Pritchard. I asked him how it was that he was there fighting us? He explained that hearing that a party was camped a short distance from the town, he had marched out toward it. He had sent twenty-five men around to the back of the camp, and it was these men who, mistaking us for the enemies, had fired upon us so recklessly, with such unfortunate results. In this unfortunate affair, two of the Michigan men were killed, and one officer and several men wounded. Of the Wisconsin men, three were wounded, but none killed.
Colonel Pritchard and I rode together into the Davis camp. The first person we saw there was John H. Reagan, the postmaster-general of the Confederacy, who said to me, "Well, you have taken the old gentleman at last! There he stands," pointing to a tall, elderly, and rather dignified-looking gentleman, standing a short distance away.
We rode up, dismounted, and saluted, and I asked if this was Mr. Davis. "Yes," he replied, "I am President Davis." At this the soldiers set up a shout that Jeff Davis was captured.
One soldier said, "What! That man Jeff Davis? That's the old fellow who, when I stopped him, had his wife's shawl on." In the background, some of our men set up the familiar army song. "Well hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree!" to the tune of "John Brown's Body," which did not add in the least to Davis' comfort. Besides Davis, there were Reagan, Col. Harrison, Mrs. Davis, her sister, and a number of Confederate officers from Johnson's army, but no fighting men.
It appears that when the fighting began, Davis was sleeping in his tent. Alarmed at the noise, he hastily arose and threw a shawl around him, started out, but meeting a soldier was stopped and ordered into his tent. He heard the noise of the sharp skirmish, saw the dead and wounded brought in, but knowing that he had no fighting men, could not at the time understand what it meant. I entered into conversation with him, but with little satisfaction to him or me. I would not call him "Mr. President," but always addressed him as "Mr. Davis," which seemed to greatly annoy him, and he retaliated by speaking with the greatest contempt of "Your government."
I said to him that I came very near making his acquaintance earlier. Upon this he turned upon me with great hauteur, and said, "Well, sir, I can assure you that if you had made my acquaintance before this, this thing would not have happened as it has. I had those with me then, who would not have permitted this indignity to have been put upon me. It was well for you, sir, that you were not in time to see me then."
I replied that it would have afforded me pleasure to have met his friends and tried the question with them. His wrath arose again, and he poured out a torrent of abuse against my government. While conversing with him, I saw a cask of brandy pitched out of an ambulance; the head was soon knocked in, and the soldiers were running thither from all parts, with cups and canteens. Mr. Davis turned to me and inquired who was the ranking officer. As Pritchard and I were both lieutenant-colonels, and rank depended upon the dates of our respective commissions, I replied that I did not know. He said that things had come to a pretty sad state of affairs when United States soldiers did not know who their commanding officer was. After a little more talk, his wrath, which had for some time been rising, got completely the better of him; then he turned his back upon me, for the last time. In speaking to his wife he blamed her for the capture, for he said that if he had acted on his own judgment he would have been with the others of his party, and this thing would not have happened as it had. Mrs. Davis took him by the arm and tried to pacify him. She told us to never mind him, that he was not worth minding. She also said, as she was leading him away, that she hoped we would not irritate the president, for some one might get hurt.
After making all allowances for the humiliating position in which Davis found himself at that time, I came to the conclusion that he was a greatly overrated man. His manner, and all that he said, his blaming his wife, and other circumstances, all went to show that he had no real nobility about him.
That is the story. It is the one thing that people remember about me and want to hear about, though I led a fuller life than that. As a youth I sailed all over the world. After the War of Rebellion I was elected to the Wisconsin Assembly. It is an odd thing that an entire life can be reduced to one circumstance that others deem important. I am proud of capturing Davis, but it is not the summary of my life. How can one summarize a lifetime? Maybe, if you come back another day, maybe I will tell you about my experiences in other battles of that same war, like Chicamauga or Chattanooga, the gold fields of California, or the Mexican War. I’d like that.
JOSEPH HOBBINS
I came here to find a home, at which I succeeded. You may wonder how one gets from the Royal College of Surgeons in London to a town but twenty years old in a country formed by breaking away from England? One may wonder how the wounds of war could heal so fast. When I first visited the states we were but half a century removed from the American war with England. I will tell you, I met my future wife on that voyage. Love doth forgive many an injury.
My father had spent some years here. What I discovered on that visit, and subsequent visits to other parts of the world, was what he knew before me, that people’s arms can stretch across nations’ borders. The citizens of this country were my American cousins. The war with England concerned itself with sovereignty, self-determination, money and more, as did the Rebellion here. These things happen. Politics is a beast occasionally tamed by blood. But it may be remembered that I was once called the “father of horticulture in the northwest.” I have more interest in the number of petals on a newfound flower than on the number of reasons for a war.
Don’t get me wrong. Once I settled here, and adopted this country as my own, I was firmly behind the Union when the war began. That is why I immediately volunteered my services and organized a medical corps at Camp Randall. There were countless men going through the gates of the camp, many of them sick, and they needed a doctor to take care of them. It was pleasant enough, as the war was beginning, to help prepare the troops for battle by taking care of a few diseases.
What I never expected, though, was that I would eventually be asked to tend to Confederate soldiers as well. In fact, I was named Surgeon-in-Charge of the rebel prisoners who were brought to this city later in the war. Perhaps it was figured that being of foreign extraction I would be more inclined to provide my services to men of both sides of the war without prejudice or protest. But I am a doctor. My job, nay, my divine calling, is to administer to the sick and dying. It matters not one whit to me whether that sick man be a saint or a heathen, a Union man or a rebel. It is my calling to treat him as well as I can.
This is not to say that I did not contemplate the moral repercussions. These were men who may have killed my own neighbors. These were men who were fighting my adopted country. For a doctor, that type of thought or consideration must be dismissed as quickly as it comes. A doctor must be blind to political rivalries or divisions. A patient is a patient. And if you had seen the bedraggled, weary, emaciated forms, in some cases skeletons of mere boys—not men—boys, who were dying without a thought for politics or whose side was winning, you too would have done what you could to comfort them. All of God’s creatures deserve this care and respect. The lowliest cur deserves to be treated kindly. As I would not turn from an animal suffering cruelty at its master’s hands I would not turn from a man in need, be he an enemy or a friend. Anyone who knows me would tell you that.
Therefore, when we were accused of inhumane treatment of our prisoners, I must admit I was unsettled by the accusation. I can assure you no one became worse for his care at the fort. Admittedly, camp conditions were not the greatest. It was overcrowded and there were too many sick men for the available staff to handle. But those whose horrible conditions were reported to the quartermaster were brought to us in those horrible conditions, and too late for us to do much of anything about it. Hundreds had been crowded onto a small boat, many of them sick when the trip started, and made to travel hundreds of miles upstream in the most cramped and uncomfortable of conditions. It was a wonder more of them were not already dead upon arrival.
Those who did arrive, and who were treated as patients, were accorded the same treatment as any Union soldier would have received. I took especial care with them when I could. On occasion, I would sneak an extra treat or two into the tent of a particularly sick young man. It got to be that they would even ask me to get them things. But it was not just I. Madison citizens came to the camp, at first to gawk, but later to soothe. They brought things to me to pass on to the prisoners, things such as clothes, brandy, treats and other delicacies for the suffering men.
It was a simple enough task for me to ask the cook for an order of plain boiled rice. The look of thankfulness in a dying man’s eyes made it worth the extra work. I liked to think that here, at the end of his time of suffering, the young man before me had perhaps reaffirmed some faith in his fellow man, that he did not depart with only pain and suffering, but also with a gentle act of forgiveness as his guiding light. Perhaps in those last few days he saw that we are all brothers under God, regardless of whether his hometown was Chattanooga, Madison, or London. Perhaps he saw that the same God who created Spanish moss on sprawling trees also created snow on Northern pines. Perhaps, when I took his hand in mine and watched him accept his ultimate fate, he knew then that we were brothers. This, I believe, was my legacy. While other things in my life may have garnered me more fame, I believe it was those few moments of genuine connection that really mattered. Believe me, there is far more to being a doctor than simply making people well. I believe I did my best.
I look around and think of younger days. There are many soldiers buried here, men who fought valiantly for their country and the preservation of the Union. They are brothers all. I believe there is little you can do in life that is more worthy than defending the honor and sanctity of your country. I do not count the governorship prouder than my military service. They are both services to one’s state or country. They merely take on different forms. Some of the men who fought to preserve the Union paid the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives that others might live in peace and prosperity. Some of us gave less than lives, but more than we wanted, and sacrificed still. All were valiant sons of the Republic. But despite that, the stories given in boyhood books are misleading. Let me tell you what it is really like.
Let me give you some advice if you are thinking of joining the Army. First and foremost, occupy your mind and study the army regulations and tactics. Understand how to drill a battalion and seek opportunities as soon as possible. It’s awkward business to anyone at first, but a few times trying will make it all come easy enough. A good drill for the soldiers gives them an idea of the various movements necessary on the battlefield—as well as accustoming them to move quickly—load and fire rapidly with coolness. It is better still, for the paid officers, in instructing the various movements and giving them practice in handling men for a definite purpose. This is all in preparation for that moment when you may see action. When you do get sent to battle it will not be easy. The military is not designed for comfort.
I remember a fearful day at a camp in Virginia back in 1861. The wind blew a perfect hurricane—driving the heavy rain through every crack and cranny of a tent. All night long the rain came down in violent gusts. Soldiers on guard duty quickly get a taste of the realities of a soldier’s life, and it is not all adventure. Even those in the best of tents are not comfortable enough. Still, they don’t suffer enough to hurt them either. You persist. You adjust and you persist. As an officer, you show them by example. I know that an officer feeling confident that he can do, very much assists him. I know from experience the feeling of satisfaction one has when difficulties disappear and when the men and officers say, “well done.” Perhaps my pride gets the best of me.
Once I was toasted with “Lieutenant Colonel Fairchild, the last in service, the first in the hearts of the Second Wisconsin,” followed by rousing cheers. That made me proud too, but I find that the more I learn the more I find I don’t know. I believe they toasted me because I always respected the men for what they endured in the cause of the Union, and they respected me in return. You see, war is not all battle and discomfort. In camp we had a great many visitors and occasionally we had to entertain them—nice supper, champagne to top it off—and there were times when we could make our quarters more comfortable. Pork was our standard fare, but there were times when we had venison, partridge or domestic chickens as a change of meat. Battles did occur, but there were times when drills were the closest we came to it. The easy times were the hardest for me. When in the pitch of battle there is no time to ponder. It’s all action. But in camp life, with no troop movement, with no battle near, the mind is given the time to drift home to cranberry bogs or the politics of Madison, business dealings or the love of family, newborn babies, a failing father, or friends. Fighting is, or seems to be, the smallest part of war—it’s mostly waiting, which is the hardest duty a soldier has to perform. The mind wanders home and the heart gets heavy. Loneliness is the worst enemy of a soldier. Mail after mail arrives and no letter—you grin and bear it, but know it would be pleasant to read something from home as often as once a week. You think about a leave of absence, but every other man in the Army wants one too, so you know you are not likely to get it. You wait for something to happen.
Like now, here in Wisconsin autumn, there are moments of quiet contemplation, when all about is perfectly still—the frosted leaves with their lately acquired red, yellow and variegated traits are quietly sailing down to the ground. I smooth down my old gray beard and think how soon my turn will come to go the same way. But I am not gloomy or unhappy in the contemplation, for I have always understood that “I would not live always.” We are nearly through the autumn and winter comes upon us. Like a child waiting at the window for the season’s first snow, I look out and know that I, too, must fall. It is our one sure fate. My best advice to you is this. As a young soldier, don’t let your mind think too much of these things. It is in this kind of distraction that men die young. Instead, wait until you are old, like me. Wait until you are in the autumn of your life and know that you have to get your house in order before winter comes. Good philosophy should not be wasted on the young. Go, as a young one, go and fight your battles, and earn your scars, before you settle into dust.
The worst thing about war is the privation of family and friends. The only contact is through letters, and being many hundreds of miles away is not an easy thing to endure. As a father and husband you want to be near your family. After all, a father has a job to do. What discipline can be taught through the pen? A fair amount to be exact. I instructed all my children through my letters home, and I did so as sternly as the severest schoolmaster. Behind it, of course, was a father’s love. “I am glad to hear you are at school,” I would write to my daughter, Ida, and then I would proceed to explain how a young lady’s education should progress. It should progress, as any good education, by allowing the mind to think. I would tell her, “Express your mind—so as to take a large view of your studies and get the idea of your life’s use—not crowd your mind with mere recitals of anyone’s words.” Recitation is for fools. Thought is what is wanted. An idea firmly fixed is worth all the mere recitals of pages of droning stuff in the world. This is how I would instruct her while I was absent. I was firm, yet loving, stern, yet fatherly. When I corrected her I did so with an eye toward improvement. I always hoped she took it well and that the lessons were learned.
Of course, there were life lessons as well. I told her she could choose any church to go to, that I have never put my restraint upon the conscience of one of my children. Piety, if real, admirably befits a woman—but if mere hypocrisy, as is too common, it is far better to have no religion. The hypocrite is worse than the unbeliever. I also tried to teach her about how a young lady behaves in general, that she should with her companions, be uniformly kind and gentle—ready to do favors, as to receive them. And of course there was one of my own pet peeves. I instructed her repeatedly to be neat and modest in dress, not decked out like a peacock. It is only weak minds that are crazy for display.
The most important lessons, though, always came back to language. You must learn to use language—words are but symbols of ideas. The language of those letters home helped me through the war. They allowed me to forget how difficult the job of paymaster can be. They allowed me to forget the shouts of cannons. In a war you see strange sights hourly. The bombardment goes steadily on. Boats tremble with the concussion of the cannon and mortars. At times, we would hear it all day and night. What I would not give for the sweet soft sound of my daughter’s voice at those times. When she wrote letters I would hear it, there in my tent. The bombs would drop to a distant dull thud, and I would hear her voice. Of course, it was never often enough. I would chastise all of my family for not writing often enough, just as my mother had always chastised me for the same thing. “Remember the Golden Rule,” she would say, “Do unto others”. I can only hope that my children listened better to me than I to her.
I wrote to them a lot about language. I could not stress enough the importance of it. A misspelled word is an offense to the educator. I suppose this is why I became an editor, because I do believe in the power of language to express ideas. It comes down to this. A sentence is an idea clothed in language. Language, when used correctly, can transport, although sometimes even it is not enough. Let me give you an example. When I first saw Madison back in 1845, I wrote a brief description of it. I have always believed that no more nor less should be used than is just necessary to completeness. Here is how I described what I saw:
“The spectacle was a vision so glorious, that it painted itself on my memory with a vividness that has never left it. Just previous to reaching the elevation I had been overtaken by a gentleman also bound for Madison, and when we reached the summit, both stopped our horses in involuntary surprise. Four Lakes lay spread out before us, brought out in strong relief by the declining sun just sinking in the west, shining like burnished mirrors. On all sides forest and prairie swept down in line and patches unobstructed to the their shores. Except the village, magnified a thousand fold as a central figure, there was no break in the scene – not a mark of human improvement. As this line of white beach sand glowing in the sunset stood in contrast with the dark, green foliage that encompassed it, while plain and level, precipice and peninsula, bay and gulf, were clothed in a brilliancy of outline, and a beauty beyond the power of description.”
You can see I did try to describe it and I believe I succeeded in creating a picture that others could see. But it could not paint the full picture that I saw that day. That image has been burnished into my mind in such a way that I can still see it. I thought of it often while I was gone to one place or another in the service of my country.
It is images like that which you take with you when you travel. You can leave behind an extra shirt, but you need some things to hold onto. They come in handy during the worst of crises. I used the image of Madison and of my dear wife’s smile, the sound of my daughter’s voice, and more during one three day period in the war. I was so unfortunate as to be on the transport “Sallie Wood” which was captured by the rebels about 120 miles above Vicksburg, at island no 82, all on board being taken prisoners excepting a pilot, a negro, and myself. I only escaped being taken prisoner by concealing myself in the swamps for three days during the entire time, the other two being more fortunate in being rescued within twenty four hours after the boat was captured. All my personal effects were in my trunk which was on board the steamer and of course captured. I escaped with nothing but shoes, pants, shirt, cap and sword and pistols. But I was determined to survive and to remain free. I thought often of the things that meant the most to me. Those images gave me the courage and determination to survive.
I cannot help but think that if all of the officers and men who have been taken prisoner had been as determined not to be taken as I was the rebels would not have had as many prisoners to exchange. The war may have ended earlier than it did, and everyone would have gotten home sooner. I got back a little earlier than others as it was, with a medical discharge. I was sick, the government owed me back pay, I had experienced some harrowing times, and I hadn’t seen my family in too long a time. But when I neared Madison, and saw again the four lakes spread out before me, I felt only strong relief to see the declining sun just sinking in the west.