Memoirs of a Soldier Prologue

The battle has been goin’ on for days, it seems. Never endin’ bloodshed, now needless, if you ask me. I’ve survived the second day at Gettysburg, and the screams of my fellows rings indefinitely in my ears. This mornin’ was the first time I’ve considered deliberately runnin’ into enemy fire. Blood covers the ground once more, surroundin’ your feet every time you step on the earth. Bodies are littered across the ground like seeds when it’s time to plant. Screams and moans of the mortally wounded fill the air, and it’s those bone-chillin’ calls keep you up all hours of the night.

It’s funny how some people tell you your life flashes in your mind before you die, and how those people don’t know, yet are always right. I’m not going to die anytime soon, but I came right close to it today. Enemy fire went right passed my left ear, and I was in shock. I had nothin’ to do but fall to the ground and act dead so they didn’t kill me. In that shock of mine, I saw everythin’ that’s happened to me since just before the war started.

To think of it now just seems to depress me. I had it all; a wife, a son, a nice house and a good job, but the minute the war started, everythin’ came to an abrupt halt. My life stopped, turned around, and went a different direction for me. Everythin’ I knew and loved ran away, or got killed, or failed. Somethin’ as silly as hatred left me out here, listenin’ to the sounds of my brethren dyin’ because us white-folk are too pompous and stubborn to see that there were other people in the world, and we couldn’t tolerate it. A couple of people tried to stop it, and next thing we know, we’re lyin’ out here, on the blood-soaked soil, hopin’ God takes us away because the pain we are feelin’ is too much.

I want my life back. I want my family, my friends, and everythin’ to be the way it was. Before intolerance came along.

Chapter 1

“ James! James, come here! You need to see what your son is doin’!” Elizabeth yelled at me from the dining room.

“ What this time, Elizabeth? If he’s beatin’ up the neighbor kid, he’s gonna regret it!” I yelled back.

“ No, James! He’s readin’! He’s readin’ for the first time, and you aren’t here to see it!” Elizabeth cried.

“ Oh, Elizabeth, he’s been readin’ for ages. He read to me last night, and the night before that. You were just too busy gossipin’ with Miss Loretta Jasper to notice!” I laughed.

“ Mama, why are you cryin’? All I’m doin’ is readin’. It ain’t hard. See? This sentence says ‘ You shouldn’t do naughty things.’ See, it ain’t hard!” My son, Michael, beamed.

“ No, no, sweetie. It says ‘ Thou shall not sin.’ And don’t use the word ain’t. It ain’t proper grammar.” Elizabeth corrected.

“ Mama, don’t use the word ain’t. And it does say ‘You shouldn’t do naughty things.’ You jus’ hafta look at it differently.” Michael argued.

I smiled while the two argued. My son takes after me in every sense, or so everyone in the neighborhood says. I see it every now and then, but it isn’t often. Takes after his mother, if you ask me. Looks at things in an odd logic, but he almost always turn out right. That’s his mother’s quality. He likes business, just like me.

I own a little tailor shop, and it keeps things movin’. Since there are a lot of children in this town, the shop is goin’ to stay in business for a long time. Kids are always tearin’ holes in their clothes, and need to come to me to get them fixed up before their mamas see it.

I was afraid to tell my wife what had happened today in town. She hated to hear news of all the slavery goin’ on, but she had to know.

“ Elizabeth, can I see you in the parlor for a second?” I asked, tryin’ not worry her.

Elizabeth followed me into the parlor, wipin’ the tears off her face. She sat down in an old leather chair we kept in there, and she looked at me.

“ James, you tell me what’s wrong this instant.” Elizabeth ordered.

“ Now, Elizabeth, it ain’t anythin’ you need to go and get in a twist about, but there is a slave auction comin’ here. To our town. And it ain’t any body’s fault but them cotton merchants. And I wanted to go and buy a couple, or a family, to keep ‘em together.” I replied, afraid of what she would say next.

“ Why, James? So we can own another human being, like they ain’t nothin’?” Elizabeth retorted with a sharp tongue.

“ Calm down, Elizabeth. Every time you get upset about somethin’ you use bad grammar.”

“ Calm down? Calm down! Listen to yourself, James! You want to go buy a slave!”

“ You didn’t listen to my reason! I wanted to buy one to save them from some horrible fate that they would suffer in the fields of those damn cotton folks! They would get room and pay if they stayed here. They would be free as birds, at least under my roof! I ain’t gonna beat ‘em, I ain’t gonna drive ‘em, and I ain’t gonna force them to do labor around here! And still, even with my valiant efforts to save those poor people, you still think they should suffer with their alternative?”

“ James, don’t swear! Michael might pick it up, and I swear if he starts talkin’ that way, I’m gonna beat you stupid!”

“ My father beat you to that. Now, come on, Elizabeth. Please. Let me save these people.”

Elizabeth just stared at me with that agitated stare she gave me when I offended her. I just stared back, hopin’ she’d approve.

“ Do we have the money? For a family, I mean. They come together or not at all.” Elizabeth asked.

“ We have enough to buy a family, if the cotton-dwellers don’t beat us to them. They’d split the families as soon as they could just so they could force the slaves to work. We have the space in this house too. We have everythin’ to accommodate them and more. I haven’t been workin’ the same store for so long for nothin’. My old man left me a pretty amount of money and land here as well. There ain’t nothin’ to worry about, Elizabeth.” I answered.

“ Good. It’s settled. Now all we need to do is get you to stop sayin’ ‘ain’t’.” 

So, with that matter settled, Elizabeth continued makin’ supper, Michael continued readin’, and I kept my thoughts to myself and returned to my study. The newspaper was depressin’ as ever. News normally consisted of a black slave runnin’ away and bein’ brought back and brutally beaten by their master. But today was different; abolitionists are beginnin’ to show up more, beginnin’ to stand out, which is causin’ slave owners to hold their slaves more closely to them and beatin’ ‘em more to show ‘em that if they think the abolitionists can save ‘em, they’re dead wrong. Two slaves owned by my neighbor’s were found beatin’ to death because they were caught readin’ and writin’.