by Irene Hunt
Now the cabin had the look of a lonely old man brooding in the summer sunlight. Beyond the chatter of Nancy’s little boys, there was no lightness within the cabin or anywhere nearby. In New York, of course, the papers stated that society had never been so gay; that the sale of jewels and fine fabrics and sundry baubles of high fashion had never been so great. People were going to the opera, to balls, to glittering dinners in the great hotels, in spite of casualty lists and the fact that the war showed no signs of ending.
In Jasper County, however, laughter was a scarce luxury that summer, but as the weeks of 1862 marched on toward fall, an incident occurred that appealed to the rough humor of the times and to the satisfaction of many who saw justice finally finding a niche for itself. It was an incident that brought down a storm of ridicule upon Guy Wortman, was welcomed by those who had shuddered before the picture of mob violence spreading throughout the county as it had downstate, and was as effective in silencing Wortman as a prison term would have been.
The incident revolved about Sam Gardiner, the pudgy, round-faced proprietor of the general store in Newton. Gardiner had minced no words in his anger over what had happened at the Creighton farm that spring, and knowing what to expect from the Wortman-led element in the county, he stayed night after night in his darkened store waiting for an attack and his chance to answer it. He was a marksman of no mean ability; he was, moreover, stubbornly tenacious under his mild manner—two facts well-enough known around town to make the night prowlers wary for several weeks. The newspaper office was broken into and valuable material destroyed; Lafe Edwards’ saloon was given similar treatment; but the general store was untouched.
Finally Sam Gardiner grew tired of waiting and taunted his foes by taking on a role of smugness and boasting of his immunity to Wortman’s vengeance. After a few days he took pains to let the community at large know that his store was to be closed for a week while he went to St. Louis on business. At Olney he waved to some acquaintances from Newton as he boarded the train; then, getting off at the first stop, he was brought back to Newton during the night by an accomplice. In the darkness he climbed to the loft of his store, where he stayed for three days, living on cold provisions from his stock and biding his time.
On the third night the ruffians struck. A back window was pried open, and the vandalism was proceeding in full force when a blast of buckshot sent three men leaping into the darkness and caught Guy Wortman, as Gardiner had intended it to do, directly in the hindquarters.
The rest was comic opera. A doctor was summoned to the scene, and a crowd of men soon gathered in the store where the round little merchant, in his nightshirt, held a lamp aloft to light the doctor’s work, and clucked in gentle sympathy while the buckshot was dug from the backsides of a moaning Wortman.
Men all over the county roared at the story Ross Milton embellished with cutting sarcasm and published in his weekly paper, a story that caused Wortman to be demoted, even by his own lieutenants, from the role of a swaggering desperado to that of an inept and ridiculous figure, whining in his misery. Sam Gardiner’s blast of buckshot brought a number of people to their senses and gave to a number of others the blessed gift of a night’s sleep free of anxiety and terror.
While the county paper carried details of Guy Wortman’s humiliation, the city papers carried a war story that had its own overtones of the ridiculous. General Halleck had shuffled the generals at Pittsburg Landing after the battle there, assigning Grant to an ineffectual position as assistant commander and taking command of the field himself. Then there had begun a snaillike approach of the Union Army toward Corinth, where General Beauregard had withdrawn with the Confederate Army—day after day of digging entrenchments, marching a little distance, stopping to dig more entrenchments. Grant had been criticized for not entrenching at Pittsburg Landing; Halleck, it seemed, was determined to entrench himself all the way from Pittsburg Landing to Corinth.
Then came the entry into Corinth. Northern newspapers, never very warm toward Halleck, wrote with a note of glee in their bitterness of the hoax by which Beauregard had managed to evacuate his sick and enfeebled army, thereby leaving for Halleck a deserted railroad town. General Halleck had confidently expected to bag an enemy, which he had reported to the War Department as being nearly 200,000 strong. Beauregard had withdrawn from Corinth leaving campfires burning, dummy guns with dummy cannoneers behind them, and a few drummer boys to play in the deserted streets, as if Confederate soldiers by the hundred thousands were still there to listen. Freight cars rattled through Corinth all during the night, covering the sound of withdrawal; and shrill rebel yells from the remainder of the army greeted the arrival of each train, suggesting that reinforcements were arriving by the hour.
Halleck occupied Corinth the next day, it was true, but there was an empty ring to his boast that this was a “victory as brilliant and important as any recorded in history.” The papers suggested that perhaps it was Beauregard who, by managing to save the remnants of his army, had won something approaching a victory.
Jethro sat on the edge of the kitchen porch, fondling the dog as it nuzzled against his knee and looking out at the fields, where twilight was rapidly draining the green and gold from corn and wheat fields that stretched out below and beyond Walnut Hill. His eyes were wide and troubled with his thoughts. He had a high respect for education, for authority of men in high places, and yet the stories in the newspapers made him wonder. McClellan, the most promising young officer in his class at West Point, was now the general who either didn’t move at all or moved ineffectually ; Halleck, the author of a book on military science, was now the author of boasts that somehow branded him as a little man, even to a country boy who was hungry for a hero. There were stories of generals jealously eyeing one another, caring more for personal prestige than for defeating the Confederates; there were Pope and Sheridan, who blustered; there was Grant and the persistent stories of his heavy drinking. Nowhere in the North was there a general who looked and acted the part as did the Confederates’ Lee and Jackson.
“What’s the matter, Cap?” Jethro said aloud, bending down to look into the dog’s deep eyes. “Ain’t we in the right? And how does it happen, if we’re in the right, that the Lord lets Jeff Davis get men like Lee and Jackson and gives us ones like McClellan and Halleck?”
That, in essence, was what men in high places were wondering that late summer; it was what the President himself was wondering, and the thousands of soldiers who were coming nearer, day by day, to Antietam, to Fredericksburg, and to Chancellorsville.
8
The autumn of ’62 was grim. Looking back to the spring and early summer, Jethro realized that, although the early months had meant anxiety and fear for himself and his family, the cause of the Union had been going well in the West. He counted the Federal victories beginning with Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, always to be associated in his memory with that last firelit evening he had spent with Shadrach-on to Pea Ridge, from which Mr. Roscoe’s grandson had emerged unharmed-to the Mississippi, where grim old Admiral Farragut had done the impossible and had taken over New Orleans, and where General Pope, blusterer though he might be, was hailed as a hero after he had taken New Madrid and the powerful Confederate fort at Island No. 10.
Jethro studied the map of the Mississippi carefully. Only a strip of the river between Baton Rouge and Vicksburg was then under Confederate control.
“We’re doin’ better than Shad allowed we would,” he told Jenny. He measured the short strip on the map with his fingers. “Look, it’s just a little piece of river; once we take that, it’s like Shad told me—the Confederacy will be cut in two.”
It was a very short strip as measured by his fingers, but a shadow swept across his eyes as he recalled Shadrach’s words, “Think how hard the fighting was at this little dot on the map called Donelson.” He thought of another dot, which was only peach orchards and an old church, where Tom and thousands of others had died-a dot that seemed a hateful place to him. He would hav
e to grow older and learn from history that the battle had been one of great importance for the Union, that the Confederate attempt to regain western Tennessee had failed and was therefore a bitter blow to the government of Jefferson Davis. But in 1862, Jethro hated to think of Shiloh, not only because of Tom, but because it seemed to him to have been an empty victory.
The triumphs along the Mississippi had made good news, and hopes throughout the North were at a high peak when chilling word came up from Tennessee. There two Confederate generals, Bragg and Smith, had driven the Federals out of the Cumberland Gap and were moving north to Kentucky, where they would surely reclaim that state if Don Carlos Buell couldn’t stop them. Young Tom had helped to clinch Kentucky to the side of the Union at Donelson; now Jethro read with a heavy heart that General Bragg was boasting of his intention to set up a Confederate governor of Kentucky.
Equally chilling was the news from the East. General Pope, hero of Island No. 10, was no longer a hero in Virginia. At the end of August, just thirteen months after the day when congressmen and their ladies had driven out to Bull Run for a day of picnicking and battle-viewing, a second disaster for the Federals took place on the same spot. The Confederate generals were Lee and Stonewall Jackson, together with James Longstreet, who brought up reinforcements that saved the day for the Confederates. A good part of McClellan’s army, as well as Pope’s, the papers admitted, was disorganized and hopeless.
Thus the high hopes that had given comfort to the North during the spring were almost crushed by early fall. Faith in the leaders was at its lowest ebb, criticism of the President poured in from all sides, armies were demoralized, and desertion began, first in a slow trickling, then in a flood, as the months dragged on. Jethro read the news in dismay, and for the rest of the war there was always a fear within him that disappointment and disaster inevitably followed hope.
But work on the farm had to go on although armies faltered and leaders fell in disgrace. Late in September, men from the nearby communities and from even as far away as Newton came to build a new barn, so that Matt Creighton’s stock might have shelter before the winter snows set in. There were twenty or more of them with teams and loads of logs, with saws and axes, and a barrel of cider to give their work a spark of holiday spirit. Ross Milton came, and although he was too crippled to work, the men were pleased to have him with them, and Jethro was delighted.
When he went out to greet the editor, Jethro noticed the young man who had cared for his team that day in Newton, now sitting on a high load of logs behind Ross Milton’s buggy. Milton jerked his thumb toward the wagon as he climbed slowly down from his seat.
“Charley is bringing that load of logs from a friend of yours,” he told Jethro quietly.
“I can’t think of anybody down your way that is a special friend of mine,” Jethro said, puzzled.
“Dave Burdow,” the editor answered. “I’d asked him to come with us today. He wouldn‘t, but he came to town yesterday and asked me to have someone bring up this load of logs he’d cut. He said, ‘Tell the young one Dave Burdow is sending them to him.’ ”
Jethro nodded. “I allow to get thanks—” he paused and flushed as he looked up at the editor. “I want to send thanks to him-one way or the other.”
“I’ve done it for you,” Milton answered, smiling briefly at the evidence that his book had been read. “Dave isn’t used to thanks; they make him restless. But he’s listened, and more than that, he’s shaken several hands that have been extended to him since the two of you rode together through that stretch of woods road last March.”
“I’m proud to hear it,” Jethro said soberly.
“I thought you might be.” Milton turned toward the porch, where Matt waited to speak to him, and Jethro went back to show Charley where to place his wagon and Burdow’s gift.
By noon Ellen, with the help of Nancy and Jenny, had spread a long table out under the silver poplars in the dooryard, and here the men ate roasted meats and potatoes, vegetables preserved from the summer garden, baked beans, and corn bread spread thickly with freshly churned butter. They had autumn peaches picked from the trees and sliced in golden cream, mounds of wild honey, and apples that Nancy’s little boys had polished until they gleamed rosily against the white cloth. The season of plenty in southern Illinois had not been touched by the war.
There might have been no war at all for an hour or so, as the men ate and joked in the mellow sunlight of the dooryard. But during the afternoon, as he carried water and ran a dozen different errands, Jethro heard them talk of a battle in the East. It was at a place he had not quite known how to pronounce when he had read of it in the papers. Antietam.
“Well, McClellan moved,” Israel Thomas was saying, “you hev to say that fer him. He finally moved. Ol’ Abe give him another chancet; maybe now he’ll git down to fightin’, if that ain’t askin’ too much of sech a fine-haired general.”
Ed Turner’s face was full of disgust as he strained to lift a log into place.
“Him git down to fightin‘-don’t ever think of it. He wants to strut around and brag and look han’some, but he don’t want to fight-not him. I reckon 01’ Abe was right; the Army of the Potomac is Mr. McClellan’s bodyguard.”
“Well, he druv Bobby Lee out of Maryland t’other day,” another man remarked. “That much is to his credit.”
“And if Bobby Lee had druv McClellan out, he’d afollered up and apestered the army that was in retreat. But not McClellan. No, he wastes thousands of boys; then he sets back and rests, waitin’ fer them that’s left livin’ to cheer him big.” Ed Turner wiped the sweat from his eyes with an angry gesture. “I got no use for McClellan. I don’t know what 01’ Abe means-tuckerin’ to him like he was some little sawed-off king.”
Then Tom Marin from Rose Hill spoke up. “If you ask my opinion of McClellan, I’ll tell you I don’t think he wants to win. I don’t think he’s ever really goin’ to move in on the Rebs, because their way of thinkin’ is his way of thinkin’.”
“Oh, I reckon he ain’t that low. Ol’ Abe must not be quite that pore in pickin’ his head men,” Israel Thomas objected.
“Maybe Ol’ Abe ain’t losin’ his breath to lick the Rebs either-did ye ever think of that? Why is it he ain’t freed the slaves? Is he afeared of hurtin’ the feelin’s of some of his woman’s kinfolk down in Kaintuck? Why does he put up with this no-account that’s runnin’ the Army of the Potomac? Does he like seein’ Bobby Lee run over us? I got a lot of questions about Ol’ Abe that I’d like an answer to.”
“Yore doubts ain’t goin’ to make me down on Ol’ Abe, Tom,” Israel Thomas answered angrily. “Things is tough right now, but this war is a big thing. It’s middlin’ easy fer us farmers and the big editors and the abolitionist preachers to run the job of bein’ president. Ol’ Abe is doin’ all he kin do, I say, and I’m fer him-all the way.”
One of the men took a drink from the water jug Jethro had brought up to the workers, and handing it back, he rumpled the boy’s hair with rough affection.
“Be glad you’re a boy, young feller, and don’t hev to pester yoreself with all these troubles that men be sufferin’ through these days,” he said genially.
Jethro had picked up a mannerism from his mother. He closed his eyes briefly, as if to hide from the world the exasperation with which the man’s words struck him. He knew he must keep quiet; these men were kind, generous men, and anyway, a boy had no right to contradict a man’s opinion. If they wished to think of him as an ignorant child, he must not try to change their idea of him, but it was a bitter dose to swallow.
A few days after the barn-raising a letter came from Shadrach Yale in which he too discussed General McClellan, from the viewpoint of a young soldier who had just known his first experience under fire. Antietam had been the baptismal battle for the young schoolteacher, and the letter to Jenny reflected the agony of a man new to the scenes of death and suffering.
This time Jenny read the letter in its entirety to the family, and t
hen she quietly passed it to her father and to Jethro for rereading. The words of love that interspersed those of mental anguish were not ones that a silly girl blushed over and hoarded to herself. There was a new dignity about Jenny after that letter from Antietam.
Of General McClellan, Shadrach wrote:I have never known men of my age--and many much older-who have so completely worshipped another man. They may be hungry, wounded, heartsick at the death of comrades, but they forget everything when they see him, and they break into cheers as if this hero had brought them nothing but pure joy. They accept suffering of any kind as something through which they can show their devotion to this leader.
You have probably read of the disorganization and discouragement of this army after General Pope’s defeat at Bull Run. It took only the sight of this small, handsome man, McClellan, dashing up and down the lines on horseback to restore confidence and courage. He shouted, waved his cap, encouraged their cheers, and fired his men with the kind of spirit that they showed here at Antietam.
The men resent those of us who have not known him long, the ones who are silent when they cheer. I believe that a word against him might be as dangerous to the one who spoke it as a Rebel bullet would be. They will not believe that he has ever been anything but right; they revile the President when rumors of his impatience with their general get around.
I tell you frankly that the contagion of their devotion has not yet gripped me. I do not dislike him; I believe that he is personally brave and devoted to the cause for which his men are fighting. But he is afraid of something-of sending the men who love him to their death-of making an error that will reflect upon the image of himself which he knows to exist in the minds of his men. He does not have the cold approach to killing, the singleness of purpose, the brutal tenacity, that the winner of this war—if there ever is to be one-must have.