The Last Letter Home

by Vilhelm Moberg

  In August President Lincoln issued a new call: He asked for another 300,000 men. If this number had not volunteered before the first of October, conscription would be necessary.

  This was alarming.

  And one day, in the beginning of September, just after the new call had been issued, Karl Oskar Nilsson read in Hemlandet a summons to the Swedish settlers of Minnesota to form a company of their own:

  This country has permitted us to settle here in peace, it has received us foreigners with friendship. We enjoy here the same rights, are protected by the same laws, as the natives. Swedes constitute the greatest numbers of foreigners in Minnesota—it is time for us to fight for our adopted land, for the Union!

  I myself offer to go! Let’s meet at Fort Snelling, where we ourselves will choose our officers!

  A pox on him who says this is a war among Americans and doesnt concern us! This fight concerns us and our children!

  We have sworn loyalty to this country!

  This country is now in danger!

  The appeal was dated, Red Wing, September 2, 1861, signed H. Mattson, “a countryman.” Karl Oskar read it several times, and thought deeply about it.

  It was high time . . . !

  The following night he could not sleep a wink, and in the morning he said to his wife that he was going to Stillwater and sign his name on the volunteer list. He would report for the war.

  II

  I AM CONCERNED WITH YOUR ETERNAL LIFE

  —1—

  Kristina was sewing on her new sewing machine in the living room. Her right hand controlled the balance wheel while her left fed it the cloth. The pedals moved rhythmically, she felt them as a pair of heavy iron soles. She sewed with foot power rather than hand power. This sewing machine, Karl Oskar’s gift to her last Christmas, had already saved her many hours of sewing and basting with needle. American menfolk made many inventions that helped greatly. This machine was an expensive apparatus—it had cost twenty dollars—but with it she could sew ten times faster than by hand. It was a very clever invention: the sewing contraption had pedals and buzzing wheels, shuttle and spool, over-thread and under-thread. It was truly unbelievable that such a capable machine—made for women’s use—would have been invented by a man.

  She was sewing shirts for Karl Oskar from a roll of flannel she had bought at Klas Albert Persson’s store. Flannel was the cloth used by Americans for strong everyday wear. Otherwise she bought cheap calico or the most inexpensive cotton but the latter came in only a few ugly patterns at Klas Alberts.

  It was a warm day even though it was already in September. Kristina pedaled her machine with bare feet. In winter the iron felt cold against the soles of her feet, but in summer cool and pleasant. The wheel’s buzzing turned into a noisy roar when she pedaled the machine at high speed.

  Karl Oskar came in and sat down beside her. She slowed down her tramping and stopped the balance wheel, letting her hand rest on it as she turned to her husband.

  She had seen in his face, earlier today, what he had to say. She had expected it for a long time. He had decided at last.

  “I can’t delay any longer! I must volunteer! Otherwise I’ll be forced to . . .”

  She was prepared and calm. Nor had he expected his wife to burst out crying.

  She said quietly, “You’re not forced yet.”

  “No—but I might be soon. They might start conscription the first of October.”

  She raised her voice. “Wait till then!”

  “It’s more decent to volunteer before they begin drafting. I’d be ashamed to be forced.”

  Kristina looked questioningly at him. She moved her bare feet from the pedals of the sewing machine and rested her hands on her knees. “You wish to go to war of your own free will, Karl Oskar?”

  “I’ve fought it the whole summer. Now I must go.”

  As early as April Old Abe had called his loyal citizens. It was now September and at last he would answer: I’m coming! He said he had no wish to go out in any war if he could get out of it honorably. He could always find excuses and delays: Last spring the fields needed seeding, now in fall he could say he needed to harvest the crop. Still later he could use the threshing as an excuse not to volunteer. And during the winter there was timber to fell and saw for the new main house he intended to build. That would bring them to spring with the new planting and the same old excuses. In that way he could go on year after year.

  Until the North had lost the war!

  Of what use would it be then that he had stayed at home and tended to his chores? If the North lost, the slave powers could do what they wanted. The slave owners used their Negroes like cattle and they could use the people up here in the same way. Who could say that they would be allowed to keep their land and their home? Here they had been able to live and govern themselves because the United States was their protection and security. But would it remain so if the Union were broken?

  Many had gone out in the war before him. He, as they, had believed it would be over in one summer, in which case it would have been unnecessary to volunteer. But now everyone realized that this misery would last long, and he could not expect others to jeopardize their lives and defend his wife, children, and home while he himself dodged. If a healthy man stayed home after this he must be a coward.

  “But I don’t know of anyone hereabouts who has gone,” she said. “You’ll be the only one from our settlement.”

  “The others are too old.”

  Danjel Andreasson and Jonas Petter were both near sixty; Petrus Olausson and Johan Kron were somewhat younger but both had reached fifty; Anders Månsson was a drunkard and useless for military service; Algot Svensson was about his own age, but last winter he had torn one of his eyes on a sharp branch and consequently was not able-bodied. The only one in their section who would have to go in a draft would be himself.

  Kristina’s fingers returned to the piece of cloth in the machine. Would she have to prepare Karl Oskar for war? Then she must hurry up and get these shirts ready for his rucksack.

  The memory of an evening long ago in another country came to her. The children were asleep, it was silent in their house, the fire had burned down to glowing embers. Then he had suddenly begun to talk: He had decided they would emigrate to America.

  For a long time she had been against it; she wanted to remain in her home community. To emigrate seemed to her as perilous as to go to war. Many had fallen on the emigrants’ road. But he had thought through his decision carefully, and his will had prevailed. Now he wanted to go to war; this time too he had long pondered and weighed before he decided.

  Kristina remained silent. Karl Oskar became uneasy. Had his decision hit her harder than he had expected? He added: It was not that he wished to participate in the singing of joyous war songs; it was not in happiness that he went, rather in deep sorrow. But he was forced to, he must not fail, his conscience bade him. If he threw off his duties on others, he would feel like a weakling, a clod.

  “You mean you must enlist to set your conscience at rest?”

  “Yes, to regain my peace of mind.”

  “But your conscience says you must not kill your neighbor. Don’t you know the fifth commandment?”

  “That commandment doesn’t hold in war.”

  “The catechism doesn’t say war is an exception?”

  “One must defend oneself.”

  “The neighbor you’ll kill says the same: I must defend myself!”

  Karl Oskar moved closer to his wife and took hold of her hand: “Kristina, are you against it? Are you absolutely against it?”

  “I only want you to wait till you’re forced to go.”

  “But I’d rather go of my free will than be drafted.”

  “That’s because of false pride. It’s only vanity.”

  She pushed back her chair from the sewing machine. “Do you want to know why I’m against it?” It came almost as an outcry. “I don’t want you to go out and kill people! I don’t want your hands to
kill anybody! I don’t want your neighbor’s blood on you! I don’t want you to be guilty of people’s lives! I don’t want you to be a murderer, Karl Oskar!”

  “Oh—in that way . . .” was his embarrassed reply.

  “I don’t want you to go into eternity with blood on you! That’s why! It is your eternal life that is in question! If you take someone else’s you lose your own! I don’t want you to be lost forever! I am concerned with your eternal life!”

  He sat quite dumbfounded for some minutes. This was not what he had expected to hear from his wife. He had thought she might say: You want to go to war before you are drafted? You want to leave your home of your own free will? Leave your wife and children, your fields and all you have built up here? Leave us alone with all the work to do here? You want to throw off everything on wife and children? Sacrifice your own life? How much do you really care for me when you are willing to make me a widow? How much do you feel for your children when you’re willing to make them fatherless?

  How can you? How can you risk your life in war before you’re forced to? I pray you—stay at home! Stay and be my husband as long as this is allowed you! Remain here and be a father to your children as long as you can! Please, Karl Oskar, stay here!

  Thus he had long in advance heard her persuade him, and that was why he had dreaded this moment. But now when it was here none of these words escaped her lips. She said nothing about herself or the children or the home. She only said: I am thinking of your eternal salvation!

  As a citizen he had received a call from the nation’s leader, a reminder of his duty. From his wife the husband and father now received another reminder, another call. But it did not concern this world, rather the eternal one.

  —2—

  Kristina had accepted her fate and made the best of her lot in life. Nothing could happen to her. That was why she didn’t ask him to consider her. She was not afraid to be left alone. Here at home she and the children would have God’s protection.

  During this war summer she had often thought of her mother’s mother, whom she remembered from her childhood home in Duvemåla where the old one had lived on her “reserved rights” for thirty years. She had been left a widow while still a young woman. Toward the end of the last century the Swedish king had made war against the Russian empress, to gain honor and praise, and Grandfather had been forced to go to war. It was always the little ones who must go out and kill each other so the big ones could get along. And Grandfather never returned; he fell on the field of battle. His widow was left alone with seven children on a small plot. She was thirty years of age. For twenty years she slaved stubbornly, in great poverty, for her children. When she was no longer able to work, the farm was sold and she moved into her “reserved room”: Grandmothers reward in life was thirty years of loneliness in this little hole of a room—a farm woman’s life, not much noted or remarked upon because it was the fate of thousands of other women as the result of war.

  So it was with women and war; the men went out but the wives were left home with children whom they alone must look after, feed, and foster. The men went out to destroy life, the women stayed at home to preserve it. The men must be alone, without their wives, the wives must be alone, without their husbands. And yet God had created man and woman for each others aid and comfort.

  So it had been of old, so it was still, and so it might remain. Kristina had already reconciled herself to the lone woman’s lot in war-torn America.

  —3—

  Now Karl Oskar replied to her: She had got it all wrong. He could not become guilty of blood—in the eyes of neither God nor man—if he killed enemies in the war. The guilt would lie with the slave powers who had started the bloodshed. The North had done no injustice to the South. It was the South who wanted to rule America with force, and that they mustn’t allow or suffer.

  Didn’t she know how badly they used humans in the slave states? Whoever taught a Negro to read must pay a fine of five hundred dollars for the first offense, and if he were caught a second time five thousand dollars! And should a person be caught a third time teaching a black person to read he would be hanged! Down there they forced the Negroes to work in the infernal heat in the cotton fields so they could sell the cotton cheap. If a Negro fled from the slavery-whip he was pursued by starved bloodhounds and these beasts tore out his entrails as soon as they caught up with him. Could any decent person be on the side of the slave states?

  Had they lived in the slave states, he would have been sent to war long ago; all men between seventeen and fifty-five had been drafted. Had they lived in the South, it would soon be time for Johan to go. Here in Minnesota they were still free from the draft but by the first of next month it might begin. And he would feel ashamed and humiliated if he didn’t volunteer before then. Old Abe must think he was a shirker if he must be forced to do his plain duty. Therefore he must volunteer of his own free will, but he did not do it out of false pride: He was forced to by his conscience. He must gain his peace of mind.

  Tomorrow he would go to Stillwater and join the Swedish company with other men from the old country who wished to perform their duty to the new one. He had just read in the paper that there were many others who felt the way he did. He presumed that, like him, they wanted to get rid of the pain in their consciences.

  “Well, I guess you must then,” she said, as if talking to herself. “If you think you’ll have peace in your soul afterward.”

  Karl Oskar was not very concerned as to whether or not he jeopardized his eternal life, she thought. She knew him; his mind could not be changed once it had been made up. It had never yet happened that he had changed a decision. Therefore there was nothing more to say.

  Karl Oskar went out, and Kristina resumed her work, starting her sewing machine again. The pedals went up and down, the balance wheel whirled, the machine buzzed. If he was going to war she must finish his flannel shirts. And there were other garments he would need. Now she was in a hurry. Besides, she had other things to do than sit at the sewing machine. Yes, Karl Oskar’s clothing must be the most important of her concerns for the moment.

  It must always have been that way, about preparing the husband’s clothing, when he was to go to war.

  —4—

  The following evening Kristina was again at her sewing machine after supper. She was expecting Karl Oskar back from Stillwater, but he was late. The children had gotten hungry and so they had eaten their supper without the father at the table. What was left of the corn pancakes she had put into the Prairie Queen to keep warm for him.

  It was already bedtime when Karl Oskar returned. The sewing machine kept buzzing and muffled her ear so she didn’t hear him before he was inside the kitchen. She stopped the machine and went to take the plate with the pancakes from the oven; she poured milk into the pitcher and cut a few slices of bread. He threw his hat onto a peg and sat down silently at the table.

  Karl Oskar seemed depressed and listless after his journey to Stillwater. Nor had he been especially happy when he left in the morning. But he had never been one of those who kept singing “We are coming, Father Abraham” even though he had a good voice, well noticed in church at the psalm singing. And by now that war song was sung mostly by those stay-at-homes who never had any intention of hearkening to Honest Abe’s call.

  Kristina wondered if perhaps he had changed his mind. Had he regretted his decision at the last moment? Maybe he had thought he wouldn’t go out and seek death of his free will. Could it be that he didn’t want to leave them all perhaps never to see them again? Maybe he had changed his mind and would wait until he was drafted for the human slaughter?

  Something was wrong with him, that much she could see. But she would not ask. He must come out with it himself. Perhaps he had enlisted and now regretted it—when it was too late.

  He mumbled something between swallows—the pancakes tasted awfully good; he had only had a sandwich in Stillwater, he was quite hungry.

  He had stilled the worst of his hunger wh
en he said, “Kristina do you want to know—I’m not going to war . . .”

  “You’re riot! Didn’t you enlist . . . ?”

  “No.”

  “You changed your mind in the end? You’ll wait till they take you?”

  “No. I didn’t change my mind.”

  “What happened . . . ?”

  “They rejected me in Stillwater. I’m not up to it . . .”

  “They rejected you!”

  A powerful feeling of joy pierced Kristina’s heart.

  “I’m not good enough to go to war. Because of my leg. My lame shank . . .”

  Karl Oskar pulled out his left leg from under the table, held it up for his wife to see. It seemed she had never seen her husband’s left leg before. Meanwhile he sat and looked gloomily at the floor.

  She had been wrong a moment ago; he had not regretted his decision. Instead he felt disappointed, ashamed. Yes, by jiminy, he was ashamed and gloomy because he had been rejected!

  He bent down and felt the leg across the injured bone which he held pointed toward her.

  “Some doctor had to examine me first, to see if I could do military service. The doctor rejected me, because of my leg . . .”

  She was told how everything had happened. The recruiting office in Stillwater was housed in the old tailor’s shop across from the bank, and Swedes and Norwegians who wanted to join the rifle company had to go there. It was called a rifle company because they were to use the new guns with rifles in them to make them shoot much faster than the old guns. An officer in gold-braided uniform with many stripes and tassels had received him and the other volunteers. His name was Captain Silversvärd; he was a Swedish nobleman who had emigrated and he spoke the mother tongue. So in the beginning it was quite like home there in the office. And that man, the captain, was quite a decent sort of fellow and treated them all as equals, since they were all in America where soldiers are free men who themselves select their company commanders. In Sweden a simple soldier had only one duty—to obey—but here he could help select his own officers. The captain had told him he would make a splendid soldier and warrior, so tall and strong as he was; most settlers were of course accustomed to heavy work and severe conditions. He had been a little embarrassed by this talk and had said that he thought his big nose might be in the way when he tried to find the sight to aim at the enemy.