In the Summer of 1861
Some places inspire stories, which is what this is. Just a story.
In the summer of 1861, Elijah Wilkes was a young man when he signed up in the 29th Regiment Militia to fight in the Confederate Army. The victory of Generals Beauregard and Johnson at Manassas had encouraged the youth of the south, and inflamed the rhetoric of its politicians, and like many others caught up in the war fever Wilkes enlisted. And like many others he really had only the vaguest idea of what he was fighting for. It was going to be a brief but grand adventure.
Until the Battle of Ball’s Bluff in October of that same year.
Elijah was advancing through a wooded area when all hell broke loose. Grapeshot and bullets were flying like gnats on a hot summer’s day. Elijah saw a buckboard get hit dead on by a cannon ball, killing the horse and driver, and shattering the wooden side planks. As he ran from the violence he saw a scene unfold before him that haunted him the rest of his life.
Two young soldiers, both probably not even old enough to enlist legally, had come across each other and for a moment that hung in time, stopped. That neither had ever shot at a man before was obvious by their confusion as to what to do next. In any other context the two boys would have been playing marbles, Annie Over, or Graces – but today both were armed with Enfield 1853s. In unison, like a ballet, they both raised their rifles, vaguely aimed, closed their eyes, and fired. And both hit their targets. The .58 caliber Minie ball of Billy Yank tore through Johnny Reb’s jaw splitting it in half, and severing his spinal cord in its progression. Johnny Reb was dead, with shocked eyes open wide, before he collapsed to the ground like a rag doll.
Johnny’s Minie ball had torn through Billy Yank’s chest, breaking ribs, puncturing his lungs, and pulverizing his right ventricle and severing the inferior vena cava. Billy fell backwards and tried to sit up, spitting blood almost as fast as it was pouring from his chest. Elijah surrendered to his own humanity and went to the Union soldier, cradling him in his arms as the boy gasped for air, wept, and called for his mother, all while his eyes pleaded with Elijah for an intervention, the gift of life, that Elijah could not gift. He died in Elijah’s arms, soaking his uniform with his blood, gasping like a fish out of water for breath.
Gradually Elijah realized that someone else was standing in front of him. His eyes caught the brogans and realized that they belonged to a Union soldier. They traveled up the light blue trousers, past the dark wool coat, to the man’s face. He was probably in his forties and his eyes were filled with a deep sadness.
“First time you’ve seen someone die, lad?” the man asked in an Irish brogue.
“Yes, sir,” Elijah stammered. “Are you…?”
“Going to kill you, lad? No. Not today. Today enough children have died.” The stranger paused, “We should bury them, for their mother’s sakes. Did you know either of these lads?”
“No, sir.”
The Irishman went over to the remains of the buckboard, found an artillery shovel among the debris, and broke off a plank. He returned with both and tossed the shovel to Elijah, “You dig, I’ll carve out an epitaph. Dig deep and wide enough for two bodies.” After he finished his carving the Irishman tied two pieces of planking together to form a crude cross, which he planted at the head of the grave Elijah was digging. Then he went through the two boys’ pockets. From Billy Yank he recovered a bag of marbles; from Johnny Reb a tintype photograph and an unfinished letter, “Dear Momma, they are feedin me rigt well and I ain’t seen no battlin yet. I got a fotogrph done for you that I plane to send with this here letter…”
The Irishman handed them both to Elijah, and in silence they gently lowered both bodies into the grave – Johnny Reb and Billy Yank. Elijah looked at the inscription the Irishman had carved. It read: Gen 4:8*. After a brief prayer they left and went back to find their respective armies.
Elijah would see more violence, more death, and more terrible things over the next four years. Appomattox on that April 9th in 1865 was almost a blessing. Elijah made his way back home to the farmland that his family had owned, with only $20 of Confederate money, his saddle, gun, and horse. Slowly he felled the timber, and built himself a home, married and raised a family. He never spoke of the War.
Many an evening he would spend on the porch off the upper balcony, sipping sassafras tea, or on colder nights some bourbon, just watching the road and holding a bag of marbles, a worn tattered letter, and a tarnished tintype photograph. What people didn’t know was that he was watching a never ending parade of men and boys in tattered blue and gray uniforms, wraithlike in their appearance, slowing walking past the house as if in a pilgrimage.
Years after his passing, a hundred and fifty years after that terrible war, the house still stands. Itself becoming like a ghost of its former self. And there are some who say, if you watch with great diligence you can see Elijah sitting on the upper balcony, and see the spectacle of the specters.
Genesis 4:8 “…and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.”
