Raintree County (141 page)

—Your fever's gone, son, he said. That's why you threw that fit. Your fever dropped all of a sudden.

Corporal Johnny Shawnessy closed his eyes. He was exhausted. He sank into a dreamless sleep and didn't awaken until broad daylight. After that he was out of danger. Apparently, that night he had gone down to the brink and had come back.

So Corporal Johnny Shawnessy learned that behind all the victories of the War was this perpetual defeat, and behind all the defeats of the War this strange victory.

During the worst days of his sickness, he had read President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, delivered March 4. Johnny went back in memory to the First Inaugural, four years before, in March of 1861; and the strange, devious pattern of the War and of his own life passed in review through his mind. Four years ago, he had been living in the house south of the Square in Freehaven, and Susanna was waiting for the birth of Little Jim. The Republic was split in two. Men were talking War with foolish pride, and yet no certain policy had emerged in the confusion of the moment. The President was then an untried man, a political accident, an oddlooking Westerner. He had stood on a scaffold in front of a capitol building whose dome was only half completed, had looked down at a crowd of Americans, and had said a few remarkably wise and patient words, which were immediately swept away in the violence of Sumter and the ensuing battles. No one had known then what a long, bloody epic of courage, despair, sickness, and death the Republic was about to fashion. Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain were only obscure towns and local landmarks. Ulysses S. Grant was a nobody. William Tecumseh Sherman was superintendent of a military academy in the South. ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic' hadn't been written. The word ‘contraband' didn't mean a black man. Andersonville was inconceivable. The Emancipation Proclamation was unthinkable. The Bloody Angle at Spottsylvania was unimaginable. And no one North or South could possibly have dreamed up the half a hundred thousand strong young men in blue uniforms who marched from Atlanta to the Sea.

Nor could anyone have foreseen what lay in wait for Johnny Shawnessy along the railroad tracks of time—a son, a tall house burning, two days at Chickamauga Creek, an afternoon on the slopes of Missionary Ridge, a summer of battles before Atlanta, marches and bivouacs and burning cities, the death of comrades, the hospital near Washington.

On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln had stood bareheaded before the Nation, had said solemn words, and had accepted a solemn
trust. Then they had taken the ceremonial platform down. Slowly the dome of the Capitol had gone on a-building, and Washington had become a City at War.

Now the four years were done. Once again the tall, ungainly man stood on a platform on the steps of the Capitol. The dome was complete. Again a throng of anonymous Americans gathered to hear the President's words. Corporal Johnny Shawnessy read them while lying in a hospital cot near Washington:

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered—that of neither has been answered fully.

These words of wisdom and forbearance seemed already part of the old legend of this war fought for the preservation of the Republic and the Emancipation of a Race.

Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

These words did nothing to insult or offend the memories of the men who lay in the hospitals, North or South. They were the brooding, almost doubtful words of a man who had carried on his conscience the moral burden of the War, had already, as it seemed, delivered history's verdict on the contest, and had achieved a solemn victory over himself. Abraham Lincoln was obviously the most un-gloating victor who ever lived.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in; to bind up the Nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

Around the first of April, just as Johnny was beginning to recover his strength, the War went suddenly into its final convulsions. For the last time the newspapers published the Theatre of Operations and began to pour forth the confidently inaccurate reportage of battle. The words told of renewed attacks around Petersburg, where Grant had been besieging Lee since the summer before. From habit of many disappointments the soldiers in the hospital refused to be excited. Then the words came telling that Petersburg had fallen and Lee was retreating. Name after name—legendary names that had been defended to the death earlier in the War—fell almost unnoticed. The Theatre of Operations had lost its power to resist. The invading words poured into it and across it, became excited, hopeful, triumphant, ecstatic. One day a man came into Johnny's ward waving a paper with the headlines

RICHMOND HAS FALLEN!!

The soldiers listened stunned. They had been fooled so often before that they had learned caution. But some of the sickest men openly expressed the hope that they would live to hear that the end had come.

Then at last the news came that Lee had surrendered. There was no doubt about it. It was official. The newspapers carried the text of Grant's terms and his telegram to the President:

General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia this afternoon on terms proposed by myself. The accompanying additional correspondence will show the conditions fully.

                
U. S. GRANT,

Lieut.-General

Gen. R. E. Lee,

GEN
: In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of N. Va., on the following . . .

After millions of words the mythical words had come.

It would be time later to review the pageantry of that great surrender, with all the false lights and glamors, to envision the meeting of the two generals, Lee in his spotless uniform, Grant, slovenly, smoking his cigar, to imagine the yielding of the never yielded sword. It would be time later to notice the simplicity with which the soldiers agreed that the War was finished and turned things over to the politicians. Just now it seemed that all the rest of a man's life would be downhill from this almost unbearable moment.

The hospital rang with shouts of thanksgiving. One-legged veterans crippled up and down the corridors, waving crutches. Soldiers embraced and cried like children. Every man who had strength enough to get up got up, while the weakest ones lay and yelled feeble hurrahs or wept quietly and helplessly. Soldiers who shouldn't have been out of bed disappeared from the hospital encampment and didn't turn up for days. Some never came back.

The War was over. The peace terms were in; they didn't include the restoration of health, limb, and eyesight to the sick and wounded; but no one thought of that for a little while.

Each soldier's happiness was magnified by the knowledge that it was shared by twenty million people. It was a joy that couldn't be expressed in any other words than the simple statement,
The War is over.

Like the other invalid soldiers, Corporal Johnny Shawnessy wanted to get out of the hospital. He wanted to be where he could see the faces of thousands of people, wring their hands, walk for hours and listen to their songs. He wanted to see beautiful young women. He wanted them to smile at him and perceive that he was a soldier of the Republic. He wanted these satisfactions not alone for himself—but unselfishly for everyone. Although he was rapidly getting better and had long been out of danger, he hadn't yet lost the wounded soldier's sweet humility. He almost forgave the bounty-jumpers, the professional civilians, the second-guessers.

For several days after the announcement of Lee's surrender, tension mounted. Grant was expected in Washington. Sherman in North Carolina was negotiating with the only remaining Rebel army of any size. Hourly the news poured in, and jubilation went from peak to peak of frenzy.

It was in the midst of this accelerating triumph that Johnny received
a letter from New York, in answer to one that he had written not long before. It said simply:

My dear young martyr,

Meet me in Washington Friday morning, first train from New York, and we'll do the City. Everything, including the ladies, will be on

                              Your ebullient savant,

J. W.
STILES

The morning of April 14 came raw and gray. Johnny didn't ask for a leave. He just walked out, and making connections with a local line, was carried into the city, where he sat in the station and waited for the Perfessor to show up. By an understanding with an orderly, he had got himself a freshly pressed uniform and a new cap. His face was cleanshaven. He began to feel a little better as he rested on the bench.

Someone arriving on an earlier train from New York had left a copy of the
New York Tribune
on the bench. Johnny ran his eyes over it, his attention being arrested by some words in an editorial entitled ‘The Dawn of Peace.'

And every loyal heart beats fast as it remembers all that has passed since the 14th of April, 1861, and all that is promised on the 14th of April, 1865.

April 14 would always be one of the somber anniversaries of his life as well as the Republic's. On April 14, four years ago, Sumter had been surrendered, and Little Jim Shawnessy had been born.

Soon the train from New York came in. Hands, handkerchiefs, flags were waving from the windows as the train coasted to a stop.

Instantly, young people sprang from the doors into the arms of lovers, whole families disembarked, waving flags and bearing luggage; statesmen, soldiers, businessmen, hundreds of eager and excited Americans, got down into the station, their eyes shining with expectation, all of them looking for faces to greet and doors to hurry through.

The Perfessor, appearing in the crowd with a woman, caught sight of Johnny and came over swinging his cane. With one hand, he shook Johnny's hand, and with the other took hold of Johnny's arm as if to support him. He kept shaking his head and blinking his eyes.

—Good heavens, boy, they've nearly killed you.

The Perfessor introduced his companion as a Miss Bessie Dietz. A spaciously contrived blonde with a sweet dollface, she giggled every time the Perfessor spoke.

—I have a girl lined up for you too, John, the Perfessor said. She's a young actress named Daphne Fountain, who's here with Laura Keene's troupe. They're playing at Ford's Theatre tonight in
Our American Cousin.
She understudies Miss Keene. She has seats for us that we can pick up at the ticket office this morning, and we're to get her at the Stage Door after the show tonight.

They hailed a carriage outside the station.

—Don't expect too much of Washington, the Perfessor said, as they rode away. It's just a poor Southern city, a parvenu trying to look and act dressed up and doing a bad job of it. Take us past the Capitol, driver.

In the raw April day, Washington was a muddy plain of drab, ill-assorted buildings. Johnny looked south down a wide unpaved avenue, at the far end of which was a gray pile of stone and a dome surmounted by a misty figure.

—There's the Capitol! the Perfessor said. Rome on the banks of an Indian river.

—Ain't it big! Bessie said.

The sidewalks and streets around the Capitol were full of civilians and soldiers. Now and then a company marched down the street, and the crowds cheered. Everyone looked purposeless, as if for the first time in four years it was all right to take one's time.

As the carriage turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue, a company of soldiers marched by, singing,

—Hurrah, Hurrah,

We bring the Jubilee.

Hurrah, Hurrah,

The Flag that makes you free.

So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the Sea, While we were marching through Georgia.

—It's that new song, the Perfessor said. In your honor, hero boy.

He stuck his cane through a window and pointed to the dome of the Capitol.

—The lady on top there is armed Freedom, resting on her sheathed sword. High time. Perhaps we'd best check our reservations at Willard's before we see anything else.

—This city's sort of messy, Bessie said.

—And nought but mud and Honest Abe we see

Where streets should run and sages ought to be,

recited the Perfessor.

They stopped at Willard's Hotel, where the Perfessor had reserved rooms. The lobby and the bar were crowded.

Later they left the hotel in a carriage. Pennsylvania Avenue, the main street of Washington, was unpaved. Ugly brick buildings alternated with dingy wood. The sidewalks were dirty; the gutters ran with slops. But hundreds of gay, overdressed young women and their escorts, mostly officers, were walking and riding in the City.

—Let's turn here, the Perfessor said. I want to pick up the tickets.

They turned off the Avenue and rode down a block and a half, stopping before a brick theatre. Bills in front announced the play: