When A Nation Rebelled
I was 15 when the Civil War started and was living in Virginia. My Daddy and Momma had a farm and about thirty slaves working the seventy-acres of land Daddy owned. My two brothers, Paul and Allen, were every bit as hard on those slaves as Daddy was. Momma never said a word against him but she told me once, "With this war, things will change for all of us."
And it did.
I would wince, and many times turn away when Daddy or one of my brothers would whip one of the slaves for either not working hard and fast enough in the fields, or, as was getting to be the case in many counties ... for trying to run away. Twice, Daddy had two black men hung from a Sycamore tree. I would throw up because he made me watch.
But there had been a lot of talk going on in Virginia. Some folks wanted to keep having slaves, others didn't. A lot of fights between white folks broke out, some being killed for defending their belief that slaves should be free. And then the day came where Virgina split in two and was fighting hard to become a state. And I liked the way these people were thinking so much, I packed up a gunny sack and left home, but not first without telling Momma, and that I wouldn't come back until after the war was over.
As I was making my way down the road, I could hear Daddy yelling at me to get back home. I turned once and shouted back, "I'll come home when you start treating people like human beings."
That being said, June 24, 1861, I signed up with Company F of the 2nd West Virginia Volunteers in Wheeling, West Virginia. They said I had to be sixteen so I said I was and that was all it took.
The first year wasn't so bad. We had a few skirmishes and the lot, a couple of us were killed, and a few died from sickness. I found out right quick, war isn't fun.
The following year we all had reason to celebrate because West Virgina became the 35th State of the United States, in June of 1863, and that's been about a month ago from what I can remember. A couple weeks ago I signed on with the 3rd West Virgina Voluntary Cavalry Regiment and we were ordered to head for Gettysburg.
Got a letter from Momma some time back. Paul and Allen died at Bull Run. Daddy's dead as well. Momma said she's going to hold onto the place for me when I come back. I smiled on that one.
Funny, in a way, I left home a boy, and here I am now in a place called Gettysburg. Bloodiest battle I ever seen. You look around you, and there are dead bodies everywhere you look from both sides.
And we pitted brother against brother because of slavery? We killed thousands of men and boys like myself for freedom? Looking back on it all, there had to have been a better way.
Both sides took a stance and rebelled against each other; an armed rebellion that has fixed it so, so many lives will never get to go home ... on their own two feet that is, but more like a pine box.
Like me. See, I was one of those thousands.