The Many Wounds of War

Journal Entry: Ashland, Virginia; June 4, 1864
   President Lincoln has placed General Grant in charge of the Federal Army and I am told that he will never retreat, which was confirmed after his defeat at the latest Wilderness battle. Instead of moving back across the river, he turned to his left and continued on toward Richmond. The Federal Army has unlimited men and supplies, so if ten thousand fall, he will bring twenty thousand; if they fall, he will bring a hundred thousand. Grant will outlast his enemy, leaving a scythe swath of sorrow throughout this state, my home. Our leaders will attempt to hold off the inevitable; it might be a month, it might be a year, but with that turn to the left, the outcome was determined. Within a year, we will return to what we once were, though that seems impossible now. My home, the Wilderness is no longer what it was; even the trees are riddled with battle scars, as though ten thousand downy woodpeckers had explored every oak and maple. I am scarred as well; beyond my sutured war wounds, I am torn terribly each moment between a hope and a despair that split me down my middle.

   I am not who I once was; none of us are that. I remember boys who were assigned to the cavalry merely because they rode into town that first day on a horse. If you owned a horse, you could be a cavalryman. Many of those boys had never ridden faster than a trot and their horses were more adapted to the furrowed field than the battlefield. Most of those boys are dead now; the rest learned quickly the awful lessons of war. Our mothers’ lessons were left at home; here on the field, duty requires another mother’s son to kill you, so you act first. Even our tools are not what they were; our plows replaced by pistols.

   After six weeks recovering at home in peace, I now see my fellow troopers differently. I look around the camp and see an army of doppelgängers; each of us is who we are and who we were; all twins to ourselves, almost ashamed to acknowledge one another, so different are our passions. I am both kin and killer, both the one and the other; I know every person is my brother, but I ride fiercely into battle, even as I regret it in that same moment.


   I, who had never even raised a fisted hand against another, now carry three revolvers; one holstered on my hip and two in pommel holsters on my saddle. When possible, I won't shoot to kill; a wounded man requires another man to carry him from the field, thus incapacitating two men at the expense of one. That carries some small bit of consolation, that the second man will live another day. Having the power to take a life is an impossible ordeal; I am damned if I do, and dead if I don’t.

And still, we will be here.

Journal Entry: Wilderness, Virginia; May 9, 1864
We were never nomads; our land was patented to Thomas Jones in 1719, and here we are still, and here we will be in 100 years, unless the forces that pull and push this land intercede and leave this farm fallow; this soil unseeded.

The latest and largest battle at the Wilderness has ended; we were miles away, but now witness the aftermath. Wagons and walkers pass each day, all on their way to somewhere away from the Wilderness. Our once thick forests of pine have been burned again, leaving charred stumps and hordes of burning, shrieking skulls.


But soon, they will be quiet, and soon, sprouts will lean against them for support, like seedlings in white ceramic pots, and once again, after this war to end all wars is over, the pines will grow and the skulls shall house the field mouse and the codling moth; and still, we will be here in 100 years; other young Jones boys running through the pines of the Wilderness. We were never nomads.

Breath

Journal Entry: Wilderness, Virginia; Sunday, April 24, 1864


I am dead.

No, you are breathing; this is not a place to die and this is not the time.


That is all of the conversation that I remember as my brothers brought me home last month. Small bits and visions move through my memory, but the ride home was mostly wiped away. A Minié ball is made of soft lead and can inflect massive damage inside the body; to be hit by two and not die is seemingly impossible. I should be dead, but no bones or vitals were hit, so my brother sewed me up with horse hair and hope. The scars are ragged, but they are healing. Last week, Doctor McGuire took a look at me and said I will have limited movement due to the more worrisome wound, the larger gash behind my left shoulder, where I was thrown into that unyielding oak.


My father’s thoroughbred, Shortcake, is once again rested and ready. The 9th Virginia Cavalry is near the Orange Courthouse, so I must make myself ready to join my brothers in arms, my brothers of blood, and my brothers across the field of fire as we work out the final act in this drama. America could not have expected its founders to create a perfect union; we are still working out the design of this republic.


The pain of each wound pounds with the rhythm of my heartbeat, but that is merely an annoyance. The pain at the center of my heart, the hurt that takes my breath away is the sorrow of leaving Marianna once again. Poe’s raven watcher preferred that ancient Greek elixir, Nepenthe, the drug of forgetfulness, but Marianna is not Lenore; I shall never choose to forget.


Uncle James and Aunt Martha took Marianna to church this morning, leaving me to my own sanctuary, the mulberry tree. Here, beneath the refuge of her benevolent branches, I find myself simply sitting, breathing; watching the wonder of that quiet act, that profound power to breathe or feel another’s warm breath on your cheek. One should not have to visit death to become acquainted with life.


The world beyond the Wilderness is in various stages of chaos and calm, but right here I am in the center of the world. I can feel the whirlwind circling, but am not a part of it now. Tomorrow, I will tuck my scarf into my jacket, pull my slouch hat down to shield my eyes, and ride back into the gale.


The mighty armies could not kill me; the mighty oak could not kill me. Eventually, little by little, or all at once, this body will die, and that is just as it should be, but it will not kill me. I am the breath.


The house pictured above is the Wilderness Corner, Virginia homeplace of the Jones Family. In Federal Civil War era maps it is listed as the residence of the widow Jones, though she was not a widow; her husband, a blacksmith for the Confederate Army, was concealed behind a secret wall panel.

"Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore." from The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe 1845

Back to the Soil

Journal Entry: Wilderness, Virginia; March 12, 1864
Spring freshet is always a time of revival near the rivers, when winter snow begins to melt. The early morning mockingbirds and rushing waters distract from the task at hand; not wise when war, from its winter rest, begins to wake. On the first day of March, the 9th Virginia Cavalry was near Mattaponi River, chasing raiders once again, and I was riding with messages between units as we searched for the elusive Colonel Dahlgren. The high waters had separated the raiders, so stragglers and skirmishers were all up and down the river. Riding along the tree line, I watched the water flow with its flickering reflections of the rising seedtime sun, mentally planning the plantings that would resume once war ends.


I felt the jolt of white-hot pain in my side before I ever heard the crack of the rifles from across the river. My horse, thinking I had kicked her hard, reared up and right, taking off in a gallop. With my saccade, she turned so completely on her haunches in confusion that I was thrown into the trees. Minutes, hours, days; unconscious or awake, I did not know as I lay face down in fallen leaves. On my left arm, a cut through my shell jacket, blood beneath, but no pain, only perfect peace. Pain became a sensation, like heat; I was now unmoved by sensation. I was not numb, simply unmoved. I attended more important thoughts; so this is how it feels to die. Perhaps I could move, but did not care to try. No pain, no cold, no wet March ground; no grim feelings at all, only the sound of the rushing water, or the sound of blood rushing through me. That low whirring sound deepened the desire to sink deep into the soft soil and leave this war. No light, no fear; only the whispers of Fredericksburg, the obsculta of Gettysburg; all unmoving, all merging with my body and sinking deeper back into the rich dark dirt.


After a time with this calm quiet, I slowly lifted my hand to my face, touching my forehead just between my eyes, to locate my center of thought; I was still alive, but completely comfortable with returning into the earth. I did not long for life; all desire and regret were over. At peace, even if no one ever found me; I was the last deep snow melting into a warming soil ready to receive new seed.


Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; seedtime and harvest shall not cease.


A hand reached down into the soil that I was becoming and pulled me into the sunlight. Silhouetted by the noon sun, I was sure the figure standing above me was Me; the alive Me; the Me that would not let Me leave. It was my brother pulling me back from a place that I could not leave on my own.


My brothers had arrived with a battery wagon to carry me home. They had searched, knowing that, despite my distractions and reclusive nature, I would not take hours to ride between camps. There would be no surgeon’s saw or prison camp for me that day; they tied me inside the wagon and immediately rode for home; neither army was large enough to stop them. My brothers have since returned the wagon to the front, but I am recovering here at home with my Marianna. I shall not tell her how close I was to sinking back into the soil.


While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. Genesis 8:22 ~ Webster’s 1833 Bible translation

Fresh Harvest

Journal Entry: Williamsport, Maryland; July 13, 1863
The swollen Potomac River has subsided; our wounded and worn army has started to cross to safety. The 9th stays behind as the rearguard. We will surely be attacked as our numbers become smaller. Like my brothers, I have an aversion to sabers, so I have added two more revolvers to my belt; fine unfired .44 Army Colts, picked up from the field at Gettysburg; fresh harvest from that orchard of death. Slippery with blood, they stained my hands, like mulberries from my favorite childhood tree.

My childhood; where is my sweet mother to wash these stains away? Could she have imagined her sons’ futures? What must she be feeling this day? She knows the fields, the fruits, the times to sow by sun and moon; she knows nothing of the field of battle with its fallen fruit. The seeds we sow are far different; the harvest in my hand is heavy and will never satiate my hunger for home. I will write home to my mother that I am once again spared, but cannot help but think of the other mothers; the mothers of the 50,000 casualties at Gettysburg, the 30,000 at Chancellorsville, the 26,000 at Sharpsburg; there were so many other battles that I did not see. The newspapers estimate over 300,000 casualties of this war and I fear the worst is waiting beyond the horizon; waiting as the mothers wait.
Death has started to surround them, suddenly, like summer storms; how could the weather change so quickly, after such a tranquil morning.

Logic is My Lantern

Journal Entry: Williamsport, Maryland; July 12, 1863
A young soldier’s decapitated head, floating down the rain swollen Potomac River, screaming for water to quench his thirst; I am unsure; no, I am sure it was another hallucination. New moon, no light, not possible; keep saying that; logic is my lantern. No sleep in days; I have no faith in my eyes or ears; I have seen flashes of fire from rifles that are not there, rabbits with riders running into my path; they are not there; chimera, illusions. We have been in the saddle night and day for a week; maybe a few minutes down, but then, back riding again. We eat in the saddle; we try to sleep in the saddle; I am writing in the saddle. We are worn to ruin and have not been dry since leaving Gettysburg a week ago. We are pinned against the Potomac, unable to cross; bridges burned and the rains have made the fords more dangerous than the Federal Army that has us surrounded. Our cavalry must keep riding to warn of attacks. Why the Federals do not push us into the Potomac, I do not know.


We ride, we wait, we watch the darkness around us. New moon nights can whisper like a lover, or scream like a banshee. All depends on the state of mind, and a mind deprived of sleep sees banshees on every tree branch. I stay logical, but my grandmother’s Welsh legends loom large in my learning and rise without rest.


High water floods the fords preventing the pathway home. I have listened to the whispers of nature since Fredericksburg; perhaps the river is now telling me I cannot go home; ever. I cannot think; my eyes are bleary, my horse sways from exhaustion. Illusion; whispers; which is truth; which is tricks. My throat is dry; I cannot quench this thirst, but I will not go down to the river tonight.

Struggling

In addition to the 2011 Sesquicentennial Journal Exhibit, which from now forward will be called The 150 Project for obvious reasons, I am still working on two other collage series; The Scent of Pear and The Beekeeper’s Boy. I took some time away from blogging the last two weeks to produce new work and open online shops that sell my originals and reproductions, because funding for the 150 Project fell through due to the struggling economy. The exhibit is still scheduled for September, 2011.

Struggling; the media always makes life seem like a struggle, a fight, survival. If I turn on the television at 5AM to check the weather, the news is always about the struggle and the fighting. It is not a promising way to start the day. This morning, I didn’t turn it on at all and it made quite a difference in my attitude. I will learn the important news soon enough, but no longer will it be my wake-up call.

Before I rise, I have found it helpful to remember these words by Chinese Zen master Ta-Hui:

“In the mornings before they've opened their eyes and gotten out of bed, when they're still only half awake, their minds are already flying about in confusion flowing along with random thoughts. Although good and bad deeds have not yet appeared, heaven and hell are already formed in their hearts before they even get out of bed. By the time they go into action, the seeds of heaven and hell are already implanted in their minds.”

I don’t have to say the entire quote; I can simply think, “Today, shall I create heaven or hell?”, and then try not to forget my answer when I look in the mirror.

The above image is "The Morning Air. 2/5", from the collection of Jennifer Valentine.