Greenwich Time: May 20, 1990
*Note: This is a fictional story I wrote for publication in Greenwich Time. This historical setting is authentic, but this is not based on a story of an actual historical event.
During the cold and dark years of America's Civil War, tens of thousands of young men marched off to the sound of cheers of family and friends, many never to return home again. It turned out to be an agonizing conflict out on the battlefields, where American fought American and a series of bloody episodes this nation had not seen before or since.
Jonathan Swift once called war "that mad game the world so loves to play." Most of the boys who fought on both sides were younger than 21 years of age. The war and its realities changed these boys into men forever. They slept on the ground in rain and snow, scavenged for food, water and firewood. They stood firm while the thunder of cannon shock the ground underneath, and bullets whizzed past their ears like a multitude of angry hornets emerging from their nests.
At one encampment in Virginia, the end of another long day drew to a close. The hillside overlooking the village by the river below was lit by the redness of the settings sun in the western sky. The puffy clouds above burst in cold flames of blue, yellow and crimson, a sea of colors that illustrated the autumn leaves on the trees below.
As the sun dipped slowly behind the mountains in the west, it gave one last sinister grin, promising the mortal souls of a nation embroiled in self-destruction below that it would rise again the next morning. Darkness cloaked the landscape like an icy pall, the crescent of the moon above like a sword hanging from the heavens, unyielding, unforgiving and unmerciful.
At one of the many campfires, a young soldier named Samuel Lyon had just received a letter from home. He felt lucky to get one, for it took a long time for letters to reach their destinations, if they ever got there at all. Smiling, he put his rifle down beside him and began to write back:
"My Dear Father and Mother:
"It is with pleasure that I can seat myself this afternoon to answer your welcomed letter which I read a few minutes ago. How pleased I was to hear from the old homestead in Greenwich, but I am sorry to hear that Cale's health has been poor. I hope this letter reaches you when he may be restored and recovered.
"The weather has been for the most part mild an Indian summer like, but from sleeping in a tent I had caught a very bad cold, though I am well over it by now. We are in a field of about 50 acres, as near as I can judge, on the east side of a hill near the top. In the valley below lies a small village on the river here in Virginia. We marched into the village with little opposition, though a few snipers were stationed where we now camp.
"At night we sleep in pairs and a small tent made of the slender strip of muslin which is drawn over a pole about three feet from the ground. A blanket is spread out on the grass underneath and serves our bed. Although it is uncomfortable sleeping on the ground, it is all we have. When it rains, the downpours and wind beat down upon us because it is open on both ends, the ground soaking with riverlets of muddy water flowing down the hillside around us.
"Father and mother, you must not take my services to the nation so hard. Our country and President calls, and somebody must go and defend her unity and freedoms as our forefathers done before us. There are hundreds of boys not even as old as I. Just think of the sacrifices that have been made by those poorer than us, and where the only son has gone and left their families to tend emptiness and memories in our cold and indifferent world.
"Since I enlisted left the homestead I have seen so much evil and atrocities… That I am really sickened by it. Though times have been easy, lately it was not always so. After one battle with the Rebs we were ordered to search for any dead or wounded soldiers. We found one officer shot while looking through a telescope, as if glancing toward our lines. I think that day about several hundred of the enemy were killed, the bullets penetrating the four heads of a few. We found some grasping photographs or letters of loved ones. As they perished from this mortal world they no doubt rested with reflections or treasured thoughts of homes and carefree times they will never see you again.
"I hope to come home soon and be reunited with you. Have you finished the harvest yet? The autumn leaves in Connecticut must all be brown and off the trees by now. I heard that Sherman and Grant will someday soon join forces to take Richmond, and with it will fall the rebel Confederacy.
"Please be patient, dear parents and loved ones, and this brutality of American fighting American will end after a while, and then I shall come home again to live in peace with you.
"And now, as I have run out of anything more to write I will close, hoping this may find you, accept this from your ever affectionate son in the service of his country."
Jeffrey Bingham Mead is a direct descendent of one of the founding families of Greenwich. He is a teacher and a freelance writer.
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