The Battle Cry of Freedom

CH 1

            Several thousand boys and men left home between the years of 1861 and 1865. Unfortunately, not a large number returned back to their families, or, let alone their normal lives.

            It was just about the same in every home that held a boy or two: fathers forbidding their sons to ever step foot out of the house with the army as their general direction; mothers crying in corners, clutching rosaries, avoiding the chaos; wives in denial, painful kisses; and for many older men, baby children standing at the door step behind their mother, shedding the last of their tears as their fathers wave good bye.

            “Goodbye for a little while” evolved agonizingly into goodbye for years to come, then “goodbye until we see you up in God’s Kingdom.”

            It was said that this great Civil War is hell. Yes, it is excruciating. But, in hell there is no love, only hate.

            In this war I’ve seen plenty of love.

            I came to find this truth, the cruel way.

            Tonight, everything in the house was unfamiliar.  The strange quiet plagued the tapping of my fingers as well as the ticking of the grandfather clock. Typically, my father’s booming yet warm voice was the antidote to awkward silence in this house, but ever since he caught tuberculosis, the only sound that could creep through his throat was a cry. As well as being uncommonly noiseless, our house’s features seemed unrecognizable. The light that Pa’s joy emitted disappeared, laying a blanket of darkness over any trace of moonlight that enters.

            Our grey and black-striped American Curl cat, Tulip, paced restlessly outside of the master bedroom, where Pa coughed loudly. I sat in the foyer looking out the window and into the summer-green trees swaying softly in the night breeze. I thought about what life would be like without Pa: I won’t have a father. No more Pa and Mother, just Mother. No one to—well, to simply help me live. My mother is all about adequate, polite small talk, and wearing a corset. Lets say I do not preform those tasks well. The fact that mother will most likely be the head of the house probably doesn’t matter to Gracie, for she seems to be a friend of my mother. I couldn’t bear to think of that anymore; I switched my attention to Tulip. She stopped pacing. I heard Mother clear her throat in Pa’s room. I heard her light footsteps. I heard the turning of the white glass doorknob. I heard silence. Dead silence.