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More from "These Men of
Libby..." ...and
another 'Moment to
Remember'
What
is this ? What follows here below is a story...albeit just two
paragraphs from a much greater story. And this greater story is an
historical novel I have been working on now for the past two years
running. I call my story, "Raisins and Almonds---
A Civil War Story." It's a story about my Great Great
Grandparents, John and Emily Ellen Clarke Whitehead, of Number 62
Anderson Street, Allegheny (now Pittsburgh) and later of Middleton, Ohio.
John is an ordained Presbyterian Minister and Emily is a musician--- a
pianist--- and if you listen very carefully to the music that's
playing right here and right now... well, could it possibly be
? But, getting back to my story, when the Civil War first
breaks out in 1861 John is adamantly against the war on religious grounds.
But with the passage of time and close interaction with a
contraband slave family--- Ben and Mattie and their little boy, Raphael--- who
live in the stable in back of their Manse in Middleton, Ohio, John comes
around to favoring the North's position on the slavery issue
alone, and so he searches for and ultimately finds the Biblical support for doing
so. John then wants to become a chaplain, but Emily will hear none of this,
and so John remains where he is--- as Minister to a small Presbyterian Church in
Middleton, Ohio, and as husband to Emily and father to their young son,
Willie, my Great Grandfather. But in the spring of 1864 John
is drafted into the Union Army as the chaplain he longs to
be. John is assigned to a unit that sees immediate action in The
Battle of the Wilderness, and then later, during the early stages of
the siege of Richmond, one fine day in June 1864 the men of his
unit assume the role of a work detail whose mission is to tear up several
miles of tracks along the Weldon Railroad just south of Richmond. And
in what history has since described as "The First Battle of the Weldon
Railroad," Southern forces patrolling the area surround
the unsuspecting work detail and open fire in what then resembles a
turkey-shoot. And by day's end the Northern troops have been so
badly overrun that Grant, as Commander of the Army of the Potomac, fails to
even mention the skirmish at the Weldon Railroad in his report to Secretary Stanton on the following day. Failing to
anticipate any engagement with the enemy that fateful day, the 3,000
men making up the work detail were armed with little more than pick axes and
crow bars. Shirtless, or at best, dressed in sweaty, dirty white
undershirts, the men in blue pants fought bravely enough--- fighting
valiantly to the very last of the meager amount of ammunition they had
brought with them. But when the last round had been fired, surrender was
inevitable. And so John, being a non-combatant with the rank of Captain
was sent by the Confederates to where Union officers were always sent--- they were
sent to Libby Prison in Richmond. All the others, wounded or not, were
loaded onto cattle cars bound for Andersonville, Georgia--- never to be seen
again.
And with that brief
introduction to my story, come with me now and listen in on a
fictional account of a conversation between Sam, a desperate imprisoned
Union officer at Libby Prison, and his chaplain, John Whitehead, my Great Great
Grandfather---
---
The power of the spoken word ---
First, the complexity in this confession of despair from Sam---
"The reality of it
all..."
"John, I am
numb--- so numb that I no longer possess The Faith that you speak of.
I am unfaithful because I have lost my worthiness as a man. And I am unworthy
because I have lost any sense of who it is that I am in this wretched
place. I am myself now a prisoner amongst prisoners. And we are
all doomed to hell, for we are all just as unworthy of God's Grace as the
next man. None of us walk with The Lord, John, for we walk only with each
other, and we shall continue to do so until the end of our days, which grow
fewer in number with each passing day. Just look around you, John,
can't you see that we are a doomed lot ?--- for we are all equally unrighteous
wretches, every last one of us. We are no longer men among men. We
are instead, what they have made us to be..." And with that, Sam
looked away, his voice trailing off into a moment of silence before
adding in an almost inaudible voice, "...We are
nothing."
And then, the simplicity in this response of reassurance from
John--- "The promise above it
all..."
"Look at me, Sam!" as John reached out with
both his hands and his arms, squaring-up Sam's once powerful shoulders as
he did so. And when at last he found Sam's sunken yet swollen
eyes returning to his, John began--- "You may feel unfaithful, and
unworthy, and yes, even unrighteous, Sam, but one thing you are
not. And that is this, Sam--- not you, nor any other man here,
is unloved. God still loves you Sam, just as you are,
and just as He does each and every man here. And God shall
continue to do so, no matter what our present circumstance. Always
remember this, Sam... always. And remember too that God did not put
us here. We are here, each and every one of us, because we believe in the
justness of our cause, and we believe that our justness is the
same justness of Our Father in Heaven. We cannot let these Rebels
take our beliefs from us. They may take away all that we are, Sam,
but don't let them take from us that which we feel, too. Were it not
as I say, Sam, these Confederates would surely let each of us go our
separate way. But no, they hold us fast here, for they know that
while they may have stripped us of our wherewithal, and yes, our dignity
too, nonetheless, deep inside our very being we are still men holding
onto the only thing we have left--- our sense of who we are and our
convictions for which we stand, one man next to the other, as
both The Union we represent and The Faith that binds
us together. This is not the Garden of Eden, Sam. We
were first made in God's image, and then long ago we were cast out by
a defiled God from that peaceful existence. But God did not make us into 'nothing,'
Sam, to drift aimlessly about, for we have God's assurance of eternal
forgiveness--- God's Promise of Life Everlasting through His
Grace--- forgiveness freely given to us through His Son,
Jesus Christ, who not so very long ago walked among us, only to die
our death for us so that we all might live on, from this life to the
next. You may feel unworthy and unrighteous inside these walls that
define this hell-like circumstance in which we now find ourselves,
but the Bible assures us that no matter what may come of us here in this
awful place, God's mercy and justice for all shall once again prevail on earth,
just as it is in Heaven. We may not all live to see God's
justice at the end of this war of our own doing, Sam, but we shall
all live to see the fulfillment of His Promise of Life
Everlasting. And so it is in His Name that I invite you to come with
me now, Sam. Come pray with me... come pray for the salvation of
your soul, Sam... and for the soul of each and every last one of us. For
we are still very much men, Sam, just as we have always been.
Changed... maybe... yes, we are all most certainly changed... and we are changed
forever. But in our changing, we are still greater than 'nothing,'
Sam, for we are... ' The Men of
Libby!' "
For: "Raisins and Almonds--- A Civil War
Story"
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