You are a lowly intern in the script department of a major movie studio. Every week, hundreds of short story manuscripts flood in from writers and agents, hoping that one of theirs will be plucked from the mountain of paper and turned into a major motion picture. Those decisions are not yours, of course. The studio’s highly paid producers make those decisions. Unfortunately, their time is far too expensive to sit around reading short stories from pathetic nobodies like Uber drivers and English teachers. Besides, they don’t like reading very much. You, however, are only paid with free donuts and coffee for breakfast and have plenty of time when you’re not running errands for said producers–dropping off and picking up their dry cleaning, washing their cars, or carrying their clubs during their Wednesday afternoon golf outings–so it falls on you to read the stories for them. You are then to provide what is known as a précis (pronounced “pray see”). It must not exceed two double-spaced pages. Producers have short attention spans. You are not to express any opinion at all about whether you like the story or not. You are a lowly intern; your opinion doesn’t matter. Instead, you are to do the following:
Write this précis as a short essay, not an outline. Again, no opinion, no judgement, no feelings. No one cares how it made you feel. This is business, not personal. If the précis contains one single “I”, your free donuts and coffee we be revoked.
Note: you can type the accented e in google docs by typing <alt> 0233 on the numeric keypad. If you have trouble with this, just type a regular “e” and I’ll clean it up after you hand it in.
Attached is the story for you to work with. In French, by the way, the proper name “Guy” is pronounced “Gee.” This should satisfy the educational requirement for your internship to qualify for academic credit.
Warning: This is a well-known literary work, and you can find hundreds of summaries on the internet. If you submit one of them, you will be caught, and losing your coffee and donuts will be the least of your worries.
© 2024, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.
]]>In the sixties, when I was still in elementary school, retail businesses in the city stayed open later than they do now. Most stores closed at about 7:30 or 8:00. Drug stores, however, stayed open until at least 10:00. I remember summer nights when my friends, mostly Irish-Catholic kids from the apartment building up the street, and I would play on the sidewalk of Corona Avenue. For weeks on end, every night, we would ride our bicycles on the sidewalk, up and down the block, up over the bridge that crossed the Long Island Railroad, and then back all the way down Corona Avenue to Junction Boulevard, where the name of the neighborhood changes from Elmhurst to Corona. Then, one night, one of the kids would come out with their roller skates instead of their bicycles, and we would start roller skating for a few weeks. Then, we would switch back to bicycles.
Whenever we would pass in front of my father’s store on those nights, we could see a group of three or four men standing in the front by the plate-glass window, drinking coffee from the deli across the street, swapping stories. One guy was a short, fat bald guy who chewed a cigar and always had a newspaper of some kind folded up under his hairy arm. His name was Casey. He had a deep, gravelly voice and he liked to play the ponies. He drove a cream-colored Caddy that he parked in a no-parking zone across the street. I never knew what he did for a living, but I’m sure it was at least partially legitimate.
One of the other men who hung out on those slow nights was a stocky second-generation Irishman with bushy eyebrows and a seemingly over-sized head. His name was Jimmy Breslin. I was probably about eight or nine years old.
Breslin was a few years older than my father, about the same age as my mother’s older brother, who also knew him. He grew up in Queens and was a hometown hero. Before my Uncle Bill had gotten married, Breslin was one of his drinking buddies. One of their favorite hangouts was the Carousel Lounge, a mob joint on Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside.
My father was a basketball nut his whole life and played it all the time when he was a growing up. When he was in pharmacy school, he still made it to the park down on Broadway for pickup games in the early evening. Breslin, who was by then a young reporter for one of the many, now defunct, daily newspapers in Queens and Long Island, used to hang out in the park on those evenings. Sometimes they would get a beer after playing.
My father once told me about the night a sudden cloudburst caught them and they all got drenched, including the future Pulitzer Prize Winner. As my father was running to his car, a pre-war Ford jalopy, Breslin called out to him, “Hey Bubbaz, can you give me a lift to work?”
“Bubbaz” is how you say “Bubbers” if you’re from Queens. Once when I was in St. Louis, I called a car service to get a ride from my hotel to the airport. I gave the dispatcher my name, “Fred Bubbers,” and he repeated it back to me as “Freddie Bubbaz.” I stopped him right there and asked him where he was from. “Jackson Heights,” he answered, “That’s in New Yawk.”
Breslin climbed into my father’s car and started shivering because his clothes were soaked.
“Bubbaz, I’m freezin’ my fuckin’ nuts off, ya got any blankets?”
My father reached back and got an old threadbare blanket off the back seat and handed it to him. As they drove east on Queens Boulevard to Jamaica, Breslin stripped off all his wet clothes including his boxers and wrapped himself in the dusty old blanket, trying to warm up. He tossed his clothes in the back seat.
When they got to the storefront office of the newspaper, Breslin hopped out of the car. Wearing only his shoes and socks and wrapped in the blanket, he gingerly stepped around the oily puddles as he crossed the glistening street to the office. His wet clothes were still in the back seat.
Starting in the seventies, my father began closing the store earlier in the evening, and it was no longer a hangout for the group of cronies. It was during that time that Breslin became very famous and very rich. He wrote a bestseller called The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight that became a movie, but his full-time job was writing articles about the poor in the city, the decent working stiffs in the neighborhoods and exposing the ugly truths about a brutal and corrupt police force. My father didn’t see him for about 15 years.
Then, in 1986, two boys from Queens hit the top of their chosen professions. First, Jimmy Breslin won the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary. Although he still spoke for all the people he met in the working-class bars and diners all over the city, he now lived in a million-dollar co-op in Manhattan.
The other kid from Queens to reach the top of his profession was Antonin, or “Nino,” Scalia. Scalia, who was just a few years younger than my father, had been nominated to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan. When Scalia was a boy, he had been a member of Boy Scout Troop 17, and my father had been a troop leader at the time.
One day during the summer and shortly after the nomination had been announced, I was visiting my father in the store. I had stopped in the deli and picked up four coffees for the two of us. It was a quiet afternoon, and we were standing in the back of the store, behind the prescription counter, drinking coffee and talking about the Mets, who were on their way to winning the pennant that year.
Suddenly, the glass door leading to the sidewalk swung open and there appeared a big hulking form.
“Hey, Bubbaz! How the fuck are you, you bastard?” Breslin bellowed.
“Breslin, where the fuck ya been” my father bellowed back.
I have to explain something here. In all my years of growing up, I never heard my father talk that way. He never used profanity in front of his children and his Queens accent was normally very mild.
“How ‘bout that fuckin’ Nino,” Breslin asked as he strode to the back of the store. “How ‘bout that fucking shit?”
I had a feeling that Breslin didn’t actually know “Nino,” but he knew my father knew him.
My father introduced me to Breslin, telling him, of course, that I was a computer programmer on Long Island, not a writer.
“Freddie Bubbaz Juniah,” Breslin said, looking me over, “Shit I remember you.”
I’m not a “Junior,” but when you have the same first name as your father and your father is a kind of a local big shot, people call you “Junior.” After a while, you get tired of correcting them, and you just let it go.
I gave Jimmy a cup of coffee, and he quickly got down to the business of interviewing my father about Scalia.
My father didn’t know Scalia all that well. The Supreme Court nominee had been a quiet, studious kind of kid and he had been in the boy scout troop for just a year or two. Instead of going to Newtown High School, Scalia had attended Xavier, a Jesuit-run prep school in Manhattan.
When asked what he thought when he heard the news about the Supreme Court appointment my father exclaimed, “I couldn’t believe!”
Breslin pumped my father as much as he could, and then they settled down and talked about the old days. He drank a second cup of coffee and started railing about the cops. There was an ugly story developing at the time about a black graffiti artist getting picked up by the police and somehow ending up in Bellevue in a coma with two broken legs, a busted nose, and a cracked skull. He eventually died. First, there was a cover-up, then there was public outrage, and then the Manhattan District Attorney finally awoke from his slumber and started an investigation. Just before the trial was about to begin, the key witness died in a fall down a flight of stairs at a Policeman’s Benevolent Association Dinner-Dance. Breslin had the inside scoop on everything and had been hammering the DA, the NYPD, and the PBA in his column for weeks.
At one point, he walked over to the door to the small bathroom in the back of the store and faced my father. He stood at attention and with a fake British accent, he said: “Sir, may I please use your bathroom facilities, I must take a piss.” Then he bowed.
“Ya gotta go, ya gotta go,” my father answered. “I’m gonna put a sign up over the bowl that says ‘A Pewlitzer Prize Winner Pissed in This Bowl.”
It was amazing to hear my father talk this way. It seemed to come naturally to him, even though I’d never heard it before. Being from Queens, it’s no surprise that I can do it too. Maybe it’s the same reason everybody says the pizza is so good in New York. It’s the water.
Breslin howled and said, “Bubbaz, you bastard, you’re all right.”
Later that week, when the column appeared in the paper, my father’s words, which became a family catch-phrase, where quoted: “I couldn’t believe!”
It wasn’t one of Breslin’s better columns. He hadn’t been able to come up with much about Scalia that was worth writing about, although that changed later when Scalia became one of the most reactionary justices to ever sit in the bench, so he had to use Scalia as a vehicle to write about something else. He picked the only institution he hated more than the New York City Police Department: The Catholic Church.
One of the reasons that Scalia had only been in Troop 17 for a short time was because the troop was sponsored by the Elmhurst Methodist Church. At that time, the Catholic Churches in New York didn’t approve of their boys mixing with Protestant boys or even entering a Protestant church to go to meetings, so Scalia had been forced to quit.
Breslin used this to turn the column into an indictment of the Church for its bigotry, ignorance, and intolerance. It might have been a valid argument to make, but the facts about it all were fuzzy and Breslin, as he sometimes did, went way over the top, so the whole column seemed a little forced. I guess that’s what deadlines can do to you, no matter who you are.
The next time we saw Breslin was in 1991 at a wedding. It was on New Year’s Day, and the first Gulf War was about to begin.
My family had received invitations to the wedding of my parent’s best friends’ son. I had known him when we were young, but they had moved to New Jersey, and I didn’t really know him that well by then. A few years earlier, they had come to my wedding so it was appropriate that my wife and I should attend their family’s first wedding as well. The other reason for attending was to do a little stargazing. The father of the bride was a very successful and well-known character actor. As it turned out, he was Jimmy’s neighbor.
The country was on the brink of war that day. The previous months had seen the first full-scale deployment of troops since Vietnam. The coverage was wall-to-wall on television, and the mood everywhere was somber. War, for the first time in a generation, was now inevitable and everyone was bracing for the horror that would come with it. The anticipated casualties were estimated to number in the thousands.
The wedding and the reception were at the Seaman’s Union Hall in lower Manhattan, not far from the piers. Both the ceremony and the reception were in the main hall.
There was a small cocktail lounge in the back of the hall with a cash bar and some tables. It was all champagne, mimosas, and screwdrivers at the brunch, so people were buying serious drinks in the lounge and bringing them back to their tables.
There was a television mounted on the wall over the bar amid some Christmas lights and garland tuned into CNN. As I was waiting for the bartender, I watched the reports from various parts of Saudi Arabia where the troops were organizing and preparing to invade Iraq. The soldiers in their helmets and combat uniforms in the desert looked painfully young, although they weren’t much younger than I was at the time. I heard a familiar voice call out my name.
“Freddie Bubbaz Juniah!”
I turned and saw him sitting at a table by himself with a bottle of Johnnie Walker and a glass. I’m honestly quite surprised that he recognized me, as I had barely said two words to him that day four years earlier, but that’s a skill newspaper men have.
“You drink scotch Bubbaz?”
“Yeah, Jimmy,” I answered, “I drink scotch.”
“Hey Frank-ee,” he called to the bartender. “Just give the kid a glass, he’s with me.”
I sat down across the table from him, with my back to the television. He picked up the bottle and filled my glass.
“Thanks, Jimmy,” I said.
I wondered how someone so well-known could be sitting by himself at an occasion like this, but people were coming in, buying their drinks, and returning to the party.
His eyes were glassy, and he was staring up at the battle preparations on the television. His white hair was more disheveled than usual and his face, normally ruddy, was pale and drawn. There was a white carnation pinned to the lapel of his rumpled suit, which was bunched up around his shoulders as he slumped in his chair.
I turned and looked at the screen over my shoulder. There was a map on the screen with animated arrows showing the possible plans of attack. Then I picked up my glass and said “Peace on Earth.”
“Fuck yeah,” Jimmy said, and he held his glass up to me.
We quietly sipped our drinks. CNN already had theme music composed by John Williams and was playing it every time they came back from a commercial.
Suddenly he leaned forward and asked, “How old are ya kid?”
“Thirty,” I answered.
“That’s good,” he said. “You’re too old. They won’t draft you.”
For weeks, the same thought had been going through my mind. My eligibility had ended two years earlier. “Nah,” I said, “the draft is over for good.”
“Wait till this shit gets started,” he said, staring at the television again.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody in as much pain as Jimmy seemed to be at that moment. I saw it in his eyes, in the way he slumped down in his chair, in the way he turned his head, and in the way he sipped his scotch. His whole body radiated despair.
“Twenty-thousand body bags,” he said. “A guy at the Pentagon told me they have twenty-thousand body bags on hand.” He looked down at the table and said in a low firm voice, “Goddamn them, those fucking bastards.”
I took a few large sips of my drink. I felt uncomfortable sitting there with him, and part of me wanted to get up and return to the wedding party, but he had recognized me, he had remembered my name, and he had poured me a drink. They were small, things, but they made me stay with him.
“Your old man told me you write,” he said, looking up at me.
“Not anymore,” I said, “Just when I was in school. Now I have to make a living.”
He laughed and refilled our glasses.
“Take mine,” he said. “It’s going to be a fucking nightmare.”
“Why is that?”
“I have to talk to the families. Not the families where I live. Not the families where you live. Not the families in Forest fucking Hills.” He held his glass up to the television and said, “I have to go to the projects in the fucking Bronx where those kids come from. It’s not like they don’t have enough shit to deal with already.”
He looked away, and his eyes darted around the room, and he seemed distracted as his mind was processing something.
“My guy in the Pentagon tells me that in three weeks,” he continued. “Five thousand of them are going to be dead.”
He paused as if he were calculating something in his mind.
“Five thousand,” he said again. “For what? Fucking Oil? The fucking Kuwaiti Royal Family? Fuck George Bush. That goddamn scumbag.”
I didn’t know what to say. I picked up the bottle topped off our drinks.
“Nobody’s gonna be volunteering anymore after this shit gets started,” he said.
I sat quietly with him for a while that afternoon, hearing reporters and retired generals from over my shoulder, breathlessly pumped up and analyzing the coming battle like a Monday Night Football pre-game show.
A couple sat down at the next table. They recognized Jimmy and caught his eye. Jimmy sat up and straightened out his suit. He put on his happy Irish smile for them while John Williams’ epic fanfare thundered across the room and Wolf Blitzer’s face dissolved and re-materialized as a Chevy pickup truck.
© 2024, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.
]]>
Dietrich’s plate is full. Actually, it’s overflowing. He’s got juice from the baked beans running into the coleslaw and off the plate. The chicken wings are sitting on top of the potato salad, and two ribs have bailed out and tumbled onto the table. It’s the annual employee picnic at the CEO’s favorite country club, and he’s trying to make the most of it. I’m nursing a warm, watery gin and tonic, feeling my hangover coming on in the heat, and I’m late for my daughter’s dance recital.
“It will probably be Thursday,” he says. He bites into an uncut gherkin and the juice squirts across the table onto my plate. There’s a smudge from the potato salad on the corner of his drooping mustache. “The personnel files when to legal yesterday.” I ask him why. He shoves the severed end of the pickle in his mouth and mashes down on it as his eyes dart over my face and the sun glares off his sweaty bald head. We’re supposed to be peers, but he’s a well-connected bottom feeder, the kind that always carries a clipboard. I don’t trust this motherfucker and he knows it.
“To make sure there’s nothing in their records that could get us sued for wrongful termination,” he says.
“Like what?”
He picks up a wing and inserts it in his mouth. The skin and meat are tender, so without using his teeth, he sucks the bones clean and tosses them on the table. “Maybe a harassment complaint in the past. Or if she’s currently knocked up and has put in for leave. Don’t want to cut a bitch when she’s spawning. Anything that might be considered discriminatory; cut her after she pops.”
He stops eating and looks at me carefully. “You don’t have anybody on your list like that, do you? You’ve looked at their files, haven’t you?
“Of course,” I say.
My stomach tightens. Diana Jenkins, one of the test engineers on my list is showing at six months and still hasn’t submitted her maternity leave paperwork. As far as the company is concerned, she’s not pregnant. She won’t have a case unless she finds a particularly tenacious lawyer, but I decide that I’ll retrieve her file on Monday morning and replace it with someone else’s. Or maybe I’ll get with her first thing and have her fill out the request and maybe I’ll be able to save her that way. I might even be able to retain her position. Nick, the CEO has a hard-on for test engineers. He’s repeatedly said, “They produce no value and take money out of my pocket.” It would be futile to try to convince him that testing our software before we release it might be a good idea. Given our quality and the number of pissed off customers I have to deal with every day, I’d personally start with the development engineers before cutting testers. The only code that doesn’t have bugs is code that is not yet written. It is, however, Nick’s stock grants, Nick’s stock options, Nick’s handpicked board of directors, and, in the end, Nick’s company. He’s never been shy about letting you know that. Still, if the layoff isn’t until Thursday, I might be able to salvage something.
Dietrich stops chewing and again looks me over carefully. He senses something. Stone-faced I sip my gin and tonic. You have to be careful with Dietrich. He’s always poking and probing you, looking for some weakness in character that he can file away for when he needs it. He’ll gladly put his own sins on display in order to disarm you into revealing yours so he can record them. It’s July, it’s Saturday, it’s a picnic, and he’s still got his goddamn clipboard with him. I’m trying to say as little as possible. There’s a family sitting at the far end of our table. Mike, a software engineer who works for me is with his wife and two young daughters who are restless and fidgeting at the table. “When can we goooo!” the younger one whines. Her mother lifts the girl up onto her lap, smoothing the hem of the girl’s yellow-frilled dress over her knees. “A little while longer,” Mike says. “We need to see the boss.”
“Or he needs to see us,” his wife says flatly, looking away.
Dietrich and I are discussing the coming layoff. Officially it’s about eliminating jobs to keep the company lean and mean, but it’s really just a way to get rid of people without having to show cause. There is a recruiter in Human Resources who is looking for replacements for some of the people I will let go this week. It’s not legal, but the company has lots of lawyers.
I haven’t touched the food on my plate. I’m nauseated watching Dietrich, it’s ninety degrees and I’ve been swallowing aspirin all day to battle the hangover from last night.
I don’t have many friends in this company, but the ones I do like to drink.
We’re regulars at Bogart’s, an upscale pub in a nearby office park. We spend a lot of money there and we tip well. It’s become a ritual. When I arrive late and my crew has already started, one of the waitresses—it could be auburn-haired Monica, or blonde Heidi, or brunette Ashley, is immediately at my side, with her arm draped over my shoulder asking, “Can I get you a Stella and a backup, Sweetie?”
“And a backup for the backup,” I’ll say, and someone pulls over an extra chair. “I love when she does that,” I’ll day
Bobbie, my best friend’s wife, will say, “I’ll bet you do.”
Her husband, Ian, is a Brit with a fascination for everything American, especially baseball. He loves the Atlanta Braves. I think it’s because he’s fascinated by native Americans, even though there are none in the Braves’ lineup. He just likes the idea of American Indians. He’s looking away from Bobbie and is engaged in conversation with Rajeev, a project manager who’s an actual Indian. Ian seems completely oblivious to the fact that his wife is flirt. Or he’s completely cool with it. I don’t know what to make of them. They are very devoted to one another, and I like each of them individually, but as a couple, they have a doomed Scott and Zelda air about them. He’s a bookish and dull Englishman, and she’s an American army brat who grew up on the continent and was educated in convent schools. At thirty, she’s enjoying breaking free from all the rules of moral conduct the nuns drummed into her. It’s only a matter of time before she breaks Ian’s heart. Or he breaks hers. In spite of their devotion, they’re not well matched.
Somehow, I always seem to find them: birds of a feather, cronies, confederates, comrades-in-arms. Someone politely invites me out for an after-work drink. Being the new guy and feeling isolated, I accept. I meet the small clique at the hotspot, and there’s a natural progression. First, it’s one night a week, Friday, and then it’s Thursday too. And Wednesday, and now Tuesdays. I’ve managed to hold off going out on Mondays so far, a concession I make for my family. It’s taken its toll on me and most mornings, I’m hungover, sweating and popping aspirin until noon. I’ve acquired the skill of swallowing it dry and I even welcome the acid taste it leaves in my mouth and the burning feeling in my throat. It lets me know I can still feel.
Dietrich finishes eating. On the table between us, is the wreckage of his meal: a collage of chicken bones, half-eaten ribs, and a viscous mixture of mayonnaise, barbeque sauce, ranch dressing, and pickle juice that is slowing creeping across the table as if it is about ambush my untouched plate. He grabs a wad of napkins from an adjoining table and wipes his greasy mouth and chin. I don’t tell him that he has a black speck of burnt chicken skin wedged between his front teeth.
I look at my watch. If I can get out of here within the next hour, I might be able to catch at least part of my daughter’s recital. I hear some scattered applause and the sound of metal folding chairs sliding across the concrete patio. I turn and see the crowd in the center aisle of tables parting. The country club staff is darting around, pulling chairs and tables aside for the entourage that is slowly moving toward the podium that stands in front of a vine-covered rock wall on the sided of the clubhouse. I hear some more chairs moving and everyone is getting on their feet. The family and the end of our table is standing, and Mike lifts his daughter up and holds her against his hip. “Almost time to go, Sweetheart.” I take a final sip of my drink. It’s an hour old, so the ice has melted, and it’s filled with lime pulp. I pull myself to my feet.
There’s a break in the crowd and Nick, our CEO, emerges, followed closely by his right-hand man, the CFO, and his other right-hand man, the COO. Again, people are clapping. For some reason that I don’t understand, I start clapping too.
As he slowly walks up the aisle, Nick stops at some of the tables along his route and exchanges handshakes and smiles with his employees and their families. The Director of Corporate Communications is walking backward in front of him, snapping pictures. When he gets to our row of tables, he stops and shakes Mike’s hand and puts his arm around his shoulder. He leans over, and with a broad smile on his face, he reaches for the Mike’s daughter’s hand. Her father whispers something in her ear and turns toward Nick, offering her to him. She reaches up, and Nick gently takes her tiny hand in his. They both smile as the Director of Corporate Communications’ camera clicks and whirrs with multiple exposures.
“There’s some artwork for the annual report,” Dietrich says.
Nick and his entourage reach the stage. Nick steps up first and turns to face the applause. His two subordinates step up and occupy positions in the back of him and to his right. Nick starts clapping and makes a point leaning forward slightly and panning the crowd before him, as if to say, “No, no, no, this is all about you, not me.”
Nick Poulos, the son of Greek immigrants, veteran of Jack Welch’s management team at General Electric, is impressive. He has just come from the golf course where he has, no doubt, crushed his entire management team. He stands six feet tall and shows no sign of his sixty-seven years. His face, chiseled and handsome as a classic Greek statue, has a golden tan. He holds up his hands to clap. His forearms are sinewy and powerful, with the same golden tan. His perfectly trimmed white hair is gleaming in the bright sun. Age is irrelevant. He is the oldest person at this gathering, but he looks healthier than everyone else feels. He’s wealthier too. You can’t be that old and look that good without having been rich for a very long time.
He stops clapping and, again to show his deference to his employees, he reaches out with his palms up and pans the crowd. The clapping tapers off and the crowd settles into their seats, I take the opportunity to start finding my way out. Nick saw me and waved to me as he passed our table. It should be safe for me to leave, as long as he doesn’t see me doing it.
I pick up my melted gin and tonic and tell Dietrich that I’m getting another drink. I make my way to the outside of the garden patio and slip into the crowd of standees. I’ll stay for at least part of his speech, but I’ll do it from a distance. Enough people will see me there in different places, so they’ll remember that they saw me there.
I really do need another drink, so I stop at the outdoor bar near the entrance to the clubhouse and get a beer. I can’t see Nick from here, but he’s picked up the microphone, and I can hear him.
“My friends,” he says, “this day is really all about you. The hard work you do, the loyalty, the dedication, the sacrifices you make. And it’s not just about those of you who come to work every day; it’s about the husbands and wives and sons and daughters who make it possible for you to come to work every day and do amazing things.”
I look at my watch. Five more minutes, or half a beer, whichever comes first.
“It’s been an honor for me to lead this company for the past twenty years. The culture that we have created here along with all of you is our most valuable asset. We are a family.”
I raise my glass and gulp down my beer. “And by the end of the week, one-third of our most valuable asset is going to be on the street,” I think. I glance slightly toward my left and see, Dietrich in the trailing end of the standees, clipboard in hand. He looks over at me and waves. I wave back and smile at him. Motherfucker.
“I’ll cover for you.”
Mike has slipped up beside me at the bar.
“Where’s your family?” I ask.
“They left. We came in two cars. No sense putting them through any more of this shit than they have to.”
“You’re a good husband and father.”
“Where’s your family?” he asks.
“Dance recital,” I say, “and I’m trying not to miss this one for a change.”
“Don’t worry, Stay put for a minute.”
Mike orders another beer and takes it with his own and starts toward Dietrich. He turns and says, “I can handle him; go be with your family.”
When he reaches Dietrich, he offers him the beer. I see two of them turn away and walk toward a table with their backs to me. I put my empty glass on the bar and walk through the clubhouse and out to my car.
The parking lot at the school almost full. It’s a good sign that I haven’t missed everything. I have to park far away from the entrance. I grab the convenience store bouquet of flowers off the front seat, slam the door and run across the lot and up the front steps. Inside the lobby, I hear cheers and applause coming from the auditorium. I squeeze through the throng of people standing in the doorway. Onstage, I can see all the students from my daughter’s dance studio applauding their teacher. They are of all shapes and sizes with the littlest ones kneeling in front. After my eyes adjust to the light, I pick out my daughter standing in the second row with her dance class in their nineteen-forties USO Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy tap costumes.
It is finished.
© 2023 – 2024, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.
]]>March 29, 1862, finds the Thirty-fourth Regiment, with nearly all the rest of the First Brigade, onboard steamer, R. Williams, anchored for a little time directly in front of Mount Vernon, on the Potomac River, having shipped from Alexandria same day. But this stay is only, and incidental. Two days later the same regiment finds itself on the same good ship, anchored within a stone’s throw of the famous Fortress Monroe, and Old Point Comfort. Nearby were many other ships, crowded with men, who had come down the river on the same expedition as ourselves, whatever that may be. Likewise, you might have seen a little boat that presently is to revolutionize all modern naval warfare, and all the navies of the world; albeit, it was the most unpretentious object in the whole aggregation. It was the little Monitor, resting after her conflict with the Merrimac, March 9. The sail down the river, except for a heavy snowstorm just at the start, had been uneventful, although, for a portion of the voyage, it was pretty rough sailing. The next day, April 1, the vessel proceeded to Hampton, where the troops were landed. The condition of Hampton at this time was that of a perfect ruin. By order of the Confederate authorities, every building in the place had been burned. The inhabitants were turned out, destitute, forlorn, forsaken. This destruction was probably about as wanton and cruel, and uncalled-for as any act in the whole history of the rebellion. The story is told by the good Chaplain, Rev. J. J. Marks, attached to Kearney’s Division, and who wrote a little book about the Peninsular campaign, that after the rebels had evacuated the town, a detachment of soldiers was sent back to attend to this burning business; and that one of the officers stayed at night with his uncle. After he had a good visit with his uncle’s family, and they had talked about old times in a very tender fashion, and breakfast being over, and family prayers being said, the officer informed his astonished uncle that he had been sent back to burn the town, and that, as a matter of conscience, he considered it his duty to begin with that house, which he did.
The morning of April 4th finds the regiment advancing toward Yorktown, and that night a stop is made at Big Bethel, which had been the scene of the earlier conflicts, when Theodore Winthrop, the author of the two of the brightest books ever published fell for the honor of his country, April 5 at Yorktown. The passing traveler, along that “thoroughfare,” would have been astonished at the magnitude of the task accomplished in the construction, within so short a time, of that road through the wilderness to Yorktown. The march is over miles, and miles, of corduroy road. Now a corduroy road is built by laying one little log beside another, and sometimes covering them with dirt. How many little logs in a mile? How many in ten miles? For every log, a tree had to be cut down, stripped of limbs, and laid in its place making a military road, that horses could travel over safely, and haul heavy loads over; and through swamps at that.
All the way up to Yorktown there were most formidable fortifications. At Big Bethel, and again at a place called Harrison’s Mill, there were works that would have withstood a long siege. Why were they so quickly abandoned? The answer to this conundrum was furnished by a young lady of color, who was found, with many other people of her persuasion, eagerly appropriating what the rebels had abandoned: “Oh,” said she, “da booms dugged ‘em out.” Now. At Yorktown, we find the same formidable works; and evidently the rebs have no idea of leaving them in a hurry. “De booms” don’t seem to worry ‘em, and they give back as good as we can send.
The siege of Yorktown lasted just a month, and it was a period of hard work. Every soldier became a digger. Picks and shovels are weapons now. Heavy details every day, to dig trenches and throw up earthworks. And dangerous picket duty, too, in front of the enemy. Pickets had to be changed at night; for no movement of that kind could be made by daylight, we were so close. And the weather! Don’t speak of it. Rain it could, and rain it did. Said one soldier, writing home on April 9: “We passed another terrible night last night. The rain fell in torrents and we were completely soaked. To stand out anywhere, last night, and hear the coughing, and the “Oh dears,” which told the actual suffering, was almost as bad as to pass through the hospitals after a battle. Yet,” adds this philosopher, “it is not well to complain of the weather.” Another man, writing home at this time, says he had made up his mind not to turn in at all that night, the prospect of getting any sleep was so slim. Typhoid fever, that inevitable accompaniment of swamp ground, and wet weather was quite prevalent. Out on picket, there was continual snipping. You mustn’t show your head if you didn’t want it perforated. Every day the earthworks rose and rose, and presently black-throated guns began to peer over them. It seemed like it was to be a siege, while every day there was talk about an assault. What that Great Procrastinator, General McClellan intended to do, it would be hard to say. Now, balloons, in wartime are supposed to be a great help. You can see over into the enemy’s country and see all he is doing. That must make him feel very uncomfortable. And seeing just what he is doing, you know just what to do yourself. Of course. Now the Union balloon was up most every day and sharp-eyed men in it were peering over into the rebel lines. We were not to be caught napping. If they were doing anything, we should know it as soon as they did. Clearly enough, a balloon is a great thing in wartime. May 3, the writer of his was out on the front line, digging with the rest. Someone said, “There is a balloon.” And sure enough there it was, taking a good look, just as it had every day. But there was nothing to be seen and we kept on digging. The next morning what should we hear but that the rebels had left, bag and baggage; and they had been leaving, bag and baggage, for days beforehand. And we had never known a thing of what they were up to. Surely a balloon, in time of war, is a great thing. It contains a great deal of gas, but not much solid information. Of course, “Little Mack” could have known what the rebs were up to, but that wasn’t his business. His business was to howl for reinforcements. One man can’t do everything.
The writer of this sketch wrote a series of letters to a home paper (the Mohawk Courier) during the whole period of the regiment’s service, letters which now have helped him out on many a name and date. And we find that he wrote, at this time, Sunday morning, May 4 the following: “At the time of the announcement of the evacuation, we were lying on picket, scarcely half a mile from the nearest point of the rebel works; and it seemed almost incredible that these towering battlements, from which the enemy had been thundering all night long, had be forsaken.” But they had.
At once the news ran, like a fire, along the lines, and without a moment’s delay the men began to swarm over into the rebel works. With what interest did they prowl about, exploring every nook. It would consume a great deal of valuable space if we should try to describe the works. They were certainly very extensive. The enemy had left no stone unturned. After a while, we learned that the streets were paved with danger. Bombs would explode under the feet of the swarming soldiers. The wonder is that no more were hurt. Why would the rebels abandon such formidable works? It was a clear case. It was because of the terror that the name of Little Mack inspired.
On Monday afternoon following our brigade began to move forward. But that afternoon and night were a time long to be remembered. We thought we had heard of its raining before, and all during the siege; but it never rained until the night of May 5, 1862. Reader, you have heard of its raining pitchforks. It was bitterly cold, blowing great guns, and raining torrents. We pretended to be on the march: we were hot after the fleeing rebs; we were threshing the ground just in their rear; but to tell the naked truth we must have advanced about ten rods all night; we would not like to overstate the distance. There was no road, but there was a river of mud. The men built such fires as they could, and sang, and joked, and told stories of people at home in comfortable beds, and nagged each other, with “Soldier, will you work?” “No I’ll sell my shirt first,” and all that sort of tirade, which showed the dreadful depravity of the situation. Along toward morning, we were ordered back to our old camp. O, McClellan is a hustler when he gets after a fleeing enemy.
But the next day, as it wore on, out came the sun, the sky became blue, the noisy winds blew themselves away, and all the discomforts of the past night were cheerfully forgiven. That day we took the little steamer, Daniel S. Williams, and went thirty miles up to West Point. We reached it just a little too late to take part in the bloody battle of Williamsburg. But some of the men went over the field, and the sights they saw were bloody. The woods were thickly strewn with the dead and wounded, and the buildings in the town were filled with the same. The rebels had fled so precipitately that they had been compelled to leave their wounded behind, their dead unburied. The inhabitants of the town had become terror-stricken and fled from the approach of the terrible Yankees. The roads leading way from town were strewn with property thrown away by the inhabitants in their flight. And farther away the roads were choked with fleeing women, and children, and servants. Surely, war sweeps a harsh broom.
The next stage in our advance brings us to New Kent Court House. Here we arrive Saturday, May 10, having left West Point the day before. During the march, we halt for a few hours, along with the entire division of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, about 11,000 men, on a splendid farm, owned by a man by the name of Eltham. “There were more guests at the table than the host invited.” And there were others. For just now the army is attacked by in front, rear, and flank, by armies of mosquitoes. Their onslaught was sudden and vigorous, and victorious. They carried the day, leaving the field covered with the bodies of their victims. The weather, also, was an enemy in itself, for it was blistering hot, and the men were completely whipped out with march. Scores fell out; but at New Kent Courthouse they had a chance to catch up, and the whole army again got its wind. The reports at that time showed that there were 15,000 sick men in the Army of the Potomac.
Thursday, the 15th, we are on the road again, and come to a little place called Austin’s Church. This march to Austin’s Church was a tough one. The mud was over shoe tops; the soil was a sticky clay, which held the feed like a bootjack, or else slipped and threw you down. On the 18th we broke camp at Austin’s Church and came on to a place which we called Camp Cumberland, where we remained until the 21st. That day, Wednesday, May 21, was also a day-long to be remembered. You see we are getting our memories pretty full of these long-to-be remembered days. We broke camp at 6 o’clock in the morning and marched fourteen miles. People at home often read in the papers about long, forced marches of twenty-five or thirty-five miles a day. Stories like these are generally to be discounted, the same as stories about men “itching for a fight.” With all a soldier has to carry, and the circumstances under which he does his traveling, being usually in a crowded road, with frequent and tedious halts—for what, nobody knows, we called this march of fourteen miles, under a burning sun, a record-breaker. All day long we were pushed on unmercifully. The mud had now changed to a dry sand, and the men suffered greatly from thirst. As one officer wrote home: “As a general thing water was scarce and precious as molten gold; while the little that could be obtained after a rush and push and a general squabble, was too foul to drink.” Men and officers as well fell out of the ranks by dozens. It is said three poor fellows died from heat and exhaustion. But there was no doubt about the beauty of that country. We passed many fine old mansions, the darkies were very much in evidence and greatly excited at the coming of the Yanks. At one point we passed Roper’s Church, the place where Washington was married to the beautiful Mrs. Martha Custis. Late in the afternoon we arrived within two miles of Bottom’s Bridge and encamped on an open field near the Richmond & York River Railroad. We then learned that we were fourteen miles from Richmond and twenty-six miles from West Point. The men were greatly elated to learn that the Eighty-first and Ninety-second New York Regiments and Bate’s Artillery, were encamped nearby, and there was a great deal of visiting back and forth.
The 22nd was a day of rest. On Friday, the 23rd, began the issue of the famous whiskey ration. Half a gill was doled out to every man twice a day. There was some debate among the men in regard to the propriety of this whiskey business. It wasn’t very likely to keep the men from getting sick, and it was certain to make mischief. The temperance men, not wanting the stuff themselves, had compunctions about giving it to others.
Monday, May 26th, found us at the Tyler House, an old-time slave plantation, the home of the President Tyler family. Here we remained until May 31, a date that will always stand as a marked one in American history.
The following is the program prescribed for us in General Order No. 4, dated August 8, 186, at Camp Jackson and which had been followed ever since, with few variations: Reveille, (all up), 5 am. Company Drill, (no excuses accepted,) 5:30. Surgeon’s Call, (the very sick ordered to the hospital,) 5:30. Breakfast, (you got your own,) 7. Morning Roll Call, (hurry up, and get in line,) 8. Guard Mounting, (unlucky Tommy Atkins, who has to go on) 9. Discharge of foul guns, (not much to that) 10-11. Dinner, (bean soup today, good.) 12. Company Drill, (“Captain, can’t I be excused? I don’t feel very well.” “No excuses, sir; get your gun, and fall in.”) 4 pm. Battalion Drill, (what new knot is that blankety-blank officer going to tie us up in today?) 6. Dress Parade, (a dozen or more new orders for one thing or another) 7. Company Roll Call, (stentorian voice of Talcott, “Sir, all are present or accounted for”) 8. Retreat, (far up and down the valley, and across the hills, gleam the pale lights through the white tents) 9. Tattoo, (Get Phil Will and Johnny Johnson, and come around to my tent and we’ll have a little game on the quiet.” 9. Lights out, (and the great camp sleeps, while the faithful sentries, down at the river, and hovering about the camp, pace their lonely beats, dreaming of the loved ones far away, and of comrades who will never wake to greet the morning light; calling, calling, through the night: “Ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, and all is well.” 9:30.
More excerpts from A Brief History of the Thirty-fourth Regiment
© 2022 – 2024, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.
]]>Mary Lavin’s linked short stories about the life of Vera Traske are all written in third-person, but the narrative distance employed varies from story to story, not only depending on the requirements of a particular story but also reflecting where each story fits in the overall arc of Vera’s life.
In the title story of Mary Lavin’s collection, In the Middle of the Fields, Vera struggles with grief and loneliness as she tries to move on after the death of her husband. She functions well during the day and is determined to establish a new life and identity for herself. At night, however, she succumbs to a crushing burden of loneliness and memory. One night, she has an encounter with Bartley Crossen, the man she has hired to trim the grass in her fields. This encounter is at once both comic and terrifying and reveals the pain that is felt by those who survive and have to create new lives for themselves.
Lavin chooses to tell this story in the third person, limited omniscience. We have insight into Vera’s innermost thoughts and feelings, but not into any of the other characters in the story. The opening paragraph provides the setting and mood of the story:
Like a rock in the sea, she was islanded by the fields, the heavy grass washing about the house, and the cattle wading in it as in water. Even their gentle stirrings were a loss when they moved away at evening to the shelter of the woods. A rainy day might strike a wet flash from a hay barn on the far side of the river. Not even a habitation! And yet she was less lonely for him here in the Meath than elsewhere. Anxieties by day, and cares, and at night vague, nameless fears, these were the stones across the mouth of the tomb. But who understood that? They thought she hugged tight every memory she had of him. What did they know about memory? What was it but another name for dry love and barren longing? They even tried to unload upon her their own small purposeless memories. ‘I imagine I see him every time I look out there,’ they would say as they glanced nervously over the darkening fields when they were leaving. ‘I think I ought to see him coming through the trees.’ Oh, for God’s sake! She’d think. She’d forgotten him for a minute.(1)
The sense of isolation is palpable from the very first sentence. What’s even more striking is the level of interiority that is established at the very beginning of the story. Vera’s inner life, her inner monologue, is completely open to us. Lavin could have chosen to write this story in first person, but this level of interiority would not be plausible. We can accept this intimacy from an omniscient, apparently objective third-person narrator who is not a character in the story. If the narrator of the story was Vera herself, she would be more guarded. Also, a first-person narration also introduces the problem of temporal distance. Is the narrator in the moment, telling the story as it happens? That would preclude the possibility of any kind of objective reflection and interpretation. If Vera is telling her story at some point in the future, then the immediacy of the action is lost. By their very nature, first-person narratives are told by people who already know the ending of the story.
There are, however, large portions of the story that are written in first-person. The two main characters in this story, Vera and Crossen, are both haunted by the past, so their backstories provide the essential context for the present action. Without that context, the present action would be dramatically flat. Lavin uses dialogue to let the characters reveal their own backstories rather than using flashbacks. The reader gets all the essential information needed to interpret the present action as efficiently as possible. In any case, a flashback to Cossen’s past would awkwardly break the limited omniscience of the narrator. The narrator has access to Vera’s inner life but not to any of the other characters. Suddenly breaking out of that Vera’s limited perspective to tell another character’s backstory would disrupt the fictive dream.
Lavin uses this same technique in the story “The Lucky Pair.” This is another story about Vera, but at a much earlier period in her life—when she is a university student in Dublin and starting a relationship with a lecturer that she meets at the library. The relationship develops with fits and starts due to the lecturer’s continuing involvement with a woman from his past. The story is again told in third-person limited, but there’s a greater distance between Vera and the narrator. There is no interior monologue as there was in “In the Middle of the Fields.” Andrew abruptly cuts short one of their meetings when he is distracted by the other woman, Olive, who is standing across the street.
She didn’t need to look to know it was another girl, but she didn’t expect the girl who was waiting impatiently for him on the other side of the street to be so striking, tall like him, and with a strong but perfect face. But as the girl impatiently stepped off the pavement and came across the street to meet him, it was her eyes that held attention. What word would describe them? The only word that came to mind hardly made sense, but it fitted exactly, they were ranging eyes. She felt she was never going to see him again.(30)
While it is clear that Vera is feeling jealous, the narration in this story has less interiority. Where the first story gives us a view into the thoughts of an older woman, a now widowed mother who has lived through both joy and sorry, the younger Vera in this story is more tentative and unsure of herself.
This story, however, does use the device of having the characters themselves reveal their backstories through dialogue. It works very naturally because the story is about two people meeting and getting to know one another.
In “The Cuckoo-Spit” a Vera meets a much younger man, the nephew of her neighbor. There’s an immediate attraction between them and over the next several days the young man, Fergus, manages to find excuses for visiting her. They spend their time walking the fields and woods together, enjoying one another’s company. In this story, Vera is no longer the fearful widow of “In the Middle of the Fields,” nor is she the tentative young woman of “The Cuckoo-Spit.” This story is again in third-person limited but with still more distance from Vera. Again, there is no interior monologue:
As she went into the house, she wondered if he would come again. She hoped he would; it was a pleasant encounter. And she kept on thinking about it as she went around the house, fastening the windows and locking the door. Even when she went upstairs, she stood for a while at the open window, looking out and going over scraps of their conversation. Some of the things she had said now seemed affected. Had she lost the nack of small talk? In particular, she thought of what she had said about happiness, and not being able now to bear it. That was so absurd, but surely he understood that she meant a certain kind of happiness, possible only to the young. (79)
Vera is more reflective in this story than the other two. Vera replays their conversation and critically analyzes it a way that we don’t see the other stories. This reflectiveness is a function of where Vera is in her life. There’s a thoughtfulness and wisdom that the earlier stories don’t exhibit. There is less backstory to tell, and Lavin takes care of giving the reader all the necessary information economically:
“Is he long dead?”
“Four years this summer, she said and turned her face away, although she felt his sympathy would not be so easily stemmed. (76)
Unlike the other stories, we do get some insight into Fergus’s thoughts and intentions as viewed through Vera’s analysis:
“You must miss him very much,” he said. “I was thinking that as I was walking in the fields, and looking at the house. I was wondering how you were able to go on living here without him.” But he must have felt tactless, or impertinent, because he looked away from her, out over the fields.(77)
This is a level of insight that the younger Vera of “The Lucky Pair” did not yet have.
While there is a common approach to point of view in each of these stories, Lavin changes the distance between the reader and Vera along with the tone to match the needs of the story and Vera’s life journey.
Works Cited
Lavin, Mary. In the Middle of the Fields. New Island Books, 2016.
© 2022 – 2024, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.
]]>Every year, audiences fill the movie studio’s coffers and theaters watching a genre of film that has existed for as long as there have been movies. The genre pre-exists the advent of motion pictures by perhaps several thousand years, but the cinematic presentation is the one that modern audiences are most familiar with. The plot generally goes like this:
A big case comes to a big city law firm. Maybe it’s a lawsuit filed by “the little guy” against a giant greedy corporation who did him wrong. The senior partners like the attention it will garner for the firm, but think it’s a loser. They assign two junior associates. One of them is a handsome, young Ivy League law school graduate. He has a privileged background, and maybe his name has a Roman numeral in it. He drives a BMW. The other is a pretty, young graduate of a well-respected state university law school. Maybe she went to night school while waiting tables at a diner and taking care of the beloved aunt who raised her after her parents died. She drives a Honda Civic. Naturally, these two young, fabulously attractive associates take an immediate dislike for one another. She thinks he’s crude, not very bright, and only got his position at the firm because he’s a man and because of his privileged background. He thinks she’s uptight, cold, and snooty and that she only got her position because of her looks. We see that he is cocky, arrogant, and a player, flirting with the receptionist and the firm’s paralegals. Despite her brilliant mind, we can see that she suffers from imposter syndrome and feels that she doesn’t belong at this prestigious law firm. The senior partners leering at her legs do nothing to boost her confidence or quell her anger. Sparks fly. They argue, they fight, and they even mix it up in front of a judge during a preliminary hearing. They just rub each other the wrong way. Awkward moments abound. We see each of them battling their own insecurities by building walls and projecting their own perceived flaws on one another.
They each have a confidante that allows us to see the real person behind the façade. For her, it’s the well-meaning, slightly less attractive neighbor who lives across the hall and offers tender advice, which she ignores for most of the film. For him, it’s the hedonist, stockbroker fraternity brother who offers very, very bad advice, which he ignores (“No, Boomer, this one’s different”). The audience sees through this and wonders when the couple will see the light. Time’s running out. It’s been over an hour, and the movie has a ninety-five-minute running length—carefully calculated by producers so that exhibitors can pack their theaters for as many screenings a day as possible.
Begrudgingly, our hero and heroine begin to respect one another. They learn to see past their first impressions, the facades they’ve constructed to guard the vulnerabilities they have desperately struggle to hide. They reflect and can see their own inner lives, recognize their own worth, and thereby recognize each other’s unique and precious value. Most of all, they learn to trust another human being enough to reveal their true selves. In the final moments, they not only win the big case but find true love!
We’ve all seen this movie. Many times. If it’s not lawyers, it’s doctors. Or sometimes cops. (Variation: she’s a rookie trying to prove herself, and he’s older, slightly grizzled, and drinks too much because his wife left him, and he believes he is unlovable). It’s all fluffy, silly, and formulaic, yet people line up again and again to see this story. There are some notable bombs, but blockbusters far outnumber them. People love this story. Why?
It’s not about the lawyer story, or the doctor story, or the ice-skating story (see The Cutting Edge). Abstracted, the story is far more universal—transcending time, place, and social conventions—and, at the same time, more personal. When done well—good writing, good acting, good directing—they reach into our most intimate spaces and reveal truths we rarely admit to ourselves, not to mention other people. The insecurities, the defense mechanisms, the fears we see on screen are common to all of us. We are both amused and touched seeing the fumbling couple on the screen. What could be more frightening than learning to trust another person with our heart? And what could be a more universal desire than to find a life partner, a true love, a soulmate?
In the world that Jane Austen was born into, women were not allowed to sign legal contracts. Women were not allowed to own property. In fact, women were property. More to the point, they were the property of men. First, they were the property of their fathers. Then, they were the property of their husbands. The tradition and legal right of primogeniture ensured that firstborn sons inherited estates from their fathers. Their sisters were then at their brother’s mercy. It was his right to evict them from the family estate destitute and with no means to provide for themselves if he wished to do so. If they did not have a husband to support them, they would be forced to work in the only professions available to them: as a domestic servant, such as a maid or a housekeeper, or something far worse.
Further exacerbating this problem were laws in effect at the time placing severe restrictions on how estates could be bought, sold, and inherited. Intended to keep large estate properties intact and preserving the livelihoods of the many tenant farmers who lived on them, estate owners, while entitled to any financial profits the estates produced, were forbidden from ever selling part or all of the property. Estates could be willed to sons and not daughters. If an estate owner had no sons, the family tree would be traced to find a suitable male heir, no matter how distant the relation might be. These laws, with few exceptions, superseded any written will. Daughters could be left money but not land. A father’s primary duty to his daughter was to find a suitable husband. This was the basic premise of the popular BBC television series Downton Abbey. Robert Crawley has three daughters, all unmarried and no sons. His assumed heir, a second cousin to his daughters, dies on the Titanic, and a new heir, a poor relation they have never met, becomes the presumptive heir. To secure his daughters’ futures, this new heir is contacted and invited to visit the estate for the sole purpose of introducing him to the three daughters, hoping he will choose one to be his wife.
(Note; these options were available to women of Austen’s social class—landed gentry. Backbreaking manual labor in the fields or in the factories of the burgeoning Industrial Revolution was always available to both men and women if they were poor and desperate.)
The Bennet family in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice finds itself in a similar situation. Modern readers, rightfully, tend to be outraged by this entire premise. It is unjust, misogynist, and cruel, no matter how polite the presentation may be.
Two centuries later, we are still contending with the vestiges of that conception of society, socially, if not legally. Readers tend to expect Austen’s book to be a wholesale indictment of that system and for a heroine to rise up in revolt against it. But that is not the book that Austen wrote. Those books would come later in the 19th century. Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles would tell the story of a destitute peasant girl repeatedly victimized by a society that cruelly subverted and oppressed women, impoverished women. While Pride and Prejudice’s storyline is critical of the society it depicts, revolution is not what it is about. Modern readers may be disappointed that Austen doesn’t take up the fight with more vehemence. That was not Austen’s purpose.
Instead, Austen was seeking more profound truths, truths that define the human experience. Elizabeth Bennet is not a revolutionary attacking the ramparts of the patriarchy. However unfair we may judge it to be, the circumstances of her life have placed her in her predicament. Beneath the fluffy surface of this story is a hard life and death truth. The future of her family is at stake, and she knows she has a duty. Her objection is not that she must marry. Her question is: “Does it have to be him?” The dance that plays out between her and Darcy is about each of them getting over themselves long enough to recognize their own individual value and to appreciate the other’s value
Austen’s initial title for Pride and Prejudice was First Impressions. Indeed, both Elizabeth and Darcy must get past their first impressions, give up their prejudices, and abandon their pride.
© 2021 – 2024, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.
]]>My short story, “No Direction Home,” has been published along with an interview in issue 8.2 of The Rappahannock Review
© 2021 – 2024, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.
]]>In this excerpt from Winslow, Private Joshua Winslow, nineteen years old and fighting with the New York 34th Voluntary Infantry writes home on September 11, 1862, six days before the Battle of Antietam.
My Dearest Sarah,
After a hard march of five days, we have stopped, at least momentarily. We are near Hagerstown, Maryland. I’m not sure when I will be able to post this letter. We have been moving quickly.
We have been ordered to rest for at least this day and maybe the next. I am writing this letter as the sun is setting over a tent-covered ridge to the west. No fires are permitted after dark, lest the glow of them alert the rebel forces of our position.
The place where we are was once a farm, or more accurately several farms covering hundreds of acres of fertile ground blanketing graceful and gentle hills. If there were a place to rival the beauty of our home in New York, this would be it. What few buildings stand here, barns and farmhouses, have been occupied by the officers as temporary command posts.
I can imagine what this place looked like before the tens of thousands of the Union Army arrived. It was a quiet place and gentle in its stillness. Now, in any direction I look I see an ocean of men and tents, all moving in small waves. It’s as if a large living organism has engulfed this place and forever destroyed its tranquility. When we arrived here yesterday we thought that we were the last, but more men kept arriving through the night. There must be over ten thousand men here by now and they are still arriving. They have come from all over the Union, from Maine and Vermont, from a place called Deer Island, from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, from Illinois and Michigan and Ohio.
And also from New York. Sweet New York! I remember this time of year up in Winslow as my favorite. The stifling heat of August has broken but the days are still warm and golden, perfect for a picnic near a lake with my love. When the sun goes down, the evenings are cool again. Down here, the heat has not broken and that five-day march was brutal. Several men in our unit collapsed with heat exhaustion and had to be left behind. Many of the men arriving in camp are on stretchers. The drummer boys formed bucket brigades to distribute water from the stream flowing through the middle of the camp.
When I think about the purpose of this convergence of humanity, this temporary city, I try to imagine the destruction it is capable of and I become fearful. I imagine all of these men and their rifles, headed toward me and I can see no escape and I am helpless. Surely we are all here for a reason. Somewhere beyond the horizon is a similar force trying to find us as much as we are trying to find them.
Rumors fly around and buzz through the camp like so many gnats. First we hear that we will continue west and meet the rebels in northwestern Virginia. Then we hear that the rebels are heading north through central Maryland and that we will attack them as they pass to the east of us. Another rumor tells us that they are already to the north of us in Pennsylvania. Still another says that they are to the south of us near Sharpsburg. For all of these to be true we would have to be surrounded by them. As unlikely as that may be, it still gives us all an uneasy feeling that we don’t talk about much.
Our Captain spends most of his time over at the command post that has been set up in a nearby farmhouse. Several times today he has walked through our encampment on foot. Normally when we see him and he addresses us, he is on horseback. Today, he walked through our camp, making sure we were resting, and that we had enough to eat. He is a man of some forty years with a graying beard and a regal manner. He has always had a stern look about him that appeared to be his duty to maintain, but today the sternness was replaced by a deeper, more serious look. His boots were scuffed and his uniform was still dusty from our march as he walked through our camp with his lieutenants. He spoke to us in small groups. He seemed to know more than he would tell us, but nobody was going to speak up and ask a Captain what was going to happen. Instead, he diverted our attention by asking us about ourselves, our names, where we were from. When I said, “Joshua Winslow, Winslow New York, sir,” he turned and approached me. I’ve now gotten used to how people react when I tell them I have the same name as my hometown, but this was different. As he walked toward me, a look of recognition come over his face as he repeated, “Joshua Winslow, Winslow New York.”
“Son, is your father Erastus Winslow?” he asked.
“Yes sir.”
“I know your father, son. We attended Harvard together and I visited him in Winslow some twenty-years ago. We have met several times in Manhattan when we were both there on business.”
Then he did something that I’ve never seen an officer do to a private infantryman. He held out his hand to me. After over a year in the army, serving with boys from all different stations of life, I had forgotten that I come from a family of wealth and position. Indeed, I had spent most of my time keeping that a secret and in many ways I found comfort in fitting in with the rest of the fellows. Of course, all the boys from Winslow know, but many others in the 24th didn’t. When I was growing up, I always felt a weight on my shoulders walking down Main Street in Winslow. My family owns most of the town, so I could never be sure if people were friendly to me because of me or because of my father’s position. I also felt the weight of expectation on me not only from my father, but from nearly everyone in town.
The anonymity of being just myself in the army, not a town, not a family, not a legacy, felt liberating. While others bristled as they adapted to military discipline, I embraced it because it made me feel, for the first time in my life, like I was like anybody else. It’s hard to find your way when you feel the expectations of your family and community weighing on you. I think that when I finally return home, it will be with knowledge of myself that I never would have been able to gain at home.
The small throng of soldiers that were around the Captain and myself were looking at me and several more who were nearby and heard what was happening joined the group.
I glanced at the other men and realized that I could not deny my heritage any more than I could deny my loyalty and devotion to them. I may have forgotten it, but it’s also who I am, now, it seemed as though I stood form them with this Captain, as if his recognition of me was his recognition of all of them.
I took his hand in mine. His grasp was firm and he pulled me closer. Quietly, for my ears only he said, “Your father is a fine man and I know he is proud of you, son. God bless you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He released my hand and I took a step back from him. He stood there silently for a moment and raised his hand to the side of his face ran his fingers down the edge of his beard. His sternness was replaced momentarily by a puzzled look and his eyes suddenly seemed tired. Then he regarded the whole crowd that had gathered around us and said loudly to them, “And God Bless all of you.”
Then he gripped the hem of his dusty uniform coat, tugged on it firmly to straighten it out over his shoulders, and nodded to his lieutenants that it was time to continue their tour.
It was probably this event that has put me in such a reflective mood for the rest of the day. It is obvious to me that we are soon to be in as large a battle as any of us has ever seen. All of us can sense it. Even if all we know are rumors and all of them cannot be true, our experience tells us that one of them actually is true.
In this past year I have seen many things that I never would have imagined growing up in Winslow. Most of my experiences have been bad and I’d prefer never to experience them again. The hatred in the eyes of those who should be our brothers and sisters but are instead our enemy. Firing our weapons at them and cutting them down during the riot in Baltimore. Seeing an army move over the landscape, destroying everything in its path, not by fighting but simply by trampling it with its sheer size and consuming every barrel of grain and every bit of livestock just to feed its hungry hordes. Seeing my closest friends slowly dying from disease and wondering asking them and not me.
I fear that this war, which we all thought would be over by last spring, is going to be far more destructive than anything we might have imagined. I can only look around at the ocean of men stretching out in all directions to the horizon to tell me that. I fear that I have only had a glimpse of the horrors that are to come.
During all this time, the letters that you have written to me have sustained me. They are now a quite handsome stack and I carry them in a small leather bag that hangs over my shoulder. I can’t count how many times I’ve read each one of them. I read them in the morning when I awake. I read them when we are marching down a dusty road, I read them when we are resting on the side of the road and I read them by firelight before slipping into my tent and dreaming about you.
In all of the letters you’ve written to me, I’ve seen numerous references to my smile. It’s not something that I would normally think about myself, but you mention it when talking about that first dance we had, the smile I would greet you with when you came into my father’s store, and the smile you imagine I will have for you on the day I finally return home.
When you wrote about that smile, you told me how it made you feel, as if you were the most important person in the world for me and how special it made you feel that your presence alone could bring such joy. I’ll tell you now and forever that I was totally unaware that I was smiling and that it can only mean that it was simply a true and natural expression of how you make me feel.
There is a sense of joy and wonder that I feel. It is like that sense of joy and wonder that we find when we are out walking along a beautiful stream or through the woods. It’s that sense of wonder about all of Creation. And in addition to all those beautiful things that God has given the world, he also, for some reason that he alone knows, added you. I spend all my days and nights filled with joy and wonder that you exist, and I can’t imagine that living in a world that didn’t have you in it would be worth living.
In all the hardships that I have endured, and in all the hardships that I will endure, my faith has been and will always be tested. My faith in myself, my faith in our cause, my faith in humanity and ultimately my faith in all the world. It is the joy and wonder that that you bring to me, and that alone, that sustains my faith. In a world that is seemingly headed down a path of violence and destruction, your letters, and you yourself, tell me that no matter where we may be now and whatever may happen to us, the world is ultimately a beautiful and just place and that God’s covenant with us is enduring. I know this because he has given me you.
All my love,
Joshua
© 2020 – 2024, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.
]]>Excerpted from A Brief History of the Thirty-fourth Regiment by Lieutenant Louis N. Chapin (1903):
We come to the morning of December 11. At midnight before orders had arrived to be ready for a move at daybreak, and we were ready. While we are eating a hasty breakfast, we hear the sound of cannon from the direction of the river. We know the battle is on, though only the artillery is joined as yet, and none of our men are on the other side of the river. Soon we are moved down the valley and up back of the hills and Lacy House. The artillery is thundering from all the heights. But not a move until nightfall. One man wrote home at this time, “None of us can ever forget that artillery fight. It lasted for six hours. Fredericksburg was riddled. A pontoon bridge is in course of construction in front of the city on which our troops may cross, but the rebs don’t relish the idea of seeing that bridge built right under their noses, and the pontoon builders are having a red-hot time. As the dusk of the night gathers down, we are advanced toward the river, but the enemy on the heights across espy the move, and scour the plain, over which we are moving, with shot and shell. But, as has been remarked many times before, it takes a pile of lead and iron to kill a man. And so, thought rained on those heights as it once rained on cities on the plain, there are few casualties, notwithstanding there are thousands of our troops in plain view of the rebel batteries on the opposite side of the river. Finally, the Seventh Michigan, in boats, crosses to the other side, and cleans the rebs out of the houses and cellars along the river front, and straightway the bridge is finished; and in about the same time it takes to tell it, over pour the troops, horse and foot, into Fredericksburg town. The rebs are still hanging on, in some parts of the town, but they are soon cleaned out.It was a weird sight which met our gaze in the streets of the city. By the light of the burning buildings, thousands of men, many no doubt, with evil intent, made their way about. The heavy bombardment had made a riddle of the place. Many houses were shattered to pieces, and their contents scattered about in the streets. The inhabitants had fled. In one of the houses we entered, we noticed that a shell had come down through the roof into the parlor and exploded in the piano. The instrument looked as if it needed tuning. Again. We wrote to the Mohawk Courier immediately after the battle:
The city was on fire in numerous places, and every building was completely riddled with our shells. Piles of dead were lying on the corners, and every doorstep was a tombstone for some poor soldier who slumbered at its base. The gutters were red, and groans of wounded men stifled the very air. It was a scene which no man desires to behold but once.
We are all inclined, after forty-years’ interval, to take a somewhat rosy view of those far-off events; but that was what we wrote at the very time, and it isn’t very rosy but it’s true. Of course, there was a good deal of looting. The term has an ugly sound, and no American soldier likes to use it. But we are talking of a city whose inhabitants had fled, whose property was strewn through all the streets, the wanton waste and desolation and spoil of war. Many of the houses, some of the most pretentious in the city, had escaped without a scratch, but of course, they did not escape spoliation by the victorious soldiers.
All day Friday, the 12th, our army was gathering in and about the city. We were near neighbors to a watchful enemy, and we felt the advance shadow of what was impending. Down the length of every street frowned a dozen rebel guns. It is a queer sensation, living in a city with such dangerous neighbors, and so many of them. There was a second night, and it was a hit night in the old town. On Saturday morning, the ball opened for sure. The story of that dreadful slaughter, having been written in many purple testaments, need not be repeated here. For this is only the chronicle of one little regiment, and nobody will look to it for a comprehensive description of what has passed into lurid history as the Battle of Fredericksburg. The plan-less battle began just in the edge of the city, and near where we were lying. About nine o’clock the Thirty-fourth advanced to a position where the engagement was in plain sight, and there it stayed until some time in the afternoon, when the whole brigade advanced up to one of the streets running at right angles to the river, and filed into a field close under the bluff occupied by the rebels.
Here, again, we cannot do better than to quote what we wrote to the journal above referred to immediately after the retreat:
We suppose there were seven or eight thousand men massed under that bluff. Perhaps an inscrutable Providence could study out what this move was for, but your correspondent has never yet heard a decent theory stated. Scarcely two hundred feet away, on this bluff, was a rebel redoubt with a cannon behind it. An officer on a white horse was riding around giving orders. You may be perfectly certain he had from seven to ten thousand deeply interested spectators. Not a moment elapsed before there was a puff of smoke from behind the redoubt, and a shell from a six-pounder when screaming over our heads. It never hit a man. Another and another followed, with the same result. It was evident that the piece could no be depressed sufficiently to rake us without the muzzle hitting the front of the redoubt. Then this pale horse and his rider came out from behind the redoubt, and surveyed our position, and went back. Then four men took hold of the piece and rolled it out from behind the earthwork. It is said the judgement-day comes but once, and we all felt that it had come for us right then and there. It was a moment to be remembered forever. Now they have us for sure. The very next shot is sure to fetch us. Of all the thousands of men huddled there, every eye was fixed on that gun. The cannoneers take their positions, the process of loading and priming is gone through with, and then every head is bowed in silence, waiting for the awful messenger. It comes like the shriek of an incarnate demon, it plowed its way into our ranks, burying us all in the dirt. Another and another followed in rapid succession, each one bringing death and destruction into our ranks. The air is filled with groans and cries of mangled men. Every man of those thousands is clutching the earth and trying to make himself thinner. It is a good thing, at times, to be a spare man. No one, then, wanted to be fatter. The first shot fired, after the gun was moved out, passed directly over our company (K). The next, coming in exactly the same line, fell a little short, striking just ahead of us, and doing terrible execution. Then the orderly sergeant, Jim Talcott, lying by my side, and trying to make himself thinner, said, “Now, boys, it’s our turn.” And sure enough, with an ugly scream, that might have been heard up in Herkimer County, the next shot landed squarely in our company. Eery inch of the ground was covered with blue men, but this ugly auger bored a hole right through. Deep into the earth it went, and then exploded. Scarcely a man in the company but received some souvenir. And all this time we were compelled to remain inactive, not firing a shot in return. There was not a man on all that blue field but would have volunteered in an instant to dash up that height, and had there been someone in high authority to authorize it the movement, that one gun would have been silenced or captured in a moment. But, anyway, the slaughter was destined not to continue for long. All this time, from the north side of the river, far away, our own cannon were booming, and the moment this one piece was rolled out from behind the breastwork, it became the target for all our artillery. There was one gun on our side, miles up the river, that we had heard booming at intervals all day. It must have been a sixty-two pounder, and a moment after the third shot of which I spoke had be fired, there came the boom of this great gun. The great shot sped on its awful mission, over miles of river and valley, and hill and meadow, and came down fair and square on the top of this mischievous little six-pounder, and that instant exploded. The gun and carriage were destroyed, and all the men near it knocked out, including the white horse and his rider. Then all those ten thousand men rose and shouted with a great shout.
As soon as we could pull ourselves together, we began to look about, and take an account of our assets. They were a sorry lot. Poor Adam Moyer. He had just arrived from the north, a new recruit. This was his first touch of fire. Both legs were torn off, hanging only by the shreds. How short he looked as we laid him on a blanket with the stumps by his side. And little Andrew A. Smith, a sweet-faced boy, slender, but every inch a man; a leg and arm both gone. Both these died in a little while. As Andrew was being carried from the field he said, “Tell my mother that I died like a man.” It is strange how these boys always thing of their mothers at such a time. Lite the boy that was wounded back at Fair Oaks, and was taken prisoner, and to Richmond. All the long days he pined and wasted to a shadow, and died at last, though he had but a little wound, crying and calling “Mother, mother.” Poor Andrew Smith. At the battle of White Oak Swamp, when he had fallen with the heat and exhaustion of the march, still he would not give up, and rose, and went with the men into the fight. But now his time had come, for the bone was driven up into his body. And Corporal John Hurley, of Company I, dreadfully killed. And what a lot of maimed men, all about us. Lieutenant Ransom, with a badly shattered leg; he died a week later. And Lieutenant Finnegan is sow badly hurt, he has seen the last of his service with the regiment. Orlando Fosket, with a leg shot off; and William DeForest, and Alexander Comins, both, badly in the legs.
Other regiments around us suffered as much, if not more, than the Thirty-fourth, though none were more exposed. The battle continued all about us until fairly dark, and about midnight we were relieved by the Fourth Regulars of Syke’s brigade. The following day, Sunday, matters were comparatively quiet, likewise Monday the 5th. Monday night, near eleven o’clock, we were suddenly called into line, and to our surprise, we were marched back across the river, and two hours later we were in our old camp. Thus, ended the battle of Fredericksburg. Was it filly, or a blunder? Anyway, it was a butchery. And not one good thing was ever known to come of it.
Thirty-nine years after these events, the writer of this chronicle went back, and stood on that same spot, on that same field. The distance to the little redoubt seemed just the same, not more than two hundred feet away, scarcely that. Climbing up the little bluff and poking away the briers and brushes with had overgrown the place, was the same earthwork. The rains of all the years had not seemed to lower it a foot.
© 2020 – 2024, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.
]]>Below are two accounts the fighting in a place now known simply as “The Cornfield”:
REPORT OF COLONEL JAMES A. SUITER, THIRTY-FOURTH NEW YORK INFANTRY, OF THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM
Headquarters, Thirty-fourth Regiment, New York Volunteers, Battlefield near Sharpsburg, MD., September 20, 1862.
SIR—I would most respectfully make the following report of the battle of the 17th instant.
We lay in camp near Keedysville, MD, on the 16th instant. In the evening of that day I received an order to be prepared to march at daylight on the morning of 17th instant. In obedience to said order, I was under arms with my command, and so remained until the order was given to move, which was about 7:30 o’clock A.M. We moved in a northwesterly direction. Having arrived within about one and a half miles of the battlefield, where General Hooker’s forces had been engaged with the enemy, we were formed in line of battle by brigades, Gorman’s to the front, First Minnesota Regiment on the right, Eighty-second Regiment New York Volunteers second, Fifteenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, third, and my command, Thirty-fourth Regiment New York Volunteers, on the left General Dana’s brigade formed the second line, and General Howard’s brigade formed the third line. We were moved at double-quick. Arriving near the battlefield, we were moved by the right flank through a piece of timber land (the East Woods—ED.) in three columns. At this point we were considerably crowded, the three columns occupying an extent of not more than forty paces from our left to the right flank of General Howard’s brigade, the Seventh Regiment Michigan Volunteers being crowded in my ranks, causing considerable fusion.
Arriving at the open field, we were again ordered in line of battle, being still at double quick. We moved over this field to the pike road leading to Sharpsburg. Front this was a piece of timber land [the West Woods] into which I moved my command, still at double-quick, arrive at about twenty yards in rear of a schoolhouse [the Dunkard Church], when I discovered the enemy under the hill. I immediately ordered my command to fire, which they did in gallant order.
From some cause to me unknown, I had become detached from my brigade, the One hundred and twenty-fifth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers being on my right. On my left and rear I was entirely unsupported by infantry or artillery. The enemy were in strong force at this point, and poured a tremendous fire of musketry and artillery upon me. At this time, I discovered that the enemy were making a move to flank me on the left. Lieutenant Howe arriving at this time, I informed him of my suspicions. He replied that he thought they were our friends. Lieutenant Wallace, of Company C, proposed going to the front to make what discovery he could, which I granted. He returned, saying that the enemy were moving upon my left flank with a strong force. I turned and discovered Lieutenant Richard Gorman, of General Gorman’s staff, and requested him to inform the general that the enemy were flanking me. He immediately returned for that purpose. Presently, General Sedgewick arrived upon the ground. Moving down my line, he discovered the situation of my command, and that the point could not be held by me, and gave the order for me to retire, which I did. Rallying my command, I formed them in line battle, supporting a battery of some 400 yards in rear of the battlefield.
In this engagement the casualties were as follows: vis.: 32 killed, 109 wounded and 9 missing. Commissioned officers: 1 killed. 2 wounded, 1 taken prisoner.
In connection with this, I cannot speak in too great praise of my officers. When all acted gallantly, it is impossible to single out any. I would, therefore, say that all did well and behaved in the most gallant manner. Of Major Beverly I would say that he was invaluable to me, in assisting me on the left of my line in the most trying time. Of my color sergeant I cannot speak in too high turns. He (Sergeant Charles Barton) had carried the banner through all the battles in which we had been engaged while on the peninsula without receiving a wound. Here it was his fate to be struck five times, and when he was compelled to drop his colors, he called on his comrades to seize them and not let them fall into the hands of the enemy. This was done by Corporal G. L. Haskins, who nobly bore them from the field.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
JAMES A. SUITER
Another account comes from Lieutenant H. W. Sanford of Company E, as it appeared from his standpoint, from the time the regiment issued from the East Woods:
Rushed forward at the top of their speed in broken order, one company in rear of the other, out of breath and almost fainting, Company E was brought to the very summit of the ground, to the left of the lane leading to the “Dunkard Church.” From this point could be seen the shining bayonets of the enemy then forming on the east of the pike and south of the church. This was evidently unheeded by the officers in command, as the order, forward run, was still repeated by aid and staff of the commanding general. The enemy was not in large force, protected by a ledge of rocks, west of the pike and in rear of the Dunkard Church. In less than five minutes after the regimental line had been formed, five of Company E lay dead or dying, almost within touch of each other. The hast with which this advanced position as taken, opened a space of a one-half mile between the left of this line and the next line of Federal troops. This fatal error had no sooner been committed than it was taken advantage of by the Confederates, by moving through that open space and to the rear of our line. This it was, when we had altogether the worst of the position, and were engaged by those in our front at short range, we found ourselves flanked and enfiladed by a vastly superior force. Surrender or death seemed to be the only thing in sight. To secure liberty the “cornfield” must be re-crossed, over the bodies of the dead and dying, not in the route we had come, but by a circuitous course, in the face of a destructive fire of musketry at short range. It is a mystery that will never be solved, how it was possible for anyone to pass through such a death-trap and live to record the fact. Many of the men fell from exhaustion, and were swept beneath the wave, like the undertow of the ocean beach. The writer of this sketch fell but a rod or two in front of our battery, and within about the same distance from the charging foe. Our artillerymen were waiting, with cannon charged with grape and canister, to uncover the enemy so that they might not slaughter their friends. Shot after shot was fired in quick succession full in the face of the foe, opening wide gaps, at every discharge, and sending fragments of men into the air, in all directions, adding rivers of gore to a field already deeply dyed by the blood of both armies. Probably there was never a time known in the history of modern warfare where so many were slain as upon that consecrated ground on that 17th day of September 1862. Surely, the demon of death must have been fully satiated. Company E lost more than half it’s men present for duty. While several were with in the enemy’s lines, and were prisoners, only one remained and was taken to Richmond.
© 2020 – 2024, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.
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