Part II: War

Chapter 12: Better Angels

            Crack!

            Reuben slung the bat behind him and dashed for first base. He looked up to see the direction of the ball as he ran. It was fair, but flying high. As it started on its downward trajectory, the man on third base ran towards it. His bare hands clapped on the leather-wrapped orb. Reuben was out!

            It was the end of the game. The Centerville Nine had easily defeated the inept Country Boys by a score of eight to zero. For most of the Country Boys, it was their first try at baseball, the game that had recently arrived from the East. They had thrown wildly, dropped balls, struck out, run into each other, and stood by helplessly as runners stole bases. In comparison, the Centerville Nine had worked together with military precision. Each man knew his position and how to react when the action came his way.   This hurt the farm boys, who considered themselves stronger and more agile than the lads from the city.

            One of the losing players opined that, “This baseball game don’t mean nuthin’ anyway. It’s just a fad. It’ll never catch on.”

            After the game, the captain of the Centerville team approached the Country Boys.

            “We didn’t do right by your team. We’ve been practicin’ and playin’ since last year. Thus far, we’ve had trouble getting together with other teams because they are so few and far between. The game would be more fun if we had a local team to play against.  We were thinking about that when we challenged you to field a team. It wasn’t fair that you had never even seen baseball played before. If you are up for another matchup, we’ll teach you the basics beforehand.”

            “That’d be fine,” said one of the Country Boys. “I’m itchin’ to settle the score, but this swattin’ the ball business has me dogged.”

            “Not a problem. We’ll pitch slow meatballs at first, so’s you can get your hand-eye coordination down. I noticed Ben here throws the ball straight and fast. Maybe we can turn him into a pitcher.”

            “That would sorta help. Maybe you could teach us how to keep from runnin’ into each other catchin’ them fly balls.”

            “Ha! That we can do. We can give you some pointers on where to throw the ball to get an out. We call that assistin.”

            The men agreed to meet after church the next Sunday for a joint practice session. The Country Boys hoped they would do better in the next game.

Before Sunday rolled around, the men from both teams had other things on their minds. There was trouble in the South. As it had threatened, South Carolina had seceded from the Union shortly after Lincoln’s election. Six more states quickly followed them in leaving the United States. They had formed a new government called the Confederate States of America. The North still had military posts in the region that had left the Union. The successionist government wanted them out. In most cases, the Federal troops packed up and left. But the Federals refused to give up Fort Sumter, which guarded the entrance of Charleston harbor. Lincoln wanted them to hold out, but didn’t want to start a war over the fort. The South Carolinians were trying to force the garrison to leave by refusing to let supply ships into the harbor. They brought up cannons to further intimidate the installation. The opposing forces stared across the harbor, daring the other side to make the first move. Everyone waited anxiously for one side to blink. Thus far, neither had.

The day had started as a pleasant Sunday afternoon in April. The prairie grass was greening, and crops were sprouting. Unfortunately, the crisp Spring air was filled with apprehension over the unfolding drama in South Carolina. That morning, Pastor DeLay had spoken of the nation’s peril. His sermon drew on the eloquence of the nation’s new president, Abraham Lincoln.

            “Our nation is divided, brother against brother. One holds to a peculiar institution that is abhorrent to the other. No voice of reason has yet been able to calm them. Prayer and fasting have not produced a resolution.  As Mr. Lincoln once said, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand…. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.’

            “For me, dear brothers and sisters, that means that the best way to end the abomination of slavery is to bind this great nation back together. If the seven southern states that have seceded are allowed to break up these United States, the institution of slavery will endure for many more years. Only if we restore our unity can we work together to end this crime against God and man. I join our president in beseeching the South to come to its senses. If they do, we, the people, can find the means to end slavery without causing economic harm to anyone, North or South. I believe in Mr. Lincoln’s call to our better angels.”

            ‘The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.’

            Reverand DeLay then delivered a fervent closing prayer for peace and reconciliation. It wouldn’t be easy, he remarked.

            The young men of Appanoose County had hoped to distract themselves from the nation’s blooming troubles by practicing the fundamentals of baseball that afternoon. It was all too clear, though, that the approaching storm was about to engulf all of them. One wrong move by either side in Charleston could plunge the country into the abyss of war. Despite their bold talk, the men of Appanoose County wondered if they would be up to the task if called. What was war really like?

They turned to Reuben for advice as they limbered up for the practice session. He alone among them had faced hostile fire in the Kansas Border War.

            “What are them Southerners like?” asked one of the men.

            “It’s hard to put them all in the same kettle,” answered Reuben. “There are plenty of good folks in Missouri who couldn’t care less about slavery. The ones from Little Dixie are different.”

            “Little Dixie?”

            “Yep, that’s the part of the state where they grow slave crops like tobacco, mostly along the Missouri River. There’s two kinds there. The rich ones have lots of slaves. The rest of them are mostly ignorant and poor. They can’t get ahead because they don’t get free labor from slaves.”

            “Seems like that would make them side with the slaves, not the big planters.”

            “You’d think so, but the only status they have is that they are better off than the slaves. The meaner sort of them become overseers and slave hunters.”

            “How did you manage to drive those reprobates outa Kansas?”

            “It wasn’t easy. There wasn’t a lot of advantage to owning slaves there. The place doesn’t favor the kind of big plantations that require slave labor. The Missourians mostly just came over on election day to stir things up. Those who settled there were not much different from us. Of course, there were exceptions, but the real troublemakers were sons of plantation owners from Little Dixie and the deep South. They managed to rile up some of the locals with high-falutin’ talk about the Southern way of life being threatened if Kansas went Free-Soil.”

            “How were they in a fight?”

            “They were mean buggers who liked to throw their weight around. If they couldn’t scare you off the land, they’d come ridin’ in at night and burn you out.”

            “That why you left?”

            “Partly. I thought we had the best of ‘em, but they wouldn’t give up as long as they could sneak up on you. We had a militia company that went after them every time they caused trouble. We gave ‘em more than they got. Sometimes we raided the wrong places, though. Mostly, we went after the right ones.”

            “What happened if you had a head-to-head fight with them?”

            “We had our Sharps rifles. That made them keep their distance. All they had was coon guns, mostly old muzzle loaders. Good for bushwhackin, but useless in a fair fight. We captured or ran them off every time we had a direct fight.”

            “How many did you kill?” asked a teenager.

            Reuben spat on the ground.

            “None that I know of, but I fired a few balls in the right direction. We were mostly out to put the fear of God in them. If they left us alone, we left them alone.”

            “You think there’s gwine to be a war?

            Reuben thought for a minute and spat on the ground. “Boys, you are supposed to be teachin’ us how to swat that ball.”

Index: Unbowed: The Saga of a Civil War Cavalryman- Unbowed: The Saga of a Civil War Cavalryman-Index – Outlaws, Outrages and Outright Lies