Blame
“After we lost Stonewall at Chancellorsville,” Grandpa went on, “we tied on black arm bands and fought at Winchester under General Walker. The town celebrated our comin’, but Fred’s face hung lower’n shoe leather. Wouldn’t talk ta nobody, not even me.”
“He was mourning,” I say, “like we are for Mama’s baby.”
If he hears my words, it doesn’t show. “On July first, we marched ta Gettysburg, more’n twenty-five miles. The battle’d gone on since mornin’. We was s’posed ta join it, but they kept us in camp all night.”
He stands, his toes against the fire ring, his eyes ablaze with the fire’s light. “July second, I lined up aside Fred. Orders said run the Yankees off the hill. Afore we marched, Fred looked me up and down. Said to me, ‘Ya gonna kill ‘em this time? I seen ya back in Winchester, missin’ them Yankees on purpose. Ya shame me. If’n ya don’t kill ‘em, ya ain’t my brother no more.’ Them’s the last words I heared from my brother who’s dearer ta me than life. Them final words’a contempt.”
Grandpa gazes into the last of the sun that still hangs in orange layers beyond the trees. He speaks in that young soldier’s voice. “I’ll do it, Fred. I’ll kill me some Yankees. I’ll make ya proud.” His chin drops to his chest and his eyes go to the toes of his mud-spattered boots.
“I try. I surely try. Fer Fred. But I cain’t kill nobody.” He lets out a sigh with a sob hanging on the end of it like a hiccup. “When we come off that hill, Fred was dead.”
Grandpa turns to me. With the fire behind him, his face is dark, and that young soldier’s voice grows old again. “Know why I didn’t go to that Camp? Why I didn’t have no tom-fool badge? I didn’t deserve ta be with them loyal veterans. Fred deserved that. I never signed up fer the Reunion official-like. I didn’t let West Virginia pay my way on account’a I didn’t earn it. I might’a stayed with the army, but in my heart I was as much a deserter as the ones they shot.”
When he turns back to the fire’s light, Grandpa’s face looks older than I’ve ever seen it.
I choke out words. “Lots of soldiers didn’t kill anyone.”
“Might be some never got the enemy in their sights, but I sighted up plenty. I just didn’t kill ‘em.” He puts another log on the fire and watches it succumb to the flames.
“I reckon,” I say, “some of the Yankee veterans at the Reunion were only there on account of you didn’t kill them. They lived to have young’uns and grandbabies. You ought to be glad you didn’t end someone’s family.”
“But I did.” The words are a mere whisper. “I ended our family. If I’da been a proper soldier, might be I’da kilt the Yankee afore he kilt Fred. Or might be if I didn’t get Fred so dang riled, he’da been more careful on that hill.”
“Those are right sizable mights.”
“If I wasn’t so set on follerin’ Fred, I coulda stayed home and helped Pa. Might be with me there, he would’a thunk our house was safe from Union marauders, not sent Ma and the girls off, kept ‘em safe from typhoid. Even without Fred, my three sisters could’a kept the branch a-goin’. I couldn’t kill a Yankee, but my whole family died on account’a me.”
I shake my head. “And I suppose you were to blame for losing the war, too.”
Grandpa circles the fire. “I lost ever’thin’ in that war. Lost the War. Lost my family. Couldn’t even bring Fred’s body home ta be buried with Rebecca and t’others. I lost that, too.
I met a young man today, though he has not been that young man in many years. You knew him as the brother who always followed you, even to war.
He blames himself for a slew of things, but I blame you, too. He wanted to be beside you, to have your love and respect. You took that away and left him with nothing. Did you still love him when he disappointed you? He disappointed me, and I still love him. But you didn’t get a chance to make it right, and he’s lived with that for fifty years.
Going back to Gettysburg had to be hard for him. He knew the haints the two of you left would be waiting. He went anyhow, all to find me a husband to carry on the branch he feels blameful for ending. How can I hold that against him? My anger with him is gone, but I don’t reckon I feel the same about you right now, Uncle Fred.
Virginia Lee Kent
