An Indiana Jayhawker
“When Johnny comes marching home, hurrah, hurrah”, Ted sang to himself as he walked the last few miles to his house. “We’ll him a hearty welcome then, hurrah, hurrah”. He would need a hearty welcome after months of fighting in Western Kentucky. “The men will cheer, and the boys will shout!”, he sang loudly before his thoughts returned to that dreadful place and its inhumane sights and bloody scenes and monstrous people and, and – “the ladies they will all turn out!”, he finished, coming to a stop before his house.
A little head peaked out from the second-floor window, the eyes of the boy widening in surprised joy when they landed on Ted. “Mom! Mom! Ted’s here! Ted’s here!”, he cried, jumping a few times before the window before rushing away from it. In a blink, the boy was downstairs, launching himself at his chest. “Ted, oh it’s you Ted, it’s you!”, he babbled, clutching his blue jacket. “Yeah, it’s me Laurie”, Ted replied cheerfully, his arms coming around the boy and lifting him. Mother and Father then came to the door. Mother collapsed into his arms, planting kisses on his cheeks as she sobbed. “Finally home! My boy’s home, thank the Lord!”
After both Mother and Laurie had clutched him for a good while, Father came. His hug was brief, his words succinct, but the red rim around his eyes was unmistakable. “Welcome home, Theodore”, he said, his hand resting on his arm. “I didn’t think the Army would let you come home already. I thought they’d make you wait till your three years were over.” Ted gave a half shrug before replying. “General Schofield, before leaving for Tennessee, offered us furloughs. I think he hopes we’ll return before the next campaign, and since not much action is expected in the winter it was safe to let us go”. Mother became panicked at this. “Oh Ted, please don’t say you will return!”, she pleaded. Return? To Kentucky with its rebels, and its guerrillas, and its raids, and its massacres and its – “Ted, dear?” He shook his head and plastered a strained smile on his face, “No Mother, I won’t”.
The commotion at the Philips house of course alerted the neighbors. Louisa, the young Rogers girl, came down her house stairs and called out in her sweet voice, “Molly, your soldier boy’s home!” before rushing towards him. A mature woman came after her, “Louisa, don’t tease your sister!”, she admonished before coming to Ted. “Oh, Teddy, I’m so glad to see you at home!”, she said as she clutched him in her arms. “My little Molly was sick with worry about you. She waits anxiously for your letters. Why don’t you write more often? If she doesn’t hear from you in a week, she gets frantic with worry! She thinks a rebel’s got you and-” that you’ve had your throat slit like John, or been hung in a tree like Greg, or have been decapitated like Edward or “-you’re wounded somewhere, you don’t know how much that scares her!”
Just then Molly came down the stairs. She’s evidently been fussing with her hair, not expecting him to come so soon. But perfect hair or not, seeing her was like a balm for his soul. She was beautiful, and her smile was the first real ray of light he had seen in all those colds (
bloody) winter months. “Ted!”, she cried, and sank into his arms. His mother and hers both looked disapprovingly at this open display of affection but said nothing. Father just smiled, and when it seemed like Mrs. Rogers was about to say something he leaned in. “Please, ma’am, the boy’s been out to the war for months. Surely a little lack of decorum can be pardoned this time?”, he said kindly. And she seemed to agree, for she stepped back and allowed Molly to hug him as if it were the last time (
and it very well might be).
The Rogers and the Philips spent the afternoon together. They shared coffee and laughs and it was almost like before the war and its bloodletting. Except that it was not, for the shadow of war loomed over them. Or did it loom only over Ted? Was it only him that grew grim when a comrade that had fallen was mentioned? Was it only him that felt a cold shiver when the rebel guerrillas were mentioned? Was it only him that couldn’t breathe and wanted to run away when Mrs. Rogers mentioned that some rebels had been seen in Southern Indiana? He remembered what had happened at that contraband camp, and suddenly his mind was torn by the images of Father and Laurie put to the knife and Molly and Louisa at the mercy of marauders like that Negro woman and her daughter when Ted
just hadn’t been fast enough and- “More tea, dear?”, Mother asked. “Yes, please”, he replied, the pleasant smile returning to his face.
He excused himself (“Oh, it’s just the march that’s got me exhausted, Mother!”) and went up to his room. Molly followed him, and of course it was unseemly because they were engaged but not married yet. But Mrs. Rogers allowed it again, perhaps thinking of all those girls who were left pinning for a sweetheart that would never return. The curve of her lip made it clear that there would be hell to pay if they stayed too long together, so they better hurry. He kissed her like it’s the last time (
and it very well might be) and then renewed the vows he made when he first enlisted in the Army, even if those words felt empty and meaningless after the things he had seen. “Promise me you will write more often”, she begged, and of course he promised it, because her letters were his only source of comfort. But he feared it was a vain promise, since sometimes it was just too hard. He'd pick up his pencil and wouldn't be able to write about Southern vistas or complain about hardtack when his fingers were trembling, and his breathing was uneven after yet another raid.
He couldn’t sleep for hours. The bed felt uncomfortable compared with his tent, and as he stared at the ceiling, he could only think of how easy it would be for a marauder to light up their house. He should know, after all he and his comrades have burned many houses throughout Western Kentucky in their attempts to burn out the hornets. He didn’t enlist because he wanted to burn houses and steal food and kill people, but because war was glorious, and he thought he would look dashing in that blue uniform at his wedding with Molly. Maybe some rebs enlisted for the same reason? Maybe the man he had shot after he tried to keep Ted from setting his house in fire was once a boy that just wanted to impress his sweetheart?
Guilt coiled in his gut and was quickly stamped out. That man was a traitor, and if a rebel woman is crying for him she deserves it. How many rebel women feed and sheltered the guerrillas that would then go and kill Union men and boys and defenseless darkies? Ted remembered the first time he had been tasked with cleaning up a rebel town. He had been sick at the idea at expelling civilians at gun point, but his commander said they had been helping guerrillas. Still, they were just innocent women and children! Then, his regiment passed through a forest where at least twenty freedmen were hung like macabre Christmas decorations. The next time he partook in the arson, Ted did not feel sorry. He didn’t care if people back home were crying for them. People were crying for John, but that didn’t stop the guerrilla from cutting his neck open in the dark of the night and-
“Ah!”, Ted screamed, getting to his feet, and trying to put some distance between him and the attacker. He patted his pockets, feeling for the knife that he had learned to have on him all the time. “A rebel! A rebel!”, he screamed, hoping the battalion would rally to deal with him. Maybe he was the guerrilla that slit John’s throat and had almost cut Ted’s. That must be it, he came back to his tent to finish the job, the stab wound Ted had inflicted not being enough to kill him. But this time he wouldn’t escape, this time Ted would, he would… “Ted, for God’s sake!”, a female voice cried, and it couldn’t be the Negro woman that washed their clothes because
she was hung up in that forest but – “Oh God Ted! Please!”, the voice cried again, and suddenly he saw that it was Mother.
They didn’t tell anyone about that incident. “Just a nightmare”, he and Mother would say, but Laurie’s scared face and Father’s concerned eyes said they didn’t believe it. “War Madness”, Yankee doctors had started to call it that, but that couldn’t have afflicted a real brave man like Ted, could it? The empty smile remained on his face as they spent another day pretending everything was fine. Molly came over and they talked of the wedding, but it all felt so useless and unimportant.
He felt useless. What was he doing drinking tea and laughing at stories he didn’t even hear when comrades down South were being killed? As soon as the furlough was over, he’d reenlist, he decided. “A rebel, a rebel!” someone suddenly cried, and Ted almost jumped up and grabbed his rifle and rushed to the banner, but he was not at camp but at his house. The cry had been real, however, for everyone reacted. They rushed outside and saw a man surrounded by a mob.
“I’m no rebel!”, the terrified man screamed at the mob drew nearer. “Don’t lie! We found these papers, you’re a Copperhead! Want the guerrillas to come here and kill us? Do you want that?”, demanded Mr. Howard, the town’s butcher and the leader of the local Union League. “No! No!”, he cried, “don’t listen to Howard, he’s lying! I’m no rebel!” Howard only got angrier. “But you’re a Chesnut, aren’t you?”, he demanded, and continued when the man nodded with a gulp. “That’s equal to a traitor for me! Didn’t you and your friends slaughter the people of New York!” Howard said, and the mob let out a yell in response. “Didn’t you and your friends raid those towns near the border last month?”, he added, and the mob let out another yell.
A raid! That’s the raid Mrs. Rogers had been talking about, the one where some guerrillas crossed from Kentucky into Indiana and killed dozens of men and boys and robbed at least three towns. And that man, that
dirty Copperhead, helped them! Ted rushed to the street, where the people parted upon seeing his blue uniform. Mr. Howard smirked at seeing him. “Look, the hero of the town! Aren’t you afraid reb? Here’s a soldier to deal with you!” Ted didn’t pay attention as the mob cheered him and Howard shook his hand, he only focused on the man. He looked pathetic, so terrified and shaking. But so did all rebels when the Union Army caught with them, even after laughing and cheering when they looted, burned, and killed just a few days before. And Ted knew how to deal with such men.
“We ought to hang him!”, he said, the begging of the man silenced by the bloodthirsty screams that ensued. “I’ve seen what these men can do if they are allowed to roam free!
Traitors must be exterminated!” At that moment, the mob went forward and seized the man, stabbing him and then lifting him to the lamppost, where he was given a strong hemp necktie like all traitors deserved. And the mob cheered, but Ted didn’t hear them, only watching the man as he bleed and suffocated. He remembered scenes from Kentucky, of burning towns, desecrated corpses and desperate people being cut down, and decided that it couldn’t happen there, not to Mother or Laurie or Molly. And in that moment, he decided he’d return to the Army to exterminate all traitors in order to protect them, not seeing how Mother and Laurie and Molly were crying horrified at the actions of the lynch mob he was leading.