God knows I do not remember how I came to wake in the field by the river. It had been many days journey from the estate in Western Virginia, down the Blue Ridge mountains and into the foothills of Greenville District. What I do remember is that the moment I woke was one of the last moments of peace I would know for quite some time. I did not yet know that the Southern way of life as we knew it was ending. What I knew was that the sun was still shining down upon the fields of South Carolina, and the river still flowed down in the gully beside me, restless in its pursuit of the ocean. A certain restlessness haunted me as well, a desire to find the life of that American Dream, one might think? No, I had something to prove. What it was that I was yearning to prove was not yet clear to me.
What I did know is that I had labored hard at my studies, yet I found the success I gained to be unrewarding at best. There was something gnawing at me… a frustration that I could not quite define. The fact was is that I was unexceptional. I was tired of trading on other people’s names.
I was long an adult and yet I felt like a child, still questioning the way things were, still trying to find my way. I felt far too old for my life, and tired of chasing what seemed like petty goals. Where was the real action? How did a man come to do things of true consequence?
White beards kept gathering in the halls and the churches, going on about such high minded notions as states’ rights and the threat of sectionalism. Back home the Tidewater whites were up in arms about the question of Negro Rights and the survival of the Southern way of life, while folk further into the mountains were concerned about the costs of helping rich slaveholders line their pockets. Since the election, South Carolina had already voted to succeed but as of yet no other state had chosen to follow.
Meanwhile, the mild mannered Buchanan had already declared that the Federal government lacked authority to prevent a state from succeeding. As President, he had made clear that he would not use force against states who attempted to succeed. He sought to negotiate. When the State of South Carolina declared its withdrawal, some thought it was decided… some thought that the union had ended.
What could Lincoln do other then sneak into the Capital and hide? No one was going to take up arms against Columbia. Why would they? The Northern cities had no appetite for a war over that which was called the Peculiar Institution!
I had only been in the town but a few days, having traveled to the aid of my father, who had gotten in a spot over his unpopular opinions. He had managed to cross so many people over the years it was no small wonder he was still alive and though they said that I took after my mother I suspected I had merely learned to better hide my opinions after years of observing my father express his.
I came down from Middlebourne of Tyler County, Virginia, doing so only with great hesitation and anxiety of the calamity around me and the danger into which I was descending, for my fellow Virginians were mighty torn about the question of succession. There was very little appetite for leaving the union, especially in the western part of the state away from the tidewaters. My father had always been a trader, and took great pride in his reputation as a merchant, while at the same time abhorring the peculiar institution on many accounts.
In February, the succeeded states met in Alabama to form a new country. By the time Lincoln entered office, the Confederate States of America had seized all major federal forts and property within its boundaries excluding fort Pickens in fl and Sumter in Charleston Harbor.
The sun was shining brightly and nearby a mill wheel turned in the water. In the distance I could hear faint signs of life, and the wind rustled the trees gently. The river was quiet, but fairly shallow beneath the banks. The trees and bushes were green around a dirt road that cut towards the mill. A sign hung by the road, reading in large letters “Parkins Mill”.
My father had summoned me from the small house he called a plantation, though it had not hands nor slaves to work the ground, and the ground itself, like much of the western part of Virginia, was not particularly hospitable to seed. For a time before he had turned all of his productive energy to trading (A livelihood that barely kept the bill collectors satisfied), He had styled the place as a ranch. He even hired a couple of riders for a short time, though they never had more then four cattle to tend to. I’m not quite sure why he returned to calling it a plantation, other then some misplaced sense of Southern pride.
My father was a strange man indeed, and there were more then a few who would assert that his only son was even stranger still. Yet, he had seen to it that I was educated, and though I had not always taken to the pursuit with the enthusiasm of my peers, I had recently finished said education having learned a great deal of literature, but particularly the study of contracts and numbers. I was eager to make something of it, and less then thrilled at being called so suddenly down South, especially with all the excitement stirred up in government. It did not seem wise to attract too much attention at a time such as this, but such concerns were never high on my father’s list.
Yet he had summoned, and therefore I had locked up the estate and left it under the watchful eye of the neighbor, his onetime partner and periodically his friend, though they feuded from time to time. I only wished I knew the reasons we were sticking our necks out this time. Yet His letter was uncharacteristically formal and cryptic.
Joseph,
Events have transpired to force my hand. I regret our recent quarrels, but you must come and extricate your sister from this place. Come to Greenville Courthouse and seek out the men of faith, then the men of letters. Not the one before the other. Take every precaution that I cannot.
Father
The fact that he neglected to even mention my brother at all, the youngest of the family, was perhaps the strangest detail.
Somewhere nearby a horse whinnied, and my heart quickened as I realized I wasn’t alone. Before I could move, rough hands grabbed my arms and hauled me up and over the bank. I flailed at the air as I fell several feet and landed in the river below. Hoots and Hollers rang out as I thrashed in the water. I had not had much occasion to practice my swimming, though the water couldn’t have been more then a slow moving five feet. The water was dark with mud and lined with stalks of reed. Not more then 30 feet up the river from me stood the mill.
The water had the most peculiar smell, and flowed in a gully no less then 5 feet tall. In later years so many factories and mills spouted along that river that they started calling it various names like the Rainbow River due to the chemicals that were dumped or the River of Death due to the amount of raw sewage that flowed from the sewers. Yet it was named for the reeds I found myself becoming acquainted with.
As I paddled towards the bank I saw two men standing by the river, a tall thin one with a long face and a beard and a shorter, stouter fellow with a mustache. The thin fellow was grinning and made a comment to the other, who guffawed and slapped his knee.
I finally reached the muddy bank and pulled myself up the bank from amongst the reeds. I had barely time to catch my breath when a gunshot rang out, freezing me in my tracks.
“Now old on there, feller.” Said the thin fellow, his arm holding a long barreled revolver in the air.
Reluctantly, I drew my hand away from my side arm, suddenly noticing the metal stars pinned to their chests. It made no difference how fast I moved. My pistol was dripping wet, and the powder had likely flooded. Anyhow, the pistol shot was attracting eyes, eyes that bore me no kindness.
The stout man stepped towards me, picking up my hat from the grass and brushing it off, extending it forward with a gentle smile.
The thin man wasn’t smiling. “There’s some people that have taken an interest in you, seeing how you’s not from around these parts. You’re coming with us, friend.”
