Emma Barry Read Online Free PDF Page B

enlistment was in sight. At the ad hoc recruiting office, he sat with James Cook, who was to serve as the regiment’s captain, and O’Brien, the designated second lieutenant. If this conversation went well, he’d enter the army as a first lieutenant.
    “I believe in the cause for which we fight.”
    James nodded, his brows knit together. “
The
cause? The perfidy of the southern states? The honor and tradition of our great nation?”
    “No, the bondage of the slave,” Theo responded.
    “Don’t tell the recruits they’re fighting for that,” Henry said, gesturing across the room at the boys waiting to be examined by the doctor. “They’ll not believe you.”
    Theo knew this to be true. Inside every paper, he found a different rational for the conflict: pride, culture, economics, history, rebellion, and loyalty. For him, all those other reasons blurred into a background for the cause in which he placed above all others: liberty for enslaved peoples.
    He said as much.
    “So you’re an abolitionist?” Henry asked, tone guarded.
    Theo considered how Margaret might answer this question. To be an abolitionist required action. He had never acted. He had read, talked, and stewed. After a pause he replied, “I’ve done nothing to warrant the title. But I’m in sympathy with them.” This response seemed to ease the tension creeping into the conversation.
    James tapped his fingers on the desk. “You should know, Ward, that I very much disagree with the assessment of the war one sees in the papers. At West Point, I got to know many southern boys who have now departed from under the banner of the stars and stripes.” His eyes flashed in anger as he spat the words out. “The traitors won’t give up easily. This” — he waved at a box of uniforms behind him — “isn’t going to be a brief sojourn. Some happy adventure.”
    “I never thought it would be,” Theo replied. He recalled studying
The Iliad
while a young man at Yale. He could hear the words of King Priam, pleading with Achilles to give him the body of his son so it could be properly buried. Before this war was over, there would be thousands of Priams — thousands of mourning parents whom nothing could comfort.
    But that was the point, wasn’t it? For decades, he’d treated his political ideals as a game. Social reform had been a post-dinner conversation for him, nothing more. He hadn’t meant to. He’d taken his reading and the debates seriously. But he’d simply been unwilling or unable to
move
. The war changed the reckoning, however. If anything was going to force his hand, it was this moment. He could either commit now or give up entirely. If the latter, he might as well dig his own grave and lie down in it.
    It was a pity he hadn’t found his fortitude two years ago. There had been just enough abstraction in ’59 for him to hide. The slightest sliver of a chance of avoiding conflict had been enough. So he’d chosen inaction, or less chosen it than fallen into it as the easiest way of living. No longer.
    He wouldn’t blame Margaret a whit if she could never forgive him; he’d failed her repeatedly. At this moment, however, he had to find the strength within to forgive himself. Enlisting was a tangible step, a promise to himself everything was
not
going to go back to normal, and he was going to change. How to convince them?
    “To me, this war is … a chance. To live differently and more fully. I believe in the rightness of our cause as much as I’ve believed in anything. Give me this opportunity, and I won’t let you down.”
    James nodded. “Very well, Ward. As if we could turn you away.” They all laughed.
    Henry leaned across the desk and shook Theo’s hand firmly. “Welcome aboard. We’ll have a few weeks’ furlough to fill the rolls before we begin drilling. We’ll depart for Hartford at the end of next month.”
    “Good,” Theo said with a nod. “That will give a chance to wrap things up with my legal practice, with my