I find reflection time after what felt like an enduring labor stint, sitting back in the leather seat by my journal keeper. I casually open the drawer on an old handmade heirloom writing desk from colonial times. Inside lies a business card with a unique Victorian era drawing on it, displaying an elegant well-dressed lady surrounded by radiant birds, running through a multicolored flower garden, with the entire caption surrounded in a proud display of cypress limbs and Spanish moss. The rather catchy title arched in fancy bold script across the top is Etta's Place. The phone number listed is xxx-xxx-xxxx, with the words Call anytime. I'm always willing and ready to listen, written in antique text.
Seeing this again at Christmas time after all of these long years, really caused my mind to drift backward. I casually sip my holiday coffee as I nibble away on homemade cinnamon applesauce cakes, while totally losing myself in my own reflective thoughts. Might all of this hazy memory be only some type of opium tincture induced dream from way back when during my partying days? I silently ask myself repeatedly as I drift away into my own reflection.
Yes, Christmas is almost always a cheer filled occasion of the year for my entire family. The only exception must have been the year my grandfather on my mother's side turned a backhoe he was operating over on his head, then wasted away over a three-month period, while finally dying on a very rainy, gloomy December twenty third.
My brother and I had been on a grand deer and turkey hunt during the holidays of this specific year... I had also trapped seven otters, nine big bobcats, more than thirty raccoons, not to mention dozens of squirrels and rabbits. My cash take in this venture would round out at twenty-five hundred dollars, with fur prices being what they were back in that day. Our dedicated efforts also provided a majority of the meat the family consumed during the holidays, and beyond.
When Christmas day passed, we all enjoyed a community New Years celebration complete with another family feast, more packages received, always concluding with an all-night fireworks celebration. Without this fireworks display, the year going on simply didn't feel right. Think about it now... We've all made it through one more year into the next. Consider those many who didn't. I received a brand new twelve-gauge shotgun and four boxes of shells. My brother received a new Winchester falling block twenty-two. We were both very happy, as was everybody else to say the least.
Our final celebration at closure of every year was to motor into Happy Valley where the old Johnson family graveyard is, which once stood at the very center of the two-thousand-acre Johnson Plantation Estate. Here the entire family always paused in reflection of the past and those already long gone, who were such a huge participating part of every event back in those days passed by. The elders exchange stories handed down from the lives of those now long gone. The family veterans from the Revolutionary War were always dutifully honored first, with new colorful flower wreaths laid at the foot of their head stones.
Our greatest celebrations, however, were reserved for the graves of Confederate veterans, who endured far more negative travesty at the hands of Federal soldiers, than the Patriots ever did at the hands of the British... Here memories of these people, places dear to them and past events, didn't seem that far gone at the time. We pause beside one certain tall narrow headstone, with a cross at the top and large old English letters, CSA, underneath.
"There lies the grave of Jacob Johnson," Uncle James pointed down and said as he puffed hard on his briarwood pipe. "He fought on multiple fronts, from South Carolina, to Virginia, all throughout Tennessee, and back again."
"What did he tell you about these battles?" my brother asked.
"I was a young boy," said Uncle James as he leaned on his beechwood hook cane. "I might have been only seven or so when he died, but I still remember well. He told me the fighting was terrible. Luckily, he didn't have to go fight at Fort Fisher. Descriptions of hell pale in the face of that bloody final fight, not to mention the dreadful aftermath at the prison camp in Point Lookout, Maryland. Based on what he told me, what he experienced was enough hell for anybody, though."
"What did he tell you?" I asked.
"Well, they had shipped him out to Nashville Tennessee. By that time both armies were desperately low on supplies and greatly fatigued. Their uniforms had been worn over sweat drenched bodies for so long they had all dry-rotted. For several days both sides traded gun shots and cannon fire with one another, across wide fields surrounding Nashville. When their ammunition was finally exhausted, many took scrap leather and made slings, tossing virtual clouds of fist sized stones into the one another when they mistakenly found themselves bunched up out in the open. The Federal Army seemed to make this mistake far more than the Southern troops, so grandpa told me. The Southern troops joked among themselves, claiming killing Yankees was like killing possum.
"Finally, the stone and field crafted javelin tossing transformed into desperate hand to hand combat, fought with sticks, walking staffs, stones, knives, bare hands, and even teeth. With all of this physical activity the dry rotted uniforms simply shredded away, leaving soldiers on both sides stark naked and often barefooted. The Southern army was outnumbered by two to one. After more than two days and nights of solid fighting, the army was finally overwhelmed and overrun. Only sixteen thousand survived out of twenty-two thousand. "
"What happened then?" my brother asked.
"The Federal Army wouldn't allow the surrendered Southern soldiers to carry any supplies whatsoever, and certainly not any weapons," continued Uncle James. "Not even clothing and simple pocketknives were allowed. This meant that our grandfather, Jacob Johnson and many dozens more, were forced to walk back eastward totally naked, without any basic supplies whatsoever, and barefooted."
"What did he say they did?" my brother asked.
"They scrounged clothing and supplies from the dead. If it was only two sizes too big, then it was still good. Clothing that was too small could be ripped apart or cut with the edges of broken stones and worn like a poncho and or a kilt. This is what they did."
"What did he say was toughest to come by?" brother asked.
"Besides weapons, he said boots. Canned pork and beans or other preserved food came next," Uncle James said. "Grandpa told me one of the happiest days of his life was when he and his group found boots, side knives, salt pork and cans of pork and beans among a downed platoon of slain enemy men. As time went on they all found Federal uniforms faded by the sun until they turned almost gray. These they put on. By the time they discovered these, they had lost so much weight they could fit into almost any sized clothing for adults."
"Did they ever find any more weapons," I asked.
"Well, they made weapons. They had everything from river cane spears sharpened and fire hardened, to six-foot staffs, to slings, to slung shots, not to mention the side knives they found after some time spent searching. They even made fishhooks and caught fish from a nearby stream."
"Wow," I said, "what a story of survival. I take great pride in coming from the blood of ultimate survivors. Our enemies did us a favor by weeding out all of our bad blood. Only the best of genes makes it through the worst of situations."
"Well, then they walked from Nashville Tennessee, all the way back to Happy Valley here, where the old Johnson Plantation home still stands in the field over there," Uncle James told us.
"How long did it take him?" I asked.
"Three months or so," replied Uncle James. "When he finally made it back home the word passed down was that he was nothing but tattered rags, dried skin and bones."
There was an abruptly prevailing somber silence. Nobody said another word but simply gazed forward out upon the graves.
"I sure wish people like Aunt Suzy were still around," sighed Uncle James, "and then there is my mother over that way," he said as he pointed leftward toward the wood stand, "who I shall miss to the day I die. She has been gone since I was seven."
After what felt like hours, several of us would toss carnations and roses, then finally make our way back toward the parking area, one by one. After a long reflective pause, my brother and I walk over toward our little red Chevette. We slowly opened the doors and sat down in the seats.
"You know," says my brother suddenly, "this talk regarding history makes me want to experience some living history. What about you?"
"I don't know, "I reply with a shrug and a sigh. "We still have two weeks before work and school commence again. I suppose we could. What exactly do you have in mind?"
