And Dream Such Dreams
Lee Allred
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 Rookhouse Inc.
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Dedication of the 20th Maine Monuments at Gettysburg
October 3, 1889
Joshua Chamberlain read from the last page of his speech.
"We know not of the future," he concluded, "and cannot plan for it much. But we can hold our spirits and our bodies so pure and high, we may cherish such thoughts and such ideals, and dream such dreams of lofty purpose, that we can determine and know what manner of men we will be whenever and wherever the hour strikes, that calls to noble action."
The audience politely clapped and came up to shake his hand. The crowd milled about for a while until, as if on cue, they slowly melted away, leaving Chamberlain to stand silently alone.
The audience had not understood what it was he had been trying to say. Yes, today they might have listened what had been done here and clapped in all the right places, but tomorrow those deeds would quickly fade from memory.
He had tried to frame the words that would make them understand what had happened here, but for all his supposed classically trained skill at rhetoric and oration, he had failed. Here on the site of his greatest success, he had failed.
"Mr. Chamberlain, sir?" the young man from the Dedication Committee prompted, hesitant to disturb him. "Shouldn't we be getting down off the hill ourselves? I believe there's a luncheon prepared, and there's still tonight's festivities—"
"He would have a found a way." Chamberlain said, not specifying who he was, as if the young man should know without being told. "But he is gone. He is the one who died, and I am the one who lived."
The young man, clearly not understanding, tried again, "The luncheon—"
"It was many, many years after the war until Hays told me what that had happened."
"Sir—"
"'We do not know the future.' He knew," Chamberlain continued. "He knew before he ever left, knew standing on the back of that train. He told them in words plainer than any I've ever been able to fashion that he was not coming back."
His voice dropped to a whisper. "Parainesis of the living, Epainesis of the dead."
***
I stood on the back of the train and looked out over the faces of my Springfield friends and neighbors one last time before I left. They wanted to hear the farewell from a President-elect. I could only give them a good-bye of plain ol' Abe.
My friends, I said to them, here I have lived a quarter of a century, have passed from a young man to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return.
I walked back into the train car they'd given us. Mrs. Lincoln and the children were waiting for me. I noticed crepe curtains on the window. Mother, I said to Mrs. Lincoln as I fingered them, black is a strange color for curtains on a train.
But Father, she said, looking at me sharply. The curtains are red.
***
John Hay's Diary
June 28, 1863
Lincoln quite morose tonight from the news that Robert E. Lee has pushed past Hooker, heading north into Maryland, perhaps even Pennsylvania. All we can do now is pray our Army will somehow stop him this time.
At least Lincoln has replaced that blowhard Hooker. George Meade's in command now, but will he be enough? I cannot help but fear Meade will only turn out to be another Burnside, another Hooker, another McClellan.
Lincoln shares my fear, I think, but even before the news he was troubled. I saw him this morning at his desk, even earlier than usual. His hair was mussed, his feet still in slippers, his hands absent-mindedly whittling a stick. When I walked in, he looked up and I knew at once that look in his eyes.
What dark dream was it this time?
***
I told Johnny about my new dream. He humored me, but I reckon he didn't believe me none, any more than he's believed me about any of the other dreams. He suggested in that college-boy way of his to recollect I'm President, not Pope. Reckon so, reckon so. The Almighty might be sending these dreams to the wrong feller. The dreams, though—they're real enough.
This new one was a might different than the others, No death, no destruction, no railroad car at Springfield. Just the inside of a schoolroom. Some sort of boy's college. Tidy little buildings of red brick. Respectable, not rough-hewn like me.
A framed portrait of President James Buchanan hung on the wall. That's how I knowed it was a dream of the past. Nobody these days would hang a picture of Old Buck up on a wall, not even Mrs. Buchanan.
From what I could tell from the way the fellers in the dream talked, this school was up in New England somewhere. Trees and mountains out the window. Maine, maybe.
Anyway, this professor feller was teaching rhetoric and oratory, going on at length about the ancient Greeks. The books he was reading from were all written in little squiggles. Greek it was. Never studied it myself —not much call for it on the Prairie —but I've brushed up agin it often enough that I can recognize it when I see it.
A harmless dream on the surface, yet it worries at me like a dog with a bone.
***
John Hay's Diary
July 1, 1863
News of a big scrap up in Pennsylvania. Lee collided with the Army of the Potomac in a sleepy little hamlet called Gettysburg. Entire city here in a panic.
Curious the way Lincoln reacted to the news this time, though. I remember how he fell to pieces after Chancellorsville. "What will the country say?" he cried out then. Today, though, Lincoln read the telegram without saying a word. He just went into his office and latched the door behind him.
A few minutes later he emerged. His hangdog look was gone. Instead, his face was as cool as block ice in a Vermont blizzard. Calm. Serene.
Lincoln's confident mood lasted the rest of the day. I just wish it were contagious. Heaven knows, I have a valise packed, just in case—and one for Lincoln as well (although I imagine he would put up a fuss if he knew).
***
John Hay's Diary
July 3, 1863—p.m.
Meade did it. I hardly dared hope, but he did it. For the first time in this war our Army of the Potomac beat Robert E. Lee. Perhaps this war might actually end.
And yet, when the War Department handed Lincoln the telegram, I thought Lincoln would "whoop and holler" as he puts it, but instead he hardly even glanced at it, as if he already knew its contents.
I just do not understand him at times.
The one thing Lincoln did seem to react to was the news that General Sickles, one of our many politicians playing army, had been gravely wounded. Lincoln said, I reckon I ought to go see him. No shrewd political calculation in his voice at all, just honest kindness for a man who has not always done Mr. Lincoln right.
***
I don't know why I told Sickles what I did when I visited him a couple days after the Gettysburg battle. Even started walking away from him but then paused and turned back around. Don't know why, really. Maybe it was his pain. Maybe it was my own pain. Reckon I'll never know. But it came over me all of a sudden to tell him. Seemed important somehow.
So I told him. Told him I went to my room that day the battle had started and I got down on my knees before my Maker. I had tried my best to do my duty but found myself unequal to the task. The burden was more than I could bear. I prayed, I begged. Give us victory now.
And suddenly I was sure. I rose up off my knees without a single doubt as to the outcome of the battle.
I didn't tell Sickles all of it, though. Not my bargain! That part I kept wrapped up in my heart as where it ought to stay. But I told Sickles the rest.
Then, caught up in the emotion of the event, I reckon, I reached down and patted the flat spot in the blanket where Sickles' leg should have been. I told him to get well, as if words alone could heal.
But then, I have always believed they could.
I have always believed they could.
***
John Hay's Diary
November 17, 1863
Saunders, the man who planned the cemetery grounds and designed its layout, paid a call on the President today. I cannot believe it. A national cemetery designed by an Agriculture Department. How Europe must be laughing at us.
***
It's been four months since Gettysburg and yet my thoughts are never far from it. I dreamed of it again last night. The battle and my professor.
In this new dream, he wasn't wearing his specs. No fancy college robes. He wore Union blue instead, the uniform of an officer, a colonel. And he was there on a slope of a small rocky hill. His men were out of bullets and Lee's men were coming up the slope fast and hard.
My dream-self flew high above the entire battle sprawled across the countryside like a giant fishhook. My professor stood at shaft's end—the very end of the Union line. If he gave way the entire Union Army and the entire Union cause—would give way and be lost. And my professor must give way. No hope for it.
And then he yells to his boys and orders the bayonet…