Civil War Sergeant

By William P. Keim

Try to imagine that you are a young Union infantry soldier and that you are marching toward your hometown of Gettysburg to fight what is to become the greatest battle of the Civil War. Owen Young is doing just that. He has already tasted Union failures at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and now he must help to defend his own home against the forces of the seemingly indomitable Robert E. Lee.

Sergeant Owen Young is among the first infantry soldiers to face Lees army and to later repulse the famous Pickets Charge on the third day of the battle. His fighting is far from over as he participates in nearly all the battles fought by the Army of the Potomac until Lees surrender to Grant at Appomatox.

Owens best friend Jim Wright has a sister with whom Owen falls in love. Virginia Wright is very unlike the clinging vine types who are so often portrayed. Like Owens Abolitionist mother, she is strong as well as beautiful.

But there is mystery and romance in the story that are introduced in the Prologue and not solved until the very end of the novel. Civil War Sergeant is a fast-moving epic story of the GIs, the grunts, who did the fighting in the American Civil War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 9, 2001
• ISBN: 9780759660212

William P. Keim

Many of you may already have met William Keim when 1st Books Library last summer published his novel And Youth Was Gone, a highly autobiographical study of his own life in the military during World War II. Again, in Civil War Sergeant, William Keim takes one back to another war viewed this time from the mind of a sergeant who fought in that war. The author, a retired teacher and school superintendent, grew up in the small town of Meadville, Pennsylvania, where as a child, he often watched parades in which a few Civil War veterans participated. His memories of several childhood conversations with these old fighters led him to study that war with great care and to the writing of this novel. Like millions of veterans of World War II, where William Keim was a medic, he came home and was educated at Allegheny College, Penn State, Delaware and several other colleges through the famous GI Bill. He started his long educational career in 1949 and is happy to say that he still hears often from his former students, many of whom are now senior citizens, themselves. For William Keim, teaching was both a love and really full-time occupation. Outside of some professional writings about education, he had little time to write fiction – something he has always wanted to do. Retirement after ten years as an innovative school superintendent has offered that opportunity to write. He feels fortunate that he has been given the time to pursue a second career. He and his wife, who has Alzheimer’s, now reside in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. He currently is writing a third novel and taking care of his beloved wife who he feels deserves most of the credit for being able to pursue his careers.

Book preview

CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S PROLOGUE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

DIARY: JULY 10, 1913

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

To my wife Virginia, whose love

has enabled me to achieve my

life’s ambitions to teach and write.

AUTHOR’S PROLOGUE

Childhood memories often remain particularly vivid especially when one reaches what are called the mature years. So it is when I recall an automobile trip made with my father, grandfather and great grandfather in the summer of 1935 to Petersburg, Virginia. This Journey of the Four Generations, as we named it, starting from western Pennsylvania and going first to Gettysburg and then down along the Potomac River to Petersburg, is probably, as I look back on it, the momentous event of my young life.

The four of us, three men and a boy of twelve, left Meadville early in the morning of June 30, 1935, comfortably seated in my father’s LaSalle. Great grandfather Young and I occupied the rear seat. Whenever we reached a historic Civil War site, this former sergeant in the Army of the Potomac, his voice still deep and commanding, ordered my father to stop the car. He then climbed out and gave us a lesson in history, a living chronicle as he had experienced it over seventy years before. For emphasis, he often pointed out different sights with his cane, a device he used more for effect than out of necessity, as he was quite capable of moving about without it.

The first stop on our journey was in the town of Chambersburg. There, Grandfather Owen showed us where great grandmother Virginia lived on King Street. The wooden frame house was still there then but sadly neglected and about to be torn down. Surprisingly, this fact didn’t seem to bother the old man much, and he indicated that he had to accept the inevitable that houses, like people, aged. After a brief look at the house, he climbed back into the LaSalle, ready to go on to Gettysburg.

At Gettysburg, where he had been born late in 1844 and had joined the Union Army in 1862, at the age of seventeen, he showed us where he had first participated in that famous battle west of town and how he had retreated through the streets to Cemetery Ridge. There, near a clump of trees, still standing, he said, just as they had been seventy years before, he had taken part in the repulse of the famous Rebel charge led by General Pickett.

He suddenly smiled just a little, and added, I guess they may be the sons of those trees we saw then.

We moved on, stopping at many places in and around the town. With just a trace of water misting his blue eyes, he occasionally paused for short periods of time, conjuring up old memories. Sometimes, he commented about a building or house that he remembered, but when he stopped in front of the mill, that had been owned by his father and where he had worked as a boy, he was overcome and silent. It was as if the remembrances were too personal for comment, even to me, his great grandson in whom he often confided. He showed us the brick building on Middle Street, where his own father had owned a store, specializing in harnesses, farm implements, and flour, ground in the mill. His home, a short distance away, was now a vacant lot. He smiled as he told us how much he had enjoyed the fresh bread that his mother made every Thursday.

Maybe, it was the fresh flour from the mill that made it so good, he said wistfully.

East of town, at a place called Spangler’s Spring, he paused for several minutes.

Your mother and I once rode out here, he said to my grandfather, and we picnicked and talked about our future plans.

His eyes suddenly misted.

She was a beautiful woman, he commented.

For the rest of the time in Gettysburg, he said very little, as if the memories were too personal to share with anyone. I was disappointed that he didn’t say much about the battle in which I knew he had fought.

By contrast, however, a couple days later in Virginia, he described the Battles of the Wilderness and Fredericksburg so vividly that in my child’s imagination I could feel the cold fear generated by the Rebel yells as they charged through the smoke and fire. Not far from Appomattox, the place where General Lee surrendered to General Grant, he stared across a field and again retreated into his own thoughts. We all sensed that something profoundly moving had happened to him here, but not even I had nerve enough to inquire what it was.

At Petersburg, again, the old man, whom I loved perhaps even more than my own father, became silent and introspective, seeming to leave my grandfather, my father and me behind as he drifted away to times gone by. It was as if he had shut an imaginary door between himself and us.

South of Petersburg, driving over the battlefield area, he made my father to stop the car. His sudden order, delivered in a sharp drill sergeant’s voice, startled us, and my father quickly pulled off the road. Great grandfather abruptly got out of the car and walked to the ruins of a nearby house, where only a chimney and stone foundation remained. He stared at it for a while as if he were trying to conjure the house back into existence and then set off downward across a field behind the ruins toward another house probably three-hundred yards away.

Somewhat impatient, still a little resentful that he had had to leave his wife behind to manage the family hardware store in Meadville, my grandfather started after him as if to stop him. My father gently restrained his own father by holding his arm.

What’s he doing? growled my grandfather, yanking his arm free.

Now, remember, dad, my father cautioned, you promised mother that you would be patient with him. He’s waited all these years to come back here.

Damn it, James! He was here probably seventy years ago. What could he see that possibly resembles things as they were then?

Quiet, dad, warned my father. You know he hears perfectly well even if he is ninety.

Yes, grumbled my grandfather, especially what you don’t want him to hear. He then chuckled at his own remark, remembering that his father had fooled him many times.

My Grandfather Young was an impatient man, always intent on his business affairs in the hardware store. Perhaps, that is why I liked my great grandfather more. Grandpa Owen, as we called him, always had time for a small boy and enjoyed telling me stories of what it was like to have lived in the times of Lincoln and Grant and the Civil War.

You know, dad, my father commented, Grandpa Owen was here longer, helping besiege Lee’s army, than he was any other place during the war. He must have spent six months or more right around here.

Still in a good mood over his comment about Grandpa Owen’s hearing, my grandfather laughed. James, would you look at him! He’s dashing around like an ancient hound dog, searching for an old scent!

Grandpa Owen certainly did move lively. He crossed the field, perhaps three-hundred yards, in a few minutes, making us step smartly to keep up with him. He paused in front of the house, an old stone and frame structure that must have been standing there during the war. He remained a long time, looking intently at the house. He motioned with his cane for me to join him.

Billy, he almost whispered as if he wanted to keep what he was about to say a secret between us two, I knew the people who lived here.

His misty old eyes stared at me for a minute as if he were deciding whether to continue; then he turned abruptly from me and walked around the corner of the house to where an old well with a roofed cover and pulley could be seen. He turned the crank and lowered the bucket into the well and brought up a pail of water. After filling a tin cup from the bucket and drinking some of the water, he passed the cup to me. I first tasted the cold water and then swallowed the balance of the cupful.

Tastes about the same as it did then, he commented, that is, after we cleaned out the dead dog and cat the Rebs had tossed into it. He chuckled and then added, They weren’t eating them yet.

After a momentary revulsion, I recovered enough to ask, Why did they do that?

Before answering, he refilled the cup and handed it to his son, my grandfather, who took a drink before passing it on to my father.

They wanted to poison it so we couldn’t drink it, he commented. They never considered their own people who were living here at the time. If it hadn’t been for us Yankee soldiers, they might have died."

While Grandpa Owen was telling us about the well, an old man had come out of the house and stood watching us. When Grandpa Owen stopped talking, the man approached.

Y’all take all you want, he said in a Southern drawl and smiled. It’s good water, and you’re welcome to it.

Grandpa Owen studied at the man for a minute or more without speaking, looking particularly into his clear blue eyes, the color to his own. Then, he abruptly asked, You own this farm?

The man hesitated just a moment before answering, Wall, yes, I do, but my son and his family farm it now. I’m gettin’ kinda old to do much. Almost seventy. Got arthritis too.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a chew of Beechnut tobacco. He offered some to Grandpa Owen and the others, but they politely refused. As he did so, a dark-haired man about fifty, followed by an assortment of six youngsters, ranging in ages from five to about fifteen, came out of the house and stood, shyly staring at us.

This here is my son John Saterfield, said the old man, and then pointing to the children, he continued, and these are my grandkids.

Both the adult Saterfields shook hands, first, with Grandpa Owen and then with my father and grandfather. We kids just gawked shyly at each other.

Why don’t you come in the house and set a spell, said the old man. It’s a lot cooler inside out of the sun.

Without waiting for a reaction from any of us, Grandpa Owen followed him into the house; the rest of us trooped after them. It was actually much cooler inside. John Saterfield, the son of the old man, offered us all seats, mostly hard wooden chairs, and then told his eldest daughter, who must have been fourteen, to fetch us some soda pop.

If you would like some, we got some nice spring honey, he added.

I don’t eat honey, Grandpa Owen said almost rudely.

A little alarmed that the Saterfields might be offended by great grandfather’s abruptness, my father said quickly, Something to do with the war.

While these remarks were being exchanged, I noticed that Grandpa Owen was giving the chairs and the other articles of furniture in the room a lot more attention than I felt they deserved. His bright eyes darted around the room, focusing on various objects, particularly an old-fashioned horsehair and leather sofa and a stone fireplace at one end of the room. He got up abruptly from his chair and wandered about the room, pausing to look intently at some old photographs that were casually arranged on the mantle of the fireplace.

While this was going on, my father was explaining to the Saterfields that we were four generations of the same family, taking great grandfather Young around to some of the places he had been in the Civil War. Although listening to my father’s narrative, old Saterfield watched Grandpa Young as he paced around the room. Then he addressed my great grandfather.

You fought right ‘round here? he asked.

Great Grandpa Young absently shook his head in agreement.

So you’re a Civil War veteran! he commented. My father was a veteran of that war too, only he fought for the South. He smiled at my great grandfather and continued, We used to have quite a few veterans of that war come ‘ round here, but we ain’t seen one for eight or ten years now. That about right, son?" he asked John Saterfield.

Been at least eight years, agreed his son.

My great grandfather stopped his tour of the room and sat down carefully on the horsehair couch as if he was afraid that it might break. Grandpa Owen was still a big man, amazingly straight for his advanced age. His hair was snow-white but full; he was clean-shaven and this lack of a beard made him look much younger than his ninety years. We sat for several minutes, drinking the soda pop that had been brought to us by the children. My great grandfather seemed to drift away mentally; then he would come back and look at me with his bright blue eyes and smile as if the two of us shared some sort of secret that the others knew nothing about. We had often done this in the past and I usually had some idea what he was thinking about, but this time I couldn’t comprehend what his secret might be. His gaze slipped away from mine to focus on an old oak table that matched a couple of the chairs.

Following my great grandfather’s stare, old Saterfield commented, That table was my mother’s and my father’s. I guess it probably belonged to her kinfolk, the Whitcombes. I can’t say for sure. My father died before I was born, and my mother and grandmother raised me from a pup, but I do remember their saying that the table and that horsehair settee you’re settin’ on belonged to Grandma Whitcombe. He paused and then nodded toward the pictures on the fireplace mantle. That’s a picture of my mother taken a few years before she died.

The old man paused for a minute, and then added, They both died from milk sickness when I was just fourteen, so I had to fend for myself and run this farm.

Who? my great grandfather asked, looking slightly bewildered.

My mother and grandmother.

When Grandfather Owen still looked at the old man as if he didn’t understand, old Mr. Saterfield explained.

Grandmother Whitcombe and my mother Helen both died in 1880.

Grandfather Owen suddenly took a deep breath. During the last several minutes, I noticed that my father, a physician, had been closely watching him. He walked over and felt his pulse. My father seemed reassured, but nevertheless suggested that we had better go. It’s been a long day, he commented.

Great Grandpa Owen somewhat impatiently shook off my father’s hand and got to his feet. He once again walked over and looked a long time at some old daguerreotype pictures above the fireplace. Then, seemingly satisfied, he smiled and turned back to my father.

I could use a little help getting back up the hill to the car, he said.

John Saterfield said he’d fetch their Ford and drive us up, and in less than a couple minutes, during which Grandpa Owen continued to scrutinize things in the room, including the pictures, Saterfield pulled the automobile, a Model A touring car, in front of the house. My father and grandfather thanked the Saterfields for their hospitality. Grandpa Owen examined the room once more, as if he was trying to imprint it into his memory forever. Then, we all moved outside.

I’ll just ride along if there’s room, said the older Saterfield.

He guided me into the center of the back seat and then helped my great grandfather into the seat beside me. He went around the car and got in the other side so that the two old men sat on either side of me. My father and grandfather squeezed into the front seat beside John Saterfield, and we drove off.

My great grandfather leaned across the seat and said rather absently, What’s you name?

Saterfield, answered the old man beside me.

I mean your first name.

Samuel-Sam. I was named after my father. He paused a moment and then added, Actually, my full name is Samuel Owen Saterfield.

He has the same name as my grandfather! I thought.

Old man Saterfield then said to his son in the front seat, Now, John, you take it easy.

Reaching across me, he gently nudged my great grandfather in the ribs.

Us old boys like a slower pace, don’t we.

My great grandfather smiled, almost secretly, to himself and nodded in agreement.

*

Great grandfather Young died at the age of 97 in the summer of 1942 while I was in army basic training in Camp Pickett, Virginia. Because he was a Civil War veteran, I was able to get a pass to go to his funeral. I was proud to be a part of his honor guard. Even in his coffin, he didn’t look old. His son, my grandfather, who had died the year before, had always seemed older, probably because his abrupt manners and business affairs never gave him much time for a boy like me.

With tears in my eyes, I looked down at my great grandfather’s figure, lying in the ebony coffin that he had requested in his will. He was still tall and ramrod straight with very few but quite deep wrinkles on his face. There seemed to be a smile on his lips just as if the two of us were once again sharing some bygone secret as we had so many times in the past.

Before his death, he had stayed several years with my father, my mother and me. When he wasn’t telling me stories about the war and of his past life as a professor of American Literature at the local college, he isolated himself in his room, reading and writing. He read extensively even in the final years of his life, and he liked mostly biography and history, although he often shared with me his knowledge American classics such as the writings of Twain and Fennimore Cooper. For me, it was a marvelous time. Not often does a boy have the opportunity to share living history with a person who had helped make it.

In the decades after the Second World War, caught up in the turmoil of earning a living and raising my own family, I had put my young life with Great Grandfather Young into the recesses of my mind until my father died last fall. As his only heir and executor of his will, I had to go through his possessions where I discovered three large boxes containing old notebooks, letters, and various papers. Faded and yellow with age, but still remarkably preserved, they had been written in pencil or ink many years ago in what I instantly recognized as the firm hand of my great grandfather.

As I carefully leafed through the materials, I recalled that one evening just a few months before I had gone into the army, Grandpa Owen had asked me to come to his room. It was then that he told me he had written a novel based upon his experiences in the Civil War, but he never had mentioned the journals and other papers that I now discovered. At the time, I didn’t realize the importance of what he had been doing, but now, as I started reading, I understood that in his novel he had actually written a vivid account of his own life as a Union Army sergeant.

The story that follows is mostly told in Great Grandfather Owen Young’s own words, as he drafted them into his autobiographical novel, apparently written between 1900 and 1905. There are some added excerpts from his diaries and letters, needed to complete the story.

CHAPTER I

The uniformed recruiting sergeant looked up at me and smiled-almost leered; then, he shifted his gaze slightly downward and observed my shorter companion. Glancing down at the papers that we had completed, his expression sobered.

So you’re tired of playing soldiers and want to become real ones, he commented, his voice almost mocking.

Again, he smiled, and I felt that he must consider us a couple young fools. I supposed that by playing soldiers he was referring to the fact that we had both listed our militia experience on the enlistment forms that he was now scrutinizing. He stopped smiling and wrote something on both forms, but from our angle, we could not see what he had written. Whether or not we were expected to comment about his real soldiers remark, I couldn’t say, but his words made me wonder about my own reasons for joining the army.

I was enlisting in the army with mixed feelings of patriotism and outrage. I was incensed that God could tolerate such an abomination as slavery. Because my mother, an ardent abolitionist, had a profound faith in His infinite wisdom, I wondered why God was allowing the rebels to win victory after victory when they were defending such an institution. I knew that President Lincoln had maintained that the only reason that we were fighting was to save the Union, but he had also said that a house divided against itself could not stand and that the nation could not remain half slave and half free. I was angry with the President that he didn’t come right out and say that we were fighting to get rid of slavery. It seemed like political cowardice.

Actually, my attempted enlistment was a direct result of an argument between Elwood Creasy and me, which had convinced me that not everyone in the North felt my abolitionist sentiments. Small in physical stature, Elwood worked in my father’s mill and store, doing various jobs such as carrying bags of meal and loading the farmers’ wagons that brought grain which the farmers exchanged for flour. Elwood had a way of making me angry at times when he failed to be convinced by what I considered logical arguments.

Hell, Owen, he shouted at me over the din of a couple wagons passing by on Middle Street in front of the store, I ain’t gonna git in a war over a bunch of damned niggers!

He looked around cautiously to be certain my father hadn’t returned. His fear of being caught swearing didn’t extend to me. With my religious upbringing, I was as much offended by his oath as by his callous attitude toward fellow human beings. I answered him smartly, You’re not trying much to get into the war anyway as far as I can see.

I don’t see no uniform on you neither, he shot back at me.

Stung by his remark, I responded in defense, I’m just seventeen.

Elwood was almost a year older than I. Because he had failed a grade in school, we finished eighth grade together three years ago, and he had started to work for my father while I, urged by my mother, had gone on to further schooling at Pennsylvania College in town. I hoped to graduate and become a teacher. As I was their only son, my father would have wanted me to join him and the business, but mother had insisted that I follow my intellectual desires and at least get further education. Even now, the issue of teaching or business was far from settled. When I wasn’t going to school, I helped my father in the store or mill and thus had to come in contact with Elwood quite regularly. Our acquaintance had never blossomed into any kind of friendship, probably because our interests were so different. I liked to read; Elwood never touched a book, and he was always talking about girls and embarrassed me because I was afraid my father might overhear him and possibly fire him. I knew Elwood needed the work to help support his family.

There’s a lot of men just seventeen and even younger than that in the war, he said. Will Russell, for instance, came home last week without a leg.

That’s too young, I commented rather lamely, hating my feelings of guilt about young men our own age being killed and wounded in this war. I wished Elwood would drop the matter right there.

But Elwood wasn’t content to leave things alone.

If I was so all-fired concerned with freein’ a bunch of niggers as you, I’d join the army and get into the fight right now.

Inside me were feelings of shame. I was big and strong for seventeen and could do the work of any man. The people around Gettysburg, especially those who had sons or brothers in the army, were beginning to stare at me whenever I walked down the street, wondering why I didn’t go into the army. My mother’s agitation against slavery certainly didn’t help me with my conscience or with them. Gettysburg citizens were inclined to expect people to back their beliefs with deeds. To Elwood Creasy, I countered the only way I knew how.

How’d you like to be a slave?

I ain’t no nigger! he grunted, somewhat ruffled.

There used to be white slaves a long time ago.

Elwood grinned wickedly. We got white slaves now too—a bunch of those girls that work down in Frederick. You know the kind of work they do, Owen, he taunted, knowing full well I’d never have the nerve to try their favors.

I had heard of them, of course. Every young man knew about the prostitutes in Frederick, Maryland.

You know that’s not what I mean!

Angrily, I tossed a used saddle at Elwood. He ducked and it slid across the floor knocking over a bunch of milk pails, causing a noisy metallic uproar.

You know that’s not what I mean, I repeated, straightening up the cans.

Oh, I know what you mean all right. Elwood sensed he was getting the best of me and was grinning broadly. The real reason you ain’t in the army is that you’re afraid.

I flushed with anger. Elwood might very well be right, I thought. The sight of Willard Russell with his one leg had shocked me more than I wanted to admit. Will had been the best athlete in school, a good baseball player, far better than any of the rest of us. Currently, he was spending his time hobbling around town or watching the rest of us play at soldiering and drilling in the local militia.

If Elwood had stopped there, I still would have swallowed my humiliation, but he had to continue.

Tell you what, Owen! Let’s you and me go down to the armory and join up right now!

Now! I exclaimed, dumfounded by his sudden proposal that hit me almost like a physical blow from a fist.

You and me been drillin’ in the militia. You was even made acting sergeant, so the army should be glad to have us.

I felt trapped. Desperately, I sought some kind of answer.

I can’t go. I’d have to ask my father.

He’ll be back here in a couple minutes; you can ask him then.

I expected my father would reject my request out-of-hand and tell me to wait another year, but to my surprise, he treated my proposal very seriously. He, like mother-but perhaps not so radical-was an abolitionist and had even aided some slaves to escape by hiding them in a storeroom in the basement of the house before sending them further north to Canada. I suppose that and other reasons made him consider my request thoughtfully. He didn’t regard me to be a boy any longer. Physically like him, I was a couple inches over six feet tall, although he was twenty-five pounds heavier and at forty-two was in the prime of life. He didn’t believe in fighting but I remembered once seeing him throttle the town bully by merely grasping him in a bear hug until the bully had collapsed at his feet. Everyone in Gettysburg knew Matthew Young was not a man to trifle with. Now, my father ran his hands through his short iron-gray hair and studied me for a moment. In his eyes, I was a man-young and perhaps a little foolish-but still a man and capable of making my own decisions.

We’ll ask your mother, he said. He turned to Elwood, who had been standing and listening to the two of us discuss my future. Elwood, mind things here; we’ll be back before closing.

Talking with mother and getting her reactions was a procedure that my father always followed before making important decisions. Mother, who rarely hesitated when asked how she felt about anything, this time paused a long interval at this very important decision concerning her only son. She studied both my father and me. Willard Russell’s loss of a leg had been an excruciating experience for her since his mother was her best friend. Mother had appealed to father to provide Willard with a job in the store as soon as he was able to get around. On the other hand, she had strong religious and moral convictions against slavery and had been before the war the driving force for turning the store into a station on the Underground Railway. There was an occasional resoluteness in her character that neither father, as strong as he was, nor I could withstand. Whatever her feelings were now, she suppressed them.

Is this what you want to do, Owen? she asked, searching my face with her hazel eyes.

I…I…think so, I stammered, not at all sure of myself.

As she often did when she was about to make a decision, she shook her rich brown hair, which contrary to the fashion of the time, she usually wore loose.

Are you certain? she demanded.

I had to confess that I wasn’t.

Do you believe that we should make these Southern people free their slaves? she demanded, searching my eyes.

In that instant, my mind flashed back to when as a boy of ten, I had heard someone crying in our potato cellar, a small room almost completely hidden behind my father’s work bench and shelving. Curious and a little frightened, I worked my way behind the bench and slowly opened the small trap door in the floor. The crying stopped, and I had to wait for a minute or more before my eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Then, I saw a dark figure, and might have bolted if the apparition hadn’t spoken.

Please, young suh, was all it said.

I could now see that the phantom was a black woman, obviously very frightened of me.

What you doing here? I asked, rather timidly.

I’s hidin’, she replied.

My father’s voice behind me startled me. I hadn’t heard him approaching.

Owen, we are hiding her. She’s a runaway, on her way to Canada to join her husband.

He reached into his pocket for a match to light the oil lantern he had brought with him. Its light showed me a young black woman, still curled up in a corner of the small earth room, eyes wide with fright.

It’s all right, missy, my father assured her. This is my son.

Then I heard mother’s steps on the stairway. In one hand she carried a lamp and in the other was a collection of various kinds of food and an old coat. She was somewhat surprised to find me there, but she quickly recovered.

Owen, you get upstairs and wait there until your father and I finish here, she commanded.

As I left the cellar, I heard her say to the black woman, "Now, young lady, Mr. Young is going to return in a few minutes and take you on to the next place.

You wait here and eat this hot food until he comes back for you. You understand?"

I didn’t hear the black woman’s reply; perhaps, there was none. A few minutes later, my mother and father came upstairs where I was waiting apprehensively and told me that they had been helping runaway Negroes escape from slavery.

Mary, my father said, obviously worried, we have to stop this. Owen knows, and it wouldn’t be too hard for anyone else to discover that hiding place.

My mother gripped me hard by the shoulders.

You must promise, son, never to breathe a word about this to anyone.

Her intense hazel eyes searched mine as if to place some sort of spell on me. Then sensing that I understood, she turned abruptly to my father.

Matt, she said, we can be glad that Owen did discover our secret. We obviously have to make a better hiding place, and tomorrow, after you return from taking that girl to the next location, we’ll fix up that basement so that no one would ever be able to find the little cellar.

Mary, I think we should stop this, my father said. It’s just too dangerous and could ruin all we have built up here over the years.

My mother looked at him with one of those expressions that I had learned meant no compromise.

No, we aren’t going to stop. As long as there are slaves, I’m going to do whatever I can to help them to freedom.

Over the years that followed, several times our house was used as a station along the underground railway to freedom for these people. Before the war started, I had several times taken my father’s place in moving them at night to the next station, a farmhouse ten miles north of Gettysburg. In so doing, I had come to see their humanness with their love for freedom so great that they risked their lives to attain it, and I had developed strong feelings of respect toward them. Because I had witnessed their fear and suffering and had seen the flayed backs of a few of them, I understood my mother’s and father’s revulsion at this institution of slavery. All the talk about kind masters didn’t impress me. No one, I believed, as did my mother and father, had the right to own somebody else.