Shouting the battle cry of freedom. . . .
Ugly brick and frame buildings—groceries, hotels, brothels, banks, clothing stores, junkshops, saloons, bedizened with banners and bunting—flowed by on either side.
He moved through a valley of thronging faces. He had come two thousand miles, mostly by foot, from Raintree County to the Nation’s Capital. He had discovered the greatest of all the court houses, the most significant of all the Main Streets.
—The Union forever, hurrah! boys, hurrah!
Corporal Johnny Shawnessy felt the presence of a grandiose idea in the confusion of Pennsylvania Avenue, in the rhythms of the Grand Review, in the huddled waste of the Capital City—an answer to the conundrum of the Individual and the Republic, a perfection of feeling, an abiding purpose. If now he could only say what it was! But instead, he kept thinking lines and magnitudes, coiled shapes of rivers, faces of people, music of marching songs, outstretched arms of girls.
He felt no vengeance or hatred any longer. In the best tradition of the Shawnessys—who always forgave too easily—he found himself including in his vision of the Republic all the soldiers North and South. By a wry trick of Fate, geography, and ancient institutions, both North and South had fought for liberty, a sacred cause.
The end of the Avenue was close now. The crowds were thicker. The trolley tracks were bright under his feet. The shouting of the crowd increased. The stone shape of the Treasury Building was just above him. Behind an iron railing hundreds of people waved handkerchiefs and flags. In their midst, the black box of a photographer looked down at the scene. The bayonets moved to the turning. They turned. Corporal Johnny Shawnessy was passing out of the Avenue. He had completed the last long mile. The turning column had fixed itself in the dark chemistry of time, young men holding aloft victorious banners.
In front of the Presidential Mansion, he could see the long stand, hung with flags and bunting, with the names of famous battles of the War upon it. The band played more strongly. The guides called for a perfect alignment. He could see General Sherman, standing proudly at attention, Grant and President Andrew Johnson, and several other notables.
—Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee.
Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free.
He passed the stand, marched down a sidestreet, and halted. The Grand Review was over.
The regiments broke up. The soldiers moved slowly and confusedly in the unpaved streets around the Executive Mansion, thousands of young men, suddenlv ill at ease in their uniforms, laughing and telling each other how drunk they would get that night.
In the quiet evening, Johnny went back to the camp in streets where soldiers and civilians mingled. He began to feel lost and insecure as flags drooped in the setting sun, and a few bands played in far streets. The Army was breaking up. It was about time to take the uniform off and go back home.
There was a surprise waiting for him in camp. While he was at mess, a stranger in black civilian garb’ came up and, stopping near him, said,
—Did anyone here know a boy named John Shawnessy?
—Yes, sir, Johnny said, I’m John Shawnessy.
The man gave him a peculiar look.
—No joking, son—this is serious, he said. Now, this boy’s folks back home asked me to find out anything I could about how the boy died, and I promised to check up. This is his regiment, I believe.
—I’m John Shawnessy, Johnny said, getting up from the table. I’m not dead.
The stranger, a short, bald man, with cavernous black eyes, said,
—You aren’t foolin’ me, are you, boy?
—No, sir, Johnny said, laughing nervously. I’m very much in earnest.
The soldiers crowded around.
—This here is John Shawnessy, mister. No doubt about that.
—Well, sir, the man said, if what you say is true, there’s been a mistake then, and there’s going to be some folks back home in Raintree County mighty happy.
The stranger, for his part, looked vaguely unhappy and disappointed.
—You were reported dead, son, he said accusingly. All the papers carried it.
—Dead! Johnny said. Why, I wrote a letter less than a month ago, and—
—Makes no difference, the man said. You were reported dead.
He said it in an argumentative way.
—Who are you? Johnny said.
—I’m Peter Greenow, the man said. I’ve taken up the practice of law in Freehaven since you left. Just a week ago, when it became known I was going to Washington for the Review, your dad, T. D. Shawnessy, and other citizens, got in touch with me and asked me to find out anything I could about your death.
—I’m not dead, Johnny said.
The stranger looked skeptical.
—The papers carried the news of it last November 18, he said. That was over six months ago.
—But I don’t understand, Johnny said. I wrote a letter from Savannah and another from here about a month ago.
He ran his mind back over the past few months. He had written his folks a letter in late October of the preceding year. The Army had left Atlanta in mid-November. For a month, the Army had been lost to the world, and no mail had been sent. At Savannah, he had received a few letters from home written before the middle of November, and from Savannah, he had written and mailed a letter home. Then the Army had cut communications again and had started North. When he was wounded near Columbia, he had been too sick for weeks to write. He had been transported by boat to Washington, where he had been hospitalized. He had got up only once, on the day of the President’s assassination, and had suffered a relapse that had kept him in bed for better than another month. He had written another letter during this time, meanwhile wondering why he hadn’t heard from his folks but supposing it was because of the vicissitudes of Sherman’s Army and his own absence from his regiment. Only a few days ago, he had been mustered out, but had got permission to march with his regiment, though still weak from dysentery and fever.
—Yessirree, the man said, both papers carried your obituary. I’ve got copies of them here. Your last letter, written in October, was printed in the Free Enquirer. You might be interested to see—
The man had been digging in his wallet. He fished out some clippings and handed them to Johnny.
LOCAL HERO DEAD
JOHN W. SHAWNESSY GIVES LIFE FOR HIS COUNTRY
Recent casualty lists released by the War Department include among those killed in action the name of John Wickliff Shawnessy, whose mother today received official notice from the War Department of her son’s heroic death in line of duty. Readers of this paper will remember ‘Johnny,’ as he was affectionately called by his friends, as a writer and poet of great promise. A service for the departed will be held next Sunday at the Danwebster Church, and floral tributes . . .
—There, you see, the man said querulously. They had quite a service for you, and everybody’s got used to the idea now of you being a dead hero. There was some talk of establishing an educational fund in your name, and I was made the trustee of it.
Johnny was looking at another clipping, this one from his old rival, the Clarion.
LOCAL BOY DIES A HERO
YOUNG JOHN SHAWNESSY SACRIFICED
AT SHRINE OF MARS
Another sad reminder of the heavy toll of this terrible and perhaps fruitless war was the death recently announced of John Wickliff Shawnessy, local young man, whose writings have won him fame throughout the County. Seldom has so much genuine grief been evinced as at the passing of this gifted lad. No braver or better soul was ever immolated in the fearful holocaust of War.
John W. Shawnessy was born in Raintree County in 1839 in a little log cabin which stood on the site of the present Shawnessy Home in Shawmucky township. He early manifested those . . .
—You see, the man said. Why, they even put up a stone in absentia in the Danwebster Graveyard.
Johnny was reading another and later clipping from the Clarion.
COLONEL
GARWOOD JONES
TOUCHED BY FRIEND’S PASSING
WRITES ELOQUENT EPISTLE
We have just received the following affecting tribute from that famous young politician and orator—and more recently, soldier—Garwood Jones. Though we cannot condone the recent action by which this young man publicly renounced his allegiance to the party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Polk, we have always admired his energy and integrity, and we are happy to print his letter.
Dear Clarion:
No words can express the deep and profound sense of personal loss which I recently sustained on hearing of the death of my friend, John Shawnessy, Poet, Scholar, and Soldier of the Republic. Many worthier pens than mine may lavish upon this young martyr the praise that is his due, but none can put forth a stronger claim to personal bereavement. How many times have I not crossed verbal swords with this always genial and gentle young man! We sometimes differed, but we respected each other even in our differences. Little did I suppose when I last saw John in a camp in Indianapolis, where I found him the same laughing and confident companion that I had known since my boyhood in Raintree County—little did I anticipate that in slightly more than a year of mortal time, I would be myself in uniform, a humble defender of the flag—and he—brave young heart!—would be sleeping forever in the beloved earth which by his valor and devotion and that of hundreds of thousands like him, we mean to keep One Nation Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.
In my pressing duties as Colonel of a volunteer regiment (soon, I trust, to be hurled into the last onslaught against the treacherous foe), I find little time or taste for literary pursuits, but the poignancy of my grief over this young genius’s untimely demise has prompted me to take up the pen again and in hands which have learned to wield a more decisive and terrible instrument, indite a few lines to one of the truest souls that ever lived:
To J. W. S.
R. I. P.
Lo, where is Seth, that erst did fill these glades
With laughter and rejoicing blithe and brave?
Behold! he sleeps where beauty never fades
In martyred glory and a hero’s grave.
Dear lad, we shall not fail the sacred trust,
To which you pledged your pure and patriot breath.
We shall do no dishonor to your dust
But take new courage from your valiant death.
Sleep in thy hero grave, beloved boy!’
Sleep well, thou pure defender of the right.
Far from the battle’s din and rude annoy,
Our tears shall keep your memory ever bright.
Sleep on, dear youth. And lo! to take your place
A hundred hearts advance whose aim shall be
Never to fail or falter in the race
Till Freedom’s banner wave from sea to sea!
—My God! Johnny said, his eyes misting in spite of himself, what terrible poetry!
—Of course, your mother and father’ve been all broken up by this, and——
—How is everyone, anyway? Johnny said. Do they really think I’m dead? Are they all right? How could they think I’m dead when——
—I assure you, son, as far as Raintree County goes, you’re dead as a doornail. Why, they’re even thinking of making the commemorative monument for our Civil War martyrs in the Court House Square more or less in your likeness. I happen to be in charge of the plans and——
The man looked unhappy and vaguely disappointed.
—But how did it happen? Johnny said. I wasn’t even wounded then. I was wounded much later.
—Of course, the man said, there’ve been a lot of mistakes like that. It could happen.
—It did happen, Johnny said. Let me see, I suppose my two letters were lost. The first one had to go by sea from Savannah. The second one I gave to an old orderly at the hospital, and he probably forgot to mail it. My God, do you mean to say that they still don’t know I’m alive?
—Son, your ma stopped wearing black a month ago. They’ve plumb given you up. You’ll shock the daylights out of them when you go home.
—I’ve got to get home, Johnny said, feeling a little frantic. I’ve got to get back and show them that I’m not dead. They’ve got to print a refutation.
Everyone crowded around and talked about it, and the soldiers all knew of similar cases.
—Hell, I knowed a boy, a soldier said, he was reported dead, and hell, his wife married another man and when he got home, hell, she refused to have any truck with ’im. Said he was always a goddam noaccount anyway, said the other guy was a hell of a sight better man in bed and made a hell of a sight more dough, and far as she was concerned, this poor bastard, who had the squitters and one arm shot off, could just go back and die decent and not bother her.
—Hell, that’s nothin’, a soldier said, I heard of a boy they reported ’im dead, and . . .
Johnny tried to imagine what it must be like that almost everyone who had ever known and loved him believed him dead and in fact had gone through the whole process of grief and had closed up all the accounts and neatly stowed him away forever. One thing he was sure of—he must lose no time getting home.
He was two days winding up his affairs and leaving Washington. He decided not to write since he would probably beat the letter home. He might have sent a telegram through, but he began to take pleasure in the thought that he would come back from death and surprise everyone. Now, at last he had become, it seemed, the Hero of Raintree County, but he was in the peculiar fix of enjoying that distinction mainly because he was supposed to be dead and incapable of all enjoyment.
In fact, a cold anxiety began to trouble Johnny Shawnessy. Was it possible to come back into people’s lives after what was to all of them a death as true as death itself? Wouldn’t he be a pallid disappointment to people who had had months to formulate a hero-image of him? Could he live up to the obituaries, the floral tributes, the stone in the Danwebster Graveyard, the trust fund, and the projected memorial?
He didn’t sleep for hours during the first night of his trainride home. The spacious earth of America seemed interminable to him. He had walked almost all the way over to the East Coast, but in a way the ride back by train was longer. Every minute of it prolonged his death. He was as many times dead as there were people who knew him—until he got back home and overcame all those deaths at once.
He was still very weak from his long sickness, and he had a horrible feeling that something might happen to him on the very threshold of return and he would be dead—pathetically dead—in very fact. It seemed almost impossible that he could give the lie to so much newspaper print. Garwood’s poem was so tritely final. Could anyone crawl out from under the dead mound of so many clichés? Sure enough, something or someone had been killed, a hundred times over.
On the second day, he fell asleep and dreamed a dreadful dream in which he returned to Raintree County. No one paid any attention to him. People went by him in the streets as if he weren’t there, and when he hunted for the Court House Square, he couldn’t find it, and when he went out to hunt for the Home Place, it wasn’t there. The world that he had known was gone and gone forever, and he knew with a hollow certainty that he could never get it back.
On the last day of May, Corporal Johnny Shawnessy had crossed the border of Raintree County and had got down from a train at the depot in Beardstown. He looked around in vain for someone who knew him. Two other men in uniform were in the station and no one paid any attention to him.
The station at Beardstown hadn’t changed in the nearly two years of his absence. Joy and anxiety warred in his heart as he boarded the train for Freehaven, taking his place in an almost empty coach. Still no one recognized the young Lazarus.
The train moved out of the Beardstown terminal, and now a measurable time separated him from home, the home he had many times never expected to see again and which now never expected to see him again. It was fair weather in the end of May, the level fields of Raintree County were green and gay with flowers, the
air was warm. He was a little horrified to see that the face of the County showed no sign at all of grief, that the roads ran in the same relation to the railroad and that the young corn was green as it was before Corporal Johnny Shawnessy, the Hero of the County, had become officially defunct. Was it possible for him to be uprooted and the County remain the same? Here was perhaps disturbing proof that the existence of Raintree County was not contingent upon the existence of Johnny Shawnessy.
And yet he felt also like a creator, as if by his return he gave life back to hundreds and restored Raintree County to being once again.
In this collision of vanity and fear, he watched for the white cupola of the Court House in the middle of the Square of Freehaven, as a famished mariner, twenty years from home, might watch for the familiar shoreline of his native island. He waited with short breath and wildly beating heart, his eyes fixed on a green horizon. The train bore him steadily on, stopped briefly at Three Mile Junction, and then continued—beyond the point, he thought, where he had been accustomed to notice the cupola of the Court House.
BUT THE TIME COULD NOT BE LONG NOW,
COULD NOT BE LONG UNTIL
THE
AWAKENING, the Perfessor snorted. He looked bewildered, clutched at his face, and then, touching his pince-nez, seemed instantly to recover his composure.
—God! he said. Garwood should bottle and sell that stuff. I haven’t had such a good snooze in weeks. Well, program’s over, I see.
Sheets of the Grand Patriotic Program littered the ground. Mr. Shawnessy felt that he had just seen and not quite solved another conundrum of his life. In fact he had devised the riddle himself and was now baffled by his own devising.
For it was he who had conjured up out of himself the Grand Patriotic Program. It was a selection of lines from the greatest of all the epic poems, and this poem was himself and his memories of the Republic in War and Peace. Out of himself, he was always creating it, but he had as yet only discovered a language of conundrums in which to express it. Maps, patriotic programs, sheets of music, old letters, newspaper columns, negatives of photographs taken in the years 1859, 1863, 1865—only in these did he hint the vast comedy, more true than Dante’s.