46 The Call of the Plough

Shaftoe and I served to the end of the war. We followed Grant through the shades of the Wilderness, the beginning of which I saw in Varian’s death, and we were present a few days later at Spottsylvania, when nearly forty thousand men fell. We saw the charge on the Southern intrenchments at Cold Harbor, where the North lost twelve thousand in half an hour; we were with Grant in all the long and ceaseless hammering of 1864, when the iron general, choosing the only way, poured forward his numbers, regardless of battles and losses, always striking at his enemy, giving him no rest, while Lee, with his dwindling brigades, defended every square foot of ground; and at the last, when the South was crushed, and the great war over, we entered Richmond, the Southern capital, with our comrades.

There was a little scene in Richmond after the surrender which had its pathetic side, but in which gaiety then predominated. It was at the house of Mrs. Pembroke, and Sergeant Thomas Shaftoe, U. S. A., was the host—that is, all except, Elinor, Mason, and myself, were his prisoners, or virtually so. Mrs. Pembroke sat at the head of the table, saddened a little by the downfall of the Confederacy, but too happy over the ending of the war, and the return of her son from captivity, recovered of his wound, to grieve. Mary Pembroke did not grieve at all, because De Courcelles was beside her, and it was only a month until their marriage. There was Tourville, just well of his third wound, and Major Titus Tyler, as usual the soul of dignity, and happy in the conviction that the South had never been beaten, but “had merely worn herself out beating the North.” It was Major Tyler and De Courcelles who did most of the talking. The Frenchman, in particular, was full of life and joy. He was one of the Southern soldiers who in losing had won. Pembroke at length had all our glasses filled—with water, as wine we had not—and, rising to his feet, glass in hand, he said:

“Let us all drink, not to the Lost Cause, but to those who fought for it.”

We drank, none with a better grace than Mason and I, who had fought against them, and we said no more on that subject.

Then we saw the phenomenon of three million men laying down their arms and going back peacefully to work, a war ended the day the last battle was fought, no executions for rebellion, no persecution, no revenge of the conquerors upon the conquered, no acts that would cause recollections more bitter than the war itself, but a peace that was a peace, in fact as much as in name. Nearly a million men had perished, but vengeance was not to be sought for any one of them.

The men who had come four years before at the call of the drum now began to listen to the call of the plough. They were tired of so much war, of so many battles, and the long tales of slaughter. They believed that enough blood had been shed to drown any issue. If one would not listen to the logic of all the bullets fired in four years, he must remain deaf to everything. As for themselves, they had fought all the old questions to a solution. The people who stayed at home might discuss them again if they felt like it, but they, the soldiers, knew that such things were history now and no longer living problems.

They hated now the sound of the guns, and after so long a period of silence, the call of the plough reached them again, and was pleasant in their ears. They heard the soft slide of the share as it cut through the earth and turned the fresh soil up to the sun. They remembered the sweet smell of the corn lands in the spring and the yellow gleam of the harvest in the autumn. They had seen enough of war, its dangers and excitement, and they longed once more for the peace of the fields. Mostly farmers, boys yet, the plough called them back to the old work and the old task of maintaining old States and building new ones. Their feet kept time to the call.

It was the same with North and South; the call of the plough reached both, and was alike seductive. The long-legged boys wished to see what had happened at home since they left. Many had never heard from there in all the four years, and they thought much of the hills and plains and forests which were their birthplace.

They had fought four years, and they had made a war without parallel, but they were no seekers after military glory, nor did they want a military rule, with themselves as rulers. They wished to return to peace, now that the fighting was over, and have done with the sword.

The throb of the war-drum died. The sword and bayonet were laid aside, the armies vanished, and the myriads faded into the forests and the distant fields, once more the peaceful builders of a peaceful republic.

Elinor and I were in Louisville, on our way home, when Shaftoe left us. We had formed a great attachment for this strong, cheerful man, who asked so little of the world, and whose nature was so simple, so honest, and yet so deep.

“Why do you persist in this, Shaftoe?” I asked. “Why do you go out in the wild Western country, on those great dry plains, to serve as a common soldier, to fight Indians, and perhaps to be killed and scalped by them?”

“I am going out there,” replied the veteran, with his cheerful smile, “because I will be more satisfied on those plains fighting Indians than I will be anywhere else. I learned long ago that the happiest man is the one who is doing with all his heart the work that he likes best to do. Well, I am a soldier—a born one, I think; not a general, or a colonel, or a captain, but a private; I peel my own potatoes. I don’t like the responsibilities of an officer; if I were one, I’d be making mistakes myself instead of having so much satisfaction in talking about those of other people. Besides, a soldier has his uses, as the last four years have shown.”

“But the work out there is obscure, and the public never hears of it.”

“What of that? A man can learn his trade, even if ten thousand people are not looking on and applauding, and there’s a heap of things yet that I want to know. I’ll be with the old regular army again, the little army that fights battles, and makes thousand-mile marches, and stands boiling heat, and a cold that freezes your whiskers; that knows what it is in the sand deserts to value diamonds less than a little cold water; that dies alone on the endless plains, but always does its work while life and muscle last. They are the men, Henry, that I’ve lived my life with, and I’ll finish it with them too. What have I got to complain of? I do not know what it is to be sick; I sleep like an innocent baby when I have the chance; I’ve the appetite of a wolf, the digestion of an ostrich, and the strength of most men. Besides, I’ll be a master builder out there! Think of that! Not a mere builder of houses, or fortunes, or reputations, but a builder of great States.”

“So you are to be a contributor to the wealth and greatness of the nation, Shaftoe?”

“That’s so. But sometimes it seems to me that I’m merely helping to roll up the fortune of some Eastern millionaire, who will go off to Europe to live, where his children will learn to sneer at the country that produced him. Let me have that one little complaint, and I don’t even say that I mean it. But don’t forget that out in the West I’ll be doing the work that I love, and it’s a good place to learn about men. I think that the human race is governed too much and trained too little, and maybe out there, in our little old regular army, we strike a happy medium.”

“I know you’ll do it well,” I said.

We said good-bye, and the old soldier began his journey to the Great Plains. Elinor and I turned southward. We were happy now, but we were sad, too, for our people, and I pitied, the South. The land was filled with widows and orphans; whole families had perished, the rich were poor, the poor were poorer; but, above all, the old systems were gone; men must not alone begin anew, but learn anew. The Southern race stood bare and naked on the bare and naked earth.

But we were proud that the Union had endured such a strain and had come out of its trial greater and stronger than ever. The old faith of the millions had been vindicated.

Elinor and I did not tarry after Shaftoe’s farewell, but departed the next day for my grandmother’s. We had not been able to give her the exact date of our coming, and when we left the train at the little station, a tiny village of a dozen houses, we walked down the road that gleamed across the country like a long, white ribbon. It was all familiar, precisely as it was when we left it—the road, the hills, the trees, the houses; the fences even were not changed; the war had gone around it; our own State was harmed but little, and this portion not at all.

We forgot now all the war and its destruction, remembering only that it was peace, and that we were together.

“Is it not beautiful?” said Elinor.

We walked on. It was June. The beautiful country rolled far away in gentle waves; the grass was like velvet, and the fruit trees bloomed in cones of white and pink.

“Will my aunt forgive us?” asked Elinor presently.

“She has done so already,” I replied.

I had seen Mrs. Maynard once and briefly in Richmond after the surrender, and while she was not genial, she accepted the inevitable. She was now at her home, and we would visit her soon, although Madam Arlington must come first.

The sun was setting when we saw through the trees the roof of my grandmother’s house. It was unchanged; the cedars had not lost a bough; the same old peacock strutted on the lawn and spread his gorgeous tail in rivalry with the sun.

I think that some prescience warned my grandmother of our coming. She stood upon the portico, with William Penn just behind her, where the last rays of the dying day shone upon her strong old face. Then she met us, her eyes full of gladness, saying only:

“I knew that you would come back.”

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