Chapter 4

On the events and issues of the Civil War so much has been ably written, these memoirs of mine will allude to the subject as briefly as possible, noting only those points that had a direct bearing on the community in which we lived.  I was born in 1851 and so had no active part; my part in the way all lived in rural districts then may be called a sidelight.

After the firing on Fort Sumter the first to enlist were the young men from schools and colleges.  Often every eligible student would enlist with their principal as their captain.  This was the case at West Freedom Academy.   Its doors were closed.  With Professor Hosey as their captain, the students formed the nucleus of the company from our village and were named the West Freedom, Pennsylvania Company.  Soon almost every home was a house of mourning.   There were no authorities in our decidedly backwoods community to check disloyal speech and there was plenty.  It came from the pulpit, and the listeners would quarrel roundly with each other before leaving the church.

It came from the teacher with a sort of authority.  The Pine Hollow School being only for the younger grades was not closed.  My teacher was a southern sympathizer and in the guise of current events would question us and at the same time tell us how the North was losing ground.  His parting question often was this:  "Who is the greater man, Jefferson Davis or Abe Lincoln?"  We all knew to retain his favor we had better say, or rather shout, "Jefferson Davis's!"

Mother, busy as she was, made it a point to be present during these closing exercises one afternoon and could hardly contain herself.  She took me aside at home to ask me what I said.  Mother, I said Abraham Lincoln, so I did, but I was careful not to say it loud."   She laughed and I escaped a reprimand.

The name we northern sympathizers got was "Black Republicans," and we retaliated with one we thought very cutting, "Copperheads."

Several years later I claimed among my good friends a cousin of brave "Stonewall Jackson." One day when we were driving together, he took me to visit the boyhood home of that intrepid southern general and the talk turned to reminiscences of him.  His cousin said that at the outbreak of the war, General Jackson wrote his mother that at that early stage of affairs he was in a dilemma and could not state positively which side he ought to take.  He afterwards wrote her that after much deliberation he was quite convinced that his duty lay with the people among whom he was then teaching -- in Virginia.  We cannot but admire all who fought according to their convictions.

There was one public spirited merchant in our town by the name of Harry Jordan who said that he felt it a personal honor to carry any war widow's account.  In recalling war days afterward, he told me that he could wait on any three of them at once, as it required so long for them to make their selections; eking out their meager thirteen dollars a month.

Owing to their common interests these women became closely drawn to each other.  They would often meet in each other's homes to discuss the all absorbing topic of "When will the war be over," or pitifully hover about the post office waiting for letters that were infrequent enough and to gather scraps of news.

Small drum and fife corps were many during war times; these would head the procession on recruiting days when patriotism seemed to be greatly inspired by martial strains.  Our corps boasted of one fife, one bass and two snare drums.  In our village there were two men by the name of Robert Bell.  One was the carpenter-musician; the man in charge of the building of both our home and our barn.  To distinguish them, he was called "Red Robert." Short, light of limb and agile, hair sandy, eyes pale blue, nose upturned comically, he would have been odd enough had he not another peculiarity I have never seen so marked in any man -- a fatuous, frozen smile.   He was the fifer in our drum corps and always carried off the laurels.  When through with his fifing he would nimbly skip among the drum on its under side without losing a beat of time.  As a matter of fact he was musical enough that in some way he cleverly managed to either accent or interpolate a bang just when and where it was best needed to put zest into what threatened to become a mere drone.  Tolerated perhaps in any conversation requiring much intelligence, he was here not only the center of all eyes with his clowning, but he really added to the musical performance.

Red Robert played the fiddle at dances but where he shone with greatest brilliancy was at singing school.   Life had to go on, you know, and young folk were young folk in the sixties as much as they are today.  There was not as much singing instruction in the classes as the name seems to signify.  During the long winter evenings, the young people would gather at Red Robert's home and were made gladly welcome.  No one thought of offering him anything for teaching the reading of the old fashioned buckwheat notes, but knowing well that their teacher never had enough money to provide candles in plenty to light the songbooks so they could be seen, the young men would consider they had done the magnificent thing when they brought a dozen homemade dip candles.  These they would pin to the log walls of the house with jack knives and a youth, each would then take charge of keeping one candle snuffed.

Some twenty or more two-foot cuts of a log with dry boards to place over them were stored in Red Robert's work shop for the purpose of putting up for seats on nights of singing school.

Each of the young people had to choose a seatmate for the supply of song books was short; and what was nicer than to be obliged to sit close enough to see to read by tallow candles! Though there was occasionally a small display of coyness, I cannot recall when two boys had to share a book.  Some way the supply of girls for boys always worked out surprisingly well.

Although there were hymns between the covers of those old song books, their names did not remain in my memory, perhaps confused a little by the ones we sang so often in church.  My favorites were: My Lovely Anna, and When You and I Were Young, Maggie.  The song, Oh, the Singing School, Beautiful was attempted but once, and we did get from the war front in the latter part of the war the song Lorena that was sung so often around the campfires.  Strangely enough, the one song Red Robert said he loved the most was not a gay, rollicking tune but a long drawn-out wailing thing, and a hymn at that, entitled: How Tedious and Tasteless the Hours.  It seemed to us the last thing suitable for such a time and place.

Standing in the exact center of the rows of seats on which his class would arrange themselves facing both ways, Red Robert would hold his fiddle out one side of him and his bow the other, pop his eyes open wide, then close them dreamily as he snuggled his instrument under his chin and drew the bow across in a long thin note to give us the pitch.  After this he would lead, sometimes playing with his eyes tight shut, sometimes holding his instrument out stiffly and beating time with the bow.  When genuinely settled to his satisfaction in a song he thought we sang well, he would sit to play and then tap out the time with one foot quite snappily.  If it were his favorite hymn, he would sway half around first to the left and then to the right until he appeared half hypnotized.

We always insisted on at least one solo from our host and singing teacher, and were better pleased when it was The Frog a-Courting He Did Ride than when he sang his dolorous hymn which said in one place, "Sweet music, sweet prospects, sweet smiles, have long lost their sweetness for me."

Red Robert would then coax a solo from one of the young folk and we would pair off to go home.  Our muffled steps in the snow would crunch along to the tune of the fiddle in the doorway.