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I didn’t get to Anti­etam on this par­tic­u­lar tour of Civil War related land­marks, but this poem by San­dra Beasley posted on smut to-​​go kind of cap­tures the expe­ri­ence of vis­it­ing some of these places, dis­tant from us in both miles and time. If most peo­ple take in a Civil War bat­tle­field at all, I think they prob­a­bly do it on a school field trip with­out feel­ing much of a con­nec­tion to what they’re see­ing. This cap­tures that expe­ri­ence as well.

Anti­etam
by San­dra Beasley

We all went in a yel­low school bus,
on a Tues­day. We sang the whole way up.
We tried to pic­ture the bod­ies stacked three deep
on either side of that zigzag fence.
We tried to pic­ture 23,000 of any­thing.
It wasn’t that pretty. The dirt smelled like cats.
Nobody knew who the stat­ues were. Where was
Stonewall Jack­son? We wanted Stonewall on his horse.
The old can­nons were puny. We asked about fire­works.
Our guide said that some­times, the land still let go
of frag­ments from the war — a gold but­ton, a bul­let,
a tooth migrat­ing to the sur­face. We searched around.
On the way back to the bus, a boy tripped me and I fell—
skid­ding hard along the ground, gravel lodg­ing
in the skin of my palms. I cried the whole way home.
After a week, the rocks were gone.
My mother said our bod­ies could digest any­thing,
but that’s a lie. Some­times, at night, I feel
the bat­tle­field mov­ing inside of me.

The George W. Bush National Memo­r­ial, Wash­ing­ton, DC, 2010

On my recent trip to Wash­ing­ton, I paid homage to our dis­tin­guished for­mer pres­i­dent at his new memo­r­ial on the National Mall.

Research­ing a poten­tial project, I’ve been lis­ten­ing to the lec­tures from Yale University’s course on the Civil War and Recon­struc­tion Era avail­able through Open Yale. The course is taught by his­to­rian David Blight who tries to human­ize the period with per­sonal nar­ra­tives from peo­ple who were there. The most remark­able of these is a let­ter writ­ten by an eman­ci­pated slave Jour­don Ander­son in response to a request from his for­mer mas­ter to return to ser­vice at the old plan­ta­tion. Read­ing the whole let­ter will take about three min­utes. I sug­gest you do. Some of its most pow­er­ful lines have remained in my head for days since first hear­ing them.

— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — –

Day­ton, Ohio, August 7, 1865

To my old Master,

Colonel P. H. Ander­son
Big Spring, Tennessee.

SIR: I got your let­ter, and was glad to find that you had not for­got­ten Jour­don, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promis­ing to do bet­ter for me than any­body else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yan­kees would have hung you long before this, for har­bor­ing Rebs they found at your house. I sup­pose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union sol­dier that was left by his com­pany in their sta­ble. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still liv­ing. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the bet­ter world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was work­ing in the Nashville Hos­pi­tal, but one of the neigh­bors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know par­tic­u­larly what the good chance is you pro­pose to give me. I am doing tol­er­a­bly well here. I get twenty-​​five dol­lars a month, with vict­uals and cloth­ing; have a com­fort­able home for Mandy, — the folks call her Mrs. Ander­son — and the chil­dren — Milly, Jane, and Grundy — go to school and are learn­ing well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sun­day school, and Mandy and me attend church reg­u­larly. We are kindly treated. Some­times we over­hear oth­ers say­ing, “Them col­ored peo­ple were slaves down in Ten­nessee”. The chil­dren feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no dis­grace in Ten­nessee to belong to Colonel Ander­son. Many dark­eys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you mas­ter. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be bet­ter able to decide whether it would be to my advan­tage to move back again.

As to my free­dom, which you say I can have, there is noth­ing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-​​Marshal-​​General of the Depart­ment of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back with­out some proof that you were dis­posed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have con­cluded to test your sin­cer­ity by ask­ing you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us for­get and for­give old scores, and rely on your jus­tice and friend­ship in the future.

I served you faith­fully for thirty-​​two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-​​five dol­lars a month for me, and two dol­lars a week for Mandy, our earn­ings would amount to eleven thou­sand six hun­dred and eighty dol­lars. Add to this the inter­est for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our cloth­ing, and three doctor’s vis­its to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the bal­ance will show what we are in jus­tice enti­tled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Win­ters, Esq., Day­ton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faith­ful labors in the past, we can have lit­tle faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in mak­ing us toil for you for­gen­er­a­tions with­out rec­om­pense. Here I draw my wages every Sat­ur­day night; but in Ten­nessee there was never any pay-​​day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reck­on­ing for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answer­ing this let­ter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-​​looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Cather­ine. I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the vio­lence and wicked­ness of their young mas­ters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the col­ored chil­dren in your neigh­bor­hood. The great desire of my life now is to give my chil­dren an edu­ca­tion, and have them form vir­tu­ous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for tak­ing the pis­tol from you when you were shoot­ing at me.

From your old ser­vant,
Jour­don Anderson

— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — –

The let­ter was first pub­lished in The Freed­mens’ Book edited by Lydia Marie Child in 1869. It’s avail­able in its entirety on Google Books.