For the first time since John been brought wounded to his Janesville home, he woke up in the morning clear-headed, and not a bit drowsy. Apparently, his sleep had been dreamless. He found that a little disappointing, as he had come to expect a continuation of his nighttime biographical travels. He couldn't say that he enjoyed the dreams - they covered his failures as truthfully as his successes, and he had a tendency to dwell on the failures - but the dreams fascinated him. Dreams were supposed to be a hodgepodge of people and events, mixed up in fantastic ways that rendered them meaningless (at least, to our conscious selves). The dreams he'd been having were lucid and accurate, and even seemed to capture his actual thoughts and feelings at the time of the events. Also, he was sure that dreams were not supposed to be serialized, stopping and starting in what had been the actual sequence in life. Well, it was intriguing. He wasn't completely sure he wanted them to continue, but he had missed them this first night.
More important at the moment was the current reality. He had been shot, and not by accident or mistake. Someone had planned to murder him, John McCoy. He had guessed the reason, as soon after the event as he could think about it. It was because he was Assistant Provost Marshal. There couldn't be any other explanation.
The Office of the Provost Marshal, an Army function, had been created in early 1863, made possible by the passage of a law in late 1862, authorizing conscription - forcing men to serve in the army, whether they wanted to or not. It was not a popular law with either Republicans or Democrats, and had only come into being because the Republicans - after seemingly countless years and years - had finally gained a majority in Congress. In a way, the professed need for it was probably past, but an opportunity was an opportunity.
In the beginning, neither side in the war between "North" and "South" had trouble obtaining volunteers. But the war had been going on almost two years, and people were generally tired of it. It was also proving extremely bloody. One skirmish that John had actually been a part of resulted in two men killed and seven wounded, out of a total of forty-five. Only two of the wounds were considered "slight; the others involved serious damage to neck, arm, and leg, and two that required amputation of legs. That had not even been a very significant battle, in terms of affecting the outcome of the War. It took a real "patriot" to volunteer, with those possible results.
There was also confusion about what the war was supposed to accomplish. Probably to begin with, most folks in both the North and the South thought it was to decide the future of slavery - the South fighting to preserve slavery, and the North fighting to abolish it. Early on, but after the war was in full swing, President Lincoln was suddenly very clear in stating that his sole aim was to "preserve the Union." He said on more than one occasion that he'd be happy if all slaves were freed because of the war, but if he "saved the Union" without changing slavery one whit, that would still be a winning situation. That statement sent a lot of mixed signals to supporters and opponents, alike.
It certainly raised questions with John. He knew that, even as independence from Great Britain was being declared, the South had not wanted a "United States." They just wanted what was termed "a loose confederation of states," with no Federal government capable of making national decisions. Even then - almost 100 years ago - they had only consented to the present arrangement when the fledgling Congress had decided not to make slavery an issue, all agreeing that the individual states could take care of that little matter by themselves. How the Southern states would "take care of" the slavery situation on their own was pretty clear, since John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, were the only Presidents before Abe Lincoln who hadn't been slave-owners, themselves, and since probably all of the Southern delegates to the Constitutional Convention were slave owners. With slavery and the general philosophy of "states' rights" pretty much off the table, John (and many others) wondered just what "union" was being preserved.
The War confused a lot of people's beliefs. For example, John considered himself a Democrat, and was usually active with the local Vigilance Committee. However, he probably wouldn't have been, if their committee acted like a lot of others - like real vigilantes, actively seeking out wrongdoers and wrong believers, and meting out their own punishments. His local committee mostly just organized and supervised the local elections.
Also, he was not a secessionist, like many southern Democrats. He didn't always like Republican politics, but he believed in the Union, and believed that laws in place applied to everyone. His stance on slavery was a little confused, although it was probably similar to others who were not slave owners and who were not living in "slave states." He didn't think that slaves were happy with their circumstances - as many Southerners would have you believe - but he suspected that, after generations of not knowing anything else, slaves were at least resigned to their fate. Philosophically, he also understood the economics of the situation, that the South had developed an agriculture system that demanded all those extra bodies. As far as the human aspects of slavery, John didn't let himself dwell on those too much.
Actually, that wasn't entirely true. He had very strong feelings against certain things that happened to slaves, or that he thought were probably occurring. Most of his concerns arose from his general ideas about womanhood. For instance, he knew that slaveowners treated their slaves just like a herd of cattle, removing daughters from families to breed with males likely to produce "good stock" - even taking wives from husbands to mate with "better breeders." John knew that this affected the male slaves, also, but it still seemed to him that it was always the women in society - Black or White - who were most vulnerable and most manipulated.
Even worse in his mind is that the slave owners themselves were not just pairing slave girls with slave men. They were using the slave girls for their own pleasure. Being "property" and not "people," the Negro women had no protection - no right of resistance or refusal. John had heard that Negro women had no recourse against any White men, their owners or anybody else. He had rather strong feelings about White women - under the law - being essentially slaves to their husbands. To have absolutely no legal protection from anyone who cared to molest you seemed barbaric! He would fight to stop that, if he could.
With such mixed feelings about the War, the Union, slavery and political parties, it didn't seem odd to John that he would accept a job with the Northern Army, enforcing laws that most Democrats and most Southerners would find abhorrent and detestable. John felt that as long as there was a Union, all laws were applicable to all people. When the job of Provost representative for his district was offered to him, he accepted.
***
Conceptually, his assignment was fairly straightforward. First, he had to prepare a roster of all men in his district eligible for conscription. It wasn't his job to "draft" anyone; that was civilian government responsibility, not military. After the initial tabulation, his office got involved only when men did not report when selected, or when soldiers deserted. Then, it became his responsibility to apprehend those not in compliance.
With the law being generally unpopular, and with the high potential for drafted soldiers to be killed or maimed, there was considerable fear that there might be violence when the roll takers came around. John had trouble recruiting helpers to do that job because of possible violence, and also because few people wanted to gather information about their neighbors. John found it was often himself doing the tabulation.
The enrollment actually was finished in his county with little controversy. The local newspaper presented it this way: "We believe the enrollment for this county is now completed, and that without as yet calling into requisition a single coffin. It appears, therefore, that after all that was said about threats of 'shooting,' 'coffins,' &c, two or three weeks ago, the enrollment has been made here with perhaps less difficulty than in almost any other county. In some districts the officers making the enrollment were specially obnoxious, personally, to the great body of the citizens, and the wonder is that they escaped so well. Those who were free from such faults, men of fair repute, and fit for their positions, met with no difficulty whatever."
To illustrate that last point, the paper used one of John's own experiences: "The enrollment was completed by the Deputy Provost Marshal for the county. He found no difficulty whatever, except upon a single instance with a lady, who made some slight demonstrations with a can of water, which she declared was hot as Hades. Upon the Captain politely assuring her that he had received the benefit of the baptismal ceremony in his infancy, followed by a brief colloquy, his business was transacted, and he left the lady in the best of humor, fully convinced that 'nobody was hurt'."
Of course, that wasn't completely true. The very day the paper printed the story just quoted, they also had to report that one of John's helpers had been shot from ambush. The wound was serious, but thankfully not fatal.
But enrollment was just the first step. Actual attempts at conscription could go entirely differently. So far, things had been mostly passive. The numbers of men drafted were not high, there was still some volunteering, and a man with money could buy his way out of the draft, or pay for someone else to take his place. There were a couple of well-known deserters in the county, who had resisted attempts to capture them, and who were gathering around them others who chose to defy the draft. They were too organized and too numerous for John to tackle without military help, which he hadn't been able to acquire, so far.
He wondered if his own attempted assassination had been organized by that band, and if there was more resistance to come.
***
So, to the present. When the doctor found John awake and alert, he welcomed him back to "real life." Anna cried. John stayed in bed another day, but after breakfast and a shave, he felt strong enough to check on how his professional work was going. He sent one of his sons to ask his two assistants to come to the house.
"Glad to see you alive, John," said William Towell. "The doc wasn't giving us too happy a report for a while, there."
"No, I guess I was a lot worse off than I figured. It was probably because of the long time between when I was shot, and when somebody could help me. I guess I'll live, now. What's going on with the Army?"
"Just more of the same, I guess. We couldn't look for your shooters, until we were able to talk to you about it. We found your wagon, fine. The horses were under the trees, and had plenty of feed. 'Doesn't look like anybody touched them or the wagon. I suspect anybody up that way would be a little leery about being caught with Government property."
"I expect you're right about that. As far as the shooters go, we'll never get anything on them. I was alone, and they were apparently alone. If anybody knew what they planned, nobody would be talking about it, for sure. There's no bullet, so I think that particular situation is a dead end.
"That's bad news," opined Marcus Wilson, his other assistant.
"Well, all may not be lost. After they shot at me, they came over to see their handiwork. I was lying in the brush right below them, but they didn't know it, and they talked loudly and openly. One of them was named Paul, and according to his conversation with the other - Frank - he is a sharp-shooter who never misses what he aims at. If he's anywhere near that good - and he certainly got me from a fair distance, I imagine - chances are his prowess is well-known in that part of the county. The way they were talking, they're close friends - maybe even brothers, or some other relation.
"Now, from what I heard, they knew they weren't shooting at a deer, and got me by mistake. They knew exactly who they were trying to kill. The only reason they would want me dead is because they are - as we say - trying to avoid their military duties. If we find them, I think we can probably bring them in for that little evasion.
"Now, I don't think the doctor - or Annie - wants me back on the job right away, so I'll have you two continue the investigation. What do you think of this? When you get back to the office, go through our files and see if you find any record of Paul or Frank. If we have some paperwork on them, that'll speed things up a bit. Regardless, how about you go up in the hills, and knock on as many doors as you can. Say that you're trying to find out how I got hurt, that I don't know anything, and you're just looking for any information anybody might have. You might even suggest that it might have just been an accident. Probably nobody will tell you anything on purpose, but something might slip out, and of course there's a pretty good chance you'll actually run into Paul or Frank."
They exchanged a few more words, then Marcus and William prepared to leave. John stopped them. "We've got to look into this - it would be suspicious if we didn't. But we haven't had much trouble or resistance in that area, and I don't imagine there's any big conspiracy, or even something that many people know about. We have to ask. Just be sure you make it just as friendly and impersonal as you can. We're not looking for anybody. We're just seeing if anybody knows anything about what happened to me.
"There's one other thing you should know, but nobody else should. One of the couples up there in the hills - Clement and Maude Brown - helped me get home. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd be dead, now, if they hadn't acted so quickly and decisively. Some of their neighbors might not be pleased to hear that, and in fact, it might put the Browns in some danger of retaliation - particularly if there is some kind of local conspiracy. Be sure you interview them, but do it just like you do everybody else. Don't let anybody get the idea that you're treating them any different than any of their neighbors. Probably, don't even tell them that you know what they did for me. I don't want any suspicion to fall on them.
***
Although John was obviously much better, that had been a lot of activity for his first day, and he was extremely tired by evening. He went to bed right after supper, slept peacefully through the night, and woke up feeling fine. However, he was disappointed that he hadn't dreamed.
Anna saw that he seemed a little frustrated, and asked the cause. He hadn't told her about his dreams. He did so, then.
"They're very strange," he tried to explain. "Each one connects with the next. They don't cover everything about my life, but they're all in order, and they all move in one direction - from my childhood toward the present. I don't think dreams are supposed to do that!
"Also, they're very accurate. They present the facts - good and bad - as they really happened, and often it's in more detail than my conscious mind remembered. I confess I don't always like that part of them - we all have things we choose to forget, or want to remember in ways that may be more favorable to us than the actual events were. But they certainly are interesting, and I have missed them."
Anna had left him alone for a while, then, but obviously she had been thinking about what he had said. "Do you suppose that the dreams were caused by your illness - your fever? Like, your mind didn't want to think about the pain, or the possibility of dying, maybe, so it dug up safer old memories?"
"I wouldn't be surprised. When I got well - or, am getting well, anyway - I didn't need the diversion, and they quit. That does sound logical."
Anna went away, then, but when she returned later with his lunch, she picked up the conversation where they had left it. "I don't know many of the details of your life before we met. I mean, I know you went to Mexico, then to California, and later to Oregon, but just the outline, not the actual events. If your dreams don't come back - or, even if they do - would you maybe tell me the stories? The doctor isn't going to want you working too hard for the next week or so, and you're going to get bored and grumpy if you don't have something to do."
"I don't get bored and grumpy," he protested.
She just raised an eyebrow. "Our youngsters would probably like to hear about their Pa's adventures, too."
He considered the idea. "I think my dreams remember more details than I can dredge up on my own." She didn't comment. "I do have some journals. I haven't look at them in a long time. The California notes are not very complete, or very organized, but probably the highlights are there. I did a really complete job on the Oregon Trail trip, I remember. They would certainly jog my memory."
"So, are you saying yes?"
"I think I am."
***
John began his story-telling much as the dreams had covered his life. He added details here and there, that seemed relevant or interesting. For example, he told about hiking up on Table Rock, so that his brother Abe could see the lie of the land, and finish his map. They had eventually found a larger sheet of paper, and Abe had completed a more detailed version. It was framed, and still hung on a wall in the Williamsburg town hall.
He left out some information, too, principally that covering Sarah and Margaret. That seemed a different story - one he wasn't sure he wanted to talk about, at least not yet. To explain his leaving home so abruptly, he just made it about his disappointment with the war, his malaria, and a general attack of wanderlust.
Eventually, he ran out of the dreams, and started on his own narrative with the Gold Rush.
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