Janesville, Pennsylvania - June 18, 1873
To my dear sister Mary,
I had hoped to see you one more time before I flew off Heavenward (or possibly in another direction), but the doctors tell me I am too sick, and in fact will probably be dead before you read this. Actually, today I am feeling hale and hearty, and far from mortally ill, but they are doing all they can to quell any optimism on my part. I guess I will have to believe them, and assume that these really will be my last words to you.
I don't mind dying - my life to date hasn't been anything worth prolonging - but I'm not an old man - just 45 years old. I always thought I would have a little longer. If you were to ask what is wrong with me, I guess all I (or the doctors) can say is that it's just a lot of little things combining with the general breakdown of age. I have no obvious symptoms, and no particular pains. The system is just gradually giving out.
I think Annie is prepared. She is in good health, has her parents nearby, will have my military pension, and our brood will be able to take care of her for as long as she stays around. Should she choose to marry again, she should have no shortage of suitors. She is still young and quite pretty. She is smart enough to be 'interesting,' but not so clever that she would scare off potential mates. (I am smiling as I write that; I think you know what I'm getting at.)
I have many acquaintances, but few to actually mourn my going. Our parents are gone, and I hardly know most of our sisters and brothers. In my whole life, I think I can honestly say that - other than Jenny, of course - I have only had two real friends, you and Sarah of my youth. I don't mean to disregard Annie. I think we have been good partners in raising a family - as good as any husband and wife I know about (and, of course, I don't really know anything about anybody's marriage but my own). Still, as I have said before, I picture (or, at least, my fantasy pictures) a marriage in two parts. The first involves creating and then raising children, working together to establish a home and a family, and working with one another as a community. The other part only involves husband and wife - actually, man and woman - separate from the day-to-day of marriage. I think getting that part right must be quite rare. From what you told me, I think you had that (too briefly!) with your Leland. Jenny and I had it - again, too briefly. Annie and I never explored that second part. So, you and I may mourn the short time we had with our special loves, but I think we were blessed in a way that few couples ever are.
As I implied above, I'm not proud of my life, or happy with it. Childhood was good, being in a family, and having special friends like Sarah and you. The few years Jenny and I shared were unbelievably wonderful. The rest of the time, I've mainly felt that I was just taking up space in a world that didn't need me, waiting for the next thing to happen. I went to two wars; my contribution was negligible. My "big adventures," like the trip to the Gold Rush, were really just things to do, with no real meaning. Even going to Oregon would have just been a way to kill some time, had it not been for my meeting with Jenny. My life with Annie, by most marriage standards, turned out well, I think. But, again, it had only begun because I thought I should be "doing something" with my life.
I suppose I could blame most of my dissatisfactions on my own decisions made when returning from the Mexican War. Obviously, I made some bad choices. Were they enough to spoil all the rest for me? I don't know. I do know that, if it hadn't been for Jenny, I wouldn't consider any of my life after Mexico as worth the effort to live it.
Really, I've had just three major disappointments in my life. The first is my time with Jenny. How can such extreme happiness turn to such extreme sadness in so short a time? There was nothing we could do to change anything. I've saved all I could to a special part of my heart, where it remains unchanged. It just seems so sad for the family we never had, and the adventures we never undertook.
The second disappointment was Sarah. In just a few brief moments, on my return from Mexico, I gave away the best friendship I could ever have hoped for. Yes, I know I was sick with malaria, and exhausted from my trip home, and hearing about Margaret was just the last straw for me. All that might all have been forgiven, had I just returned to Sarah as soon as I felt able. I didn't. As much as I wanted to - how I ached to be back with her - I just couldn't make my mind work in reverse. I never once tried to contact her.
Perhaps the saddest - and stupidest! - part of all this is that it seemed to be about losing Margaret. In truth, I never had Margaret to lose. I had fantasies about a romance with her, but it never occurred - and never would have occurred. She made it impossible from the first day we talked about courting, because I was (quote) "always with that Brewster girl" - Sarah. I tried to explain that Sarah had always been my best friend, but Sarah understood that what I was feeling about Margaret was different. Margaret had laughed at that, and accused me of not having any idea what women were really thinking. She wasn't wrong about that, but I insisted that having Sarah as my best friend would not interfere with our courting. Margaret said it wasn't possible for me to have her as a girlfriend at the same time I had Sarah as a best friend. I remember her words - she said that was like wanting two scoops of ice cream on one piece of apple pie. It took me a while to understand that any chance of a courtship with Margaret had ended when she said that. No matter what I was feeling for her at the time, there was never a question in my mind which scoop of ice cream I would keep! Sad to say, I never told Sarah.
You and Sarah have talked about me, and you seem to feel that she has maintained an affection for me, all these years. I hope she has. It is far more than I deserve.
Disappointment Number Three is quite different, and anybody but you would probably laugh at my including it here. Basically, I am saddened by the condition of the Female of the Species, and frustrated that I can't see what I - or anybody else - could do about it.
I guess the thoughts first came to me when, as a teenage boy, it dawned on me that I had never seen my mother when she wasn't carrying a baby, either inside her or in her arms. There I was, almost old enough to start a family of my own, and my mother was still having babies! I wondered if that was all a woman's life was about.
The next thing to gain my attention was the treatment of slave girls. Under no law were they considered to be people; they were "property," owned by their "masters," and subject to whatever their owners wanted to do with them. I didn't know much about how men and women interacted together at that time, but it greatly offended me that men were free to do whatever they wanted with the bodies of slave girls, with the women having no choice but to allow it to happen.
After the War, Southerners denied that such practices had occurred, but the great variety of skin color among Negro women - from jet black to almost white - suggested something quite different. Clearly, these girls and women had White fathers or grandfathers.
As repugnant as this individual violation was to me, another practice made me almost sick to think about. Female slaves were often treated as livestock, bred like cattle to Negro men selected by their masters. Wives were separated from their husbands, and daughters were taken from their families, to mate with Negro men who looked like they would produce better future "agricultural stock." Sometimes, women were moved from man to man, with no regard for origins or previous family ties.
Those, of course, were extreme violations against women, and nothing that White women had to worry about. Still, as I learned more, it seemed like all American women live in a form of slavery. They are the "property" of their fathers until they are married, when they become fully dependent on their husbands. They cannot vote. They cannot buy anything without their husbands' permission. If they owned anything from inheritance or another legacy when they marry, all that reverts to the husbands. Even religion conspires against them. The ministers in their churches do not direct women to God to answer any of life's questions. They urge them to "keep silent in church," and ask their husbands when they get home!
Most women don't seem to resent this dependence, and I wonder why. As little children, girls and boys play together at whatever they feel like, with big, interesting dreams for the futures. By the time they reach their 'teens," girls don't seem able to talk about anything but their future marriages. Is the tradition so imbedded that it can't be changed, anymore?
Finally, there is the physical side of man-woman interactions. You know that women can feel as much as men. I know it. Jenny knew it. Jenny's parents knew it. A prostitute in California knew it! But, in general, most women and most men apparently don't know it. How can they learn, if we can't even talk about the subject in "polite society?" I know it would be very good for everybody, if the truth got out, but I don't see how. Thus, one of my biggest disappointments.
I am sending you the most recent of my journals. You have them all, now - the full story of my sad and useless existence. I have figured they would be as safe in your "nunnery," as anywhere - although I don't know why they should be kept "safe," or for who. I have told Annie and our children where they area, should they ever want them, but I doubt they will. I know you read them - for which I am grateful - but after you are gone, I picture them sitting on some forgotten shelf, covered with cobwebs. Perhaps in 100 years or so, someone will discover them, and thumb through a few pages. "This fellow spent a lot of time writing about completely unimportant things," the reader will say. "And they aren't even interesting!" As he sets the books down, they will crumble with age - at last, bringing to a final end the remains of a disappointing life.
Some people might think that this is a very odd "last letter' to be sending to my sister. I don't think you'll take it that way. I think that you'll understand that I am just "clearing the slate." I needed to say these things "out loud" one time, to somebody - and you are the only "somebody" I have. You'll know that there's nothing for you to do. You'll read what I wrote, smile, think how much you love me and how much I've loved you. You'll set the letter aside, say to my memory, "Rest well, Johnny McCoy."
And, with your benediction, sister Mary, I will.
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