"The Long Way Home" by Art Green

“Sign here boy,” said the seated blue clad lieutenant as he looked over his glasses. John had seen this man before and recognized him as his left eye was antigogglin and strayed to the left not following the line of his right as though searching to find a more interesting subject somewhere out there to the left. The spectacles magnified and made the abnormal eye even more noticeable. “You mean that’s all there is to it,” John said as he scribbled his John C. Green, Co. B 38th Alabama to the Parole of Honor. He’d been standing in line this June Monday since early morning at the big stockade doors on the south side of Camp Chase with a long line of anxious ragged once-Southern soldiers.

Sample of the prisoner release form which set John free.

The big stockade doors opened on the Federal Road running by. Rumors had been circulating for days ever since word had come that Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, Courthouse in April. That news was shortly followed by surrender of all the Southern armies. All was lost for the South, but “we made it” was the general feeling of the fellows in line. Until now, there was always some doubt about making it. John had arrived at Camp Chase Prisoner of War camp in August last and had survived the long cold Ohio winter. He’d learned a lot about survival in the last four years and learned a lot about Yankees in the last ten months.

He’d watched that morning as many men lined up in their ragged butternut clothing, badly worn out old raw leather brogans and battered slouch felt hats or kepis. Many could only make their mark as accepting the Oath of Honor “to kiss the Eagle.” But thanks to Miss Irby and his folks insisting that he attend her school back in Lower Peach Tree, Alabama, he could write to sign his name.

The ability to write had won him the duty, or maybe punishment was more apt description, as Barracks Sergeant of Barracks Number 11. It meant that he was responsible to arrange the barracks into groups to mess together. See John's mess book. Now that word “mess” sounded strange when he had first heard it, like many army terms, “bivouac” for instance. But now it became just another word to John, and he arranged the eight groups of 16 men to draw and cook provisions when issued in their “mess.” Each “mess” would cook and eat together. He found it interesting that the Confederate Army had never seen fit to elevate him from private soldier, and then have the U.S. Army call him a barracks sergeant. What irony!

John Green is third on this list

(Continued in the right column.)

Author's Notes: I have pondered how Grandfather must have felt looking back on his experiences. He died in 1917 and I was born twenty years later so I never had the opportunity to ask. Readers must forgive some poetic license and where I miss the mark. It is meant to be a work of fiction but historially accurate. It also draws from Captain Ben Lane Posey's description of his walk back from Tennessee after his capture and escape. See the Confederate Veteran, Vol, 1, 2003, page 11- 23 for “Ben Posey’s Saga” and the Red Eagle Battle Song.

The Meek brothers are listed in this roll book.

He had other opportunities to kiss the eagle but would have none of it. He’d seen what happened to Confederates boys who had signed the application to join the U.S. Army and “gone over” to the Yankee side to become a galvanized Yankee. A galvanized Yankee was a Southerner inside with a thin coat of Yankee on the outside. They had to be immediately removed from the suffering and homesick prison population or they’d be torn apart. Not only that but they then could never return home due to reprisals from veterans who had suffered through the entire course of deprivations or from those left to mourn the ones who did not come home. No Sir, No Way! Now exchange, that was another matter, but for some reason that had not been offered him. He full well knew as well as the Yanks that if exchanged, he’d make his way back to his 38th Alabama regiment to fight for his homeland again.

It seemed most unusual that yesterday he’d have been shot dead for crossing the dead line near the barricade, and now he was being allowed to just leave by signing his name or merely making an X beside it. The wall-eyed lieutenant made John a dated identical copy with a brief description of himself, age 19, 5 foot 10 inch height, black eyes, dark hair, dark complexion and Wilcox County, Alabama, residence so that he’d have that necessary paper to prove his parole if stopped and questioned. It was possible he’d be shot first by over exuberant Federal soldiers before he could present his paper. But just maybe, perhaps, by chance, by now word had gotten out to everyone that there was a large, harmless, lost, helpless army with no weapons on the move toward home.

Still there was sadness in leaving the individuals who had shared so many experiences and so little of material possessions in common. There were men who he had shared a meager holey blanket and scraps of mealy hardtack on the hard ground of campaigns and “bivouacs,” there was that funny word again. He had shared untold suffering and deprivations in the four years that he’d been a soldier for the Confederacy and in prison courtesy of the Yanks. They had foraged and cooked and gone hungry together. They had spooned together in the night under thin rags to keep from freezing and had watched in battle as companions bled and died.

It was a long way home to Monroe County in Packer’s Bend on the west bank of the Alabama River. May as well get started. It was Monday, June 12, 1865, when he was allowed to go. It’d sure be nice to be home in time for his 20th birthday on August 28. He wondered if his big brother Bob was there or if he survived the war? Last he heard Bob had been wounded and had become a sharpshooter with the 6th Alabama somewhere up east. He had always looked up to the older Bob and admired him. John would have liked to be called a sharpshooter. It sounded grand and important. The death of brother James carried strong bitter memories when he learned James had died of measles in training camp in Mobile in 61. His sister, Martha, had written some time ago with this news.

Martha and the younger children had quite a load taking care of the farm with no male labor and caring for Mother and the younger children while the grown men were away, but this was a way of life in the community as every able-bodied man had taken up arms. They were still in mourning, for Father had died before John left for service. Leslie was very young but was all the male help they had. What about the crops? Would there be any to harvest upon his arrival?

Go to the Second Installment of this serial.