Presidential Shadows

by Michael Cantwell

Our teacher made plans for a day trip to Gettysburg. Seating was limited. The first students to turn in the parent consent form with payment would be first to fill the bus. After anxious moments at the dinner table, my parents agreed to pay for the trip. Bruce and Wendy were also going. Other than our yearly visits to the Jersey beaches and trips to Yankee Stadium, this would be my only trip away from home. It was the first time I would be making a trip without my parents. I stayed overnight a few times at Bruce’s house. That doesn’t count.

  Our history teacher looked like many of the presidents I had met. Mr. Weadon had a beard and creases in his face. He told us almost daily how much he loved teaching. Sometimes he would dress up as people in history and pretend to be them for the entire day. He called it role-playing. Greg called it “stupid.” I had to admit, sometimes it was kinda goofy, but other times I learned a lot. I tried to correct Mr. Weadon one time when he dressed up as Andrew Jackson. I told Mr. Weadon that Andrew rarely used big words. Mr. Weadon refused to believe me.

  For days before the trip, we learned about the Battle of Gettysburg. It occurred in early July of 1863, on a small patch of land in Pennsylvania. It was the bloodiest and deadliest battle in the entire Civil War. There will never be an exact account but estimates are close to fifty thousand troops from the Union and Confederate armies were killed or injured in three days. Mr. Weadon told the class he and many historians believe it was a turning point in the Civil War. Before Gettysburg, some thought General Robert E. Lee and the south would win the war. Mr. Weadon asked the class to think about how our nation would be different today had Lee and the Confederate army won at Gettysburg.

  My approach was different. After school, I took my book to the park. I sat alone reading about how Mr. Lincoln worried he would lose the next presidential election. He feared the nation was tired of war. Citizens wanted the war to end even if it meant allowing slavery to continue in the south. President Lincoln understood allowing slavery to continue was morally corrupt and wrong for the nation.

  He wrote the following words on the yellow stained pages, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

  Sitting under my favorite tree, I thought about those words. I think he meant that other countries could not destroy democracy within the United States. Only the citizens of this country could destroy it. It was like my friendship with Bruce and Wendy. Greg and his band of bullies could never hurt the friendship the three of us enjoyed. Only if the three of us argued with each other would our friendship be destroyed.

  A tall thin man walked towards me. He had a small beard on his chin. Mr. Weadon described Mr. Lincoln in class. I knew the man now casting a shadow was the President. His eyes dripped with tears. His white shirt wrinkled. His shoes covered in mud. He paced back and forth in front of me.

  “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves,” the President said.

  He paced more. Unsure if he knew I was sitting under the tree, I watched him closely. He paid me no attention. Mr. Lincoln bent down and removed a long thin blade of grass from the ground. He inspected it. I sat not wanting to make a sound. He sighed.

  He tore the blade of grass in two. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” There was a moment of silence before Mr. Lincoln asked, “What are you reading?”

  I closed my book. Lincoln looked at me from his bent perch. “I was reading your notes about the Civil War.”

  Lincoln offered a smile. “The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.”

  “Mom tells me all the time how important it is to read. Some of the other Presidents told me that too. I guess you don’t have much time for reading now though.”

  “It is important you read, Alex. You learn from books. I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday. Devouring good books will help you in your search for knowledge.”

  “I don’t know if you know or not, but I have met other Presidents, Mr. Lincoln. I have learned about some who owned slaves but thought it was not right the United States allowed slavery. You look so tired. The words you wrote in my book tell me you would have done anything to end slavery and keep our nation as one. Why?”

  The President stood up. He lowered his hand. I took it and stood next to him. We both started to walk. Our pace was slow. He noticed some kids who looked to be high school age playing basketball. Some were white, some dark skinned. Others were sitting courtside waiting to play the next game. Lincoln watched the game for a moment and walked away from the park. I walked by his side.

  “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to be free; honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope on earth.”

  President Lincoln was now speaking in riddles like Thomas Jefferson.

  “I want to understand, President Lincoln. What is the best hope on earth?”

  “You, Alex. Me, our neighbors, our friends. The democracy we hold dear must endure and we must fight with all our beings to assure it remains. Whenever I hear anyone argue for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. Slavery must end and democracy must endure.”

  “It has, President Lincoln. The north won the Civil War. Eventually, slavery ended. I read about your Emancipation Proclamation where you wanted to end slavery as part of ending the war. Later, The Thirteenth Amendment passed. It abolished slavery.”

  Lincoln stopped his slow walk. He looked closely at my face. “No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar. I am still fighting to pass the amendment. It has passed in the House and Senate but is yet to be ratified by the states.”

  “I swear, President Lincoln. Mr. Weadon, our teacher is taking us to Gettysburg next week. We learned all about the Civil War and learned what happened right after the war ended. Whenever I meet you Presidents, I can tell that you don’t know all the stuff I know, but you have to trust me.”

  Lincoln resumed his slow walk. I followed him until we got to where I needed to turn to go home. “My house is this way, President Lincoln. I would introduce you to Mom but I don’t think she can see you. Grandpa asked me to keep it a secret when I meet you guys. I’ll take you up to my room and show you my baseball card collection. I got one of the best around.”

  Mr. Lincoln followed me home. I yelled into the kitchen to Mom, to let her know I was home. She told me dinner would be ready soon. I took the President to my room. He paced the floor. Lincoln inspected everything in my room.

  “Did you know that I was the first President to use the telegraph, Alex? It was crucial for communicating with the generals in the field. One of the few times the telegraph stopped working was during the Battle at Gettysburg.”

  “Yeah, I learned about that in class.”

  “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”

  Another riddle I thought. Lincoln went to my desk and pointed with his long bent fingers at the receiver to my phone. “Strange machine,” he said.

  “Let me show you how it works.” I picked up the receiver and called Bruce pretending I had a question about homework. Bruce was always brief with his words. I had to act fast. After Bruce started talking, I reached up and put the receiver near Lincoln’s ear. He jumped back. I thanked Bruce and hung up. Lincoln sat on the corner of my bed. The blood rushed even more from his pale face.

  “That’s a telephone,” I said. “We even have ones we can carry around in our pockets but Dad won’t let me have one.”

  “I am confused by what happened. So better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

  “You’re not a fool, President Lincoln. This must be as strange for you as it is for me.”

  The weary man frowned. “I will speak with Samuel Wilson. He will explain. My time is short, Alex. I must tend to the war. Do yo
u have any questions for me?”

  “I’ll probably have a million of them after you leave, but do you have a favorite President?”

  The President crossed his legs and rubbed his face. “It would be unwise to pick only one. I would however put Mr. Jefferson near the top. Few things guide my life like my God and the Declaration of Independence. To me, the two greatest writings, the Bible and the Declaration.”

  His response surprised me. “Really? More than the Constitution?”

  “The Declaration declares all men are created equal. Try to find that in the Constitution. You will not.”

  Mom walked in. “Dinner is in five minutes, sweetie. Wash up and come downstairs.”

  I looked at my bed. President Lincoln was still sitting there. He coughed. I looked at Mom. Mom looked at my bed.

  “Hurry up, Alex. Your father will be home any minute.” Mom left the room.

  How could she not have noticed a tall man sitting on the corner of my bed coughing? It had to be true. No one could see or hear my friends except me.

  “I guess I gotta get to dinner, President Lincoln. I’ll put my baseball card collection out if you want. You can hang out in my room. I trust you.”

  “I should go too, Alex. We will met again.”

  “Do you have any quick lessons for me before I go?”

  President Lincoln smiled wide. “That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.”

  I thought he was talking in riddles again. I wrote his words on a scratch pad on my desk. I would think about his words another time. Dad was home and calling me to dinner.

  The next Friday, thirty students, our teacher and eight parents piled into a comfortable bus headed for Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was a three-hour trip in each direction. We met at school at seven in the morning.

  It didn’t take long until problems started on the bus. I was one of the first on the bus and grabbed a seat along the window. There were two seats to my left. I squished into my seat and looked out the window.

  “Excuse me, Susan. Alex was saving those seats for his real friends,” Wendy said.

  Turning towards the aisle, I noticed the dirty look on Wendy’s face. Bruce was standing behind her with his usual blank stare. Susie Baker, my partner from field day, sat in the seat next to me. Bruce and Wendy must have gotten on the bus behind Susie.

  “I don’t see your name on any seat, Wendy. Besides, Alex and I are very good friends,” Susie said.

  Wendy’s stare could melt the ice caps. Susie grabbed my hand. She looked at me.

  “Alex is my date today. Aren’t you Alex?”

  My jaw dropped. I pulled my hand from Susie. “Date? What date? My Mom won’t let me date. She rarely lets me go to the mall.”

  One of the parents shoved her way to where we were sitting.

  “What’s the problem? We have a long day planned. Let’s not start having trouble before we are even out of the parking lot. Now, everyone find a seat. Please.”

  “Yeah, Wendy,” Susie said. “You’re holding everyone up.”

  Bruce and Wendy sat in the row behind us. Wendy kicked my seat. “Boys are so stupid sometimes.”

  For the next hour, Wendy was telling me how a real friend would have kicked Susie out of the seat or paid closer attention to make sure I saved her and Bruce the seats next to me.

  Susie eventually turned around in her seat and said, “Stay away from my boyfriend.”

  Wendy kicked my seat. “Uhm, Susie, I don’t think we’re on a date and I know you’re not my girlfriend,” I said.

  “Sure I am, Alex. At least for today. Don’t you love my new dress? I picked it out just for you.”

  I knew that trick. “Give it up, Susie. You told me the same thing on field day before you flirted with every boy in sight. You’re not my girlfriend.”

  She raised her voice and rushed her tone. “Oh, then who is? Miss Pinky behind us?”

  I sat there wondering how I ever got myself in this mess. I wanted to look out the window and maybe even sleep for an hour. I shook my head. “No. No one is my girlfriend.”

  Wendy kicked my seat. “I heard that. Boys are so stupid sometimes.”

  Right when I thought there was no escape from this no win situation, Greg came flying out of the bathroom from the back of the bus.

  “Ahhh, Jimmy, dude, what did you have for dinner last night? It smells like something died in there. Had I known, I woulda made sure I got in there before you. Jeesh, have some respect for the rest of us.”

  All the kids who could hear Greg started to laugh. That became the topic of conversation long enough to divert the attention away from me. I rested the side of my face against the window and closed my eyes until we reached Gettysburg.

  After arriving at our destination, the adults escorted us off the bus and into the museum on the grounds. Susie immediately opened up her thin jacket to show off her dress to any boy who cared for a peek.

  While being given ten minutes to walk around inside the building and use the bathroom, Wendy walked passed Susie and blurted out, “Hussy.”

  Like a pack of feral cats, the entire class was herded into a room with a large mural on the wall. We watched a video with cool sound effects and a light show using the mural as a backdrop. The over-sized painting showed a war scene from what it must have been like when the soldiers from the north and south met on the battlegrounds in Gettysburg. Wendy shoved her way next to me but refused to say a word the entire presentation. I looked at Bruce for help. He shrugged.

  Mr. Weadon arranged for one of the park rangers to give us a guided tour on our bus across the battlefields. Before we piled back on the bus, we had thirty minutes to eat our bagged lunches. I took my bologna sandwich and Fritos and sat on the far edge of a bench with a window view inside the eating saloon.

  I sucked in a deep breath and looked out at the fields. I took a bite of my sandwich.

  Mr. Lincoln appeared on the bench next to me. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other. I said those words to myself multiple times, as I stood not far from where we are sitting.”

  I was happy to see President Lincoln again. He was one of my favorite friends.

  “Smell the stench of rotting flesh. It was everywhere the day of my address to the public,” the President said.

  “I only smell the cheeseburgers cooking on the grill, President Lincoln, but the cannons look pretty cool. I wonder if we’ll get a chance to fire one.”

  “Men sacrificed their lives here. I feel responsible,” Mr. Lincoln said. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. I had that power and look at the carnage. I still smell the stench. It will never leave me.”

  I finished my sandwich and opened my Fritos. “Mom asked me to say a prayer for the soldiers when we got to the fields.”

  Lincoln lowered his chin. “I remember my mother’s prayers and they always followed me.”

  I offered the President some Fritos but he would only stare at the acres of land. After finishing lunch, I made my way around the museum. The President followed. There was a large inscription on the wall near the entrance of the museum. On it were the two hundred and seventy two words President Lincoln recited; now known as the Gettysburg Address. I read the first paragraph aloud with Mr. Lincoln over my left shoulder.

  “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

  Lincoln stopped me. “Do any of those words sound familiar to you, Alex? If not, they should.”

  “No, sir, what am I missing?”

  Lincoln sighed. “Mr. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ It woul
d be an injustice should you not know those words.”

  “Oh, yeah. Now I remember them. President Jefferson told me they were the best words he ever wrote.”

  “Some of the finest in all of world history,” Lincoln declared.

  I continued reading the words on the wall.

  “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”

  President Lincoln rubbed his eyes. “I had to fight back the tears in that moment, Alex. Contractors were hired to bury the bodies. However, I assure you, I could still hear the screams, the cannon fire, smell all the death surrounding me. I took stock of myself. I would not fail myself or the citizens of this nation.”

  “I would think that presidents are used to giving speeches. Grandpa told me, ‘Politicians never met a microphone or camera they didn’t like.’ Grandpa knows stuff.”

  Lincoln looked at me. “What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.”

  I laughed. “I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds funny.” I kept reading aloud.

  “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

  I took a step back and read all the words another time to myself. I had read these words in class but standing on the same ground where President Lincoln had said those words sent a chill down my back.

  “I practiced my speech with my valet and close friend, William Johnson. He was a Negro I met in Illinois. When I moved to Washington, William came with our family and worked in the White House.”

  I looked up at President Lincoln. “Mr. Weadon didn’t teach us about William. Did he like your speech?”

  Lincoln looked up at his words and smiled. “If you were a Negro in times of slavery and your President was about to address thousands of citizens with the words, ‘this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,’ would you be happy?”

  “I guess, but our nation was already born. You were the sixteenth president.”

  Lincoln smiled again. “Read carefully, Alex. I said a new birth. A new nation, one free of slavery.”

  “Ahh, now I get it. Mr. Weadon thinks the last part about the government being of the people, by the people and for the people are the most important words in the speech.”

  President Lincoln stretched his arms and looked around at the people walking through the museum. “What do you think are the most important words, Alex?”

  He surprised me with his question. I could only say, “All of them.”

  Lincoln continued to look around. He surprised me again when he said, “Common looking people are the best in the world; that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.”

  That I understood. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost time to get on the bus for the tour. Before heading to the bus, I was curious about William Johnson. I asked President Lincoln more about his valet and friend.

  “Sad tale, that one. On the train ride back from Gettysburg, I became ill with smallpox. William never left my side. Unfortunately, with his efforts to heal me, he contracted the same disease. I recovered. William did not. We buried him in the newly formed cemetery called Arlington National. On his tombstone I had the word ‘Citizen’ engraved below his name.”

  “That’s a very sad story,” I said.

  “Don’t tell anyone, Alex. One reason I am fighting so hard to end slavery and pass the Thirteenth Amendment is for William Henry Johnson, and for all like him. Freedom in this land is for all.”

  I felt sad and happy at the same time. I began looking for the bus when Wendy tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Bruce and I have been searching all over for you. I bet Bruce you were playing kissy with Susie in the fields somewhere.”

  I shook my head and looked at President Lincoln. It was nice to hear him laugh.

  “A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.”

  More riddles, I thought. Wendy grabbed my hand and pulled me on the bus with Bruce. This time we all sat together. We watched as Susie Baker got on the bus holding hands with Johnny McCarthy.

  Wendy mumbled, “Hussy.”

  ~~~*~~~

  Chapter Fifteen