Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge

  RICHMOND HAS FALLEN!!

  The soldiers listened stunned. They had been fooled so often before that they had learned caution. But some of the sickest men openly expressed the hope that they would live to hear that the end had come.

  Then at last the news came that Lee had surrendered. There was no doubt about it. It was official. The newspapers carried the text of Grant’s terms and his telegram to the President:

  General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia this afternoon on terms proposed by myself. The accompanying additional correspondence will show the conditions fully.

  U. S. GRANT,

  Lieut.-General

  Gen. R. E. Lee,

  GEN: In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of N. Va., on the following . . .

  After millions of words the mythical words had come.

  It would be time later to review the pageantry of that great surrender, with all the false lights and glamors, to envision the meeting of the two generals, Lee in his spotless uniform, Grant, slovenly, smoking his cigar, to imagine the yielding of the never yielded sword. It would be time later to notice the simplicity with which the soldiers agreed that the War was finished and turned things over to the politicians. Just now it seemed that all the rest of a man’s life would be downhill from this almost unbearable moment.

  The hospital rang with shouts of thanksgiving. One-legged veterans crippled up and down the corridors, waving crutches. Soldiers embraced and cried like children. Every man who had strength enough to get up got up, while the weakest ones lay and yelled feeble hurrahs or wept quietly and helplessly. Soldiers who shouldn’t have been out of bed disappeared from the hospital encampment and didn’t turn up for days. Some never came back.

  The War was over. The peace terms were in; they didn’t include the restoration of health, limb, and eyesight to the sick and wounded; but no one thought of that for a little while.

  Each soldier’s happiness was magnified by the knowledge that it was shared by twenty million people. It was a joy that couldn’t be expressed in any other words than the simple statement, The War is over.

  Like the other invalid soldiers, Corporal Johnny Shawnessy wanted to get out of the hospital. He wanted to be where he could see the faces of thousands of people, wring their hands, walk for hours and listen to their songs. He wanted to see beautiful young women. He wanted them to smile at him and perceive that he was a soldier of the Republic. He wanted these satisfactions not alone for himself—but unselfishly for everyone. Although he was rapidly getting better and had long been out of danger, he hadn’t yet lost the wounded soldier’s sweet humility. He almost forgave the bounty-jumpers, the professional civilians, the second-guessers.

  For several days after the announcement of Lee’s surrender, tension mounted. Grant was expected in Washington. Sherman in North Carolina was negotiating with the only remaining Rebel army of any size. Hourly the news poured in, and jubilation went from peak to peak of frenzy.

  It was in the midst of this accelerating triumph that Johnny received a letter from New York, in answer to one that he had written not long before. It said simply:

  My dear young martyr,

  Meet me in Washington Friday morning, first train from New York, and we’ll do the City. Everything, including the ladies, will be on

  Your ebullient savant,

  J. W. STILES

  The morning of April 14 came raw and gray. Johnny didn’t ask for a leave. He just walked out, and making connections with a local line, was carried into the city, where he sat in the station and waited for the Perfessor to show up. By an understanding with an orderly, he had got himself a freshly pressed uniform and a new cap. His face was cleanshaven. He began to feel a little better as he rested on the bench.

  Someone arriving on an earlier train from New York had left a copy of the New York Tribune on the bench. Johnny ran his eyes over it, his attention being arrested by some words in an editorial entitled ‘The Dawn of Peace.’

  And every loyal heart beats fast as it remembers all that has passed since the 14th of April, 1861, and all that is promised on the 14th of April, 1865.

  April 14 would always be one of the somber anniversaries of his life as well as the Republic’s. On April 14, four years ago, Sumter had been surrendered, and Little Jim Shawnessy had been born.

  Soon the train from New York came in. Hands, handkerchiefs, flags were waving from the windows as the train coasted to a stop.

  Instantly, young people sprang from the doors into the arms of lovers, whole families disembarked, waving flags and bearing luggage; statesmen, soldiers, businessmen, hundreds of eager and excited Americans, got down into the station, their eyes shining with expectation, all of them looking for faces to greet and doors to hurry through.

  The Perfessor, appearing in the crowd with a woman, caught sight of Johnny and came over swinging his cane. With one hand, he shook Johnny’s hand, and with the other took hold of Johnny’s arm as if to support him. He kept shaking his head and blinking his eyes.

  —Good heavens, boy, they’ve nearly killed you.

  The Perfessor introduced his companion as a Miss Bessie Dietz. A spaciously contrived blonde with a sweet dollface, she giggled every time the Perfessor spoke.

  —I have a girl lined up for you too, John, the Perfessor said. She’s a young actress named Daphne Fountain, who’s here with Laura Keene’s troupe. They’re playing at Ford’s Theatre tonight in Our American Cousin. She understudies Miss Keene. She has seats for us that we can pick up at the ticket office this morning, and we’re to get her at the Stage Door after the show tonight.

  They hailed a carriage outside the station.

  —Don’t expect too much of Washington, the Perfessor said, as they rode away. It’s just a poor Southern city, a parvenu trying to look and act dressed up and doing a bad job of it. Take us past the Capitol, driver.

  In the raw April day, Washington was a muddy plain of drab, ill-assorted buildings. Johnny looked south down a wide unpaved avenue, at the far end of which was a gray pile of stone and a dome surmounted by a misty figure.

  —There’s the Capitol! the Perfessor said. Rome on the banks of an Indian river.

  —Ain’t it big! Bessie said.

  The sidewalks and streets around the Capitol were full of civilians and soldiers. Now and then a company marched down the street, and the crowds cheered. Everyone looked purposeless, as if for the first time in four years it was all right to take one’s time.

  As the carriage turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue, a company of soldiers marched by, singing,

  —Hurrah, Hurrah,

  We bring the Jubilee.

  Hurrah, Hurrah,

  The Flag that makes you free.

  So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the Sea, While we were marching through Georgia.

  —It’s that new song, the Perfessor said. In your honor, hero boy.

  He stuck his cane through a window and pointed to the dome of the Capitol.

  —The lady on top there is armed Freedom, resting on her sheathed sword. High time. Perhaps we’d best check our reservations at Willard’s before we see anything else.

  —This city’s sort of messy, Bessie said.

  —And nought but mud and Honest Abe we see

  Where streets should run and sages ought to be,

  recited the Perfessor.

  They stopped at Willard’s Hotel, where the Perfessor had reserved rooms. The lobby and the bar were crowded.

  Later they left the hotel in a carriage. Pennsylvania Avenue, the main street of Washington, was unpaved. Ugly brick buildings alternated with dingy wood. The sidewalks were dirty; the gutters ran with slops. But hundreds of gay, overdressed young women and their escorts, mostly officers, were walking and riding in the City.

  —Let’s turn here, the Perfessor said. I want to pick up the tickets.

  They turned off the Avenue and rode down a block and a hal
f, stopping before a brick theatre. Bills in front announced the play:

  OUR AMERICAN COUSIN

  Starring

  LAURA KEENE

  Johnny and Bessie waited in the carriage.

  In a few minutes, the Perfessor returned with tickets for the play.

  —Here they are, he said. We’re lucky to get them. The President’s expected to be there with General Grant.

  —What kind of play is it? asked Bessie.

  —A prickmedainty piece of fooling, the Perfessor said. Neither fish nor flesh.

  So there was time again for third-rate plays. There was time for the theatre. There was time for the ladies to deck their bodies for pleasure and seduction. There was time to lean back in a carriage and dream of a young woman from the City, an actress whose talented body lured perfumed gallants to the stagedoor with bouquets of roses in their hands.

  The carriage had crossed the Avenue, going south. Four or five blocks from the hotel was a wide gray sheet of water and beside it a stump of stone.

  —I especially wanted to see this, Johnny said. I suppose a dime I gave years ago added a mite to this monument. How tall is it now?

  —Just a minute, the Perfessor said.

  He had the driver stop and called to a crowd of Negro boys playing near-by.

  —How tall is the monument, boys?

  —Yassuh, Generl Wash’ton’s Monument, one of the boys said as he walked out of the group, reciting monotone. Present height thee hunud and thutty-thee feet. Dammeter at base, thutty feet. Jected height foh hunud and fitty-fah feet. Talles’ structure inna world.

  —Thank you, my boy, the Perfessor said, pitching him a dime.

  —What’s this river? Bessie asked.

  —This is the Puttoric Histommac, the Perfessor said, across which the General is reputed to have thrown a dollar. In Greece, the hero skins a lion. In America, he slings a dollar.

  —The General’s dollar fell on fertile ground, Johnny said, judging from the size of this big stone flower.

  —The Republic has a poorer memory than any schoolboy, the Perfessor said. A boy ties a string around his finger, but the Republic can’t remember anything without piling up several hundred feet of stone.

  In the mist beside the Potomac, the Washington Monument was an amputated finger of frustration, indicating an undivined and un-divinable future.

  —There’s the White House, the Perfessor said, indicating a graceful pillared front a long way off across a parklike lawn.

  Raindrops began to fall. The carriage crossed a small bridge over an arm of water, went through a block of shabby houses, and came out on a walk skirting the President’s Park.

  —It’d be nice to see the President, Johnny said.

  —Anyone can see Abe, the Perfessor said. Just walk right in, spit on the floor, and make yourself at home. Perhaps you’ll be there yourself some day, boy.

  —I decline the nomination, Johnny said.

  —Poor old Abe! the Perfessor said. He’s barely pulled the Republic through a victorious War and the wolves are already at him again. That speech he made a few days ago raised quite a stink. His Reconstruction policy is too gentle to suit most people.

  As they returned to the hotel, the mist closed down so thick that the Capitol was no longer visible. The City of Washington was a waste of ugly buildings in rain.

  At the hotel, they began to have a good time. They had lunch and got a table in the bar, where they watched the crowds come and go. The Perfessor knew almost everyone of importance and was up and down like a jack on a spring to greet people and bring them to the table. Everyone was drinking and proposing toasts, and toward the dinner hour people got to singing war songs. Corporal Johnny Shawnessy had a good time just sitting there in a blur of faces, colors, sounds.

  Along in the afternoon, Bessie tried to get him to tell about his hero experiences. When he declined out of modesty, the Perfessor, who was in vein, put together an ingenious fiction in which Johnny held off a whole regiment of Georgia militia singlehanded while help came up. The story included a Southern beauty, buried treasure, gory fighting, and everything incorrect that people associated with the March to the Sea. Johnny topped the story with a palpable fraud about the Perfessor riding a horse three days and three nights through hostile country, risking his life twenty times, in order to file a dispatch to his paper.

  —Oddly enough, said the Perfessor, I felt no fear at the time.

  People kept stopping at Johnny’s table and saying,

  —So you’re the boy from Sherman’s Army.

  When things got a little wild around seven o’clock in the evening and everyone was singing the new song ‘Marching Through Georgia,’ the crowd made Johnny stand on the table.

  —Speech! Speech! they yelled.

  —Tell us about the March, boy! they yelled.

  —It was nothing, Johnny said. We just walked.

  Everyone applauded.

  —Isn’t he sweet! a girl said.

  Johnny said something about his comrades in the hospital and about how much victory meant to them.

  —Sure! Sure! everyone yelled.

  People pumped his hand, swatted him on the back, and tried to establish mutual friendships back in Indiana. A girl came over and put her arms around him and kissed him on the lips.

  —Honey, I’d kiss every man in Sherman’s Army, if I got a chance, she said.

  —Maybe I could stand proxy for the rest, Johnny said.

  Everyone laughed.

  —Time to go, someone said.

  It was the Perfessor, leaning through the liquorcolored air.

  —Play starts at eight-thirty, I think. We’ve just time to go over and get settled. It seems certain Lincoln and Grant will be there.

  Bessie Dietz giggled, and Johnny got unsteadily to his feet. He hadn’t drunk much, but he was still wobbly. His ears sang. But he felt very happy when they were outside driving away somewhere through the misty evening. Pennsylvania Avenue was two wavering rows of gaslamps. The illuminated dome of the Capitol seemed suspended in the mist.

  The carriage left the Avenue and turned into a narrower way. In a few minutes, they were before the theatre. Johnny’s head was far from clear as he joined the crowd crossing over the wooden platform built out across the gutter. As they went up the steps to the entrance, he noticed that the brick front of Ford’s Theatre was hung with bunting.

  Everyone in the crowded lobby was talking about the end of the War, the latest news from Sherman’s Army, the expected appearance of the President and General Grant at the theatre. Someone said that the General wasn’t coming after all.

  —Maybe the President won’t come either, someone said.

  They went upstairs to the balcony. People were stirring in the aisles, hunting for seats.

  Someone pointed out the President’s box projecting over the right side of the stage and ten feet above it. A chandelier hung close by, and a picture was suspended between the folds of an American flag draped over the edges of the box. The double arches were curtained and dark. The curtain hiding the stage showed an autumntinted landscape and a bust of Shakespeare. Hardly were they seated when the houselights were darkened, and the curtain went up for the opening scene in the play called Our American Cousin.

  Johnny, who had seen few plays in his time and none at all for two years, was thrilled by the garish color and unreality of the stage. The Play itself was a vapid little thing in which bogus Englishmen made laughter over a bogus American. The voices had the artificial hoarseness of veteran performers trying to fill up the back spaces of a theatre. There was much trained gesture and forced laughter. The posturing mannequins on the stage had names—Florence Trenchard, Lord Dundreary, Asa Trenchard.

  The performance was spirited, and people laughed and applauded now and then. But the Play itself made no difference. The actors were only supposed to present a little tableau of the times, while everyone, audience and players together, collaborated in a more significant drama. People had co
me to the theatre, as perhaps they always did, to satisfy an ancient yearning, to find a place of gaiety and mystery with a thousand of their fellows, and to behold time, fate, and the Republic expressed both inside and outside the artificial boundaries of the stage.

  As the Play continued, the feeling of excitement subsided only to return again. People moved restlessly in their seats, waiting for the entrance of a more important actor than those now posturing on the stage.

  Johnny had become absorbed in the Play and was a little surprised when the actors paused in the midst of some punning on the word ‘draft.’ There was a disturbance in the balcony.

  —The President! someone said.

  —And there’s Mrs. Lincoln with him!

  A murmur ran over the balcony and lower floor as people craned for a look. Four people were walking along the dress-circle that divided the balcony. Johnny stood up, applauding with the others. A little fattish woman led the way, and behind her walked a tall, sloped man. Johnny could have reached out and touched the President as he passed. The party made their way to a door that led down a hidden corridor to the box at the side of the theatre. They entered the door and passed from sight. In a few moments, the President’s face appeared in the box overlooking the stage, as if he were leaning forward preparatory to sitting back. Then he disappeared.

  —Ha! Ha! Ha!

  It was Lord Dundreary on the stage hollowly laughing.

  ALL

  —What’s the matter?

  DUNDREARY

  —Why, that wath a joke, that wath.

  FLORENCE

  —Where was the joke?

  The excitement of the audience lessened, and there was no further disturbance in the aisles as the Play went on. No one could see the President, unless possibly the people in the box immediately opposite his.

  Once more, Corporal Johnny Shawnessy, Soldier of the Republic and unsung Hero-Poet of Raintree County, leaned back in his place, musing on the strange legend of his life. It seemed to him that he had assembled here the lost pages of a myth of himself and the Republic, and that he had only to put them together at last into a meaningful pattern. All was promise, excitement, near-fulfillment. The battle days were over. The Republic was in the ritual hour of exultation. Here was the shrine of that aspiring people, the Americans, their Capital City, rising from mist on its muddy plain, rising from April to eternal spring. Names of battles reverberated in the corridors of the sped years; a door was about to clang shut on the pantheon of a nation’s sacrifice. And all was turning, turning toward a new day. The Republic was waiting for its poet, for him who could discover beauty in immortal phrases, for him whose being was attuned to the music of rivers on the land, for him who had known strong passion, love, and death, whose memories were memories of the Republic in War and Peace. Here all about him were the actors and the stage-props of the greatest of all dramas. An unknown actress waited for him somewhere behind the scenes. Pensive, alonely brooding in his box over the stage, was President Lincoln, the gaunt, tender father who had brought the Republic through the War, One Nation. In the camps, hospitals, barracks of the land, the men who had fought from Sumter to Appomattox were waiting for the bugles of the last encampment.