Land of the Brave and the Free (Journals of Corrie Belle Hollister Book 7)

by Michael Phillips

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Just that it would be that . . . a visit.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “What could it do but intensify my longing for such fellowship and relationships in my own life? When the time came for me to leave, where would I have to go, what would I have to come back to? This time at Mrs. Timms’ place is only temporary. There’s no life for me there, permanently. What will it be next? Another church someplace? Somehow that seems doubtful to me now. In other words, once the war is over, you have a home to go back to, people who are part of your life. But for me there just is no such place. After the experience in the church, I’ve been . . . well, alone.”

  “What about everything you told me before? Seems like I recall a conversation we had back before I remembered who I was, about your wanting to help people and being curious to know people.”

  “Yes. All that’s there—it always will be. But you need someplace to do it, someplace where it can happen. Always before, I figured a church was the right setting. But now all that’s changed. Here I am working for a lady on her farm, and how many opportunities do I get?”

  “You got one,” I said, smiling.

  “And being here at the moment our Father knew you needed tending to is worth everything ten times over,” rejoined Christopher quietly.

  “I do understand what you are saying, though,” I added. “You want to be in a place and situation where there are opportunities to give to people in need from what is inside you, from what God has given you to share, and yet you feel alone and isolated and unable to do the very thing you think he wants you to do.”

  “That’s it exactly. You do understand!”

  “I know what it’s like to have something brewing and stirring inside you,” I said. “Writing’s that way for me. But I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to do it.”

  “And be very successful at it,” added Christopher.

  “I reckon that is so.”

  “I know the Lord will do whatever he has purposed to do with me,” said Christopher. “I don’t doubt that. Yet it is frustrating having no idea where I’m to go, what I’m to do. I know he will show me when the time is right for me to know.”

  We bumped along awhile longer. I knew from the now familiar surroundings that we had not far to go now.

  “Oh, don’t you just love the wide out-of-doors!” Christopher said all at once, breathing in deeply. “The grass on the hill over there, that grove of trees—they look just the same every day, and yet every day they offer some fresh opportunity for thought that might be totally different than the day before. I suppose people could say that God’s creation is relatively unaltered on any given day—except for changes of weather—I would say that its beauty is not always in the thing itself, but rather in the heart of the one who chooses to receive it.”

  “Don’t you think the world is full of beauty all by itself?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course! But what I was attempting to say is that the person who does receive that beauty will receive great variation and variety in the same sight. We are, after all, not receiving messages of beauty and insights into the truths of creation from a mere attraction to some mountain or tree or animal, but a word from God himself. It is the heart of God who dwells within the essence of nature. He communicates pieces of himself in a very personal way through these things we look upon and say, ‘I behold beauty therein.’ God is everywhere, right in front of our eyes. The very people who go to church Sunday after Sunday, expecting there to get what they call closer to God, never suspect that he is perhaps even closer to them all the week long. And most of them rarely stop to spend a day alone in the woods or on a long ride on horseback, or sitting on top of a high hill, the very places where the Bible tells us the presence of God resides. I struggled to get the members of my former congregation to see this fundamental truth, and yet so often I thought I was doing nothing but talking to myself.”

  He glanced ahead, then finished. “Well, that was the fastest wagon ride I’ve ever made back from Richmond. It would seem you’ve been spared any further sermons! Looks like we’re home!”

  The conversation riding back from Richmond seemed to act like a key opening up a locked door.

  I suppose the locked door for me was the time I’d spent not remembering who I was, and for Christopher it was the time he’d spent alone since leaving his church. Over the next few days, both doors seemed to unlock and we spent hour after hour just talking together, about a hundred things that I can’t even remember all of now. Even though we both kept journals, I hadn’t realized how much I had missed having a real person, like Almeda, to talk to face-to-face. I’m sure it was even more that way for Christopher, because, like he said, he hadn’t really ever had someone like that.

  I waited four days. I hoped that would be long enough for Derrick to find out any information he would be able to.

  “I could just ride into the city myself,” I told Christopher. “My shoulder is fine.”

  “What!” he replied. “You think I’d miss an opportunity for another long ride for us to get to talk?”

  I laughed.

  “That is, unless you want to go alone?”

  “No, no, that’s not it at all,” I insisted. “I’d much rather share the ride with you! I just didn’t want to presume on your kindness.”

  “You presume all you want to, Corrie Hollister. I insist that you do. And it will be my pleasure to escort you into our fair capital city!”

  “Thank you!” I laughed.

  This time I asked Christopher to go into the Star building with me. I’d told him all about what had happened with Derrick in ’56, and then about our conversation of a few days earlier. We’d prayed for Derrick several times since, and I wanted Christopher to meet him.

  Curiously, the moment the two men met, I think I learned more about Christopher than anything he could have told me about himself. As they shook hands, I saw Christopher look deeply into Derrick’s face with a gaze of such compassion that all I could think of was that such must have been how Jesus looked upon people. The Bible talks about him looking at people and loving them, and that’s what instantly struck me as I saw the light in Christopher’s eye. I knew that he hadn’t just heard all I’d said about Derrick Gregory in a surface way, but that he’d realized God’s hand to be actively at work, even though I hadn’t seen it all this time, in preparing Derrick to see me again. Christopher took that as a sign that we needed to pray for Derrick. As we had prayed for him, I could feel a sense of expectation grow within me, just from Christopher’s enthusiasm, that God really was up to something in the situation on a deeper level than just what met the eye. So when we saw Derrick, the meeting was so alive with meaning and purpose.

  “I can’t tell you what a privilege it is to meet you, Mr. Gregory,” Christopher said with great sincerity. “Corrie has told me about you, and speaks quite highly of you.”

  Derrick immediately squirmed, as much from Christopher’s penetrating look of kindness and the honest smile on his face as from the words themselves.

  “Thank you, Braxton,” replied Derrick, shaking Christopher’s hand, “though I can’t imagine Cornelia having much to say about a scum like me who’d shoot a gun at a young woman like her.”

  “She told me all about the incident,” Christopher went on, still holding Derrick’s gaze. “But she also said she didn’t think you really meant her any harm. You can’t imagine how great is her forgiveness toward you, Mr. Gregory. Corrie’s a lady who takes the words of Jesus very seriously. Actually, she considers you a man of some fiber and integrity.”

  “Integrity . . . me!” exclaimed Derrick with a nervous laugh. “Cornelia,” he said, looking in my direction, “what did you tell him?”

  “I just told him what I think of you, Derrick,” I said. “And despite what happened, I do think highly of you. I told you before, didn’t I, that I forgave you a long time ago?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “
If it’s worthy to be called by the name at all, Mr. Gregory,” Christopher put in, “forgiveness is complete and total. There’s nothing really so astounding about it. Corrie just happens to be a person who is under orders to a higher authority.”

  Derrick sort of shook his head. “Well, it beats anything I’ve ever heard of, and that’s the truth. But I appreciate what you both say. I’m glad there’s no hard feelings. Like I told Cornelia the other day, I’ve always thought a lot of her, too.”

  There was a pause. I didn’t want Derrick to feel too awkward, and he had plenty to think about already!

  “Did you find out anything about Captain Dyles and Jacob?” I asked.

  “Matter of fact, I surprised even myself. I did find where they were taken.”

  “They’re alive?” I asked excitedly.

  “I didn’t say that. I don’t know. I didn’t want to make the sergeant I was talking to suspicious, so I didn’t ask too many questions. So I can’t promise a thing. But the fellow owed me a favor, and I found out where—at least where he thinks—they were taken.”

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “Right here in the city. It’s called Libby Prison.”

  “Used to be a ship’s chandlery, didn’t it?” asked Christopher.

  “Yeah. A pitiful place, from what I hear,” said Derrick. “More than thirteen hundred men in six dank little rooms. Chances of your finding who you’re looking for, Cornelia, especially the darkie . . . I don’t think they’re too good.”

  This time the ride back from Richmond to Mrs. Timms’ farm was quiet and somber. Part of me was happy to have found out what I had. Now at least I had something to pin my hopes on that Captain Dyles and Jacob were alive.

  Yet I didn’t even know what it was I was hoping for. And Derrick’s words were none too encouraging. But somehow I had to try to do something. I couldn’t help feeling responsible.

  “You really want to try to find them, see them, talk to them, don’t you, Corrie?” Christopher asked.

  “Yes,” I answered, “but I just don’t see how.”

  “Well, don’t give up. We’ll think of something.”

  “But what?” I said in frustration.

  “There may be a way. I know that part of Richmond pretty well.”

  We rode on farther in silence. I knew Christopher well enough by now to recognize the look of something turning over in his mind. But he was the kind of man who didn’t like to say something until he had thought it through all the way from one end to the other. He wanted to make sure his words counted and that he didn’t just fill up the air with them for the sake of making noise.

  “It’s hard to know where right and wrong fall in the middle of a war,” he commented after a while.

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing specific,” he answered. “It’s just more difficult to see the ethics of some things clearly when, in a way, you’re totally immersed in something—this war, for instance—that I would say is wrong by definition. Would it be wrong for us to stretch the truth in order to see or help your friends? It’s just a question I can’t quite see all the way to the bottom of. I believe in truth. Yet where might a small compromise of truth be justifiable for the greater truth of, for example, helping to set a man free?”

  I thought immediately of my own struggle with that very question about truth in the episode that Derrick Gregory had been involved in so long ago. I never had thoroughly resolved it, there were so many factors involved.

  “I’m sure it must be the very question Mr. Lincoln had to wrestle with, and perhaps even the leaders of the Confederacy, too,” Christopher went on, “in weighing having to wage a war, clearly an evil thing, for the sake of upholding what they considered truth.”

  “If you’re asking me,” I laughed, “I don’t have an answer.”

  “No, I don’t suppose I’m asking you for an answer as such. These are just the kinds of things I find myself thinking about sometimes—the kinds of questions about spiritual matters that don’t have clear answers. At least not that I can see.”

  “I’ve talked to Almeda about just that,” I said, “—what’s a Christian to do when right and wrong isn’t as clear as black and white?”

  “I must admit, I’ve struggled with more of them since leaving my church. There was a certain cocoon environment I now realize I was in—even during seminary, and before. For so long I saw everything through the filter of the church and its protective and encircling boundaries. But now so many things look different to me. It’s funny though,” he added, chuckling to himself.

  “What’s funny?” I asked.

  “I feel like I’m twice the man I was a few years ago. I’m more mature, not nearly so naive as a Christian, more sensitive to the people around me, less prone to spiritualize things with rote responses, more practical.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” I asked. “I don’t see anything funny about it.”

  “Along with everything I just said, I seem to have twice as many doubts, twice as many questions, and not nearly so much self-confidence as I did when I was in the church. Don’t you find that humorous?”

  “I don’t know. Actually, maybe it’s a good thing. Almeda and Rev. Rutledge have always told me that doubts were good.”

  “I know,” said Christopher, laughing again, but thoughtfully. “I know they are. I know the kinds of things I wrestle through with the Lord now are the kinds of things that are necessary for spiritual maturity. But still, every once in a while it strikes me as funny—more mature, but less self-confident, more practical and knowledgeable about spiritual things, yet with more doubts and questions. It all just doesn’t seem to go together very well.”

  We rattled along in the wagon and were soon back to the farm.

  I didn’t see Christopher for several hours. He was busy with the animals. I ate with Mrs. Timms, and it was well after dark before he came in.

  He walked straight into the sitting room, his face all lighted up.

  “I’ve got it, Corrie,” he said. “I know what we’ll do!”

  It was a week and a half later, in the second week of January 1865, when I found myself walking alongside Christopher toward the door of Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia.

  I had been in many scary situations in my life. I don’t know why I should have been trembling now, but I was. Maybe it was knowing that we were going inside the place and that the doors would close behind us, and that if they found out what we were really doing there, they might leave the doors closed and we might never get out!

  We walked straight to the guard who stood there with a rifle.

  “Rev. Braxton and Nurse Hollister to see two of your prisoners,” said Christopher with a commanding voice. For someone who said he didn’t feel very self-confident, he certainly could have fooled me! Immediately the guard turned and went inside. A couple minutes later he returned, an officer following him.

  “What’s this all about, Reverend?” asked the man.

  “Like I told the corporal here,” replied Christopher, “I’m Rev. Braxton and this is my assistant, Nurse Hollister. We’ve been sent by one of President Davis’ assistants to examine two of your prisoners. It’s all right here.”

  He handed the man a paper he’d been holding. The officer glanced over it.

  “What’s the trouble with these two?” he said, cocking his head toward the paper he still held in his hand. “We’ve got twelve, maybe thirteen hundred men here. We don’t even know half their names.”

  “It’s imperative we find these two—a Union captain and a big darkie fellow that was with him. Taken prisoner sometime in October, wasn’t it, Nurse Hollister?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “We don’t have records on them,” insisted the officer.

  “We’ll find them. You can leave it to us. We’re under orders to remove them from the prison.”

  “Why?”

  “Might be carrying cholera.”

  The man sucked in a
breath of air but tried to conceal his alarm.

  “What if they are? So a few prisoners die?”

  “If they’ve got it, with the miserable conditions here, Lieutenant, the entire prison could be wiped out.”

  “They’re only Yankees. It’ll save us the trouble of shooting them.”

  “You think they’re going to die and you and all your men are going to escape the plague, Lieutenant?” Christopher barked, sounding almost angry. “Don’t you hear me, man? This is serious. The entire city could be infected! That’s why the President sent us. We have to get these two men out of the prison. Now be quick about it, or I will have to report you to President Davis!”

  “Yes . . . yes, Reverend,” stammered the lieutenant.

  “I’ll take my orders back,” said Christopher, grabbing the paper from him.

  “Right this way, Reverend,” said the lieutenant, leading us back the way he had come. As we walked inside, Christopher glanced over at me, took in a breath, and raised his eyebrows slightly. I could see just the hint of a smile come over his lips. It seemed to say, “Can you believe I got away with that!” Then the stern look came back over him, and his eyes went back to the shoulders of the lieutenant a stride ahead. The door thudded shut behind us, and I heard a loud clank of iron a second later.

  We were inside now—completely inside!

  It was just like Derrick had said—six large rooms, teeming with prisoners. I thought I’d seen the worst of it in the battlefield hospitals. But this was downright gruesome and morbid. I could hardly keep from gagging from the sights and smells and sounds!

  There were men without arms and legs, many with open wounds. I don’t know what they did for sanitation, but it smelled as if they didn’t do anything! All the men were skin and bones. So skinny they didn’t look as if they’d been fed in months, yet somehow they managed to stay alive. A few of them looked like skeletons that had just had some skin stretched tightly over the bones! Rats and mice scurried across the floor. It wouldn’t have surprised me to know that half the prisoners were suffering from gangrene. So many of them had been taken prisoner during combat, it was hardly surprising that many were wounded, and their Confederate keepers did little or nothing to keep the wounds from festering and getting worse. They didn’t care how many died. These poor Union boys were the enemy, whether on the battlefield or in a prison. Some of those lying on the hard, wet stone floor I think were dead! But I didn’t want to look a second time to know for sure. The less I knew of the horrors of this place, the better!