The Last Letter Home (6 page)

Karl Oskar untied the halter chain and harnessed his horse to the wagon. He made some purchases in Klas Albert’s store where today the customers elbowed each other. Then he drove back home again; with no court he had nothing more to do in Center City.

And today he wished to be alone to gather his thoughts.

Twenty-two thousand Minnesotans had last fall voted for Old Abe to be President. He himself was one of them. Those 22,000 considered the settlerson Lincoln one of them, indeed, the foremost of them. He was wiser, more capable, and more honest than anyone else. A man’s worth meant everything in the settlers’ republic, and that was why the boy from the log cabin had risen to the highest office in North America. In Sweden it was only required that a man was born in the royal palace and slept in a golden cradle to reach the highest pinnacle in the nation; his ability counted for nothing.

And those who had chosen Honest Abe had confidence that he would preserve the Union.

But the President couldn’t do it single-handedly. Now the Union was threatened and now the people of the North must gather round their elected leader. Today Old Abe called upon all loyal citizens: Help me save the Union!

Karl Oskar assured himself that he was a loyal citizen in the country that had received him and his family and opened a new home for them. The presidential proclamation was directed to him; he had read it carefully: The United States are threatened! You are one of those who elected me President! Now you must help me! Help me against the rebels! Help me save the Union! I have confidence in you: Come!

Old Abe was calling him. Being a citizen he was called on to shoulder his duties. For an honest man there could be only one reply to the call.

But as Karl Oskar approached his claim he looked over his land and the fields his hands had wrested from the wilderness and this acted as a serious reminder: here lay his earth waiting for the seed. Regardless of what happened his fields must be planted. This must not be put aside for anything; if a crop were to be harvested in the fall, seeds must be put in the earth in the spring. This rule of nature must not be altered even by a war. Therefore he must wait for a while yet. He was simply forced to wait. Sowing came first. People must have food next year also. Old Abe, born in a tiller’s cabin, wouldn’t he understand this?

—2—

Minnesota, the youngest state of the Union, was the first to reply to the President’s call: on the very day it arrived the Republican governor, Alexander Ramsey, offered in a telegram to Lincoln the first regiment of volunteers. And the Minnesota settlers were proud that their state was first. They were seized by an immeasurable anger and bitterness over the insult to the flag at Fort Sumter and several thousand of them were at once ready to sacrifice their lives in battle. Volunteers streamed in in much greater numbers than anyone had counted on. One regiment after another was trained and equipped at Fort Snelling and readied for the war.

Old Abe had asked for 75,000 men. He received in reply a song from the mouths of all the people in the North:

We are coming, Father Abraham,

Six hundred thousand strong . . .

In
Hemlandet
Kristina read about this great joy over the war which had seized people’s minds, and she was profoundly perplexed. She had thought that if people needn’t go to war except of their own free will there wouldn’t be any wars. But her thoughts and feelings had been entirely wrong. Up here in the North no one was forced to go; nothing happened to those who stayed home. Yet they took off, people rushed to the battlefields of their own free will. Of their own free will they went out to kill and be killed. Not only that, they were happy and joyous and exhilarated to be able to kill and be killed. They couldn’t get away fast enough, these volunteers who in their eagerness stepped on each other’s heels at the recruiting places; people were jubilant because they would have an opportunity to kill their neighbors.

The Lord’s commandment was: You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself! But it seemed they hated those neighbors in the South since they were in such a hurry to kill them. This desire of man to kill his own kind must be a curse of the original sin, which would cling to him to the end of time. War was punishment, war was caused by the original sin.

It said in
Hemlandet
that God took part and fought in the Civil War; fortunately he had decided to be on the side of the North. Eight hundred rebels had for two whole days bombarded Fort Sumter which was defended by one hundred men, but not a single one of the defenders had been killed. Thousands of shots had been fired but not a single Union soldier had fallen—this was a miracle that had taken place in the fort. And this miracle proved that God fought on the side of the Union troops.

How could they print such rot! wondered Kristina. God must have created the Southerners as well as the Northerners and he couldn’t be on either side in the war, for he couldn’t fight against his own creation, his own handiwork. He could only be against the war itself.

Karl Oskar felt the Union must be kept intact whatever the cost. But she replied that if the people in the South didn’t want to belong to the Union, why not let them go? Weren’t they fighting for the right to govern themselves, the same as the people up here in the North? It was senseless; both sides fought for the same thing! Both sides wanted to rule themselves! Why fight over it?

They could easily have come to an understanding if they had said to each other: We will leave you in peace if you leave us in peace! In that way the people of the South as well as the people of the North would have saved their lives.

It wasn’t that easy, explained Karl Oskar. For only through war could the enslavement of the Negroes be abolished. No, said Kristlna, however deeply she felt for the black ones she could not believe that a mass slaughter of other people was the right way to help them. It could not be God’s will that people killed each other by the thousands to liberate some from slavery. To keep your neighbor as a slave was a grave sin, to kill a neighbor was graver.

They could not agree. But the inhabitants of their new country had begun to shed each other’s blood, and each new issue of the paper told about it. In the settlements they read only of the Civil War, but each paper printed a comforting assurance: The North was many times stronger than the South, therefore the North must win. The North would win the war before the summer was over.

They sowed their seed and the kernels sprouted and came up. They planted the potatoes in the furrows and the potatoes returned in rows of dark green stalks. Even in this war spring the black earth fruited with wheat, corn, rye, oats, and root crops. This year too the earth promised the nourishment that would sustain people’s lives.

Summer came and it remained quiet and peaceful in the settlements round Lake Chisago. The thunder of the Civil War rumbled so far away it could not be heard up in Minnesota. Several regiments had left for the battlefields and more were prepared in great hurry. But the void after the soldiers left was not great enough to interfere with daily life; it went on without interruption, each one attending to his chores, no one disturbed in his daily work.

But the war did not go the way the papers had predicted. Everything happened except what was supposed to happen. The war went very badly for the North. Union troops lost one battle after another and were forced to one withdrawal after another. And Northern soldiers fell in unbelievable numbers, their bodies lay stacked in great piles on the battlefields. It was said they fought valiantly but had poor weapons: a soldier could consider himself lucky if he had been given a gun that was no more dangerous to him than to the enemy. Besides, the Union troops had incompetent generals. But the setbacks were not blamed on them as much as on the competent generals of the South.

And after Fort Sumter no more miracles took place to prove that God was fighting on the side of the North. The rebels had the upper hand from the beginning and kept it. Lincoln named a new general to have full command of the North’s forces, but it didn’t help, since the South hadn’t fired any of theirs.

By the end of the summer, when the Union troops already should have won the war, they suffered a great defeat at Bull Run, Virginia. When the papers announced this severe defeat a shock of fear hit the people of the North: Suppose we lose the war?

It seemed the end of the fight was near, but a different end than the one so surely predicted in the spring.

In April Lincoln had asked for 75,000 men, and 600,000 had volunteered. All had been convinced that this great army would be sufficient to win the war. But the inexperienced volunteers had first to be trained and equipped and it was a long time before they could be used in the field. And then came the defeats—and now more soldiers were needed.

In August President Lincoln issued a new call: He asked for another 300,000 men. If this number had not volunteered before the first of October, conscription would be necessary.

This was alarming.

And one day, in the beginning of September, just after the new call had been issued, Karl Oskar Nilsson read in
Hemlandet
a summons to the Swedish settlers of Minnesota to form a company of their own:

This country has permitted us to settle here in peace, it has received us foreigners with friendship. We enjoy here the same rights, are protected by the same laws, as the natives. Swedes constitute the greatest numbers of foreigners in Minnesota
—
it is time for us to fight for our adopted land, for the Union!

I myself offer to go! Let’s meet at Fort Snelling, where we ourselves will choose our officers!

A pox on him who says this is a war among Americans and doesnt concern us! This fight concerns us and our children!

We have sworn loyalty to this country!

This country is now in danger!

The appeal was dated, Red Wing, September 2, 1861, signed H. Mattson, “a countryman.” Karl Oskar read it several times, and thought deeply about it.

It was high time . . . !

The following night he could not sleep a wink, and in the morning he said to his wife that he was going to Stillwater and sign his name on the volunteer list. He would report for the war.

II

I AM CONCERNED WITH YOUR ETERNAL LIFE

—1—

Kristina was sewing on her new sewing machine in the living room. Her right hand controlled the balance wheel while her left fed it the cloth. The pedals moved rhythmically, she felt them as a pair of heavy iron soles. She sewed with foot power rather than hand power. This sewing machine, Karl Oskar’s gift to her last Christmas, had already saved her many hours of sewing and basting with needle. American menfolk made many inventions that helped greatly. This machine was an expensive apparatus—it had cost twenty dollars—but with it she could sew ten times faster than by hand. It was a very clever invention: the sewing contraption had pedals and buzzing wheels, shuttle and spool, over-thread and under-thread. It was truly unbelievable that such a capable machine—made for women’s use—would have been invented by a man.

She was sewing shirts for Karl Oskar from a roll of flannel she had bought at Klas Albert Persson’s store. Flannel was the cloth used by Americans for strong everyday wear. Otherwise she bought cheap calico or the most inexpensive cotton but the latter came in only a few ugly patterns at Klas Alberts.

It was a warm day even though it was already in September. Kristina pedaled her machine with bare feet. In winter the iron felt cold against the soles of her feet, but in summer cool and pleasant. The wheel’s buzzing turned into a noisy roar when she pedaled the machine at high speed.

Karl Oskar came in and sat down beside her. She slowed down her tramping and stopped the balance wheel, letting her hand rest on it as she turned to her husband.

She had seen in his face, earlier today, what he had to say. She had expected it for a long time. He had decided at last.

“I can’t delay any longer! I must volunteer! Otherwise I’ll be forced to . . .”

She was prepared and calm. Nor had he expected his wife to burst out crying.

She said quietly, “You’re not forced yet.”

“No—but I might be soon. They might start conscription the first of October.”

She raised her voice. “Wait till then!”

“It’s more decent to volunteer before they begin drafting. I’d be ashamed to be forced.”

Kristina looked questioningly at him. She moved her bare feet from the pedals of the sewing machine and rested her hands on her knees. “You wish to go to war of your own free will, Karl Oskar?”

“I’ve fought it the whole summer. Now I must go.”

As early as April Old Abe had called his loyal citizens. It was now September and at last he would answer: I’m coming! He said he had no wish to go out in any war if he could get out of it honorably. He could always find excuses and delays: Last spring the fields needed seeding, now in fall he could say he needed to harvest the crop. Still later he could use the threshing as an excuse not to volunteer. And during the winter there was timber to fell and saw for the new main house he intended to build. That would bring them to spring with the new planting and the same old excuses. In that way he could go on year after year.

Until the North had lost the war!

Of what use would it be then that he had stayed at home and tended to his chores? If the North lost, the slave powers could do what they wanted. The slave owners used their Negroes like cattle and they could use the people up here in the same way. Who could say that they would be allowed to keep their land and their home? Here they had been able to live and govern themselves because the United States was their protection and security. But would it remain so if the Union were broken?

Many had gone out in the war before him. He, as they, had believed it would be over in one summer, in which case it would have been unnecessary to volunteer. But now everyone realized that this misery would last long, and he could not expect others to jeopardize their lives and defend his wife, children, and home while he himself dodged. If a healthy man stayed home after this he must be a coward.