The Journey North

3 Alabama Joins The War. “Sweet home Alabama, Where the skies are so blue, Sweet home Alabama, Lord, I’m coming home to you …” Lyrics to the song ‘Sweet Home Alabama’. A good part of what was then the United States, including those states that had, or were in the process of seceding from the Union, had already heard the news of the fall of Fort Sumter by the following morning. For some parts of the country the news had yet to reach them. Depending on where you lived, and depending on whether your support was for either maintaining the Union or for going to war against it, the news you heard was either good or bad. For Washington, D.C., and other parts of the North, it was bad news. Whatever kind of news it was, it was news that travelled very quickly. For those parts of the country that were removed from telegraph lines, newspapers, and other means of communication, the news of war starting came to you by horseback. ****** For several minutes, the horse and its rider had moved quickly across the several large opened fields at a fast gallop as they made their way to the next farm. Their progress had only been briefly interrupted by two wide, but small natural depressions they had come across, and by three small stands of pine trees that separated the fields from each other. Now past their last obstacle, they quickly resumed their fast pace. The farmhouse was now in sight, and was only a short distance away. Halfway across the last field, the horse’s rider began his cries. “Louis! Louis Hiram Pierce! Where ya be, boy! Where is ya?” Busy as he worked in the large red painted wooden barn on his parent’s small farm, where he lived with his two brothers and younger sister, Louis paused from repairing a broken plow blade and walked outside after hearing his name being hollered out. It had been hollered out very loudly, and the tone of the voice had excitement in it. The sunny bright day was unusually warm even for an early April day in Alabama, and it caused him to shield his eyes with his right hand as he looked to see the rider approaching. He could tell from the sound of the voice that it had been his cousin, Edward Russell, who had hollered out his name, but he still shielded his eyes from the sun as he watched his favorite cousin race across one of the farm’s large open fields. Watching Eddie slap the backside of his horse told him something exciting must have happened. As Eddie brought his horse to a stop near the small stone well that sat by the side of the farmhouse, Louis was joined by his younger brother, Jesse, and their sister, Margaret. She was a bubbling and happy ten year old girl who was everyone’s favorite in the family. George, the oldest of the four siblings of John and Martha Pierce, was off hunting up dinner in the woods to the south of their farm when their cousin arrived. Eddie’s mother and Louis’ mother were sisters who had grown up in rural Alabama with their two older brothers. Both of their parents had passed away, and Louis’ mother had inherited the family farm after her brothers had both moved further west. The two sisters had each raised four children of their own, and had lived barely a mile apart from each other their whole lives. Like two of their sons, Eddie and Louis, they also had been nearly inseparable through life. Twenty year old Edward Russell was a very different person in life than his younger cousin. He had been named after a distant and now deceased relative, Colonel Gilbert Christian Russell, Sr., who Russell County had been named after. He was as skilled as Louis was in fishing and in hunting, but unlike his cousin he had a need to escape the country life he had been raised in. Also unlike his cousin, he had never cared too much for book learning, believing it was a waste of time. Eddie liked to spend his time dreaming of an easier way to make a living than by the long hours he put in each day at his family’s farm. Exhausted from his long ride that morning, Eddie stood catching his breath for a couple of minutes before lowering the wooden water bucket down into the well. The cool water he pulled up from the fifty foot hand dug well helped to cool him down considerably. Standing in the shade that a small stand of pine trees afforded him, he slowly brushed the dust from the fields off of his clothes. He had spent the past hour galloping across the countryside telling everyone he met the news about the war starting. Now it was time to tell Louis. “Eddie, ya look as hot as a poor coon gets after it’s been chased by a pack of dogs!” Little Margaret’s observation of her cousin’s heated condition made both Louis and Eddie laugh loudly. After tossing the tin drinking cup back into the wooden bucket that now sat on the edge of the well, Eddie picked up his young cousin and playfully tossed her up in the air several times. Each toss brought squeals of laughter from the young girl. Finally setting her down, he smiled back at her as he wiped his sweaty forehead with his left sleeve. “Miss Margaret, y’all are getting far too big for me to be doing that much longer! Ya gotta stop growing on me, ya hear?” Margaret laughed at her cousin’s comment. “I don’t rightly know how to do that, Eddie? How does one stop growing?” Finished wiping his brow, Eddie continued to smile at his pretty young cousin as he kept on teasing her. “I don’t rightly know the answer to that question, but I’ll find someone who does! Miss Margaret, I need to talk to Louis for a spell. You and Jesse need to give us a few minutes, OK?” Neither Jesse nor Margaret liked missing out on the exciting news that Eddie had obviously brought with him that morning, but both knew their place in the family. They also knew that sometimes the grown-ups had to talk by themselves. Like many other children in the South, they knew not to question their elders about adult talk as the risk of being disciplined was one they didn’t care to chance. With Jesse’s help, Margaret reluctantly took the reins to Eddie’s horse and led him to the nearby water trough so he could cool down as well. Waiting until his younger cousins were out of earshot, Eddie excitedly spoke to his cousin. “Louis, have ya heard about it or not?” Having no idea what Eddie was talking about; Louis asked him what he was referring to. “Heard what, Eddie? Heard that it’s too darn hot already? Heard ya made a fool of yourself at the barn dance last week? Have I heard …. .” “About the war!” Stunned by what he heard, Louis stood still for several moments as he quickly realized that the months and months of talk about a possible war starting against the North had finally happened. “Y’all are telling me that we really is fightin’ against the Yankees? It don’t make no sense to me. We’s all part of the same country, ain’t we?” As quickly as he could, but slightly embellishing on some of the details as he talked, Eddie excitedly told his cousin about the Confederate cannons firing upon Fort Sumter. “I heard the Yankees did some firing back at our shore batteries, but supposedly they didn’t do too much damage. I guess our boys are better shots than their boys are, huh? Heard our boys hit that fort real hard like. Got them Union boys to surrender pretty doggone quick! Not bad, huh? First time we got to fightin’ and we won, not bad, huh?” Louis stood silent for several more moments as he processed the news Eddie had given to him. A strong supporter of the stand that the Confederate states had taken, he still wondered what breaking away from the Union would mean for the South. Quietly he pondered the answers to his many thoughts.