I Am Abraham & That Silver Sword Of Appomattox
Monday, March 03, 2014
 |
| Painting by John Leon Gerome Ferris |
When I went into the house I found General Lee. We greeted each other, and after shaking hands took our seats. I had my staff with me, a good portion of whom were in the room during the whole of the interview.
What General Lee's feelings were I do not
know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face...his
feelings... were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own
feelings...were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing
at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly and had suffered
so much...
General Lee was dressed in full uniform
which was entirely new, and was wearing a sword of considerable value...In my
rough traveling suit...I must have contrasted very strangely with a man so
handsomely dressed, six feet high and of faultless form...
We soon fell into conversation about old
army times... Our conversation grew so pleasant that I almost forgot the object
of our meeting.
U.S.
Grant , Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
 |
| Uncredited illustration on cover of Richard Adams's Traveller |
We came to a house – just an ordinary
house, like plenty of others, with a flight of steps, some pillars and a
verandah with a balcony above. Marse Robert dismounted in the yard and walked
up the steps, while Tucker [Sergeant] took me and Champ [Sergeant Tucker’s
horse] off round the side. He found a place in the shade and settled hisself
there, ’long with the two of us and Colonel Marshall’s [Charles Marshall, Lee’s
aide-de-camp] horse Mercury. Everything was quite quiet and peaceful – ’twas a
fine afternoon – and soon I’d near ‘bouts forgot what we was there for. A good
horse never has no problem loafing, you know.
After some considerable time we heard a
whole bunch of horsemen coming. They was all Blue man – you could smell that as
they came close. The officers must’a dismounted in front of the house, ’cause
the soldiers – some of ’em – led the horses round to where we was at. I noticed
that Tucker didn’t talk to the soldiers, so I took my lead from him, and didn’t
set out to talk to the horses neither. There was one black horse, I remember,
pulled up ’longside me: he told me his name was Cincinnati. He acted quite easy and sociable
– you couldn’t dislike him. I acted the
same, which is what I felt Marse Robert would want. But pretty soon his soldier
led him off a ways, so we was left by ourselves again. We was free to graze,
and I remember the dratted flies was a nuisance; ’twas coming on to summer, you
see.
Traveller – Richard Adams 1988
The first part is the original description of what went on at Appomatox. Because of poor communications little was written by anybody else about that fateful day when Lee surrendered.
The second part is a first person novel in
which our person is General Robert E. Lee’s horse Traveller. Traveller is a wonderful novel
by Richard Adams that I re-read often. Another first person account by an animal is Verlyn Klinkenborg's Timothy;or, notes of an Abject Reptile
I have this theory that the first paragraph
of any novel is a better standard that its cover if you want to judge it.
Grant’s memoirs have a killer first
sentence/paragraph:
My family is American, and has been for
generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.
Today I opened with haste an Amazon.ca
package that contained Jerome Charyn’s I Am Abraham.
I immediately went to the first paragraph
and I was not to be disappointed!
They could natter till their noses landed
on the moon, and I still wouldn’t sign any documents that morning. I wanted to
hear what had happened to Lee’s sword at Appomattox.
There’d been wild rumors about the fate of that sword. One tell was that Grant
had given it to a young captain on his staff who proceeded t gamble it away at
a local bawdyhouse. I was mortally embarrassed, wondering if that young captain
was Bob. So I was tickled to learn that Bob was on the premises, that he’d come
to see his Pa.
I Am Abraham – Jerome Charyn 2014
If you had read your Grant Memoirs you
would know that Captain Robert Lincoln served as an aide in Grant’s staff. If you want to know what happened to Lee's sword read I Am Abraham. It is revealed!
I know I will thoroughly enjoy Charyn’s
biography of Lincoln
written to read as an autobiography in the next few days. He did the same, brilliantly in 2010 with The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson. Because of that novel I have read
everything Dickinson
has written that is available.
With Lincoln,
Charyn puts me into a different space, a space I want to explore with anticipation.
I first saw a book with photographs by Mathew Brady , O’Sullivan and Alexander Gardner in an American Heritage book or magazine inside the
Lincoln Library in 1950 (or thereabouts). The library was an arm (a visible arm
of the more secretive CIA) of the United States Information Service and it was
located on the fashionable Calle Florida.
Argentines liked to throw bombs and rocks at it often not because there were no
libraries where you might take a book home but because the thought the Yankees
were as bad as Lee’s army thought.
I think I became a photographer because of
those photographs of long-dead (but alive in the photographs) soldiers of that
American Civil War. At the same time I developed an interest in anything
related to Ulysses S. Grant. I have read many a book about him including his so
personal, personal memoirs. In them he has little to say about Lincoln.
I am intrigued and delighted that soon I
will find out exactly (if only in a novel) transpired between President and
General.
There is an odd little detail about
Charyn’s novel. It is dedicated to a mysterious and romantic woman;
This book is for
my redhead
Lenore.
It’s Charyn who does give the red hair
importance. My favourite moment of the recent film Lincoln was to note Jared
Harris’s impersonation of Grant. I was very happy that the folks that made the
film did not bother to hide Harris’s red hair. And of course, unless I read
differently in the next days I am sure Grant did not have red hair!
 | |
| Left Jerome Charyn - Photograph Alex Waterhouse-Hayward, Right Abraham Lincoln - Photograph Alexander Gardner I am Abraham - Which one? |
