<< Go Back

Love's Battlefield

By Keitha Parton

Order Now!

“I will lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.” Psalm 4:8
Chapter 1
March 17, 1865
“Boy, it’s time to get in and wash up for dinner.” Katherine called for the third time as she lifted her suntanned hand to wipe perspiration off her furrowed brow. Once again, she turned to scan the perimeter of the woods behind the house hoping to catch a glimpse of her little brother somewhere in the shady depths.
“If he doesn’t show up shortly, I will switch him good,” she grumbled to herself, “little rascal is constantly annoying me. Wonder what he is into now? Probably laying in the tall weeds and enjoying a good laugh at my expense.”
Benjamin or Ben as he wished to be called, was her eleven-year-old little brother, and even though she adored the boy his constant mischievous ways caused a lot of aggravation. Ever since he was a teeny baby, Katherine had taken cared for him as if he was her own. The work had been hard at times, but she wouldn’t trade the life she had with him for anything in the world. She felt a love for him that was all encompassing and couldn’t imagine a life without him.
~
In the spring of 1861 Katherine’s father, Jedediah Oben, voluntarily signed up to fight for the Confederacy as he considered it his duty to defend the southern states that he loved so much.
The Northern and Southern parts of the United States progressed in separate ways. The South continued a predominant agricultural financial system while the North developed into a more industrial one. Due to the difference in social principles and political principles there were many disagreements between the two sections of the country which led to disputes on matters such as taxes, tariffs and domestic developments and in the view on states’ rights as opposed to federal rights.
Tensions were running high and the ever-present issue of slavery was the leading cause of disruption for the union. Each side heatedly debated over whether slavery would continue in America and the need for political power. At the core of the arguments was a chasm forming that was dividing the nation.
The agricultural South used slavery as a tool to cultivate large plantations and to functions. The use of Negro slaves was intermingled into the Southern financial system deeply, even though only a minor percentage of the populace owned slaves.
The Northern states, eventually abolished slavery as a steady flow of immigrants poured into port cities from Ireland and Germany in the 1840 & 1850s. The potato famine provided a steady flow of workers who were willing to work for cheap wages, therefore eliminating the need for slave labor.
Katherine remembered the tension that vibrated from all the speeches made in town by affluent men who relayed details of meetings with Northerners. It was hard to listen to the disdain and the lack of respect for the Souths ability to govern themselves and the way that the North was trying to bully their own political agenda onto the people in the South.
When Dred Scott, a former slave sought citizenship in America, through the legal system and was denied because of his African blood from the Supreme Court. The decision eliminated the former Missouri Compromise of 1820 which had restricted slavery in several United States territories.
In the early 1830s, individuals who wanted to see slavery ended were becoming further forceful and persuasive. These now called abolitionists declared compliance to “higher law” over conformity to the Constitution’s pledge that a run-away from a slave state be deemed a run-away in all states. The fugitive slave act along with the publishing of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabins, portrayed the evils and heinous acts of slavery for the world to read. The book was such an eye-opening experience for those ignorant of the inner dealings of slavery that it started a movement for anti-slavery across the country and thus creating the need for “the Underground Railroad.” Several abolitionists assisted runaway slaves in escaping to the North. The Southern states saw this as an act of defiance and meant that Northerners could pick which parts of the Constitution that they would enforce.
Then when tensions were drawn taught, John Brown, a well-known man of action and an influential abolitionist caused the death of pro-slavery settlers in Kansas. He then moved his raiding party, of twenty-one men, toward Virginia. On October 16, 1859 his plan of arming slaves with the weapons that he and his men had seized, was thwarted by local farmers, militia, and Marines led by Robert E. Lee. They captured the illusive man and killed several of his followers at Harper’s Ferry. He was later tried and hung for his crimes.
The South saw his acts of terror as those of a mad man. However, the abolitionists in the North saw him as a hero. Southern citizens deemed this was confirmation that the North planned to engage in a war of annihilation for white Southerners.
Then when the old Whig political party died and many of its followers joined the American Party to oppose slavery and to form a new political entity called the Republican Party. The South was convinced that their newly elected president, Abraham Lincoln, would abolish slavery for good. Even though Lincoln stated that he would not interfere where slavery was in existence the Southern delegates had a secession convention in South Carolina in 1860 where the decision was made to dissolve the state’s contract with the United States of America and to start a country of their own.
South Carolina had debated the act of secession before in 1830 when a tariff passed during Andrew Jackson’s presidency was passed. The tariff had benefited Northern companies and raised the price of supplies in the South. President Jackson had sworn to dispatch an army to make the state to remain in the Union, and Congress approved. All Southern senators marched out in objection before the vote was taken. A compromise prohibited the conflict from happening. South Carolina dispatched representatives to other slave states beseeching their governing body to ensue, quash their agreement with the United States and create a new Southern Confederacy. Six states followed: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.
On April 10, 1861, realizing that supplies were coming from the North to the federal military base at Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, short-term Confederate armies in Charleston commanded the fort’s surrender. The fort’s leader, Major Robert Anderson, denied. On April 12, the Confederates began firing with cannons upon the fort. At 2:30 p.m. the next day, Major Anderson gave up.
Katherine remembered the fear on her mother’s face when she had read the account of the first battle to all of them from the local newspaper. Her Pap had stated his great disdain for the Northern effort of trying to control the people of the South. The paper made the news official, war had begun! President Lincoln had called for volunteers to squash the Southern revolt. When Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee, refused to fight against fellow Southerners due to the belief that Abraham Lincoln had exceeded his authority, they all voted in favor of session and joined the war effort on the behalf of the Confederacy.
Once the war effort reached North Carolina, men volunteered in droves. Jedediah felt the burden of leaving, Martha, his heavily pregnant wife, young daughter and son behind to go off to battle, but he was needed to defend his homeland. His country needed him. The Yankees were out for blood. It was not an easy choice to make, but his country needed him.
~

Life on the farm was arduous work even with her Pap there, but once he was gone the work load doubled all of them, especially Ma who found it hard to keep up.
In the late spring day her mother fell while struggling to cajole their stubborn mule, Horace, into plowing the corn field. The obstinate beast had lurched forward suddenly, jerking the reins so hard that Martha lost her balance and fell face forward on top of a large stone. Immediate, searing pain had ripped through her worn-out body, the baby was coming early. Katherine ran with all her might to get help from their closest neighbors.
All through the night and long into the next day Katherine assisted Amy Harper, their neighbor’s wife, in any way she could to make her mother more comfortable. After many hours of grueling labor, prayer, and ministrations both succumbed to the difficulties of a premature delivery.
The burial had been the bleakest moments in both Katherine and Benjamin’s lives. As they stood by the graveside surrounded by members of their community, the enormity of their situation laid heavy upon both their shoulders. A letter had been sent out to their Papa pleading for him to come home, but a reply never came.
Several of the neighboring families pleaded for Katherine and Ben to move in with them. The resident pastor expressed his uneasiness over a young female being left unattended, in what he hailed a violent country, but she assured him they would be fine.
Finally, once people recognized her determination to not give up the family homestead, they continued with their ways of life and left the siblings live their own. That was the way Katherine preferred it, she reminded herself as she continued looking for that rapscallion brother of hers.
Ben burst around the corner of the house pursued by their large Black and Tan hound dog nipping at his heels.
“Did you holler for me?”
“Yes, I did! Where have you been?” she said folding her arms and struggling to sound stern, “dinner is growing cold while you are out gallivanting.”
“Awe shucks sis, me and Bear was away in the woods seeing if we could track a bobcat.”
She rolled her eyes heavenward and stated, “Benjamin Oben how many times have I told you to leave the critters in the woods alone? You and Bear are going to get chewed up one of these days. What you going to do then? Huh!”
He stuffed his hands down in the pockets of his overalls and shrugged his shoulders. “If Pap was here, he would help me kill that ole bob cat,” he lifted his head and gave her a defiant glare, “He sure wouldn’t be carrying off any more of our chickens, would he?”
“No, I don’t reckon he would, but until Pap gets back you stay out of them woods. You understand me? The last thing we need is for you to get hurt.” Katherine said as she ruffled his jet-black hair, “It would tear me up something fierce if something were to happen to you. Now get your hands and face washed up for supper.”
~
Later in the evening, as the sun was going down, Katherine stepped out on the porch and looked around with satisfaction at the fresh planted fields that surrounded their two story, white, farm house.
Pap had inherited this farm from his father just after her and Ma had gotten married. Her grandparents had lovingly built the two-story, white clapboard, house to have plenty of room to raise a large family. However, God had other plans and her Pap was their only child who lived to see adulthood.
Katherine affectionately ran her hands over the front porch railings. Many a fond memory had been made sitting in the rocking chairs on the wide porch that ran across the front of the house. She closed her eyes for a moment and could almost hear her mother humming softly while her Pap picked a tune on his banjo. The crickets hummed their nightly serenade as the bull frogs made their presence known down by the pond as if to serenade her while she walked down memory lane. This had always been her favorite time of day. When the entire world around them was still and the lightning bugs danced in the shadows of the stately, old, oak tree standing proud in the front yard. A light breeze ruffled the hem of her calico dress as she sat down in her momma’s favorite rocking chair and embraced the solitude.
As she gazed upon the land she pondered how good God had been to her and Ben over the past four years. They had worked hard, grown, and preserved each bountiful harvest of food they needed to survive. Their mother’s small flock of chickens had continued to lay rich, brown, eggs to eat and provided the occasional meat for the table. Each spring several of the hens would go broody, sitting on the next generation of chicks to add to the flock.
Two years prior, they had bartered some of their winter crop for two pigs, a boar and a sow, which produced a litter of eight piglets. Katherine had traded two of them with a neighbor in exchange for his assistance with butchering two to hang in the smokehouse this fall. The remaining four pigs she had traded for apples that were stored in the root cellar, salt, sugar, and enough cloth to make Ben some new pants and a shirt from the local store, and enough seed to plant a nice crop of turnips for the winter.
Their one good milk cow was in the barn and their stubborn bull was tucked safely in the paddock behind it to ensure that the herd would grow in due time. A tired smile crept across her sleepy face. With a final look toward the last fading light of day Katherine yawned and decided it was time to go to bed because tomorrow would be here soon.

Order Now!

<< Go Back