Southpaw Jones

Wednesday humps.

April 18, 2007 By: Southpaw Jones Category: Interesting?

Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:

July 30, 1864

Dearest Margaret,

Thinking that you might like to hear from me, I concluded to write a few lines. God bless you and the children, Margie. God bless the courier of this frail letter and his hoof-clopping steed. God bless the wind; may it be at his back, but not with such force that his charges blow from sack to soil. God bless the roads; may they not be blocked by Johnny Reb nor by bridgelessness nor by beast of burden or fantasy. God bless this ink; may it not go invisible forthwith by some prankish quality of its chemical. Bless my brain that it may not ramble in the infinite, as is its want and wont.

We are all in good health and excellent spirits, Margie. The fife and drum are inspiring to the extent that I have busted an eardrum. Yes, but one healthy ear remains to someday receive your romantic whisper, and a whisper I shall request, for I tire of this noise as God tires of sin.

We stand ready to take Atlanta from those gray-frocked separatists within the week. As I take a break to write this letter, a dozen men take my place at the building of breastworks near the edge of our rather soggy encampment.

Seven of my comrades, though undeniably short in stature, are fond of labor and quick to make musics. Their leader is a sure-footed doctor with lens-assisted peepers and a rather clumsy tongue.

I often wonder what might become of them were they not fitted with such wizened leadership. One of their handful lacks intelligence and function to the degree that our good captain has twice searched his tent for opiates! Another is prone to frequent expulsions of gust and phlegm from the very cavities of his countenance that are best kept placid in times of war.

I notice lately that this tiny crew contains, in addition to the aforementioned, a narcoleptic as well as a gentleman cursed with such vicious anti-social tendencies that the extraction of two words from his chamber is less likely than finding General Grant alone and threading garters amongst these Georgia pines. Forgive me for saying so.

The remaining two seem to personify, in a miniaturized manner, the extreme poles of human mood. One, you see, is the very portrait of contentment and abundance, while the other projects a contagious sullenness from the crest of his ample snout.

I must admit these seven tykes often entertain me to the point of criminal distraction, which I suppose is well-evidenced in this missive.

I find myself drained of paper, time, and vocabulary, three things for which I am grateful, three things that soldiers in lesser wars sorely lacked, three things which shall hereby be the aim of my heart and hand, for they allow me to dream of you, our home, and this very parchment quivering in your hands within a fortnight or so.

I regret that my commitment to the Union has conspired to reduce my status as the head of your household. As you mount twice the tasks to which you are accustomed, I pray that you will not begrudge me. My small but able infantrymen, whose introduction I provided in this same epistle, believe that melodic breath across one’s pursed lips makes for wondrous distraction from the doldrums of toil.

Do try it, Margie, and alert the children that my present distance is merely physical and quite temporary, or so claims my favorite hope. I shall help to reunite this embattled state as is my duty, then I shall return to that more important union of man and wife. I assure you, the union of man and fife is a most unsatisfying and splintering substitute.

Yours in war and in peace,
Private Charles Awnry Jr.