But
now I sulked in my cabin.
3
I guess the war surprised the people who read about it as much as it did
me. I often thought of the poor slaves, and liked Dunlap and Thatcher,
the men I had run into back in Wisconsin on the road in 1855, for going
down into Kansas to fight for Free Soil; but as for fighting in which I
should have any interest; bless you, it never occurred to any of us,
either North or South. The trouble was always going to be off somewhere
else. I guess that's the way with the oncoming of wars. If we knew they
would come to us, we'd be less blood-thirsty.
I heard of the Dred Scott Decision, and thought J.P. Roebuck was talking
foolishness when he came to me one day over in my back field to borrow a
chew of tobacco--he was always doing that--and said that this decision
made slavery a general thing all over the Union. I didn't see any
slavery around Vandemark Township, and no signs of any. I heard of Old
John Brown, and had a hazy idea that he was some kind of traitor who
ought to have been hanged, or the government wouldn't have hanged him.
You see how inconsistent I was. But wars are fought by inconsistent men
who suffer and die for other people's ideas: don't you think so? Abraham
Lincoln was nominated about corn-planting time; but I was not thrilled.
I had never heard of him. The nation was drifting down the rapids to the
falls; and for all the deafening roar that came to our ears, we did not
know or think of the cataract we were to be swept over.
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