[As with the prologue, this was written in response to editorial notes. Part of the purpose served by these two items was to tie Dixie's Land
more closely to the short story, "Near Enough to Home," posted previously. Please note, however, that the prologue and epilogue are addenda and will not be part of the published novel. -MS]
EPILOGUE
4 July, 1851
Dearest Annie:
The Trent will be sailing within the hour, so I am
taking advantage of this last opportunity to write you. God willing, you will
receive this before I reach Liverpool—and you will have me back with you, and
the dear little ones, before the harvest is in.
It breaks my heart to have to leave you so
soon after our reunion, but I know you understand. This fellow Chesterton in
London is reputed an artist with artificial limbs, and his feet are supposed to
be particularly good. His agent in New York assures me that, by having Mr. C
fit me himself, I will be able to appear to all intents and purposes to be
able-bodied.
I know my decision to travel to Britain came
as a shock to you, and the brief note I sent from my hospital provided little
in the way of explanation or justification. I will try, in these pages, to make
you see why I felt it necessary to cross the ocean to have a clock-work foot
attached to my flesh-and-blood leg.
My ambitions, Annie, have never been secret
from you. I have always believed that I had a gift of strength that could be of
use to our country. I thought the nation’s need was great when the Texas crisis
bedeviled us. But now that need is much greater—because our country is broken.
As I was broken.
And as I am being healed, so I hope to be
able to play a part in the healing of our country.
I am aware of the irony in my writing these
words on a British ship, ready to sail for a British port. The country that has
contributed so much to the breaking of the United States is also prepared to
help repair the damage to my poor battered self.
But then, enemies and outsiders have played
their part in seeing me through the worst of my troubles. You already know of
the Canadian policeman who saved my life in Kentucky. I did not tell you,
though, that it was a Confederate captain who saw me safe across the Ohio at
the conclusion of my frightening adventure. Captain Stewart did not have to
make that effort, and I respect him for doing so.
Speaking of that young gentleman, I have some
gossip for you, my love. Do you remember General Grant, with whom we were
briefly acquainted last year? He is a fellow-passenger on the Trent!
We spent last night talking and sharing a cup or two, and if you think that my
life has been a misery these few months, you will be horrified to hear of what
poor Grant has gone though. Like me, he was captured in his first battle (of
this war, at least). Like me, he encountered young Captain Stewart, CSA. Twice,
actually.
Unlike your husband, however, General Grant
was treated shamefully—not by the Confederacy, but by our own government. So he
has resigned his commission and taken up an offer from no less than the Holy
Roman Emperor. Sam Grant from Galena, Illinois is now a white-clad general in
the Austrian Army. He tells me that he is looking forward to tasting the coffee
in Vienna, but not to having to learn German.
I won’t pretend that Sam Grant’s shoddy
treatment is the reason for my determination to travel to Britain. But it is
emblematic of it. That our country could look at this man and see a rough,
un-presentable fellow, where the ambassador of the Empire saw a general,
dismays me no end. I believe that the men currently prosecuting this war are as
blind to the question of our country’s survival as they were to Grant’s
admittedly rough-hewn excellences. If we do not find within ourselves something
of the courage and spirit that birthed our country nearly four-score years ago,
then the United States will leave no greater mark on the long history of the
world than did the French republic or the Prussia of Frederick the Great.
I know, Anne, how little you care for
Washington. (And you thought you could keep secrets from me!) I am sorry to
tell you that you must learn to live with the place. Because it is my intent to
return there, sooner rather than later and as something more exalted than a
congressman.
Just as Sam Grant feels himself driven away
by the army he wanted to serve, so I have undergone my own crisis of faith. God
knows I respected Henry Clay, and while he lived I fought for him. But the men
he left behind when he died are not fit to speak his name—or of Hamilton. The
Federalist party I loved is now a destructive, corrupt mockery of itself.
So I am leaving it. There is talk abroad of a
new political party forming, one that will take as its purpose the restoration
of this great nation. Our country is engulfed in fire, but from that crucible
it can—it must—emerge, forged anew and with a fresh conception of liberty.
I can no longer bear arms, but it is
undoubtedly too late anyway for a battlefield solution—the Confederacy is, I
think, but one more victory away from recognition of its independence by all
the Powers.
But there are other ways to fight. I am
traveling to London, my dear Anne, to fit myself for the political struggle
that our nation is about to undergo. The election next year is too near for
this as-yet unnamed party to have much impact. But we will be stronger with
each passing year. And when I can walk again without crutches, I will go
anywhere and debate anyone if it will restore our nation to wholeness.
I am going to run for President, Anne. I know
we have joked in the past about my ambition, but what I have seen this year has
soured my humor more than a little. I am in deadly earnest now, and I pray that
you will support me in this as you have in all else.
And do not despair, Anne. We will have time
to rebuild our own lives before I set out to rebuild the nation. My best
chance, I have concluded, will come in the presidential election of
eighteen-sixty.
I promise that both before and after then I
will remain
Your loving husband,
Abraham
