“Hmm, not much,” I mumbled; “been toying with a Civil War idea.”

“Really. What about?”

As I have never enjoyed talking about a work not even as yet in progress, my reply was a structured shrug, signifying nothing.

“I didn’t know you were a Civil War buff, Bomp,” Jay remarked, and to my ear ‘Civil War buff, Bomp’ sounded like a cardboard box sliding off the back of a moving pickup truck, bouncing and tumbling along thewet and sticky asphalt. Even though Jay was closing in on thirty, he still called me ‘Bomp’, as he does today, a name for posterity, resulting from his infantile, two-year- old inability years ago to say ‘Grandpa.’

“Well, I don’t know that I am,” I assured him, “but I’ve been curious about how Jackson got himself killed by his own men. My journalist’s instincts tell me there should be some sort of dynamic story there.”

Jay nodded. Demure Krista spoke up in her soft, hushed tone and said, “I don’t think he was very well liked when he was at VMI.”

That got my attention. “I didn’t know he was from VMI,” I said. “I thought he was West Point.”

Jay smiled at that. “How much do you know about Jackson?”

I admitted not a lot; apparently very little.

“Well, you’re right,” Jay said. ‘Ol’ Blue Light’ did graduate from West Point—class of forty-six, I think. But after the Mexican War, he resigned his commission and came to teach at VMI. Taught military strategy, artillery, philosophy—I think he even taught astronomy for a while.”

I was impressed. “No kidding.”

“Yeah,” Jay nodded. “And Krista’s right. He was not a
popular teacher. He was a pain-in-the-ass religious fanatic and a
ruthless disciplinarian. They called him ‘Old Tom Fool.’ The cadets
really despised him. One of them even challenged him to a duel.”

The business of the duel captured my full attention. “A duel? You mean, like swords?”

“Uhn-uh. Pistols. At twenty paces.” And at that, Jay diverted his own attention to his Porterhouse steak.

“Well?” I insisted. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“What happened? The duel, with Jackson.”

“Oh. I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.”

After dinner, during dessert, I brought it up again; I was not going to leave it alone. “What else can you tell me about Stonewall Jackson?”

“Well,” Jay admitted, “we had to read just about everything there was on him in my freshman year. I mean, at VMI the guy’s an institution in himself, a legend. Probably the greatest military general the country’s ever had. There are plenty of books on him, but the best one I remember reading was ‘Portrait of a Soldier’ by a fellow named Bowers. I think I have a copy at home. I’ll send it to you.”

I asked Jay to tell me more about the duel, and he did. And he told me other things, many things, as we talked into the late evening. When he and Krista departed for home, I felt I had taken more than a dinner with my grandson and his wife. I felt I had met someone new and marvelous, someone with whom I wanted to spend an inordinate amount of time.

TO BE CONTINUED


Copyright©2009 by Robert A. Mills