for you.”
The old doctor left two more bottles of laudanum. He promised to look in on her on Friday. After a very painful Wednesday night, Emma became delirious early Thursday morning. The pain down behind her belly became so intense, she commenced screaming for Thomas to kill her. Jeff became so distraught, he began crying. “Here, help me, boy. Help me hold your mama down while I make her swallow a huge dollop of this laudanum.” Thursday night, just after midnight, Emma gripped tight her husband’s arm, whispered she loved him, and smiled lovingly at her son Jeffery. Now with her pain quickly erased by another huge double dose of laudanum, Emma Anne Johnson Nelson closed her eyes and died quietly in her bed. She’d not reached her thirtieth birthday.
Chapter Four
Emma was buried right after daylight, Friday morning, in the shade of the old mulberry tree, next to her two daughters. Dr. Bass rode up in his buggy one hour later. Thomas and Jeff, barefoot as usual, met the old man at the hitch post, and told him when and how Emma had passed on.
“I’m so sorry, for y’all, son, I did all I knew how for your lady. Someday, doctors and smart medicine people will know what took your wife. They’ll know where it came from and how to fight it before it can kill folks. Someday, they will, I promise you.” The old man, with tears in his eyes, turned to climb back into his buggy.
“Here, how much do I owe you, Dr. Bass, for all you done anyway?”
“I didn’t do enough to cause a fee, Thomas. Buy your boy a pair of boots and we’ll be even. Call me if you two ever need me and I’ll surely come.”
That said, Dr. Emerson T. Bass slapped the reins on his old mare’s back as he swung his buggy around and Molly trotted back the way she’d come.
“What do we do now, Papa?”
“We go on, just like your mama wanted us to do. We Virginians don’t never quit. Your mama said I’d have to pull our wagon without her. Well, you’ll have to help me and pull your share, you want to, son?”
“I want to. You can count on me, Papa.”
In the spring of 1861 war came to the Sovereign State of Virginia. The North and the South couldn’t agree over some serious matters. South Carolina was the first to fire their cannons at the North, thereby starting the great Civil War.
“Are we gonna go to war, Papa? Are we really gonna hafta fight them Suth’ners?”
“I reckon we will, son. I reckon we’ll have to choose a side.”
“Which side are we gonna fight for, Papa?”
“Do you believe in slavery, Jeff? Would you wanna be a slave?”
“No, sir, I wouldn’t wanna be no slave, Papa.”
“Me neither, son, that’s the main reason your grandpappy and me never wanted to own any, so I reckon I’m gonna fight for the North.”
“Me too, Papa, I’m a Virginian too, but where do we go to find some fellers to fight against them Suth’ner folks?”
“I reckon we’ll go to town, son. Somebody in Buffalo Gap oughta know where to point us in the direction to find our side of fighting folks.”
Jeff helped his papa board up their farmhouse. Thomas sold off their milk cow, two hogs, and chickens to a neighbor, and they rode their two mules twelve miles into Buffalo Gap the next day.
“Howdy, Thomas, what brings you and yer boy into town in the middle of the week?”
“We’re looking fer some army fellers who are gonna be a fightin’ them Suth’ner rebels. Me and my boy want to join ’em and fight them rebs.”
“They been down at the Presbyterian Church House all morning a taking on volunteers, T. A. They’ll be glad to have you and yer boy, I reckon.”
There at the church, they found a group of Virginia boys forming up an army militia to fight against the Southern aggression. Thomas sold their two mules and they enlisted. Both became privates and were put in the same company. They were marched off, side by side, down the red dirt road two days later. Southern sympathizers were forming up their militias also at another church house.
Augusta County, Virginia was formed in 1738. During the Civil War, Buffalo Gap, Augusta County, served as an important agricultural center as part of the Breadbasket of the Confederacy. The Virginia Central Railroad ran through the county, linking the Shenandoah Valley to the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia.
Thomas and Jeff were chided by some folks for joining the Yankee militia. Thomas was told in town that Virginia had voted to secede from the Union, and his farm would be confiscated by Yankees if the South lost the war. That week the Virginia federal militia marched toward the eastern border of Virginia and was mobilized into the Army of the Republic, and they’d fought their first battle with the Suth’ners.
Thomas and Jeffery had hunkered down behind a big log and fired their Army-issued muskets at the rebels. Neither knew if their musket balls had hit a reb, but it made ’em feel good to know that they were defending their beloved Virginia. They’d camped beside a watermelon patch. The melons were ripe, and men were climbing over the fence and helping themselves, so Jeffery climbed over the short wooden rail fence and handed his papa a great big one to share for their supper.
Thomas and Jeff Nelson were ready to defend their state against all the rebels. Their sergeant, a big man named Jornett Murphy, was a brash, mean-looking feller from Alabama. He carried a large bowie knife in a tooled leather sheath on his left hip and bragged to everybody how well he could use that wicked-looking blade. One evening in camp, after they’d eaten their evenin’ grub, Jorn Murphy was watching Jeff.
“Come over here, Private, and let me teach you how to kill a man, quiet like.” The big man motioned to Jeff. The federals had already fought in several engagements. Their side had been winning battles all that week. Jeff and his pa were bone-tired. They were sitting side by side on a log; they’d just finished sharing another huge watermelon as their supper. Jeff’s dad moved off the log. He was now sitting with his back against a tree, smoking his corncob pipe. Jorn Murphy had been their sergeant since Jeff and his papa joined up.
He motioned to Jeff again. “Come over here, boy, I want to give you a killing lesson. Pay attention now. Here’s how you can kill a feller real quick like. You right-handed? Good, now watch close. You slip up behind a man, real quiet like so he don’t hear no sound, you see, then you reach around him with your left hand, like this, you pull him to you quick like, and you slip your right-handed knife blade under his throat at the same time and slice him quick. Be sure you pull your knife left to right as you slice his throat. That way, the blood will shoot out away from your hand, you understand?”
Jeff looked at his papa, his papa nodded, silently saying, “Go ahead, son. Let the man teach you something. Remember, you don’t never have to do it to nobody if you don’t want to.”
“Here’s another way, boy. You creep up behind a man, walking on the balls of your feet quiet as a cat, you get real close, then you grab him, and quick, you pull him to you real close as you reach around and stab him high up in his gut right here under his rib cage. The blade will go right into his heart. You need to hold him close and tight till he quits trembling, then you let him sink down to the ground real quiet like.” Jeff shivered. He knew he’d never want any part of that kind of killing
