A rifle, eight silver dollars and a brisk walk/ part 1

A rifle, eight silver dollars and a brisk walk

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Dearest Lucinda

Saturday July 25th, 1863

Hopes the baby is well and you are resting off your feet. No such luck for me. After a short walk over to Salem[ Ohio] I have been recruited into the militia. Everyone is so afraid of General Morgan and the rebs that they have no qualms about letting a black man join the fight. Times are changing. I have a new rifle to use, and what a rifle. Mr. Hamlin {of Alliance} when he heard I was going to Salem to help the citizens there watch out for General Morgan gave me a new repeating rifle to borrow. It shoots 10 bullets per minute. That should come in handy. I am there protecting you and the baby, it's something I have to do. I will not let my family be took South back into slavery. Mr. Hamlin also gave me 8 silver dollars. Expense money he called it. He is proud of me for coming to fight. You should get five of them dollars with this  letter, assuming the Confederates are not already in Salem and James Day isn't detained in bringing it to you as he promised me.

You are in my thoughts. I have also been remembering  when I came to New Guinea as I track back over these same roads we walked at night on the underground railroad with Mr. Haines to Alliance, Ohio. This war is crazy but it was far away, now it's come within twenty miles of our home.

These Quakers here are very good people, but I don't think much of them as potential soldiers. They are pacifists and want to pray for peace with the Confederates. There are a few Yankees soldiers coming back through Salem from leaves in Cleveland and Ravenna and they call most of the people of Salem, Damascus, and Alliance Copperheads. Copperheads are Northerners who want peace with the Rebels. Well at least all us Black people here in Ohio aren't copperheads. We know what will happen to us if General John Morgan and his raiders are successful.

The men are all very nervous. Most of them haven't fired a gun, being Quakers and they say Morgan has 10,000 men coming. I doubt that. Maybe a few thousand but if they come to Salem or Alliance there will be trouble for us. The ladies here have been cooking and feeding us non stop. I am treated well by them, like a soldier. I have the best gun here and I am strangely calm about my situation. It's good be to be doing something to help our people. I feel connected to the Reverend John Brown now,bless his soul,that I am putting my life on the line for our freedom. Should I die, Lucinda, please pray for my soul and ask Reverend J Luguen to do the same and tell him I died doing my duty.

Well I am going to try to sleep for a few hours, I think if they are coming it will be at dawn.
Moseby

end part 1