Today'sBlog is actually a part of my book I am writing. I have paused writing it recently and I am now thinking about starting up again. What are your thoughts on this chapter and my future book called "The Ancestor's Fire"?.
Chapter Two
The Confederate Soldier
The uniform of a soldier serving in the Confederate army is commonly known as being gray. The uniforms were usually a jacket and trousers made of wool, which wasn't pleasant for the sweltering southern heat, but did help provide some comfort in the cooler nights. The Soldier also wore a gray kepi cap.
But the uniform on this day did not resemble anything of the one originally provided at the beginning of the soldiers enlistment. There was one boot on, one boot missing, leaving a tattered holey sock exposing a blistered, bloody foot underneath. The jacket and trousers no longer revealed the gray color they were known for, instead taking on a light brownish, butternut appearance, faded over the course of a long campaign. This particular uniform had tattered pants, covered in mud and dirt with spots of blood running down the thigh part of the leg. The jacket was tattered, with a stream of blood running down from the breast area, where two Minie ball bullets had penetrated the woolen fabric and entered into the flesh of the soldier leaving deadly holes through the fabric. Looking closer at the uniform, I realized that I also recognized the soldier wearing it. It was the confederate soldier who waved me over to sit on the stump. It was my ancestor. It was my third great grandfather. John William Walters.
With this site in front of me, I realized he was the ancestor who stood up to speak. I sat quietly and still wanted to absorb every word he spoke, so that I could learn more about his life. Little did I know, this was going to be the first of many stories I would hear tonight. I let myself get warm by the fire and the words started registering in my mind.
Shepherdstown, Virginia (later West Virginia)in the 1830's was a thriving town along the Potomac River that provided an opportunity for miller's, tanners, potters, blacksmiths, and artisans to operate businesses to provide for their families. The town had many taverns, new schools, a post office and most importantly the opening of the C&O canal which connected all the way to Georgetown and provided an opportunity to lower shipping costs of agricultural supplies to the seaboard.
John William Walters was born in Shepherdstown, VA in October of 1831. I find it interesting and an automatic connection since we share the same birth month. I tried to imagine the man who I saw laying on a battlefield, bloodied and dying as a child. I wondered what kind of life he had, what he did, what he became when he grew up. I had many questions, and the man in the Confederate uniform standing in front of the fire was about to tell me.
John grew up on a farm. His father Jonathon was a farmer who had been raised in a Quaker family. The family was not wealthy and the farmland was very important to their survival. This was a factor that led to the small family unit, John was the only boy and had 3 younger sisters, which was very rare for this Era. Being the only boy, and with his father coming from a Quaker background, he had a very strict upbringing. Numerous chores fell upon his shoulders, and at a very young age he found himself as part of the workforce on the farm. This fate that fell on his shoulders taught him early on in life how valuable the land his family owned was to their survival. This will be a lesson that John wished he hadn't taken so seriously, as it will lead to him laying bloodied on a field in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley.
One of the main attractions to settling a farmstead in this area was the adjacency of the Potomac River. The C&O Canal was new and it allowed the family to get their product to the Eastern seaboard. It also presented John another opportunity to do something that he loved, to fish. There were many days John would hurry to get his chores done so that he could go sit on the banks of the river and fish. On warmer days he may even jump in to cool off after a long exhausting time in the fields.
As John grew, so did his love for his home and farmland that he worked and played on everyday. Seeing how the land supported his family and provided the means for their survival, he was very protective of it and took care of it. He would always seek to learn new responsibilities and trades, which one of them would eventually become his means for living and providing for his own family.
John always looked forward to traveling with his father to take their crops to sell and send to the shore. One of the areas that he always liked to go to was Harpers Ferry. There was always something about that small town that John enjoyed. The views were amazing, and he always enjoyed watching where the Shenandoah River met the Potomac River at the base of the town.
One day while he was in Harpers Ferry, he met a young lady named Mary Catherine Overton. She caught John's eye right away and he was instantly infatuated with her. They would eventually meet and in 1851, 20 year old John and 17 year old Mary were married in Harpers Ferry.
John and Mary settled in Shepherdstown on a portion of his father's farmland. Happy to be on the land he loved, John set out to provide for his family in a trade he had recently learned while working along the river on his father's land. John became a miller.
Being a miller was very physically demanding. All of the equipment had to be maintained and worked on by John. The numerous days of carrying heavy bags up and down the stairs would wear down John's body. He also had to keep a couple extra cats around to help keep the rodents away from the grain. Overtime, John developed a cough that was unknowingly caused by inhaling the thick and sticky mill dust. John had started a trade that he was good at, but it wasn't good to him physically.
It wasn't long after their marriage that John and Mary started adding to their family. Over the course of the next nine years, the Walters' would add four sons. The first born was James William in 1853. Two years later the family welcomed boy number two, Isaac Edward. It would be another three years before boy number three, George Washington Walters. The fourth boy arrived two years later and John Newton was welcomed to the family in 1860.
John and Mary were on their way to having a large family, and John had his boys who could help him with the mill. John was eager to teach them everything he had learned about the land and to help them develop trades of their own. But John didn't foresee one of the bloodiest events in the history of our nation about to happen and forever change the history of this young family.
Mary's hometown of Harpers Ferry was only a few miles from the Walters' home. In 1859, John Brown's raid happened there and was one of the catalysts to bring on the start of the American Civil War.
John did not own slaves. He was too poor to be able to afford to have slave labor. He was a poor Southern landowner. John would hear the politicians talk about how the poor Southern farmers would lose their land if the government abolished slavery. John would hear the preachers of the church yell from the pulpit that if the south loses slavery then the poor farmers would lose their land.
Driven by his love for a land that had battered his body through the work he did on it, John rushed to enlist into the Confederate Army as soon as he could. He would later realize that those voices he was listening to helped program his decision too.
John enlisted in Shepherdstown and became part of the Army of Northern Virginia. He was a member of the 2nd Virginia regiment, Company B. Company B was the Shepherdstown, Jefferson County regiment called the Hamtramck Guards. This unit was led by Vincent Butler and they would fight under Stonewall Jackson. The unit got their name from John Francis Hamtrack who was a veteran of the war of 1812 and the Mexican/American War. Hamtramck would retire to a farm in Shepherdstown and serve as its mayor, as well as the county magistrate. Upon his death in 1858, the local militia changed its name to Hamtramck in honor of their mayor. This name would carry on into the Civil War.
John was in many Civil War battles including the 2 Bull Runs, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, The Shenandoah Valley Campaign and Gettysburg. However, it was the 1864 battle of Cedar Creek that would end up being John's last battle and John's last breath.
On October 19, 1864 the Confederate army was moving through the Shenandoah Valley. Hiding in the early morning fog, the Confederate army surprised the Union units that were encamped at Cedar Creek. As the battle progressed through the morning, the rebels of Virginia and other units struck a damaging blow to the Union forces.
However, with victory in sight, for some unexpected reason the Confederate charge was halted by their commander allowing the Union army to regroup. This pause in the attack also allowed time for Union reinforcements to arrive.
One of those new Union units arriving at the battle was led by George Custer. Throughout the afternoon, Custer's unit took the fight to the Confederate army. The Confederates, already exhausted by years of fighting and weakened by the lack of food, were broken and their lines were falling apart.
Seeing the onslaught of the Union army upon them, the soldiers of Company B started to retreat, trying to flee Custer's army by crossing the local pike and disappearing into the woods.
During this retreat, as John was trying to keep the men together, he caught two bullets to the chest and dropped down on the blood soaked ground.
As the smoke rose off the battlefield, the orange glow of the sunset lit up a land full of death and destruction. The scene before me shifted back and forth between the man who lay dying gasping to breath, and the man at the fire in front of me telling his story.
The man on the ground with his blood flowing out of him, laid there thinking of his wife who he would be leaving alone and would never see again. His four boys that he wouldn't be able to teach about life and share the love he had for the land with him.
He thought of his father working the farm and the mill. He thought of all the things he would not be experiencing in life.
The man at the fire then directed his focus on me and said, "It isn't until we get to this point that we often discover the true purpose of our life experience in this world. In my life I allowed myself to be programmed and influenced by the words of others. I joined in with the crowd to do wrong rather than standing against the crowd to do right. I allowed myself to fall in love with the land for the wrong reasons. I loved the land for what I could get out of it, instead of loving it for the beautiful part of the universe it is."
He paused while shifting his stare to the ground. I could sense the regret he had flowing inside of him. He then looked back over at me and said, "Grandson, as you go through your life, live for your spirit and your soul. Live for serving the Universe and let it bless you. Do not allow yourself to follow the direction of those wanting to harm and destroy others. Do not love for the wrong reasons. Correct the mistakes that I have made. Do these things so that you can be healed. Do these things so that there can be generational healing. Do these things so that there can be ancestral healing"
He paused again, and looked around at the people of the fire and pointed at all of them. He looked back over to me and said, "Everyone sitting here is an ancestor of your past, you are the only one who isn't. There aren't many people who come to sit at the fire. This is your opportunity to bring change. This is your opportunity to bring healing. This is your opportunity to spread the awakening to others. Tell our stories and help others awaken."
He sat back down in his place in the fire disappearing into the darkness, his face only lit up by the flickering of the flames.
I had a great sense of responsibility flowing through me. I didn't know what to do next. Before I could let another thought enter my mind, another ancestor stood up and started to speak at the fire.
By Michael Walters
The Ancestor's Fire
Writing the voices of the unheard
