Chapter 41

(Mississippi Time Jump)

As we drew near to the demarcation line of the Mighty Mississippi, my thoughts wandered to our original crossing shortly after the death of our beloved Commander in Chief, President Abraham Lincoln.

I remembered that it was a time of great sadness despite the fact there was a sense of celebration in the air at the final curtain on the death and destruction of the terrible war between brothers, neighbors and sovereign states of this great Union.

Lots of folks on both sides of the conflict would be quick to blame the whole affair on the nasty business of slavery.

I have to admit that I wasn’t one of those simple-minded citizens that relegated the sobering consequences of the struggle to that basic area of contention between the sovereign states. My primary reluctance to shrug off the evil of slavery as the main reason for the hostilities was because I had long suspected that the root cause was really the “States Rights” issue that threatened the very existence of the Republic in a way that slavery could never do.

Of course, that was a losing argument to anybody impacted by the cold, hard fact of buying and selling human beings as chattel owned by another person for the rest of their natural life. It sort of negated basic American beliefs in equality, freedom and the right to liberty for every living citizen of the United States. It was a debate for the ages and one that found supporters in both corners on both sides of the conflict. At stake was not merely the status of the original colonies, but the fate of the entire North American Continent including all territories not yet settled and still in a state of emerging Manifest Destiny.

The guns of war managed to slow down, if not altogether halt western expansion and all residents inside of the already declared states on the side of the Union and on the side of the Confederacy cast the dice from a geo-cultural point of view that paid lip service either to the acceptance of slavery as a temporary economic necessity or lined up behind the Abolitionists following the “John Brown” route to removing slavery as an issue.

Slavery was an emotional issue but it was seen as two sides of the coin.

Gender-wise, the concept of slavery was a subject seldom broached in feminine conversation, but was discussed only in terms of money to be made and crops to be brought in from the fields in a timely manner by concerned white males with landed responsibilities.

Outside of the United States, the average person was neither pro nor con regarding the issue because the practice flourished in all parts of the globe. Governments of countries most critical of the practice were up to their neck in using slaves or indentured servants to do the labors that low-born common people were loath to engage in because a sense of pride or logical thought kept them out of the mix. The hidden truth of second class citizens all over the world was not a subject for genteel discussion and it was relatively easy to point the finger at the American system and hold that entire nation up to ridicule as a “ slave state” not worthy of civilized acceptance.

I stood on top of a wooden box placed on top of the wagon driver’s seat to gaze at the Mississippi River in all of its muddy brown glory. The rains of the past month had unleashed the terrible power of the great river basin and it was rampaging over the river banks in a way that truly split the country in half in the same way that the issue of slavery had divided a united country in a war against itself.

In some ways, the dangers of submerged hazards, the mix of dirt in the usually clean water and the shocking flooding of residences and commercial buildings next to the swollen river were similar to the chaos of the American Civil War with the bodies of the fallen covering the open fields like a carpet of red under a gentle rain from above sprinkling down like a kiss of apology for their ultimate price of glory.

The way that I had taken the place of some high-class son of an elite family for a token amount of cash that I desperately needed reminded me of the lack of equality in this emerging society. I was patiently waiting on the high ground watching the debacle just like I had witnessed the gut-wrenching disasters of the American Civil War. I was obsessively curious due to the fact that I was a long-time student of the art of Military Science and the American Civil War had always been my favorite source of tactical and strategic concepts. It was equally at the top of my list of military truths as well as the movements of Napoleon Bonaparte in his many campaigns that led to almost total world domination at an early age with limited resources.

Only Alexander the Great had that fire in his belly like Napoleon and possibly Grant and Sherman in the final days of the Civil War. I had long suspected that Alexander was a time traveler like me and that he had the benefit of later conflicts to give him his advantage over less educated opponents.

My wagon was lonely now because I had left my two Mormon girls back in the well-managed Mormon Church settlement just east of Salt Lake City. At first, I was distraught at leaving the two pregnant girls there with those horny elders, but I saw the joy in their eyes at listening to the word of the Lord according to the teachings of Brigham Young. They were both obedient girls and I suspected they would fit in beautifully with the operation of the settlement. It looked to be a comfortable arrangement and the production of new faithful into the community was a highly prized commodity.

It was probably all for the better because I was uncertain how my proximity to my offspring out of time would go down on the space-time continuum. My gut feeling was that the further I traveled from the location of the event the better the chance for it to turn out as just another random piece of the puzzle of human existence in the chaotic universe created in the image of God.

The other wagons had already gone on down the trail and I knew they would follow the river all the way to the exit in the Gulf of Mexico. I was happy to see my few remaining Indians had elected to stay with the other travelers and I knew if they stayed together as a group their chance of survival was considerably better than attempting it on their own.

The sun was down now and suddenly the stars above were so bright that I knew my time for return to my own time period was at hand.