Uncle Dock and the Civil War

Uncle Dock and the Civil War Truman Fields The Civil War was especially bad in my community, and it was horrible for my family. My father and grandfather would never talk of the war. They would quickly change the subject when it came up. The entire family treated the Civil War the same way. My curiosity got the best of me and I asked my father to tell me what the Fields family did in the War Between the States. He still wouldn't talk about it, and neither would any other family members. This was a big mystery to me. Why was it so important to keep the war a total secret? Finally,justbefore my eighty-year-old grandmother died, she said the time was right for me to learn what she had witnessed as a seven-year-old child. We walked down to the bottomland near the barn and creek bed. Grandmother Fields softly cried as she held my hand and told her long, sad story, the one that she had thought about frequently over the last seventy-three years, the one I had never heard about in my entire eight years. I helped to hold my grandmother up as we walked around our property in Perry County, Kentucky. "My Uncle Dock was just a boy of sixteen when they came. Several times we had him hide in the barn or in the back of the cellar when we saw gangs from either the North or South ride by. Dock wanted to join up with the Union boys, but we would not let him until his seventeenth birthday came. This was in April of '63. His birthday was May first of that year. If he could have just lived another two weeks, he could have fought for the Union." My grandmother cried, and we had to walk around a bit. "Dock was a good boy, and he was especially skilled with the cattle and the farming. When they came, Dock was plowing with our mule down by the garden. He didn't see or hear the twenty or so angry riders come in, 'cause it was nearly dark. Two of the Rebel boys forced Dock to leave the mule and come over to their captain. I really don't think he was a captain, but he did have on an old ragged Rebel uniform. It was a grey suit ofclothes. He didn'thave no hat. He was a dirty-looking, nasty-acting young man. "They asked why Dock wasn't fighting for the Southern cause. By this time my two aunts, my grandmother and my own mother had all rushed to his aid. None of the men folks was here to help, of course. They were all in the war. I hid behind the well frame so I could see 27 what was going on. The gang of horsemen rode through our garden, ruining everything as they all rushed over to see the women folks. They cheered and said vulgar things. "Dock stood up to the gang real strong, real good and strong, too. He told them he wasn't going to join up with the Rebels and that he was going to be a Union soldier in less than a month. AU four women pleaded with the captain. They were crying and begging. They told him we needed Dock to do the farming, and if he didn't help raise our vegetables, we would have nothing at all to eat during the winter. That didn't impress the captain nary a bit. He didn't care a lick. He was a real mean and nasty person. He laughed at us all. "The man in charge told Dock to get his things together right now, 'cause he was going with them, like it or not. Dock told them he wasn't going and ordered them off our property. The gang got a big laugh out of Dock's orders. The captain told his followers to "Grab that Yankee lover and bring him over to that oak tree." My grandmother held my hand tightly. I helped her to stand up and walk. "Theybrought our mule over and forced Dock...