I been walkin' for a few days now, and I've found what looks like a fort. I can't really tell from here, but I think their flag is the rebel one. I don't wanna get too close in case they're yankees, though, so I'm standin' on a hilltop squintin' at this bleary red white 'n blue square when a tall boy in a gray coat comes up to me and asks what in the Hell I think I'm doin' up here.
"Tryin' to figure out if that there fort is yankee 'r not." I go back into my old non-school way of talkin' so's he knows I'm a Southerner fer sure. The boy, holdin' a line of different kinds of river fishes, cracks a smile and says he really hopes the fort ain't yankee 'cuz all his stuff is there. I laugh with him and we go there together. He brings me to the captain who's in charge of his company and who needs a new powder boy since his last one blowed himself up. He eyes me kinda suspicious, though.
"You seem kinda young to be a solider, boy. What's yer name and how old exactly?"
I straighten up and puff out my chest and say,
"My name's Jason Jones and I turned twelve years old on December 20, last year. I been goin' to the charity academy since I was eight, and I ran away 'cuz the rebel cause really speaks to my free and Southern nature, sir."
"Huh, if that don't beat all... A boy born on the day of secession wants to join up our company. I'd be crazy to deny you, 'o course. One thing though: If you're such a smart little schoolboy, read that sign." He says, pointing. I can't make out the letters very well. I had this problem a lot at the school, too, where I couldn't see very well.
"I can't see the letters. Perhaps if you'd be so kind as to write 'em on a paper, sir?" The rest of the men and boys standin' around laugh a bit at that. The captain sighs.
"Oh for Pete's sake. Coleman! Take him to the opto-tomitrist, will ya?"
"Yes sir!" The boy who found me takes my arm. "Yer gonna be able to see so good when Doctor Martin's done!" He sounds different then I or even the other boys at the school did. I ask him where he's from. "Born in Lousiana and brought up on the good riverboat Sally Mae! What about you?"
"Fredrickson plantation, South Carolina. I got taken in when I was just little and lived there up until I was sent to school in Missouri."
"Huh, you sound kinda like yer from Texas to me. Guess it's just my ears, huh?"
I nod, but I ain't all there. From somewhere in the back of my mind, more memories from before Big Farm surface. A blurry woman's face, talkin' with a Mexi-can accent, sayin' "He's a Republic of his own now... the Republic of Texas... protect him..." I write it off as a dream 'cuz sure as Hell people can't be republics, and even if they could, I learned in school that the Republic of Texas dissolved in 1845, which is a few years before I was even born. We stop in front of a buildin' with a big pair 'o glasses on it.
"Doctor Martin!" Calls out Coleman. An older man opens the door. "Permission to enter with new patient?" The man smiles.
"Permission granted. What do you want, Joey?"
"I gotta new boy here who's in need of some eye help, Doc." He pushes me forward.
"Hiya, sir. Pleasure to meet'cha." I say.
Soon, after a long process of puttin thin glass films together, I'm handed the wire frames with the glass in 'em. I put it on my face. Everything is clearer, suddenly. I can see the little cracks and rocks in the dust around my feet. Looking across the compound I can make out the sign that says "Livestock" on it. What were white blobs before become tiny covered wagons near the entrance of the fort.
"Wow... Does everyone see like this, Joey?" He laughs.
"Far as I know, yeah."
So, I'm taken in as a powder boy, meant to be a private when the long .44 rifles ain't almost as big as I am. I'm fitted with a gray coat with gold trim about my size and matchin' trousers and a thin cotton shirt to put under it. I get a cap too. It's also gray with gold 'cuz the yankees got an official uniform color so we gotta do it too and do it better. I also get worn old black leather boots about two sizes too big 'cuz while I like Row's old boots they're gettin' kinda tight and worn out. I'll still prob'ly go barefoot when I can 'cuz it feels best to me.
I'm taught to fire the smaller .22s along with the other three younger boys in our company and soon, we're marchin' towards Antietam to fight the yankees. I dunno where Antietam is, but it sounds excitin' to go to places I didn't know exist. We might run into yankee companies along the way, so we might get little fights. But there's forty-five men and boys and one big cannon in our lil company, so I think we'll do alright.
When I was little and sittin' under the cottonpuff trees on Big Farm, dozin' off in the heat and listenin' to the workers around me singin' as they went, I never thought I'd be marchin' into war with a gray jacket on my back ready to fight boys in blue. I wonder if the other boys on their farms and towns and riverboats thought the same.
And so, as we march along, me and Joey ridin' on the big horses pullin' our munitions and supply wagon, we start singin' to break the spirit of any yankee who thinks we're depressed by this war:
I'll place my knapsack on my back,
My rifle on my shoulder,
I'll march away to the firing line,
And kill that Yankee soldier,
And kill that Yankee soldier,
I'll march away to the firing line,
And kill that Yankee soldier!