I Would Rather Die a Thousand Deaths
awoke.
It was like any other morning, though the light before my eyelids was strangely soft and cool, in some manner I could not distinguish.
The bed was not right against my old back. It was stiff, and it hurt. I straightened.
The motion was too quick, and I nearly tumbled from the sheets onto the deck of the house. But by then I had opened my eyes and seen that I was not in our house at all.
That was not the most paramount of my concerns, however. Or rather, my elations. I did not feel at all myself. I blinked at the white walls, the elongated tubes of light above me, the strange, hard table of a similar color upon which I was, but all I could rationally think was Dear God, I can move!
I had not been able to speak or move for a fortnight. Agnes had hovered over the side of the bed, as had Mary Lee, her face the saddest I had ever seen it. Mildred and my son had attended to me profusely as I had babbled in desperation to speak. I knew what it was; I was dying, and I was prepared and resigned. I had felt comfort by their presence and it tore me, their despair.
But the pain in my heart was gone now, my mind clear. I heard my voice echo in a dull manner from these peculiar walls. My body and skin practically glowed with vitality, and I felt not the rheumatism and weakness of six decades. Indeed, I felt like I was thirty.
I also seemed to be bereft of clothes, and I was seized with a profound fear of a lady of stature entering the room and seeing me in such a state.
There did not seem to be a door to this place. It was but a box, and I sat on a block that might have well been carved out of marble for its rigidity and weight. It seemed much softer than stone, however, as my fingernail could scratch it somewhat.
Was this a heaven?
If so, I saw not God nor His angels.
My heart beat actively within my breast. I felt like an animal in a cage, and terribly infused with a feeling of being trapped. That seemed a more practical and less holy sensation, so I began to explore my surroundings with such strongly in mind.
My hair and beard I felt, and found them still there, though trimmed well. The hairs on my chest were mottled gray, and my body still showed the marks of age. I could not find wings. I decided after several minutes that I was still myself, though cured of my malaise.
But what of my family and Washington College? How had I come to this mysterious locale? No surgeon could cure the rigors of age, though I felt as fit as I could possibly be.
I scoured the walls for clues. What I really wished and desired for were a fine set of drawers; my nakedness was acutely disturbing. I found not a single artifact in the compartment at all, much less a proper set of pants. The surface of the walls were cool to the touch, and of the same material as the tableau. It fit together as one part, not like wood or mortar; in all my years of engineering I could not recall experiencing or even hearing of such material. If I were not worrisome I would have been impressed markedly by its strength.
The temperature was slightly chill, and I embraced myself at times as I stalked my prison. I had concluded that was what it was. I wondered if I had been sealed in here to die. I wondered if this was what all people experienced when they came to death. I did indeed wonder of and on many things.
After a time I could not measure, something did occur.
One of the walls began to glow with soft, even light. It was a very subtle effect at first, that I did not mark on until the realization of its occurrence struck my mind.
A young woman stepped from it, as smoothly as if from a carriage. The glowing vanishing.
I could not respond to this, more than to immediately maneuver myself so that my more apparent regions were concealed behind the tableau.
I also averted my eyes.
"Sir?" her voice came, mild and light.
"Yes?" I managed.
"Would you come with me, please? The interview is about to begin."
Her manner was so matter-of-fact that I was compelled to look back to her. I kept my eyes firmly on her face and well away from her similar lack of attire. She did seem to wear something, of a pearl white colour, but it was as if she were a snake and it were a second skin all about her. That was sufficient for me to concentrate fully upon her face.
"I beg your pardon?" I said.
She smiled. "You seem recovered. Excellent. The interview, sir. Please come."
"I am hardly clothed in a civilized manner," I protested. "Am I a prisoner?"
She made a silent oh. "I see." She then made a small marking on the writing surface she carried, the pen seeming to be constructed of light itself. "Your uniform is waiting. Please come."
And then she faced the same wall, and the glowing began. She passed into it. However, this time, the glow remained.
I made a reasoned judgment at this point, although not with some apprehension. I moved quickly around the tableau and touched the glow with my hand.
There was no resistance. I pushed it through farther. Still none, and then I resolved to step through and did so.
Darkness.
awoke.
I was seated. I was also dressed, much to my relief.
The room was all white again. My chair was very comfortable, high-backed. There were five chairs arrayed before me in a semicircle, each having a person in it. Three of them were men, all clean-shaven, and the other two were women. One of each sex was a dark-skinned Negro. All were in the same garb as the lady I had seen instants before. I made myself not look directly at them, as they were effectively unclothed in such tight-fitting apparel.
They stared at me as if I were a museum piece. I certainly felt like one, in what I wore. I had worn this uniform and its sword before only once, on a day I would rather forget existed entirely. The boots even fit, my feet ever small as they were.
I could not reconcile how calm I was to the situation. I struggled to feel shock, surprise, something human.
"What is this?" I demanded finally.
"We're all honored to be in the presence of such a important historical figure," one of the women said, dispassionately. Her hair was a vibrant crimson.
"Concurred," the man to her left said. "Now. Onto the questions."
"What is going on?" I bellowed at the top of my lungs, finally getting out the strange lethargy I was embedded in. I made to rise from my chair, hands gripping the armrests. I would have answers!
And then I suddenly felt utterly calm.
So utterly calm. Peaceful.
I felt compelled to sit down, and did so.
They then went on as if I had not made the slightest sound.
The first of the men spoke. He was bald, with a small monocle that he did not seem to require. "July third, in the year eighteen sixty-three. The town of Gettysburg. You are familiar with this date and the occurrence that happened there?"
"Yes," I heard myself respond.
I tried to scream and could not. I tried to move, and failed.
"Good. His memory has survived." the first woman said.
The monocled man viewed me and nodded. "Then, General, could you explain to us in your own words how you came to lose that battle. Feel free to go into depth."
The others took up their books and made notes as I spoke. I could not stop it the words. They came out like a raging river, my mind a broken floodgate.
I left nothing unturned.
"... I found General Stuart's cavalry to not be in evidence when his reconnaissance of General Meade's army would have perhaps prevented..."
"...There were failings in myself and my own men..."
"...Longstreet was disposed to delay carrying out my order to attack the ridge..."
"...Cemetery Ridge was not supported by the units I had ordered there and Pickett's division was left adrift..."
"...was convinced that the Federals had to be defeated on their own ground..."
"...highly chagrined to find that General Ewell had hesitated to take the high ground as I had suggested..."
"...was my fault in all entirety..."
After perhaps an hour in that hell I had nothing left to say.
Then they took me away.
There was no willpower to me, and I was ashamed of this. I was carried away by two strong young men in similar costumes, out a glowing door and down a long, white hallway. There were many other glowing portals along it, and through the haze of my vision I detected that I was the eleventh on the right.
I passed out when dropped inside.
Many times I awakened again. Sometimes in 'my' room, naked as a baby. At least I assumed it was the same one. I was never fed, though I never felt myself hungry or with thirst in need of slaking.
About half of my time, as much as I could estimate, I would be inside the interrogation chamber, as I had named it. I was rendered unconscious to be dressed on these occasions. Each time, I would attempt to rise and charge the five questioning members, and a great calmness would fall on me again. And I would answer the questions as they came.
Where was this place? Who were these people? Why did they do this cruel thing to me? When was this, even? Why was I young again? I could not understand and I was not given time to do so either. They wanted to know everything. Most of it was about the war. Why I had done this in that battle. Why McCellan's force had escaped our full wrath after Gaine's Mill. This and that. I tired rapidly under the lights.
"Why did you consistently allow jealousy and bitterness amidst your high command? Jackson, Hill, Longstreet, etc."
"I interceded when I could and hoped they could resolve it. Rivalry within division and corps command is a fact of war."
"Hill had challenged Longstreet to a duel before you interceded."
"I was more than occupied with planning a invasion of Pennsylvania," I shot back.
"Why did you try to charge into battle personally with Texas cavalry during the first fighting in the Wilderness campaign?"
"Longstreet was late and I was tired of depending on him to not be."
"You would have been killed."
"I likely would not have minded overly if we had won the day."
"You behaved similarly twice more during that campaign."
There was nothing to say to that.
Some of it was personal.
"Why did you not visit Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson in the week between the end of the battle at Chancellorsville and his death? You were in the area and could easily have done so."
"I did not wish to see him in that condition."
"He could have taken heart from such a visit."
I did not answer, feeling the pain I had felt at the news of his injury.
"Was your somewhat racy correspondence with young women throughout your married life a substitute excitement that your invalid wife could not provide?
I felt my cheeks redden at that one. "You would be disappointed to find such." I was pleased that my emotion had come through. I endeavored to keep my excitement down and not showing.
"We have confirmed you never broke your marriage vows. That is not an answer."
"I showed her the letters."
I discovered then that when they seemed disappointed at one of my answers, they could force me to answer it again. However, my embodied voice only repeated the same sentences, stubbornly.
Eventually they gave up on that one and peppered me with questions about my tenure at West Point, as a student and then as administrator.
Occasionally I would learn something of great moment.
"You suffered your first attack of angina pectoris during the battle of Fredericksburg in 1863, correct?"
"I never felt the same again after that first day," I said, wondering at the term.
"Were your last words indeed 'Tell A.P. Hill he must come up', a reference to the battle of Sharpsburg and Antietam Creek? The nineteenth century was particularly fascinated with the moment of death; it is an unconfirmed legend."
I stared at him, speechless. My last words?
He cleared his throat. "For the benefit of the class, Lee had acute atherosclerosis, with plaque filling most of the arteries to his heart. He died seven years later in 1870, after suffering a stroke that rendered him into a state of abulia for two weeks until death."
If that was not the saddest thing I had borne in my life save the deaths of my officers and daughter Annie, I could not think of another.
I was dead.
What was this life I possessed, then? Was I a daguerreotype of a dead man for students to question?
The dark-skinned woman to my far right studied me intently.
After three times in this classroom, as I found it to truly be, I stopped rebelling. I wanted to learn more. I hated it all, but I needed to learn. If I could not ask questions to inform myself, I would learn by careful observance and listening. I scoured the faces and the empty walls for clues, finding little.
"Now, for the slavery question," the monocled man intoned. "You were as apathetic as your corps commander Ambrose Hill on the issue. This made you somewhat enlightened for the age you lived in and a Southern Virginian, but hardly an abolitionist. This is true?"
"I do believe I never announced my support for the institution. It was a necessary evil, disgusting to a civilized man. I took some pleasure in emancipating all of my father-in-law's slaves as his will dictated."
"You did this later than the five years time dictated in the same will."
"It was but weeks past the time and the war interfered with the management of his farms. I had not paid off all the inheritors, including my daughters, with the proceeds until then."
"Was the rumored incident in the Richmond church not long after the end of the war true?
"I know not to what you refer."
"It is often given as an example of your religious upbringing and uncertainty over the African-American race. When a overly black man walked up to the aisle to take communion, you were the first person in the church to kneel beside him."
"It may be so."
Once again they tried to provoke another answer.
Once again they failed, and I was happy as a clam in high water at that. Somewhere in there Robert Lee was fighting. They would not get all they wanted.
"You were openly disparaging in your opinion of Native Americans and Mexicans, yes?"
"I found the Indian tribes to be barbaric and uncivilized in my Western tour of duty," my voice answered. "The Mexican forces under Santa Anna fought well, at least, when I was there. As did many of the Union freeman soldiers that General Grant utilized."
"Yet you cast those of Mexico in a lesser light than, say, a Virginian."
"They have not reached the same pinnacle of development."
They followed with more that time and I was sent back, this time more on my own volition.
I explored my prison to no avail. Great desperation set in, and the sessions went on and on. Occasionally I would awaken to find that the walls were slick and wet, smelling somewhat of ammonia. Or that my beard had been neatly trimmed.
Gradually I found that I could almost be fully in control of my own limbs in the classroom, if I offered no resistance to the questioning. My escorts would only hold my arms with light grips on the way back. But there were no chances to escape, and I fell further into despondency.
And then one day the woman that always eyed me from the right, reminding me strongly of Mary Lee's housekeeper Julia, followed us out after a grueling exposition of the siege before Petersburg.
"Leave us. I know him too well," she said to the men, and they did.
I found myself alone with her in that strange hallway.
"I find you fascinating," she went on, "so delightfully archaic. I had to say that to you." Her voice was cultured and educated, the first time I had heard it. She was always silent during the interrogations.
"I find you cruel and tyrannous," I replied, the first words I had managed to say voluntarily in ages. "What is this place? I demand to be released."
"We have given you your health and a measure of your youth and you are ungrateful. The Confederate camps at Andersonville were greatly more cruel than this university." She drew closer and touched my coat, musingly. "I find your remarks not unsurprising, from a man that is such a study in foolish contradiction. To avoid conflict with your loyalty to Virginia you joined ranks with the South, and in the end extended another conflict for years longer than it should have, making yourself responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of your countrymen."
My reply was to seize her hand, draw her to me, and put the ceremonial sword that I had to her throat.
"There was no other option," I replied. "Nor now."
Her eyes went wide and I made sure to keep my hand firmly over her mouth. I considered. The escorts were gone, and I capitalized on my sudden play, taking her down the hallway with me, her form trembling uncontrollably. I wondered if her thesis paper on Robert E. Lee had stated that he in no circumstance would strike a woman.
I made to shatter further academic assumptions by pulling her into an alcove of sorts and pressing the thin blade closer.
"You will not scream," I instructed. "Where do these other glowing surfaces lead?"
"Others. The resurrected reference bodies."
I felt a chill at these words.
"Who is among them?"
I clamped my hand back over her mouth then, as I heard footsteps. Two men, different but oddly alike compared to the ones that had escorted me, passed directly by our alcove. She seemed to faint in my grasp as they did.
They headed straight away to one the glowing areas. For a moment I feared they would touch mine. But they stopped one space before it, at the tenth. One touched the wall beside it.
A man emerged; actually, fell, as he was nearly unconscious, directly into their arms. Calico shirt, heavy gray coat and black cape, with the worn yellow gauntlets that his wife Dolly had made for him, just as the shirt...
"A.P. Hill! You must wake up!" I shouted, nary a rational concern for my hiding place nor for reality. Seeing him was like a physical blow. He was dead, shot two miles from Petersburg...
The young men turned and saw me with the woman, and were momentarily distracted, torn between holding him and retrieving me.
Hill stirred in the first's arms. "Lee?"
The other of them was leveling what I greatly feared was a firearm at me. My outrageous bluff of ransoming a lady for my freedom was about to be called. "You must come up!" I pleaded.
And then Hill came alive at those words.
He grasped the inside of the man's arm and pulled, drawing his saber at the same time. He then proceeded to deliver a cruel blow to the head with it, as the man fell.
The second fired his weapon, a great flash of bright light coming from it. Hill was upon him in that instant like a tiger, and likely was the cause that it missed me and my companion, who fainted dead away. She was not in danger, as I had turned my back to the fire before her.
"General!" he said, approaching me with sword and the strange weapon in hand. "You are the most wondrous sight I have seen in days!"
"And you mine," I replied. "You have been held and interrogated, I suspect?"
His beard was not growing gray, his eyes and face not sunken by his illness. He had been brought back from death refreshed as well. He spoke, such a wonder to see him alive again. "Yes. What is this place? I cannot remember more than the Yankees in the brush that fired at me and George Tucker."
"I'll explain at later time. Has that other man a weapon on him?"
He hurried back, coming back with another of the strange devices, which he handed to me. His eyes were wild. "Is this hell we are in?"
"I doubt it. Even if it so, I would strive to break free from it. Do press the sides of these glowing walls, General; I suspect more of our brave men may be behind them."
He went to do so, and I came to the opposite wall, after comfortably propping the woman up in the alcove.
I faced the first door across from mine and touched its side.
A man fell from it into my arms, and I roused him. He stared all around and at me.
"General Grant," I said. "I would guess that you have been treated poorly and questioned; A.P. Hill and I seem to have gotten a barrel over our detainers. Will you join us in a rebellion?"
"I don't see why not," he replied.
