Chapter 18: Land of Lincoln

Springfield announced itself first by absence. The usual noise of a frontier town—the hammering, the shouting, the rattle of commerce—was muted, as if the whole city had agreed to speak in whispers. Black bunting hung from storefronts and homes, faded now by months of weather but still declaring the town's grief.

We came in from the east on a dry afternoon in late August, dust rising from the road in pale columns. The horses sensed something and grew quiet. Even the wagon wheels seemed to complain less against the rutted streets.

"Lincoln's town," William said. It wasn't a question.

I nodded. We'd heard about the assassination back in May, sitting in that Union prison while the guards went from rage to mourning in the space of a day. Some prisoners had cheered. I hadn't. A man dying was a man dying, president or otherwise, and I'd seen enough death to last three lifetimes.

"He's buried here," Joseph said, consulting the guidebook he carried. "Oak Ridge Cemetery. They say people come from across the country to pay respects."

Tiny said nothing, but I saw his jaw tighten. His father—Captain Buck Tanner—had died at Franklin, leading Confederate cavalry against impossible odds. Tiny had the story from another soldier who'd made it out. His father had been thinking about the end of things, about what came after, when a Union rifle ball found him. Tiny never said whether his father had been thinking about him, about Sally, about the life he'd left behind in two different worlds.

We found lodging at a boarding house run by a widow named Mrs. Patterson. She was perhaps fifty, with gray hair pulled back severe and eyes that had seen their share of sorrow. When she looked at my worn jacket—the gray still visible in places despite my attempts to fade it—her mouth tightened, but she didn't turn us away.

"Fifty cents a night," she said. "Meals are extra. No drinking, no profanity, and no trouble."

"Yes ma'am," I said. "We're just passing through. Headed west."

She studied each of us in turn. Tiny drew her longest look—trying to place him, probably. His skin was dark enough to raise questions but not dark enough to provide answers. Mediterranean, some people thought. Portuguese or Spanish. Others looked closer and saw what they didn't want to see.

"You'll want to visit Mr. Lincoln's grave," she said finally. "Most folks do. Oak Ridge is north of town, about two miles."

That evening we walked those two miles. The cemetery sprawled across a hillside, marble monuments rising like pale sentries in the fading light. Families moved between the graves, some placing flowers, others simply standing in silence.

Lincoln's tomb stood at the hill's crest. They'd built a temporary vault while the permanent monument was still being constructed—a granite structure that would take years to complete. Even unfinished, it commanded the space. Flowers covered the ground around it, some fresh, most wilted by the August heat. Wreaths leaned against the stone, their ribbons bearing names of towns and organizations: Chicago Workingmen's Society, Ladies of Alton, Veterans of the 54th Massachusetts.

The 54th. Colored troops. They'd fought at Fort Wagner, died by the hundreds, proved what Tiny's father had always known—that courage wasn't bound by skin color.

We stood at a respectful distance. Other visitors moved past—a family with two small children, an elderly couple holding hands, a group of women in mourning dress. No one spoke above a whisper.

William removed his hat. Joseph did the same. I followed, feeling the weight of something I couldn't name pressing on my shoulders.

"He wanted reconciliation," William said quietly. "I read his second inaugural address. 'With malice toward none, with charity for all.'"

"They killed him anyway," I said.

"Someone always does," Tiny said. His voice was flat, distant. "Men who want reconciliation don't survive. Too many people need the hate to continue."

A man in a dark suit approached. He was perhaps sixty, with a full beard and eyes that held calculation rather than grief. He stopped a few feet away, studying us with the same careful assessment Mrs. Patterson had used.

"You boys fought," he said. It wasn't a question.

"We did," I answered.

"For which side?"

The question hung in the air like smoke. I could lie—say we'd fought for the Union, that our worn uniforms were blue once. But lies had a way of catching up to a man, and I was tired of running from truth.

"For the South," I said. "The war's over now."

His face hardened. "Is it? Mr. Lincoln thought so. Wanted to bind up the nation's wounds, bring everyone back together like nothing had happened. And look where it got him. Shot in the back while watching a play."

"By one man," William interjected. "One fanatic doesn't represent—"

"Doesn't he?" The man's voice rose slightly, drawing glances from other visitors. "One man pulled the trigger. But half the country celebrated. Don't tell me the war's over when I can still hear the cheering."

"We didn't cheer," Joseph said firmly. "We're not here to cause trouble. Just paying respects."

The man looked at Tiny for a long moment. Whatever he saw there—or thought he saw—made him pause.

"What about you?" he asked. "You fight for the rebels too?"

Tiny met his gaze without flinching. "I fought. Yes sir."

"You don't look like you belong with them."

"I look like my mother," Tiny said evenly. "Sally. She was a house servant in Tennessee. And I look like my father—Captain William Tanner, who died leading cavalry at Franklin. So I look like both of them, and I belong wherever I choose to stand."

The words settled between them like cards laid on a table. The man's expression shifted—anger fading into something more complicated. Confusion, maybe. Or recognition that the world wasn't as simple as he'd needed it to be.

"Captain Tanner," he said slowly. "I knew a man by that name. Fought at Shiloh, if I recall. Bought drinks for my unit once when we were both stationed in Chattanooga, before things got bad."

"That was him," Tiny said. "He believed soldiers were soldiers, regardless of which flag they saluted."

The man nodded slowly. "I'm sorry for your loss. Both of you." He looked at me when he said it. "I lost two nephews at Gettysburg. I don't forgive the Confederacy. But I reckon the men who fought for it were just men, same as mine. Mr. Lincoln knew that. Wanted us to remember it."

He turned and walked away, shoulders bent under a weight that had nothing to do with age.

We stood there longer, watching the sun sink below the treeline. More visitors came and went. I saw a young Black couple approach the tomb, moving carefully as if unsure of their welcome. The man carried his hat in both hands. The woman wore a simple dress that looked new—purchased for this occasion, probably. They knelt together and the woman began to cry, soft sounds that carried on the evening air.

Tiny watched them, his face unreadable. When they rose to leave, he stepped forward.

"Excuse me," he said.

They turned, fear flashing across their faces before they could hide it. Tiny raised both hands, showing he meant no harm.

"I just wanted to say—" He paused, choosing words. "My father fought for the Confederacy. Died wearing gray. But he taught me that a man's uniform doesn't define his heart. President Lincoln knew that too. I think—" His voice caught. "I think my father would have wanted to shake his hand, if things had been different."

The young man looked at Tiny for a long moment. Then he extended his hand. They shook, two men bound by loss and complicated legacy, standing over the grave of a president who'd tried to make such handshakes possible.

We walked back to town in darkness. Nobody spoke. The day's heat had broken, and the air carried the smell of grass and distant woodsmoke.

In our room that night, while the others settled into sleep, I sat by the window with Samuel's pouch in my hands. I could feel the shapes inside—Pa's watch, the photograph of our family, the unfinished letter Samuel had been writing when the order came to march. And the pressed lavender Emma had given him to give to me, to remind me there was something worth coming home to.

I pulled out Emma's letter, the paper soft from repeated handling. The words glowed in the candlelight.

I will wait as long as there is breath in me. If you come home missing an arm or a leg, I will still be here. The war has changed everything, but it cannot change what I feel for you. Come home, Virgil. However you can, whenever you can, just come home.

Springfield was Lincoln's home. He'd practiced law here, raised his children, spent ordinary days doing ordinary things before the weight of a nation fell on his shoulders. And now he was buried here, while I sat in a rented room counting the miles between me and my own home.

I'd promised Samuel I'd take his things back to our parents. Promised Emma I'd come home. But here I was, going the wrong direction, chasing money that might not even exist, telling myself it was the practical choice.

Lincoln had wanted reconciliation. But first, I needed to reconcile myself—figure out whether I was going west because it was right or because it was easier than facing what I'd left behind.

I touched the lavender through the worn cloth of the pouch. It still held a faint scent, sweet and clean, a reminder of gardens and springtime and a girl who'd promised to wait.

"You thinking about home?" Tiny's voice came from the darkness.

"Always," I said.

"Me too. Sally's probably working in someone else's house now. Free labor instead of slave labor, but same work, same low pay. And I'm out here, hundreds of miles away, can't help her, can't even send word because I don't know where she ended up after the war scattered everyone."

"Your father would be proud of you," I said. "The way you handled that man today. Calm, dignified. Took more courage than drawing a gun."

"My father was complicated," Tiny said. "Fought for a cause that would have kept my mother enslaved. Loved her anyway. Loved me anyway. Died fighting against the very thing that could have freed us. I don't know if he'd be proud or ashamed."

"Both, probably," I said. "Same as mine would be."

We sat in silence for a while. Through the window, I could see a few lights still burning in Springfield's homes. People living their lives, carrying their griefs, trying to figure out how to move forward when the past weighed heavy as stone.

"Tomorrow we head west again," Tiny said. "Another day away from home."

"Tomorrow we keep the promise we made," I corrected. "Get to Salt Lake, get paid, then go home ready to help. That's still the plan."

"If you say so."

I folded Emma's letter and placed it back in the pouch with Samuel's things. Outside, somewhere in the darkness, Lincoln rested in his temporary vault, waiting for the permanent monument that would take years to build. Some memorials took time. Some journeys required going the long way around.

I blew out the candle and lay back on the narrow bed. Tomorrow we'd leave Springfield behind, carry its lessons west into a territory that had never known the war, never felt the particular sorrow of Lincoln's death.

But tonight we were still here, in the land of Lincoln, learning what reconciliation cost and how far we still had to travel—both across the prairie and within ourselves—before we could truly come home.