Division

A Story by Jake Martin

Historical fiction. It was a school project, so it may sound like it at times. Philip Auxer was a real person. This is not his autobiography, I was just supposed to use his name. Written in a one sided conversation style. I hope you enjoy it.

Now, now, I assure you, there’s nothing else I need at the moment. You have been very kind and helpful, and for that I want to express my sincere gratitude, just through the utterance of those words, since I cannot express it in any other way. Yes, my friend, I have to agree, that was quite an adventure. Was it really just a week? Because it seemed to me more like an eternity in hell, although that doesn’t quite do it justice for some reason. I’m glad you agree with me, because considering this war to be trivial is disrespectful in a way, somehow blasphemous. Is my fascination with the War Between the States amusing to you? You say I’m attached? No, my dear friend, I regret saying this, but you are wrong. I am not attached to the war in any way. In fact, I would like to forget the whole damn thing. But now you come along, and start asking me all these questions about my life, and make me remember all those horrible things that happened. You say you’ll write down what I’m going to tell you? Whatever you wish, I suppose.

On April 6, 1810, in the town of

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (the town which would be named the state’s capital two years later in 1812), a boy was born, as one is. His parents thought it would be nice to name him Philip. Yes, how clever of you to notice that I was that boy, Philip Auxer. I am obviously not a young boy anymore, and I can honestly tell you that I wish I still was. My childhood was very exciting once observed from another perspective, but, unfortunately, I was too young to notice many of the things as they happened. It wasn’t until much later that I recognized the significance of the events in my childhood, and how they influenced history. Take the War of 1812, for example. Yes, you’re right, a grand war against the British. But, you see, the trouble is that I barely remember anything, since, at that time, I was only alive for a mere two years. I do remember growing up in Harrisburg quite vividly, though. Back then, it was a relatively small town, with a population of just 2,287. Harrisburg was an interesting city during my childhood. When I was around fourteen years old, I found out that my parents were deeply involved in something called the Underground Railroad. This was essentially a giant network of secret routes and escapes used by slaves to run away from their owners. Harrisburg was a pretty big stop along the so-called Railroad, because slaves escaped across the Susquehanna River to Canada. My parents were near the head of the “Philadelphia branch”. Needless to say, this was a fairly risky job, since harboring fugitive slaves could get them into every kind of trouble, as you can imagine. Let me tell you about my parents, while we are on that subject. My parents were truly great, not only in my eyes, but in the eyes of everyone around them, and I am grateful for all they have done for me. My father, a tall, muscular man, was a soldier under Andrew Jackson in the Creek War, and helped defeat the Red Stick Creeks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. He was very strict (most likely a consequence of being in the army), but he almost always had a kind word for people that worked with him. My mother was a very lady-like woman, and she seemed very uptight to people that didn’t know her well, but I always thought, and still think, that it was a kind of veil she used to protect herself from uncomfortable social encounters. It is an odd situation to have a person that is placed very highly in an operation such as the Underground Railroad be so uncomfortable around people, to the point of almost being anti-social. Even despite this, she loved her work. She always enjoyed action, so I can imagine that saving slaves from the South was as much fun she had ever had in her life. My parents were happy with the way I turned out, generally speaking. Their one big wish was for me to go to HarvardLawSchool to become a lawyer, and I’m rather ashamed to say that I did not do that. I did get close in a way, though, because in 1831, I ended up going to HarvardMedicalSchool, then called the Massachusetts Medical College of Harvard University, to become a surgeon.

My college days were fairly uneventful. I actually think that the most interesting point while I was in school was that Andrew Jackson was sworn in for the second time, in 1833.

Jackson always had a special place in my mind because my father was took part in the Creek War with him. I gladly voted for Andrew Jackson, and he was the first candidate I had ever voted for. I learned to be a surgeon, which is really quite an awful job. It was interesting, though, and I learned a lot. When I got out of university in 1835, I started looking around for a job. I found one in a local hospital, and worked there for about thirteen years. The job payed pretty well, and I enjoyed it. How could I enjoy surgery, you ask? My answer stays the same: it was unpleasant, but interesting, and it was what I really loved to do. While I was working there, I met a lady, Maria Smith, who would become the love of my life. I promptly quit my job (smart move, eh?), and we got married. I had quite a bit of money saved from my job, and we moved into a small apartment, still in Harrisburg. Our son, Abraham, was born the next year, in 1849.

As I hope you can see by now, my friend, is that my whole life was a long period of uneventful living, with random parts where a lot of interesting things happened. I wish to move on now to The Civil War, also known as The War Between The States. As I’m sure you know, this war was started because those crazy Southerners didn’t want to let go of their precious slaves, and therefore felt like it would be a good idea to secede from the United States of America. I believe there was also some talk about “states’ rights” and whatnot, but I hold a firm belief that that was all nonsense to cover up their real reasons. On March 4, 1861, a month before my birthday, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as the sixteenth president. The problems have already started before then, though. The South had almost completely seceded from the Union by then, and the “Confederate States of America”, as they had called themselves, had already started organizing an army to fight the Union. I must confess, my friend, that I’m not much of an authority on the first two years of the Civil War, as I was practically cut off from the rest of the world for reasons I wish not to discuss here. I do remember now that on September 22 in 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. These executive orders essentially freed all slaves in Confederate states that didn’t return to the Union by January First of next year. It worked fairly well, and laid the basic structure for the emancipation of millions of other slaves, but at the time I didn’t think much of it or its effects. Other than that, I remember very little, as I was very busy with personal matters. At any rate, my big time came when I received a letter in the mail. Evidently someone had heard about me being a surgeon, so they wished to have me help out with the colossal number of casualties in the War. On July First, I was taken, along with several other surgeons, to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, about 38 miles from my hometown of Harrisburg. When we got there, the battle, which would later become very famous, was already in full swing. I was stunned. Yes, dearest friend, stunned. I had never seen a battle like this in my entire life. We had entered from the East side at about 11 a.m., and saw three Union regiments, led by a colonel named Rufus Dawes, charge a railroad cut where Confederate troops were seeking cover. The cut was deep and positioned rather awkwardly, and from where I stood, it looked like a very ineffective firing position. Another issue was that it looked like the Confederate group in the cut were lacking a commander. Nevertheless, my friend, I wish you could be there to witness the sight. Even though they were in a tough place, those Confederate scoundrels were still firing, and the Union regiment’s flag went down several times. When the regiment finally reached the Confederates, bayonet fighting and hand-to-hand combat broke out. The Confederates were clearly considering surrender, so Dawes took the initiative and yelled something to them to that effect. No, I’m sorry my friend, I cannot be more specific than that. My mind is old, and my memory rotten. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, the Confederates finally surrendered, and Dawes stood there for a few minutes, awkwardly holding the opposing Major’s sword. Now, my friend, I want you to know that all this happened within a relatively short frame of time. As I was watching this, I was torn out of my contemplation of the fight before me by a surgeon colleague of mine. He directed me to a large white tent of sorts that housed the medical quarters. I entered, and the sight before me exceeded in emotion even the sight of the battle I described to you earlier. In front of me, dear friend, were hundreds of soldiers, lying on makeshift beds. They were a pitiful sight. Many were missing arms, legs, and eyes. The smell of blood was sickening, even to a surgeon such as myself. And this was only one of many hospital tents in the area, mind you. It was at that moment that I realized what horror this war was. Then I caught myself daydreaming again, and walked over to the person who seemed to be in charge of the place. He was a stout man, and he looked more like a bartender to me, but through his outward appearance I could sense he was all too familiar with this insanity. He wore a dark blue jacket, which he had unbuttoned to be able to move freely, blue pants that were spattered with blood, and leather boots. He had very sharp features, and a chaotic beard. He immediately told me to go look after a young man named Robert Kirkpatrick, who had been severely wounded in the battle. This was one of the first amputations I did in the field, and I must tell you that it wasn’t pretty at all. The equipment was fairly primitive, with only a few blades, saws, and hooks to facilitate any procedures we were required to do. Needless to say, the kid was in pain, and had a very badly wounded leg. It had to come off. Now, my friend, you may wish me not to describe the procedure as it happened... You do want to hear it? Okay, as you wish. I started by tying off the blood flow in his leg, and took one of my smoother blades to cut through the skin and muscle. I took a bullet, and handed it to him to bite on, so he wouldn’t accidentally bite his tongue off in the extreme pain. I started cutting through his leg, and cut around the bone. When that was done, I took a leather strap, and tied it around the bone, to separate the two parts of his severed leg, and make the cutting of the bone easier. I looked over at the kid, and I wished I hadn’t. His pain was clearly visible on his face, as it twisted into inhuman forms. I went back to work, pulling out a saw, and started cutting through the bone. All the amputations that I have done before in the hospital in Harrisburg couldn’t have prepared me for the sound of that saw cutting though that young man’s bone. No, my friend, it was not the actual sound that was different, it was the context of the sound, if you understand me. The sheer horror that boy had to face. I guess he was only about twenty-three years old, much too young to be fighting in this horrible war. I finished up the procedure by tying up his leg and stopping the blood that was now coming out of his leg at an alarming rate. I have to take a moment now, my friend, to tell you that the first surgery was definitely the hardest. Over the course of the next two days, as the battle raged on, I seldom left the tent I was assigned to. I had done many similar procedures on many similar people. They all “bit the bullet”, and I was glad no further complications arose for any my patients, although many of my colleagues did not have the same luck I had, in that respect. On July Fourth, the the two armies were almost completely silent. The Confederates had suffered heavy losses the day before, and had retreated from the battle. The Union side had already started burying the dead.

And that, my friend, was my experience with the Civil War. On July Seventh, I was taken back home, to

Harrisburg. I was welcomed warmly by my family, and I was very happy to see them. This whole story I just told you seems like so much, when, in fact, it was only one week. It still continues to amaze me how much happened. A few weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg, when it all wore off in my mind, I returned to my job as a surgeon at the hospital in Harrisburg. From there on out, I lived a fairly common life. A year later, in April of 1865, I read the newspaper in the morning, as was my custom, and saw the headline that took up the entire top half of the page. President Lincoln was assassinated. This came to me as a shock, as I was a devoted patriot, and Lincoln was the personification of all my philosophies. He was shot in the head by a man named John Wilkes Booth, while attending a performance of Our American Cousin. I went out that day, and saw wanted posters of Booth and another conspirator, Herold. I went back to my old everyday life, fed my family, and worked hard at my job. Nine years later, another tragedy hit, even bigger than all the previous tragedies, partly because it was personal. My son, Abraham, died at the age of twenty-four. This really felt like the end for me, and my wife, Maria. He left one night to go out into town, and the next day, he was found dead in the street. No one knows what happened. It is very puzzling, and very saddening to this day. My son was a big part of my life, and I still miss his presence very much.

Has this whole story not tired you at all? No? Well, it sure has tired me. I really do not want to go into detail about the next decade leading up to today, because just thinking about it is too much for me to handle. My life was filled with turmoil since the death of my son. I was fired from my job at the hospital for reasons I will never understand. My health got very bad, very rapidly. As you see me now, friend, that is how I have been for the past ten years. Tired, sick, and insupportably dull. You say I’m not dull, do you? Well, I’m glad you think so, because if not, this whole story would have been wasted. Now, I hate to be this rude, but I would like to ask you to leave. I’m old, tired, sick, and I need to get some rest. I has been rather pleasant talking to you, though. I thank you for stopping by. Good-bye.

Author’s Note: Philip K. Auxer died in 1886, two years later after this interview was conducted. May he rest in peace.

© 2009 Jake Martin

Author's Note

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Please don't pay attention to the formatting. I had it typeset perfectly for the final draft of my paper, but putting it up here messed it up big time.