Letters from the Civil War: Joshua van der Beefs
After posting about my GLORIOUS SIDEBEEFS on Facebook, my historian friend Joel replied, "Well suited for commanding Civil War era armies, there can be no doubt." So I did him one better, and wrote a letter...
(That Inevitable Background Music for Civil War Letter Readings)
Camp on Bayou Piere, Miss.
Thursday, Sept. 1, 1864
My esteemed Joelediah,
After some time and much meditation on those many matters of military intrication-into which I cannot delve here, but which are frankly recondite and inscrutable even to someone of my position-General Grant has directed that after a long prohibition we may once again correspond with the humble sticker-bush yards of our civilian provenance, and that mail will in fact dispatch tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. Thus shall I hasten on this otherwise lazy and hazy summer’s evening, to compose a few words that may be worthy of your long anticipation.
As I have articulated in an earlier letter this evening, to my beloved daughter, Applediah, who has fretted to me in the past about the severity of my endeavor, it’s not shooting rebels what’s hard about this war, for if I may be candid they asked for a walloping and I am only too agreeable to indulge them in the fullness of their request, by and by.
Nor am I especially torn by the carnages of the battlefields that meet with my eye, week upon week, like something come out of Hell’s own nightmares, for though despicable and ruinous to all interests as war intrinsically is I must confess that this particular War’s looming and triumphal terminus is like the comfort of the evening breeze in summer, reminding me that in the hours to come this sweat will be as dried from my brow as though it weren’t ever there.
Neither am I profoundly disturbed even by the indescribable deprivation facing my troops, let alone the mean conditions we encounter in the rebel towns and homesteads, for though these sights could easily have troubled my gentle soul, well do I remember the Holy Bible, where it is written for all time:
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
And shall I say, then, that as a matter of personal conscience I do my part to uplift my fellow man wherein and wherever my power permits me, and that beyond my own reach I let the world be as it is, and pray to God for grace.
No, dear Joelediah, the demon that truly plagues my thoughts, the wickedness what burdens the otherwise easy quality of my disposition even in these reckless days, is the knowledge that my spectacular sidebeefs, which have propelled my 946th Illinois Infantry to victory after victory in this quarrelsome year, and which I am told have been the toast of every capital city and county seat in the entire Union, and are even begrudgingly paid their due in the statehouses and saloons of our enemies, suffered last Monday morning a grievous injury, a wound like old age upon the bones, or bereavement upon the heart, in character unsettling to the belly and the knees, in appearance so dismaying to my troops’ morale and my own that my barber has advised the War itself be put on hold until such time as I may convalesce.
It was not any single soul’s own misdoing, but a conspiracy of lesser evils what brought together my sidebeefs’ great downfall. There I was, being attended to in the customary manner of my barber’s able hands, when some damn fool soldier’s pet chicken absquatulated from its enclosure and proceeded to run amok in the vicinity of our field kitchen, where at that moment a kettle of hot coffee was progressing to deliver for my men some measure of vivacity following the night’s slumber, so that for yet another day they may resist the ever-present shackles of fatigue-irons of a weight so gross that we may write about it in books but which only a soldier on the line, or a slave perhaps, will ever truly know-and may you never know it, Joelediah, in this life or in another.
In that fulsome morning hour the sun still hung low in the sky, and one of our cooks, blinded as he was by the celestial glare, tripped for that scurrying chicken, and into the coffee kettle did his whole left arm descend-scalding it rather severely, I may add. But it was his right arm that then carried along with the threads of fate, for in that hand was a good and sharp piece of fine Chicago cutlery, and the right hand, being overwhelmed by the experiences of the left, went awry, and suffered a fantastic convulsion, which, we are all sorry to say, produced the finest pitch some of my men have reported ever seeing in their lives, and the knife went sailing through the air, spinning like a clock sped up into a frenzy on a burst spring, until it cleaved off my left sidebeef so smoothly and cleanly that you’d never know, to look at me from that side, that I was olden than the age of ten-despite being a rather more venerable two score and twelve.
Well, a General of the Union can hardly go about his ways with just one sideburn, men of propriety will agree, and so, despite all palliative and restorative efforts, when I retired that night to my never-more-welcome bed I did so with an empty face and an emptier spirit.
Of course, little acknowledgement is granted to the ravages upon the psyche of war injuries to the flesh-or in my case to the follicle-but as fellow travelers in the traditions of literature, we know something of the human condition, you and I, and I can confide this to you in the comfort of knowing that you will understand my meaning, when I say that ever since my injury I have struggled to retain my command, for surely no man in the modern age can lead such mettle and bravery into death if he possess so bare a face. It is neither dignified nor inspirational. It is only pathetic, and we lost three skirmishes subsequent to that day because the enemy’s laughter at my pathetic visage has driven the fighting spirit from my infantry. We may as well put women in charge of the war, I think, for then at least no sideburns would be expected, and perhaps I could return to my literary pursuits and be done with the sword forever.
So strong was my yearning in this matter that I even requested to be released from my obligations to the Country, but unfortunately General Grant was not able to extricate in his mind the indispensable role of my legendary sidebeefs from my exemplary battle record. He thinks I can carry on, as though I had merely lost a limb or an eye, and I can hardly deny my General, so carry on I must. But I admit it to you, Joelediah, that I don’t know how to carry on, just yet. I don’t know that I ever will. Perhaps, at long last, the innocence that they say war claims from men’s souls, has claimed mine from me.
Yes, yes, the sidebeefs will return one day. It’ll be the bitter end of autumn by then-though down here the autumn isn’t quite so bitter. But will my nerve return with the whiskers? Will I meet the new year with the strength and courage I need? That much, remains to be seen. By prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, it remains to be seen.
Please convey my regards to the members of our writers’ club-those of them what remain with you in civilian circumstances. Even for all the embarrassment it would bring me, I would instruct you to you to pass my story on to them, that they might write great novels and even a poem or two out of the tragedy that has befallen me in this wretched State of Mississippi, but military wisdom reminds me that the more people what know about this calamity the likelier it becomes that our whole Nation’s resolve will falter on the evening of our ordained triumph. No doubt word is already spreading throughout the Confederacy like summer flies and sour beer, but there’s scant little I can do about that. At first I deliberated upon the subterfuge of wrapping my face in a heavy veil for battle, like some antique Persian might do, but I decided against it, not only for the absurdity that such a discrepancy would present in our unified front, but more so for the logical deduction that such a desperate concealment announces the contents of its secret as loudly as the bare truth does, because of this simple interrogative: What man who possesses sidebeefs like unto my own would ever hide them in the hour of their greatest glory?
Be these things as they may, I maintain my stern conviction that the rebel cause is doomed, so be sure to understand, my esteemed Joelediah, that you demarcate my personal loss from our communal win. Other commanders will accomplish what I might not, and soon enough I will return one way or another to my civilian life and our writers’ club, where I hope to read the memoir you mentioned to me back in March. I never did think of writing a memoir, myself, and still don’t, for of myself history need only recount one, solitary detail:
Here was a man whose sidebeefs knew no likeness, before or after.
Your Friend on the Earth,
Gen. Joshua van der Beefs XVII
Commanding the 946th Illinois Infantry
(That Inevitable Background Music for Civil War Letter Readings)
Camp on Bayou Piere, Miss.
Thursday, Sept. 1, 1864
My esteemed Joelediah,
After some time and much meditation on those many matters of military intrication-into which I cannot delve here, but which are frankly recondite and inscrutable even to someone of my position-General Grant has directed that after a long prohibition we may once again correspond with the humble sticker-bush yards of our civilian provenance, and that mail will in fact dispatch tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. Thus shall I hasten on this otherwise lazy and hazy summer’s evening, to compose a few words that may be worthy of your long anticipation.
As I have articulated in an earlier letter this evening, to my beloved daughter, Applediah, who has fretted to me in the past about the severity of my endeavor, it’s not shooting rebels what’s hard about this war, for if I may be candid they asked for a walloping and I am only too agreeable to indulge them in the fullness of their request, by and by.
Nor am I especially torn by the carnages of the battlefields that meet with my eye, week upon week, like something come out of Hell’s own nightmares, for though despicable and ruinous to all interests as war intrinsically is I must confess that this particular War’s looming and triumphal terminus is like the comfort of the evening breeze in summer, reminding me that in the hours to come this sweat will be as dried from my brow as though it weren’t ever there.
Neither am I profoundly disturbed even by the indescribable deprivation facing my troops, let alone the mean conditions we encounter in the rebel towns and homesteads, for though these sights could easily have troubled my gentle soul, well do I remember the Holy Bible, where it is written for all time:
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
And shall I say, then, that as a matter of personal conscience I do my part to uplift my fellow man wherein and wherever my power permits me, and that beyond my own reach I let the world be as it is, and pray to God for grace.
No, dear Joelediah, the demon that truly plagues my thoughts, the wickedness what burdens the otherwise easy quality of my disposition even in these reckless days, is the knowledge that my spectacular sidebeefs, which have propelled my 946th Illinois Infantry to victory after victory in this quarrelsome year, and which I am told have been the toast of every capital city and county seat in the entire Union, and are even begrudgingly paid their due in the statehouses and saloons of our enemies, suffered last Monday morning a grievous injury, a wound like old age upon the bones, or bereavement upon the heart, in character unsettling to the belly and the knees, in appearance so dismaying to my troops’ morale and my own that my barber has advised the War itself be put on hold until such time as I may convalesce.
It was not any single soul’s own misdoing, but a conspiracy of lesser evils what brought together my sidebeefs’ great downfall. There I was, being attended to in the customary manner of my barber’s able hands, when some damn fool soldier’s pet chicken absquatulated from its enclosure and proceeded to run amok in the vicinity of our field kitchen, where at that moment a kettle of hot coffee was progressing to deliver for my men some measure of vivacity following the night’s slumber, so that for yet another day they may resist the ever-present shackles of fatigue-irons of a weight so gross that we may write about it in books but which only a soldier on the line, or a slave perhaps, will ever truly know-and may you never know it, Joelediah, in this life or in another.
In that fulsome morning hour the sun still hung low in the sky, and one of our cooks, blinded as he was by the celestial glare, tripped for that scurrying chicken, and into the coffee kettle did his whole left arm descend-scalding it rather severely, I may add. But it was his right arm that then carried along with the threads of fate, for in that hand was a good and sharp piece of fine Chicago cutlery, and the right hand, being overwhelmed by the experiences of the left, went awry, and suffered a fantastic convulsion, which, we are all sorry to say, produced the finest pitch some of my men have reported ever seeing in their lives, and the knife went sailing through the air, spinning like a clock sped up into a frenzy on a burst spring, until it cleaved off my left sidebeef so smoothly and cleanly that you’d never know, to look at me from that side, that I was olden than the age of ten-despite being a rather more venerable two score and twelve.
Well, a General of the Union can hardly go about his ways with just one sideburn, men of propriety will agree, and so, despite all palliative and restorative efforts, when I retired that night to my never-more-welcome bed I did so with an empty face and an emptier spirit.
Of course, little acknowledgement is granted to the ravages upon the psyche of war injuries to the flesh-or in my case to the follicle-but as fellow travelers in the traditions of literature, we know something of the human condition, you and I, and I can confide this to you in the comfort of knowing that you will understand my meaning, when I say that ever since my injury I have struggled to retain my command, for surely no man in the modern age can lead such mettle and bravery into death if he possess so bare a face. It is neither dignified nor inspirational. It is only pathetic, and we lost three skirmishes subsequent to that day because the enemy’s laughter at my pathetic visage has driven the fighting spirit from my infantry. We may as well put women in charge of the war, I think, for then at least no sideburns would be expected, and perhaps I could return to my literary pursuits and be done with the sword forever.
So strong was my yearning in this matter that I even requested to be released from my obligations to the Country, but unfortunately General Grant was not able to extricate in his mind the indispensable role of my legendary sidebeefs from my exemplary battle record. He thinks I can carry on, as though I had merely lost a limb or an eye, and I can hardly deny my General, so carry on I must. But I admit it to you, Joelediah, that I don’t know how to carry on, just yet. I don’t know that I ever will. Perhaps, at long last, the innocence that they say war claims from men’s souls, has claimed mine from me.
Yes, yes, the sidebeefs will return one day. It’ll be the bitter end of autumn by then-though down here the autumn isn’t quite so bitter. But will my nerve return with the whiskers? Will I meet the new year with the strength and courage I need? That much, remains to be seen. By prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, it remains to be seen.
Please convey my regards to the members of our writers’ club-those of them what remain with you in civilian circumstances. Even for all the embarrassment it would bring me, I would instruct you to you to pass my story on to them, that they might write great novels and even a poem or two out of the tragedy that has befallen me in this wretched State of Mississippi, but military wisdom reminds me that the more people what know about this calamity the likelier it becomes that our whole Nation’s resolve will falter on the evening of our ordained triumph. No doubt word is already spreading throughout the Confederacy like summer flies and sour beer, but there’s scant little I can do about that. At first I deliberated upon the subterfuge of wrapping my face in a heavy veil for battle, like some antique Persian might do, but I decided against it, not only for the absurdity that such a discrepancy would present in our unified front, but more so for the logical deduction that such a desperate concealment announces the contents of its secret as loudly as the bare truth does, because of this simple interrogative: What man who possesses sidebeefs like unto my own would ever hide them in the hour of their greatest glory?
Be these things as they may, I maintain my stern conviction that the rebel cause is doomed, so be sure to understand, my esteemed Joelediah, that you demarcate my personal loss from our communal win. Other commanders will accomplish what I might not, and soon enough I will return one way or another to my civilian life and our writers’ club, where I hope to read the memoir you mentioned to me back in March. I never did think of writing a memoir, myself, and still don’t, for of myself history need only recount one, solitary detail:
Here was a man whose sidebeefs knew no likeness, before or after.
Your Friend on the Earth,
Gen. Joshua van der Beefs XVII
Commanding the 946th Illinois Infantry