"I see you as a major figure in the war." she said, "But I see you
before the war.
You're on the west coast somewhere. You're unhappy. You're separated
from your
wife, you're drinking a lot."
"Laura, you're describing Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, You've got to be
kidding!" Phil
said. "No, that's it. That's what I see you doing back then," she
said.
Laura had some obvious psychic abilities, though it wasn't the first
thing that you'd
notice about her. First you'd notice that she was beautiful, in the
scandinavian
tradition of tiny noses and startling blue eyes. Then you'd notice
the gentle lilt of a
patrician branch of Louisiana Cajun accent as she sweetly, patiently
and correctly
explained how your pet theory was completely wrong. All that
intoxicating beauty
and culture and brilliant, too. With psychic abilities just kind of
thrown in. Not that
it was a big deal to her. Answers came to her. Sometimes in words,
sometimes in
pictures.
Phil was a Civil War hobbyist. You'd never guess that, knowing the
rest of his life
as a high school drama coach. For some reason in the last few years
he had begun
reading and thinking a lot about the Civil War. So he had asked Laura
if she
thought he had been involved in the war in some other lifetime.
They moved in a circle of friends where reincarnation wasn't even
wondered about.
It was an obvious given. So when Phil asked Laura, she simply said,
"I'll ask," and
then explained that she just kind of puts the question into the
computer of her
consciousness and the answer comes out later. Maybe soon, maybe
not.
This answer came in two days. When she told him, Phil thought it was
odd to think
that here he was dating one of the most true blue southern beauties
in existence, and
maybe, just maybe, he had been General Grant, the final conqueror of
the States
Rights crowd. "Maybe she should kill me for old times sake," he
thought. On the
other hand, Grant's wife was a southern girl.
Grant heard the first cannon shots of Shiloh, and hustled toward the
sounds., but
he didn't get there immediately. Many later said that he had been
drinking, but it
was never proven. It was just that his headquarters were quite a
distance from
where the battle started. The fact was that Grant drank when he was
lonely for his
wife and discouraged about his career. Right now his career was on
the upswing.
So what if he was back in the military, an occupation he never
wanted? His wife
and family was taken care of, and people listened to him and had
begun
respecting him. tremendously. Fort Donelson had started something of
a legend.
He didn't need to drink. He was too busy.
But now he could do little. The battle was basically underway and
the
undertrained troops on both sides went at it in a kind of surging
hell of will
versus will. The southern boys drove the northern boys back and back,
and then
the next day the opposite happened.
Then Grant was poised to hammer on the retreating southern army,
which had
lost it's highly promising General Johnston forever on the second
day. But
General Halleck took over from Grant. Believing all the stories, and
stripping
Grant of all command without cutting his rank.
Then Halleck advanced toward Corinth, where the southern army was.
He
prepared to attack the city . He dug trenches. He dug cross trenches.
He waged a
campaign that advanced three miles toward the city in as many days.
And just one
day before he managed to get close enough to the city with all of his
supplies,
wagons and trenches in order to attack, the southerners simply left
town.
And Grant had no command, which meant he was out of a job. Until the
moment
when they again needed a general who moved things along. Which wasn't
far off.
"Look, here, Katy," said Phil, "After we go to the Shakespeare thing
in Spring
Green, we could drive through Galena on our way home." Katy and Phil
had gone
to see the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, which was
great, and they back
drove home to Iowa City the long way, circling over the Great Lakes.
They had seen
Second City in Toronto, the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Theatre
Sports in
Milwaukee, and now were heading home.
"What's in Galena?" said Katy. "Oh, you know, civil war stuff,
antique shops. I
mean, that was Grant's home town before the war" said Phil. "General
Grant?," said
Katy, "Oh, I forgot, that was you, right?" "Right," said Phil. "Which
girlfriend told
you that? Laura?" "Right." "I can't see why we shouldn't go. It's on
our way, kind
of. Maybe it'll jog your memory." said Katy, laughing. "Who knows?"
said Phil.
Lincoln dead. Andrew Johnson in the White House. Grant sat in his
offices in
Washington, Commander in Chief of the entire military machine of the
newly
reunited country. Looking through the official papers of the war, he
came across
a sheaf of communications from Halleck to Cameron, Secretary of War,
criticizing
Grant's activities in the Vicksburg campaign. Of course by now he had
been
completely vindicated. Cutting himself off from a supply line,
circling south
around the fortress and back up to attack it from the more vulnerable
east side
had turned out to be a brilliant tactic. You're always brilliant when
you succeed.
But when you miscalculate, you're a butcher, wasting lives like smoke
blowing
away from a cigar.
He didn't mind the criticism. Halleck was a paperwork general. A
bureaucrat put
in charge of a war. A man skilled in list making, requisitions,
procedures and
regulations. But completely adrift in the actual business of war,
which was
shooting bullets and getting shot at. If only the armies could
compete in
organization and supply capabilities. Then Halleck would have been a
god. But
Halleck would no more have attacfked Fort Donelson on his own account
then he
would have shot himself. In either case, he would have had to get a
consensus, or
even better a direct order. At least someone else would be to blame
if he was
wrong to do it.
No , the criticism from Halleck didn't bother Grant. It was the fact
that he
distinctly remembered Halleck implying that he was on his side,
supporting him
completely. Grant was a plain dealing man, and often assumed that
everyone was
being honest with him, unless it was clearly demonstrated otherwise.
That later
made him an honest president with an inability to screen out
unscrupulous office
seekers and cabinet members. But now Grant was angry, though he never
said
anything to Halleck. Speeches weren't his strong point.
Walking into the house that the City of Galena awarded to Grant after
he left the
presidency gave Phil a sense of irony. "What if she's right?" he
thought. "What if
Laura was right and I'm walking into my own house over a hundred
years later?"
Since Laura told him about this Grant thing he had started to read
more about
Grant. He had gone down to the public library and looked at books
about the guy.
There were several, but the most interesting were a two volume set of
memoirs
written by Grant himself. The library actually had the original,
leather covered
volumes that were published in 1885, and they were available to check
out and take
home. It was amazing.
Grant sat in a rocking chair and watched the white suited gentleman
ride off in a
carraige. The horses pulling the carraige were well taken care of.
Grant
appreciated that kind of thing. He had been noted at an early age for
his ability to
handle a big team of horses.The only time he had ever felt like
killing a man was
when he saw one of his sergeants whipping a horse into oblivion. But
he only had
the man whipped in turn. Grant also liked the offer that the
gentleman left him to
ponder, since it wasn't that often that someone asked you to write a
book and
personally assured you that he'd make sure that it got published and
that you'd
make a fortune off of it. He had been taken in business before, but
doubted that
this would be a repeat of that kind of thing, since the gentleman
riding away after
suggesting that Grant write a memoir of his wartime experiences was
Mark
Twain. A controversial writer, certainly, but obviously honest. So,
Grant began
structuring the work in his mind, and within a few days started
dictating.
Phil liked thinking of being Grant, but it was also kind of a joke.
The funny thing is
that you never hear of somebody having been someone unfamous in a
past life.
They were always Cleopatra or Lincoln or Nefertiti or someone like
that. He had
personally met people who were supposed to have been Lincoln and
Rommel. But
you have to ask yourself how many other people think they were those
people,
among the reincarnation is obvious crowd. There's always the cynical
view.
The other thing was that now that he had read Grant's memoirs and
books about
Grant, he really couldn't relate to being that guy. How could he
possibly be the
sturdy, plodding straightforward taurus personality that slogged
through Virginia
relentlessly grinding Lee's imagination and his tattered and hungry
band into the
dirt. How could a totally anonymous high school drama coach have been
a famous
general and a president in another life? On the other hand, how could
a store clerk
become a famous general? But you'd think he'd stay on some high level
in a
subsequent life.
The only way, the only possible way, was that the soul was an
extremely abstract
thing, and that the personality was somehow more an artifact of that
particular
lifetime. So, for Phil to have been Grant, it must have been in a
time of soul learning
with a straightforward, driving, taurus kind of theme. Grant was a
taurus. People
laugh at astrology, but taurus sure fits the stubborn, steady,
no-frills Grant. But,
right or wrong, Laura's claim sure brought the civil war books to
life, since it's one
thing to read about a historical figure, but quite another to imagine
having been the
one you're reading about.
The final oddity was the disease that killed Grant. Cancer of the
throat. Blocked
expression. Grant had botched more than one speech before he lit on
the trick of
toasting the crowd by lighting a cigar and sitting down. Probably the
cigars did
their damage, too. But Grant had a weakness in the area of expression
and his weak
area is the one that eventually broke down. That's what goes first.
And not just for
Grant.
But Phil was a communicator par excellence. In addition to French,
some Spanish, a
little Latin, Sanskrit and Norwegian, he could do the accents of
urban Blacks,
scandinavians, John Wayne, Cary Grant, and several cartoon
characters. He reveled
in public speaking and public performance. How could that be Grant?
Unless the
soul had wanted to learn a lesson, and learned it well.
But how could an artistic, dramatic soul such as his have lived in
this little house in
Galena, with a devoted, cross-eyed wife and those stiff-looking
children? Phil
looked around the ground floor. He had passed the nervous looking
older woman at
the door without comment. Katy had exchanged the pleasantries, but
Phil was
absorbing information and feelings and didn't want to chit chat. He
picked up the
brochures. He always picked up the printed stuff. It helped him to
remember things
when he got home.
He had finished his tour of the first floor, where he had seen the
roped off library,
which frustrated him, because he wanted to get in and see the names
of the books,
Maybe they weren't authentic, but then again, maybe they were, or
maybe at least
someone had researched the names of civil war era works and restocked
the shelves
with that kind of stuff. He gave up the notion of quickly stepping
over the fat velvet
rope that kept you away from detailed observations like he desired,
mainly because
he was fairly well-behaved in general, and not really obsessed about
the books, but
also because the nervous lady was hovering about.
He and Katy were the only people on the first floor, and the lady had
the air of
somebody who is trying to be cheerful and some kind of a guide, but
is secretly
worried that you're some kind of a communist who is going to deface
or even steal
something on her watch.
So, he started climbing the stairs to the second floor. He was almost
to the top when
he ran into the back of a line of people. So, he stood waiting for a
few minutes, not
really on either floor. But he hated waiting in lines. And waiting in
a line to get to
the top of a stairway was doubly wierd. He usually took stairs two at
a time rather
than with the plodding climb of the norm. No stodgy Grant in those
legs. More like
John Mosby, the Grey Ghost, Confederate horseback raider and post-war
friend of
Grant.
Then, turning around while waiting, he spotted a painting at the
bottom of the stairs
that he hadn't seen, and started back downstairs to look at the
painting until the
stairway line dwindled.
Grant had to laugh, in spite of the pain it cost , when he wrote of
Halleck's
perfidy. He didn't dwell on it. Simply presented the facts as he saw
them. It was
pretty obvious that Halleck had been unsuited for command of the
entire army,
and that on many occxasions he actually slowed the war effort with
his incredible
caution. Praise must be heaped for his organizational and
administrative
accomplishments. But he was not a fighting general. When he was
served by
generals that didn't want to fight, like McClellan, or were truly
incompetent in the
field , like Rosecrans, Halleck's failings were less obvious.
But the best thing that happened to Grant was when he no longer had
to take
orders from a bureacratic Halleck. The fighting general became
commander in
chief and Halleck began working for Grant. In a supply role, where he
belonged.
And, after all, who had ended up at the top? The former leather shop
clerk from
Galena.
Phil got to the bottom of the stairs, squinted a bit at the fine
details of the painting
that had drawn his attention back downstairs, when his focus was
disturbed by the
nervous lady's insistent voice, "You can't come downstairs!" "What?"
said Phil. He
had a feeling that this lady was on a different planet from the one
he normally
occupied, which is part of why he avoided her earlier, but his
feeling was rapidly
being confirmed. "You can't come down, once you go up you can't come
down!"
she said. "But I didn't make it up!. There's a line up there!" he
said. "You just have
to go up there and wait, you can't come back down."
It was a bad moment, which was compounded by the fact that it had
been a bit of a
drive from the campsite near Spring Green, Wisconsin, the air
mattress hadn't
compensated for the fact that the entire tent was on too much of a
slope and he kept
rolling off the thing, and more significantly, he and Katy hadn't had
lunch. Not
having lunch isn't a big thing for some people. At least, Phil had
heard of such
people. But for him, missing a meal turned him into a slightly
mean-spirited
stomach in search of a fix. Raging hypoglycemia, or something like
it.
He looked down at the lady, who receded in his vision into a buglike,
mentally
inactive creature that had latched onto the no descending the up
stairway regulation
like a cockroach on a crumb. Perhaps it made sense to steer traffic
relentlesly
forward when there was traffic. But with nobody in sight back down
the stairs sense
no longer was made, at least not for Phil. He suddenly hated all
small-minded
inflexible rule-bound people and saw the bug person as a major
representative of
the type. He got angry, and simply walked back out of the
building.
He was sitting out in front of the building when Katy found him five
minutes later.
She asked him what was wrong, he explained, and she begged him to at
least see the
rest of the house, and not let it all get so blown out of proportion.
Finally he did
what she suggested, dreading contact with the buglike creature again,
but
miraculously the lady was gone. A new, seemingly competent person was
at the
front desk.
The new attendant was unobtrusive and calm. Phil was tempted to run
up and down
the stairs a bit just to test that calm. But he didn't. The
well-behaved thing took over
and he toured the second floor, and wondered, looking at the beds, if
perhaps, just
maybe, the spartan master bedroom had once been his.
Grant died two weeks after finishing the book. At the end he couldn't
talk, because
the cancer was winning the battle for his throat. But Grant won the
final battle
and wrote his own happy ending, because the publication of his
memoirs brought
in over a hundred and fifty thousand 1885 dollars, which paid off the
debts that
unscrupulous partners had left him with, and set his family up for a
reasonably
secure future .
As they drove down Highway 151, which angles down from Dubuque toward
Iowa
City, Phil said "It's so funny, just think if I really was the
reincarnation of Grant, and
today some lady orders me around in my own home. I mean it was
strange, like
meeting an angry wasp who hated me for some unknown reason." "Yeah,
that
would be wierd," said Katy. "I wonder if I should complain or
something. I mean, I
never do that kind of thing , but it was kind of strange," he said.
"I'd just let it go,
babe, it's more trouble than it's worth," she said.
"You're right. Besides, how would I tell them who it was? They might
fire the
wrong person!" said Phil, laughing. "No problem. I mean if you were
really going
to send the letter. I happened to see her nametag," she said. "Well,
what was her
name?" said Phil. "Frieda something" said Katy. " First name, Frieda,
last name I
think was, uh, Halleck." Phil jumped. "What? What is it?" said
Katy.
© Paul Stokstad 1995