An American’s History - Events That Shaped the Nation, as Described in a Personal Journal

IN OUR FAST-CHANGING world, the moment is all; the past slips away like tracks behind a swift train and is soon beyond our horizons.

We are a restless people; we pull up stakes and move to other places, and our ancestral memories are left behind like old tombstones.

We used to have attics in which the mementos of our past could be stored away in trunks--old love letters, diaries, wedding gowns, report cards.

But today, how many houses in Los Angeles have attics? We have no space for such sentimental impedimenta, and they are tossed, perhaps with a sigh, into the trash.

However, I do have a letter from Clara Hewitt, 80, of Studio City, in which she enclosed a letter written by her great-great-grandfather when he was 91. She found it in a trunk that had belonged to her late sister.

“We were thrilled,” she recalls, “to be reading a firsthand account of the opening days of the Revolution by someone then experiencing the distress of the opening days of the Civil War.”

It is indeed mind-boggling to think of a man who could remember the beginning of the American Revolution, yet lived long enough to see the beginning of the Civil War.

Ebenezer Child was born in 1770; he was 6 when the Declaration of Independence was signed.

His letter is actually one of what he called his “Monthly Meditations,” a kind of personal journal. This entry is dated April 29, 1861. One can sense in this memoir the spirit of rebellion that seized the land:

“I now well remember 86 years ago when the express passed through the country, informing (us) that hostilities had commenced, that American blood had been shed at Lexington and the enemy (was) on the march to desolate the country, burn houses and murder the inmates who would not renounce secession or swear allegiance to the government of the king.

“This threat was supposed by many to be easily carried into effect; instead of wasting time and money in desplaying (sic) flags and other boyish gugaws (sic), men collected in every town, repairing old guns, collecting all the lead from clock waste, casting balls, melting cartridges all day and through the night.

“Women collected at sister Wright’s, where then I lived. Making knapsacks and clothes for their husbands, fathers and sons, and by 8 o’clock next morning, April 21 or 22, a motley-looking but a sturdy set, forming a company of something like 30, with drum and fife, headed toward the seat of the commenced war.

“My two brothers in the ranks; the tears, sobs and every expression of deep anguish displayed by mothers, wives, and daughters as they gave the parting hand and imparted the solemn kiss, were so impressive on the mind of the writer of this sketch at that time, though quite young, as not to be erased from memory . . . .”

Child went on to describe the terrible hardships and deprivations suffered by the patriots--cold, hunger, filth, fatigue, sickness, defeat, death.

“Little did I think, after the close of that war and the prosperity of the country since, that I should live to witness civil war. Father against son and son against parents. Brother against brother.”

Child feared that if the war continued, the result would be a “complete aristocracy.”

To support the war, he said, farmers would be taxed into bankruptcy, and the rich would buy up their land, thus wiping out the middle class and leaving only the rich and the poor.

Though Child had experienced the nation’s struggle for independence, he was pro-slavery.

“More than two years ago, I was considered a false prophet when I predicted that, should our Administration become antislavery with an Abolition Fanatic for President, the prosperity and happiness of our growing country would be lost. This prediction seems on the eve of fulfillment . . . .”

Child observed that the experience of his years ought to impart wisdom, but he conceded that his words might be considered by the young to be the result of “superannuation.”

But Mrs. Hewitt adds a reassuring footnote: “Ebenezer’s son, Alonzo Child, a merchant in St. Louis, went nearly bankrupt supporting the efforts of the ‘Abolition Fanatic’ for President. “