I remember Rob Johnson as a scruffy boy from a rocky hill farm. Since I was a few years older, I ignored him and flirted with his big brother, Billy. When Billy and the other men left for the war, I fancied myself a Rebel spy and used Rob to carry messages into town. He wasn’t a patriot and only agreed to please me. Back then he would have done anything for me. He finally took sides in the war when Billy died at Bull Run.
Rob’s shiftless friend, Nate Fields, talked him into robbing a Union canal boat. They made off with a shipment of Yankee guns and became heroes. When Rob showed me the stash of Colt 45s, I realized he was no longer a boy. About this time his pa joined up with a gang of horse thieves, so Rob was left with all the farm work. He vowed he wouldn’t be run off his land and tried to fend off the bushwhackers and raiding parties. Later, I heard that Rob’s pa was killed by the Yankees and Rob had joined the Confederate Army.
My family fled to Richmond, where I saw Rob a few years later. I was in a bit of trouble with the law and Rob’s powerful Quaker employers saved me. No longer a soldier, Rob was high and mighty and cut a fine figure in his handsome suit of clothes. When I next saw him, he was a Rebel prisoner at Point Lookout Prison Camp. I didn’t expect him to survive the war.
When I returned home in 1886 to visit Mary O’Ferrall, she told me Rob had made it back. She mentioned that he’d been in love with several women and even fathered a baby. When I tried to sympathize with him over the harsh treatment he’d received from local Unionists, he accused me of doing terrible things during the war. I told him that he had no idea what I’d been through. He’s a cold-hearted bastard who only cares for his few rocky acres.
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