The American Civil War

So, you all listen good, now you hear? Here’s a story about a war for American independence, yet we’ll all know at the end just what independence was won. You see, there was first Andrew Jackson, who claimed that Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness was America’s highest ideal. Yet, Abraham Lincoln found it mighty ornery that a war was fought for the American Slaves, and they were still poor. So, Honest Abe rallied his Costs to a mighty outcry against the Cents, that being Old Hickory’s government.

So Honest Abe had his men from the Coasts rally to their cause, and the good Ol’ Cents, who had less troops, but more true grit, rallied their men from the Mainland. The people of color, so said Honest Abe, needed to be freed from the tyranny of the Cents. Old Hickory replied that they had equal opportunity, and rightly he believed it. This is where we got into some trouble, was that both sides believed they were right. In truth, if I may put in, for I’m good old Patrick Henry, I saw no reason for war. Yes, the poor little blacks were a little poor; but it was the Costs policies that made them poor. The Cents, however, stripped every bill passed through congress of its good charities, and there we got into the fact that what I fought for so long ago was no longer believed. Men should have plowed their fields and eat. Instead, they made laws all day long, and it cost about one hundred thousand good, fine men and women. I, on the other hand, sat in my lonely abode watching the cannon flashes at night. Sometimes one of those cannon balls would darn near smash into my barn, or take out my wind chimes. But I was in no danger. They tried to draft me, of course, but I would not be drafted, for I said, “I see two United States here, and one of them has to win. I’m not fighting for either one, as I like the ideas of one, and also the other, but hate them both the same.” So, they left me at my house, and here I wrote this story.

So, there was the story of Bonnie and Clyde there reaping a storm in the West. They were Costs, and they took some men’s bread, and thought it a good thing to give it to the poor. They were Robin Hoods, of course; just outlaws, so they thought, but they made men poor and put them in the poor house. For what? So that the poor could eat, yet the poor couldn’t eat, so their little robberies were for nothin’ that I saw. I heard them out there where Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday found them. These two were a stickler for Justice, and once put a man in prison for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The poor man had a tissue he owned at the local bar, where a man was shot dead. That tissue, they said, was the damning evidence of their sin, so they locked him up. Where that man is, I don’t know?

The two, Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp, had a blood lust, too, and they’d shoot up outlaws all the time, yet Bonnie and Clyde weren’t going down so easily. They racked themselves up in the local bank, where Wyatt and Doc had them hunkered down. Old Doc called Bonnie and Clyde to come out, when Clyde took his Colt ‘45 and shot four shots that killed Doc Holiday down in cold blood. Wyatt drew his gun, and fired three shots, hitting Bonnie in her breast, dropping the woman, not after she let off fifteen with her Tommy Gun. Wyatt and Clyde were the two standing, and took to the street, where Wyatt drew his pistol in the open air, and five shots rang. There, Clyde fell, not before Wyatt burped up a bubble of blood, staggered around in the misty dust, and fell with a clink of his spurs. Twenty-seven shots were fired in that town, and four men killed.

Paul Bunyan, another Cent, was out working in his forest, when Henry Ford came by with a proposition. He said, “I’ll give you a day’s salary to come work at my steam shop. All you need to do, their friend, is give up your axe and come work with me.” Paul, being a man, and his ox Babe, refused. So, now you see, Ford got the better of him by making a steam engine that cut down his whole forest. Now, Paul and Ford got into a heated lawsuit, which Ford won quite easily, and there was old Paul Bunyan, who could chop down a tree with one swing of his axe, and lift it on his shoulder. So, he took to a test of strength, where he and Ford would match wits in the forests. There, Paul and the machine started, and went all day. Paul chopped down one tree, the machine chopped down two. Paul chopped down three trees, the Machine chopped down four. Paul chopped down seven trees, the Machine, well, it chopped down more. So, it came that at the end of the day, Paul was sharpening his axe; he whittled that axe down to a splinter, and there was Babe, heaving. Old Paul stood up once more, and dropped dead, after a whole day’s of chopping the forest. The Machine, there it sputtered, and heartbroken Babe moaned on the river side, where she fell into the water. The machine hacked up a bolt, and there it crumbled. Ford, though, could care less about it, for the man Paul Bunyan was dead. And there, my friends, if I may weigh in once more, was the point where American industry died. As, Paul didn’t want to work for Ford, and wanted to warm himself with the logs he cut down; no idol ever made of them, for he was an honest man. Yet, poor Paul fell quite dead that day because he couldn’t out match the machine. One of him, an exceptional man, was not enough to match a thousand of Ford’s machines. And, here Ford is today, making more of those, so that where is Paul Bunyan these days? Ford lied, and said he was the Cent. In truth, a Cent was killed by a Cent, for the good working man Paul Bunyan was outdone by the Captain of Industry Ford. And here, we still see Ford to this day with Paul as his own hero; yet, it was his machine that broke him.

Jessie James, now, was a reckless outlaw, who’d murder for no reason. In his eyes, this was the American way, a Cent of the ages. For, he’d go out and do what he thought, a great liberator; of what, nobody knows? He’d go running his mouth at everyone, thinking he had this as his freedom. He’d run his mouth, run it quite often, you hear. He’d pick fights with the local barkeep, he’d pick fights with the local tavern owner. He’d argue all day, and truly believed this was his right, to be free of speech. One day he killed a man in cold blood, and then went running from the law, believing himself just in the killing because he had a beef with the man. So there came Al Capone one day, a Cost as would have it. The Costs and the Cents had no problems working with each other, as the bloody war took American lives. Here Capone set Jesse to work. There, Jesse would drive his Model A through the streets, robbing banks, shooting men dead, when one day Capone, he saw, was rich. For Capone was a bootlegger, and Jesse James was an Outlaw. So, the two made their rounds, and Jesse extorted some riches from Capone, which got Capone as mad as a wolverine in heat.

Jesse, though, was shot down one day on his run to a bank by none other than Capone; as it was, Jesse, Capone didn’t like was spilling secrets; as Jesse was no stranger to recklessness. A murderer, a robber, but a man with a cause. Capone needed his secrets kept, so shot that man dead. Yet, Jesse was outspoken about Capone’s prohibition, as Jesse believed wholeheartedly that Alcohol should be legal, yet one day Jesse talked about a shipment of guns going to the Costs, which Capone was running to support the war. Jesse, a tried and true Cent, exposed the thing, but was shot down by Capone with a Tommy Gun. Capone then had the weapon hidden, but no sooner did he hide it, that Pecos Bill, that highbrow American Ideal, a Cent tried and True, rode in on the moon as his horse—kind of like a bucking stallion you see, for he never would blow a kiss to it—and lassoed that Capone and hung him up there on the corner of the moon. There, you see, if looked wide at night, will see a good old Capone hanging off the crescent; I say, such a thing was oddly amusing.

Good ol’ Johnny Appleseed, though, was a good man. A Cost. He saw a dearth of trees when the war was blowing them all to splinters. So, good ol’ Johnny went through the countryside planting them, planting them, planting them. The President at this time was Theodore Roosevelt, of the Costs, and he built parks for Johnny to plant, and other trees. Goodly gardens he made, goodly gardens.

There was also Lewis and Clark, Cents by right, who like Johnny didn’t care much for the war. So, they moved to the countryside, and there pioneered a Settlement called St. Brandonsburg—which lived by that good parchment—and was neutral in the raging Civil War. There men could live without war, farm their land and swim in the rivers. The merry little town was named after a patriotic hero who himself didn’t like the days he was seeing, and spread the message with his songs. For St. Brandon, that rigorous patriot, didn’t taste of death, but rather is the one writing this song you see, a true Patrick Henry.

There once also was a man named Davy Crockett, a Cent. He was for the Cents no matter who listened, and good ol’ Henry Ford, and good Ol’ Hickory were his heroes. His country could do no wrong. Crockett was a frontiersman, and there he was caught at the battle of the Alamo, where nine thousand Costs rushed him from California and New Mexico. So, the legend has it, Crockett fought till his dying breath; He loaded a shot, and fired, and dropped five men. He used his knife there to skin some Costs. Yet, at the end of the battle, there lay Davy with the last of his men, all wounded and full of pride. A Texas Flag flew, with an American Flag underneath. Good ol’ Crockett understood something right before he died, I’d like to think: It’s the states that were given their rights. Rightly he knew that, but Henry Ford and Wyatt Earp were no good scoundrels. So rather than fight for his country, he took up the Texas Flag and raised it high on a banner, with the American Flag underneath. There, he saluted his flag, and with his beaver pelt on his head, and his deer skin leathers, and moccasins, there Davy died, last of the fighting men, with nine thousand Costs lie dead around him.

George Washington, a grand man, saw his fellow Jesse James, and the notorious things he slandered his country. So, Washington wrote a message to Andrew Jackson, pleading with him to end the war. Jackson, of course, was driven into blood lust, where he challenged Honest Abe to a dual, and there shot him down through the head—for he went crazy. This was why Theodore was the new president of the Costs, but Old Hickory was thrown into a blood lust, as, rightly, Ford was his Vice President, and the word of Davy dying for the Texas Flag got him mad as a hatter. Washington, a rightly man, sent his letter to Old Hickory, but this was nothing good. For Old Hickory heard none of it, but liked good ol’ Jesse James. Pecos Bill, where was he? The good ol’ Pecos Bill had died the moment Hickory shot that Honest Abe dead, and Washington was crying a shame about the war.

Folk, I see you’re wondering what this is about, aren’t you? Well, what I’m going on about, this Patrick Henry you see, is that we don’t live in a time for revolution. Why would you want honest and bad men to die? For, wars do these things, good ol’ Paul being killed by his own, and Davy dying for the wrong flag? Yet, I say there’s more to my story friends. I’m not quite finished yet.

William Penn loved Sacajawea and her people. Yet, he saw that his people needed land. So, he had a covenant with them, that as far as a man would walk, that would be his land. Good ol’ William died long before the war, but Sacajawea’s people were hard pressed by something new. For, aren’t we all just Sacajaweas? There went Penn’s sons, running instead of walking, and here they got all of our land, all of our livestock. I personally had nowhere to live, if you must know the truth. William was a Cost, his sons were Cents, and there Sacajawea and I sat on my old hickory rocker, and here we talk some about what ought to be done. Her, she says I should write this silly story. Me, I say nothing can be done, as there William Penn died a long time ago, and his sons came in his place. Married his daughters to Henry Ford, and I have to say, the crisis now is pretty high minded. My father told me this story, and I figured I ought to too. As the cause of this war was Penn’s sons, so long ago, running, and their sons running faster. Where’s good ol’ Patrick’s money? I can barely put bread on my table, you see. I just sit here, eating the lemon and onion grass, with the Milk and Honey I get from my bees and cows. Not much grass grows these days, but they eat the thorns, so said the Prophet. And I enjoy writing my little stories; as, I suspect that this war was for the worst, but I’m still here. I’m also not complaining; I just have an ugly truth to tell, and that’s the truth of our war. Penn’s sons, running to overtake Sacajawea’s people; all the poor are her people, and so the Costs had their claim. Yet, look who died? So foolish, I’d say, yet even with all of this, the war’s not over. No sir ee, it’s not over yet.

Casey Jones was a good ol’ Cost, who was under the thumb of Henry Ford. There, Casey ran his train double the time, shipping the guns and alcohol, but always was on time. One day, good ol’ Casey gave a sweet kiss to his wife, and a song was sung in his head, “This is your journey to the Promised Land.” Casey didn’t think much of it, but Casey had a whistle on his train that he built, so that Casey would never hurt nobody on his runs, for he didn’t like how fast he flew for that Henry Ford, nor Al Capone. Casey, the day he died, was driving at full bore down the train’s track, and there, good ol’ Sam Weber saw a train parked on the locks. Casey yelled with all his might, “Jump Sam, Jump!” And Sam Jumped, but good ol’ Casey stayed on the train, and hollered his horn, slammed on the breaks, and there the engine squealed, where Casey was killed when his train hit the caboose. Casey died that day, taking with him the Alcohol of Capone and the guns of Ford. Though, Casey had no real motive for doing it, other than to save a life. Casey once saved a child on the Train Tracks, and there he tried to slow down his country some say, but he couldn’t, for that train traveled too fast, and Casey knew it, but being a hero for his punctual nature, he then became a hero for saving lives. So, that’s the story of Casey Jones, A Cost who just did his job, and the speed of the trains were what killed him.

So, this is the end of my story. The war ended at the death of Casey Jones, for the whole reason for the war was all twisted up and foul. For good ol’ Casey was there, running his shipments for both Capone and Ford, and ol’ Hickory heard of the man’s death, and that his guns were on the train, and Roosevelt heard of the report, that one of his men was killed shipping bootlegged booze. Thus, Casey’s life ended with the stopping of that train; so did the war, as both side’s goods were on it. And there Casey died, and the people found it better not to war over such things, as a man like Casey Jones, Paul Bunyan, Abraham Lincoln and Davy Crockett died.

So, my friends, if you must know the purpose of this story: It’s just a story. As I rightly am a Patrick Henry, and I cry, “Give me Liberty or Give me Death.” Rightly, I’ve had my liberty to write these stories, and the real culprits I hope you see aren’t Roosevelt and Hickory. It’s that Capone and Ford, as I’m still sitting here poor, and with nobody, as I write this story, and rightly, I ought not be so. So, whose side am I on? I’m a Cost, and that’s where Patrick Henry always will be; but I’m no Cost who would take up an arm against such a thing, as is just the way of the world; and good men have a tendency to die when wars begin, as the war we have to fight is one of talk; otherwise, the war won’t ever stop until a good man gets caught in the snare, and he ends up telling us how stupid we all were.

Neifert, B. K.. My Collected Writings. Kindle Direct, (C)2021. pp. 50 – 57.