Poetic Passages Rainbow Arc of Fire: A House Divided

While Who Has Dominion? receives the most divided opinions, A House Divided is generally felt to be the best and most entertaining volume in the series, up to this point. It was certainly, for me, the most entertaining to write:

Chapter Seventy-four

After his disappointing meeting with Dino, Greg slowly makes his way toward Little Round Top. But he first makes a slight detour to pass by the National Cemetery itself, which contains the old stone tabs that we living inevitably keep on our honored dead. The many circular rows of small, white, stone markers dully glow in the moonlight like aged and discolored dragon's teeth that have long ago lost their bite.

He cannot help but recall how the brave soldiers buried here fought so tenaciously, to force this great nation to remain united, even at the sharp point of a bayonet. Despite significant cultural differences existing in the North and South, these gallant warriors refused to allow a great nation to permanently divide, like cancerous tissue, never to heal.

Fortunately, Union victories here at Gettysburg and then at Vicksburg, Mississippi, one day later, were the beginning of the end for the slave-holding South and the forces of disunion, though it would take almost two more years of war to achieve final victory, Greg recalls.

At Vicksburg, Grant emerged as the general most likely to defeat Lee; and at Gettysburg, Lee displayed a fallibility that he had never shown before. Perhaps it was overconfidence in the abilities of his troops. Or perhaps it was something else more lasting and significant.

Deprived of the critical support and wise council of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson after his untimely death at Chancellorsville two months before, Lee never again would have enough able lieutenants for the critical battles ahead. In addition, those tenacious Southern troops who would die at Gettysburg and in other battles to come became increasingly difficult to replenish when attrition inexorably replaced esprit and gallantry as decisive factors in the war.

The North, as Lincoln and Grant understood so well, held most of the numerical advantages in a relentless conflict. The ablest commanders did not always lead northern armies, especially in the first years of the war; but the math favored them and would methodically cripple the rebellion in one savage battle after another. Each brutal encounter, whether a draw or even a tactical defeat for the North, actually became a strategic setback for the South as more of its men were gravely wounded, captured, or killed.

Greg also cannot forget the immortal words that Lincoln spoke here four months after the battle, when the National Cemetery was to be dedicated and the President had been asked to attend. Perhaps the shortest speech ever made at such a momentous time in the history of a divided nation, Lincoln captured the passionate spirit that drove Northern citizens and soldiers alike: "...this nation...shall have a new birth of freedom...."

Year after year, Union troops persevered even as final victory seemed no closer. At times it must have appeared as if no one could lead them to that glorious victory, not here at Gettysburg, or anywhere else. Perhaps they even wondered if the capacity for victory lay within them, if they would ever manifest sufficient fortitude to win on all fronts.

Before Greg turns away from the National Cemetery toward Cemetery Ridge and Little Round Top, he realizes as never before that contemporary generations precariously stand upon the shoulders of past giants. Significantly, however, these advantageous heights allow the present age to visualize a future that those in the receding past could never have imagined, a nation where all men and women might enjoy that "new birth of freedom…."

As he resumes his inevitable hike, he knows that he also cannot turn back, cannot deviate from the path ahead no matter how much simpler it would be to surrender to Dino and the others, to let them keep their powers without really earning them, to allow them to win without being held accountable for the great responsibility placed in their hands, even if that opportunity was given by a goddess who sows nothing but deceit and dissent.

To him, this conflict has become a matter of principle. One cannot treat others the way Michael and his accomplices have treated Greg and his friends, no matter how much they may believe that they have been wronged in the past, or especially because of what they expect to gain by their foul treachery in the short run.

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