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[with 3 poems by Frank X Walker]
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Grove
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This was the first time
we really look at each other
and not be able to tell
who master the cruelest
who sorrow the deepest
who ground been the hardest to hoe.
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We was lined up like oaks in the yard
standing with our chins up,
proud chests out, shoulders back,
and already nervous stomachs in.
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We was a grove wanting to be a forest,
ready to see what kind of wood we made from.
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The only thing taller or straighter
than us be the boards
holding up the barracks at our backs,
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though most our feets feel pigeon-toed
and powerful sore
from marching back and forth, every day,
for what seem like more miles
than we walked to get here.
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It take more than pride to stand still
‘neath these lil’ hats not made for shade.
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Soldiering ain’t easy, but it sure beats
the bloody leaves off a bondage.
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Frank X Walker
from Load in Nine Times, Liveright Publishing Corporation (W. W.Norton), New York, NY; © 2024
[based on a photo taken at Camp Nelson, Kentucky, of troops standing at attention outside the Colored Soldiers Barrack]
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1861 One month after Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Kentucky’s Governor issues a formal proclamation of neutrality, but he retreats from any denunciation of slavery, which he believes is not a “moral, social, or political evil.” Four months later Kentucky decides to end neutrality and enters the Civil War on the side of the Union; 200 delegates vote to secede from the rest of the state and form a separate Confederate Kentucky with Bowling Green as capital.
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1862 Abraham Lincoln’s EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION declares freedom for all enslaved persons in states which are in rebellion against the United States. This leaves slaves in Union-aligned Kentucky still the property of their masters, however.
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1864 The U.S. government’s progress towards making universal emancipation a war aim has caused support for the war and the government among White Kentuckians to dwindle. Military recruitment ebbs. On June 13, U.S. SPECIAL ORDER NO. 20 allows enslaved persons to enlist in the U.S. Army without their owner’s consent and be granted their freedom, the first pathway to legal emancipation in Kentucky. That summer and fall, 14,000 Black men enlist.
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Only Black men who are fit for military duty are emancipated, however. If they are ineligible, they are returned to enslavement, and there is no offer of freedom for their families. Camp Nelson, Kentucky’s largest recruitment and training base, becomes a haven for refugees from slavery, whether escaping from Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina or arriving with their newly enlisted Kentucky husbands or fathers. Freedom seekers from the South are considered “contraband of war” and granted freedom, but slaves of White Kentuckians remain legal property of their masters with no formal protections.
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On November 22, 1864, in the midst of a winter storm, Brigadier General Speed S. Frye orders all refugees surrounding Camp Nelson expelled and their shacks destroyed. Of 400 people immediately displaced without shelter or recourse, at least 102 die of exposure and starvation. Frye’s order is quickly rescinded by his superiors in Kentucky but headlines cause an outcry across the States. On December 15, Adjutant General L. Thomas issues ORDERS NO. 29 to require that “all camps enlisting Negroes provide suitable housing and provisions for their families.”
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Within months, the War Department creates the Home for Refugees at Camp Nelson. On March 3, 1865, the US Congress passes laws to emancipate the wives and children of United States Colored Troops soldiers.
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Camp Nelson, Kentucky, is now a National Monument, and includes a memorial obelisk to honor the 102 African Americans who perished in The Expulsion.
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We Will Prove Ourselves Men
++ Sewn on the regimental flag
++ of the 127th U.S. Colored Troops
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I don’t look the stars and stripes
nor the eagle for mustard
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like the white officers
and some of my free brothers do.
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I think on the slender fingers
that stitched our proud colors
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snapping in the wind,
the same steady hands
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that last held me close,
and pray they hold me again.
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That’s why I’m willing
to trade bullets in a cloud.
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Some confuse our bravery and courage
with our love for our women,
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but many of us just eyeing that flag
and trying our best to get back home.
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Frank X Walker
from Load in Nine Times, Liveright Publishing Corporation (W. W.Norton), New York, NY; © 2024
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My Grandpop died when he was 67 and I was 5. Our families lived hundreds of miles apart – we in New York, then Tennessee, he and Nana in North Carolina – so we visited only two or three times a year. I can’t recall the sound of his voice, I’m not sure if he ever hugged me, but I know a story about him and me that I have retold myself so many times that it is tangibly real. Totally, unquestioningly, personally real:
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We are in the dining room of his house that overlooks Bogue Sound. He, a surgeon, is holding my fingers in his. In the pressure of his fingers I am aware of the bones beneath my skin, and he is teaching me: Carpals, Metacarpals, Phalanges.
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I have many photos of Grandpop, his enigmatic smile. I have copies of articles he published, things he crafted with his hands, an oil painting. I have photos he took of me, even an old 35 mm. silent movie. But the most real, the most present, is this story I keep and hold. Perhaps the artifacts helped me create the story. Perhaps hearing the story as it was told to me by Nana and Mom. However the story comes into being, into life, it brings reality with it.
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So it is with Frank X Walker and his poems in Load in Nine Times. Frank was already deeply involved in resurrecting and creating the stories of Black Civil War soldiers in Kentucky and their families, using scant artifacts to create short biographies and allow these men and women to live (for a project at Reckoning.com). Then he thought to ask the archivist to research a possible relative of his own. And the sky opened.
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Frank’s dedication for the collection of some 100 poems reads thus: For my ancestors, Mary and Randal Edelen, 125th U.S. Colored Infantry and Elvira and Henry Clay Walker, 12th U.S. Colored Troops Heavy Artillery. These folks speak and are joined by dozens of others who lived and suffered and sometimes triumphed. Through poetry they have all come to life, along with the middle decades of 19th century Kentucky. Slave and slave owner, soldier and widow, parent of despair and parent of hope – Frank has honored them and exposed them, judged them and sometimes forgiven them, given them sharp tongues and sharp features and brought their years into sharp, sharp focus.
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And our years as well. What did I know about Civil War Kentucky, USA? As soon as I laid down the book I had to know more. More! Frank educates with timelines and resources but his greatest gift is to enlighten me, in the sense of casting light into dark corners where I had never thought to look. When I discover online some of the photographs he must have used for his own inspiration, those slightly blurred faces now suddenly stand out to me – real men, real women. We each owe it to ourselves to continue to tell our stories and to listen to new ones. Somehow, in this harsh and enervating world, perhaps this is the way we will become more real to each other.
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Read the excellent interview with Frank X Walker by Jacqueline Allen Trimble as she explores with him the creation of Load in Nine Times, in the Oct 19, 2024 edition of Salvation South.
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A Black Father Dreams a Son
++ Brig. Gen. Charles Young,
++ 9th U.S. Cavalry Regiment
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It was twelve miles to Maysville and the Ohio River and another
ten to Ripley. A runaway could escape from Mays Lick,
at night, head north, follow the smell of the river and make
the entire distance and crossing by sunrise. A determine one,
on horseback, like Gabriel Young, could make it in half the time.
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Ignoring racism at West Point was easier knowing
my father survived slavery. He joined the 5th and risked his life
so our people would know freedom. I risk mine to protect it.
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If his sacrifice and commitment freed my body, my mother’s books
free my mind. Her skirt was my first classroom.
Every big and small thing I’ve done began at their feet.
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Though born into slavery in Kentucky, I learned to play piano
and violin, speak French and german, before becoming a teacher,
before graduating from West Point, before a career in the military,
and public service.
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Growing up in Ripley showed me what this country could be.
What my parents instilled in me, and Wilberforce proved it.
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I am America’s promise, my mother’s song,
and the reason my father had every right to dream.
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Frank X Walker
from Load in Nine Times, Liveright Publishing Corporation (W. W.Norton), New York, NY; © 2024
[Charles young, born in 1864 into slavery to Gabriel Young and Armenta Bruen in Mays Lick, Kentucy, was the first Black man to achieve the rank of colonel in the Unites States Army, and the highest ranking Black officer in the regular army until his death in 1922. In 2022, in recognition of his exemplary service and barriers he faced due to racism, he was posthumously promoted to brigadier general.]
[these addenda are taken from the Author’s notes]
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