Copperhead Page #5

- She has borne enough.

I don't know what's possessed me, standing

around gabbing my affairs with you.

I bear you no ill will, Ni.

If fathers can't help the sons they raise up,

why less can you blame sons on their fathers.

But this ain't a thing I want to talk about

with you, not now nor ever.

Abner, I'm going south.

I'm gonna find Jeff if it takes a leg.

I don't know how much it'll cost.

I've got a little of my own saved up,

but I thought...

Perhaps you might like to...

Ni, you know I'm not a mean man.

And you know also that if...

If that boy had behaved decent...

...there's not a thing under the sun

I wouldn't have done for him.

I'm obliged to you for offering.

You...

You fill your pockets with apples...

...if they taste good to you.

I don't want your damned apples.

You ain't going south.

Yes, I am.

I can work my way south.

Jeff would do it for me. I know he would.

Beautiful things they are.

They surely are. The Democrat tickets.

In all the Corners, do you think a single

solitary soul is gonna vote for the Democrats?

A vote for principle is

never wasted, Hurley.

Thomas Jefferson himself called the ballot:

"The rational and peaceable instrument

of reform."

- We'll cast ours with pride.

- As many of them as they'll be allowing us.

When will people learn?

Lincoln. Lincoln is now conscripting

mere boys into the Army...

...because not enough are volunteering.

He's calling it, uh, a draft.

We will cast our votes for the Constitution

and for the Democrat party...

...and we will walk

through the gates of hell...

- ...if we have to to cast these ballots.

- Wish I could go.

Oh. A Democrat woman.

Janey, you do tempt me.

- Your name?

- Still Abner Beech.

Timothy Joseph Hurley.

You got your, uh, naturalization papers?

That I have. That I have.

Hmm.

They make no good.

What's that you're saying?

I've voted on them same papers

every year since 1852...

...when I helped put Frank Pierce in the

White House. No good, is it? No good?

- Why ain't they good?

- Because they ain't, that's why.

Don't block the window.

Real Americans want to vote.

- I'll call the law on you.

- Shut up, you Mick!

- Don't let him vote!

- One copperhead's one too many.

Kill him! Kill that copperhead!

You stay back away!

Timothy Joseph Hurley.

Timothy Joseph Hurley.

It was not a red letter day

for civilization, I'm afraid.

Come on.

Give us just one so we can see who won.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

The copperheads have won.

- What?

- "Seymour elected governor."

We lost the district by 80 votes.

Goodbye, liberty.

Ain't nothing for you.

No copperhead papers here.

If you don't give me that paper, I will

tell Abner and he'll make you sweat for it.

"For Governor Horatio Seymour, 306,649.

James S. Wadsworth, 295,897.

Democratic-Constitutional Union Party

victorious."

We also win lieutenant governor,

canal commissioner...

...clerk of the court of appeals

and inspector of state prisons.

Huh?

Maybe we can set free all those Democrats

that the abolitionists stuck in their jails.

Oh, what a fine day is this.

Oh, looks like York state

caught copperhead fever.

I heard Till wailing about it.

Here she quits us

because her big hero came home...

...and now she's saying Warner went

and got himself shot for nothing.

"The Peace Party won the election," she said,

as if it was the worst thing in the world.

Oh. Let's light the bonfire tonight.

Let every mother's son down at the Corners

see it blaze.

Tell them we won.

By God, we could take back the Congress.

If that happens, it's a done matter.

The war is over.

The South will return.

We'll have our Union back

and our Constitution.

Well, what if the South won't come back?

What if they say, "Yanks, you go your way,

we'll go ours. Thank you."

Why, then we just leave them out.

Leave the South right out of it.

This war, this...

This wicked war between brothers, it...

It has to end.

That's why we had to vote on Tuesday.

That's why we went to the Corners

and cast those ballots.

- For the Democrats.

- For peace, Janey. For peace.

Just think you what's been going on.

Great armies being raised.

Hundreds of thousands of honest men...

...taken from their livelihoods and their

families and set to murdering each other.

Whole districts of the country

torn up by the roots...

...and homes desolated and the land

filled with widows and orphans.

And nigh on every house,

a house of mourning.

M'rye...

...ain't been feeling over and above well.

Janey, we will have your bonfire.

And we'll use that pile of scrap

down by the cow barn.

Oh, Jimmy. Real nice.

This is the fire of liberty.

Wonder how they like this

down in the Corners.

Good evening, miss.

How do you do, Mr. Beech?

I've come to see you

about something that is very pressing.

Janey, lay another place to supper.

- No, I can't.

- It'll be there for you if you want to.

Sit down, please.

In one sense, we ain't your friends.

There's a heap of things we shouldn't talk about

because they'll only lead to bad feeling.

So we'll leave all that severely behind.

I understand.

- That being said, what's the matter at hand?

- There seems to be different stories...

...but the gist is that a number of leading Union

generals have been discovered to be traitors.

McClellan has been dismissed

from his place at the head of the Army...

...ordered to return to New Jersey

under arrest.

And they say others

are to be treated the same way.

And some think it will be a hanging matter.

That is just spite

because we licked them at the elections.

I wouldn't worry your head about that.

That isn't all.

There's been discovered a big conspiracy about

secret sympathizers all over the North.

We've heard that since the first

day of war. There is no evidence.

They say these conspirators

are in every state of the North...

...and that they plan to bring across

infected clothes from Canada...

...and spread smallpox among us.

What kind of cock-and-bull story

will they hatch next?

You don't mean that a girl with a good head

on her shoulders give ear to such tomfoolery.

It doesn't matter what I believe. What

matters is what they believe at the Corners.

- Damn the Corners.

- Mr. Beech, they're coming here tonight.

That bonfire of yours made them mad.

Heaven only knows what they're gonna do

when they get here.

I couldn't bear not to tell you.

I'm obliged.

Whatever happens, I'm obliged.

I would be all the more set

on you staying to supper.

You have a hungry look, Hurley.

Red and ruddy.

I've been kissed by strawberries

on the hill, as the poet says.

You like Mr. Whittier's poetry?

Don't know about his poems, ma'am.

Can't say I like his politics.

Perhaps poetry is more important

than politics.

Mr. Beech, I asked a school friend of mine to

send me the papers that came to her house.

I've been going through them religiously

whenever I could be alone.

I don't mean to say I don't think

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