Father Comes Home From the Wars

Content Warning: The source text and the guide discuss enslavement, racialized physical abuse, racism, and rape. The guide quotes and obscures the author’s use of racial slurs.

It is late summer of 1862—several months after the events of Part 1. In a rural part of the South, the Colonel has taken a Union man named Smith captive. The Colonel sings a war song and scolds Smith for not singing along. He continues singing, and Smith joins in but changes the words to say he’s “being held prisoner by a drunken dumb Jeb / When I get my freedom I’ll cut off his head” (58). The Colonel is angry that Smith is ungrateful for being saved after being abandoned and wounded in the field.

Cannons sound around 10 miles off. The Colonel wandered away from his Regiment and found Smith. He plans to bring him back alive for a reward. Smith is a captain for the “1st Kansas Colored Infantry” (61). The Colonel asks what it’s like to lead Black men. Smith says they are brave and hardworking, so it’s just like leading any group of men. Smith denies the Colonel’s inquiries about whether he’s likely to “own” another human, and he declines the Colonel’s offer of a drink.