Ira Whelan's False Hope

The rain fell down in frigid sheets. Ira Whelan stood alone on the gelid deck that was once the Petersburg train station, but now all that remained of the once bustling establishment was the foundation of a prodigious building, and the sooty frozen planks that lay under him. It was winter in West Virginia, and it was the first one after the war’s end. If Ira would’ve had shoes, perhaps the cold weather wouldn’t have bothered him so considerably. However, he was forced to be content at feeling tiny fractiles of cloudy ice and snow drift between his toes, and touch down on the tip of his nose, sending abrupt pain through his body. Everywhere there were piles of dark-colored ice, staining the whole mountainside an intense ebony. Snow drifted

Ira shuddered at the thought that almost none of the men would walk this path again. Most of the soldiers would forever lie in a shallow, unmarked grave along the roadside, with families who were persistently waiting for their return. Ira was oblivious of the fact that he, too had a false hope. It was a false hope that when he were to return to the modish house that he had for so long called his home, it would be perfectly erect. There was no doubt in his mind that his family would be vigorously and exuberantly awaiting him when he returned to the large plantation, and like most soldiers who were returning from hell on earth, he could not perceive that the Yankees could hand him worse luck than he already had experienced. He also could not envision that any southern man or woman, of any color, would refuse to do any type of amiable service to a fellow member of the lost Cause. With this aspiration of the warm bed and meal that Ira dreamed was awaiting him, he knocked on the dismal colored door and waited for the occupant to acknowledge him. It was over five minutes and three more raps on the door before the inhabitant of the self-effacing home greeted

Behind them, Ira could see that he had no feelings of compassion or kindness towards the starving young boy who stood in front of him, the boy who had fought a war, and he had seen more sickness and death in four years than most had seen in a lifetime. But somehow this man who stood alone frightened Ira. One look at the man and Ira felt a mix of contempt and apprehension. It was the same contempt any real gentleman bore towards a man who did not fight for the Confederacy; anyone who fought in the war could see this man had not known the hardships indistinguishable to their own. The beastly man was not much older than 30, and he towered over the young boy at his door. Although at a glance the man might’ve appeared to have known sickness and death, Ira could see that he was only a gentleman masquerading the knowledge of