The Medallion

by Soho178

Disclaimer: For Entertainment purposes only. The characters and situations of the TV program "Big Valley" are the creations of Four Star/Republic Pictures and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended by the author. The ideas expressed in this story are copyrighted to the author. Original characters are the property of the author and may not be used without permission.

The box lay exactly where it had for the last ten years, ever since he’d come home from the East. He reached for it, opening the black lacquered lid and moving aside the collection of gold buttons and insignia. Lying on the bottom, was a brass disk, the eagle imprinted on the front staring out at him.

Jarrod picked it out from among the other mementos and turned it, reading the words inscribed on the back. His mind drifted off into memories of sunshine in the darkness.

“There’s a big picnic on the green with band music and lots of speech making. Someone reads the Declaration of Independence. The ladies set up games for the kids and the men compete at roping and bronc busting. My brother Nick always enters the target shooting competition. You remind me a lot of him.” He reached down to ruffle the boy’s dark hair. “Later there’s fireworks and an outdoor dance.”

Davey grinned up at him, excited that he’d gotten the Major to tell a few stories about life out West. For a city-bred boy from the poor part of town, California was as far away as the moon.

“Are the mountains really as tall as you said sir?”

“Are you doubting me boy?” He stared at his young friend in mock annoyance and watched the red creep up his face. Chuckling to show he wasn’t really offended he settled back beside the campfire and continued, “Yes they are Davey, and rough. The professors say they’re young, a lot younger than the Appalachians. Time hasn’t worn them down yet.”

“I’d surely love to see them some day! And see all those stars acrosst the night sky.” He was so like Nick, tall for his age, dark and lanky, with a smile that could light you up inside and a knack for fun.

“I’ll tell you what Davey, after this war is over I’ll personally take you out there to see them.

“Really sir? You’d do that? Maybe I could learn to be a cowboy!”

“My word on It, Davey. But only if we stop to visit your mother on the way and she bakes me one of those apple pies you’re always talking about.”

Suddenly the young boy got shy. “Oh Major Barkley. My Mama would be so embarrassed to have a gentleman like you see our place.”

“Nonsense, Davey. She’s raised you to be a fine young man, she has nothing to be ashamed of. It will be my honor to tell her that in person.”

“You still got yours?” He’d been so absorbed in the memories he didn’t hear Heath enter the study. Jumping a bit, he smiled a sad sort of smile before answering.

“Oh I still have mine, but this isn’t it.”

Nick walked in, ready to hurry his brothers along when his eye was caught by the glint of sunlight on metal and he noticed the braided leather thong hanging from his elder brother’s hand.

“Well I’ll be. Thought you woulda had one of those fancy gold pins, Jarrod.”

The lawyer smiled at his brother and shook his head. “No, Brother Nick.”

Nick took the medallion from his brother’s hand and read the name.

“Davey Winters, 69^th Pennsylvania.” Nick’s eyes held a flicker of concern along with their curiosity. “Who was he?”

“The boy who carried our battle flag at Gettysburg.”

Heath frowned, confused. “I thought you were stationed in Washington, Jarrod?”

“Oh, that was after.”

They’d moved up to main the wall at Cemetary Ridge, everyone ready and waiting for the attack that they knew was coming. He looked at the boy crouched to his left and saw the fear shining in his eyes. The silence that descended after the two hour artillery duel was deafening. The constant roar of cannon fire, the crash of incoming rounds and the cries of the wounded had rattled even him. He could imagine how terrified the boy must be. Settling a hand on the nearby shoulder he flashed a reassuring smile, hoping the youth couldn’t see is own fear.

It started almost without warning. The gray coats appeared across the field and began their advance. The Union artillery answered, cutting swathes through the ranks of the opposing troops, leaving dead and wounded everywhere. The canon would fire and there would be bodies and dirt flying through the air, but every time a hole was opened more gray clad soldiers rushed up to fill it. Soon the air was filled with smoke and neither side could see more than a few feet. The enemy materialized out of the smoke like ghosts, charging and firing as they came. Eventually the wall was breeched and his men fell back until reinforcements came and the opposing line was driven back, past Cushing’s silenced artillery. They fought on for what seemed like hours, bullets flying past, sending stone and dirt into the air whenever they missed their targets, rifle barrels so hot that you had to wrap them in rags to reload. An everywhere was the sound of men, orders being given, encouragement shouted, screams and moans. Somewhere in the smoke and confusion he’d lost track of Davey.

“You ready Jarrod?” Heath asked, curious to know what was going through his brother’s head but needing to get them started before the ladies grew impatient.

Jarrod looped the medallion around his neck and nodded.

The three brothers rode ahead while Duke McCall drove the buggy with Victoria, Audra and numerous boxes destined for the festivities. Victoria watched her three sons and smiled at the camaraderie there. In years past Tom might have been asked to read the Declaration of Independence, as the town’s most prominent citizen. She’d been so proud when Jarrod had been asked, proud of all three sons when the other two had encouraged their older brother to accept the honor. Jarrod was the ranking veteran in Stockton, mustering out as a Colonel, and the town fathers had deemed it fitting that an ex-military man do the honors on the nation’s 100^th birthday.

They waited on the platform, not sure what to expect. He’d been gone the better part of six years, first at school and then quitting to enlist with the Union. His letters had all been regular, or as regular as they could be from a war zone. Though he never wrote too much detail about what he’d seen and done, she could sense his unease beneath the words. It had been a relief to her mother’s heart when he’d been assigned to staff duties in Washington DC. It meant he was safe.

Suddenly, there he was, stepping down from the train in a charcoal gray suit. Her son. Oh how good he looked. Her son, it was him and yet not. All these years he stayed unchanged in her imagination, but the man facing her, opening his arms in ready embrace, was older, mature and knowledgeable beyond what he should be. She couldn’t stop herself from rushing forward with a cry of delight. “Jarrod, oh darling!” He wrapped his arms around her and they hugged. The rest of the family held back for a minute or two, letting mother and son have their private reunion. She seemed so much smaller than he remembered.

Nick was next, shaking his brother’s hand and clapping him on the back before pulling Jarrod into a bear hug. Nick had mustered out at the end of the war and come straight home. He’d been angry at Jarrod for not doing the same, but had reconciled to his brother’s desire to finish the long delayed schooling. They’d parted on difficult terms, never believing that they would have to wait so long for this moment. Separating as green youths, they reunited as men.

Victoria remembered how Tom had hung back as the two youngest children shyly greeted the brother who they barely remembered from their childhood. It was hard to see them treat Jarrod like a stranger but she had faith that closeness would return. For his part, he took it well and didn’t try to press them for intimacy before they were ready.

Finally Tom had stepped forward and held out his hand to his eldest son.

“Jarrod.”

“Father.” The two looked at each other and both knew that their reunion would be private. She hoped that the hard words and hurt feelings of the past could be reconciled. Jarrod had gone his own way. Both men had the choice of how they would live with that fact.

“Jarrod?”

The handsome man who she called ‘son’ slowed his horse to drop back and ride next to his mother. “What can I do for you Lovely Lady?”

“I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you, how proud your Father would be today.” She smiled and reached over to pat his arm.

In a rare moment of openness, he looked at her and asked, “Do you really think so? After all that went on between us?”

“Oh yes darling. In the end, your Father wanted all his children to be happy. He might have forgotten that we each define it for ourselves, but I know he would have eventually realized that the choices you made were the right ones for you.”

“I wish I could be so sure. I miss him, you know.”

“I know you do dear. So do I. We all do.”

“He would have loved to be here for the Centennial. He would have been the biggest kid of all celebrating.” Jarrod changed the subject to lighten the mood.

“Oh you’re right about that. He would have been whooping and hollering all the way to town, egging you three on.” She laughed at the thought.

“Three?”

“Oh, I have no doubt that he would have found a way to keep Heath here, part of the family. It might have been hard, but he would have made it happen.” She inclined her head towards the blond who rode ahead of them. “He’s brought so much happiness to us these last few years.”

The road narrowed and he trotted ahead to give the carriage more space. The land here about was rocky and it reminded him of the Pennsylvania countryside.

After the fighting was over he’d sought out the remnants of the company, dismayed at the number who were missing. Eventually he’d walked back along the line of their battle searching for what he knew must be there. He’d found Davey crumpled behind a rock where he’d finally taken a bullet to the stomach. He lifted the boy up, joining the hundreds of others who carried body after body to the makeshift morgue. He’d made sure that boy’s information was recorded then slipped the medallion off his neck and around his own. Taking up a shovel, he selected a plot of land in the apple orchard nearby. As the ranking officer left uninjured, it had fallen to him to write the letters. The day after the battle, July 4^th 1863, he sat down to write Martha Winters.

He’d gone to see her as soon as he could after being transferred to Washington. Davey had been right. She’d been embarrassed to have the officer in his fine uniform sitting in her meager living room. But he’d spent the day telling her about what a fine young man she’d raised, and how much he’d meant to Jarrod. How his laugh had brightened the day and his smile warmed his heart.

“Oh he had a great heart, that one did. It’s why he joined up in the first place.”

“How so?”

“He said ‘as little as we got, Ma, at least we we’re free to be happy’. He couldn’t sit by and when others didn’t even have that. It helps to know he brought such joy to you, Sir. Thank you for coming. It helps to know someone ‘sides me remembers him”. She’d sent him on his way with the medallion still around his neck and an apple pie.

Heath and Nick bantered back and forth, past the silent form of their elder brother riding between them. Nick shot his younger brother a silent look of concern as Jarrod’s mind replayed the conversation with Davey’s mother, mumbling something that Nick didn’t quite catch.

“What was that Jarrod?”

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness….” Smiling for the first time that day, he turned to ask, “Hey Nick, did you enter the marksmanship contest this year?”

“I always do, you know that!”

“Good.” He smiled a secret smile. “I wonder if there’s apple pie for sale? Let’s go brothers!” He let out a whoop and took off at a gallop, shouting “Loser buys!”

THE END

Notes:

There was no such thing as dog tags in use during the Civil War. The medallion in this story was not issued by the military. Officers often had gold or silver pins fashioned that were engraved with their name and service information in case they were killed in battle. Rank and file soldiers who were concerned that their bodies be identified and sent home to their families would pin notes inside their uniforms or mark them somehow. Some bought medallions, stamped with a design and engraved with their name and regiment. A few even listed the battles they’d fought in. These were hung on a leather thong and worn around the neck.

The carnage of the Civil War, when put in a modern perspective is astounding. At the time, the population of the United States (Free and Slave) was slightly over 31 million people. Thirteen percent of the population fought, almost 4 million combatants, and historians estimate that between 600,000 and 700,000 of them died during combat, from wounds received in combat, or from disease. That’s two percent of the population at that time. In today’s terms, that would be 5,860,000 deaths.

Approximately 190,000 of the Civil War dead were battle deaths. For those who died in battle or shortly after, many were buried in mass graves. For many, the only way their families would ever find out what happened would be from officers who used the information on the medallions or pins to write letters home. Many families never knew where their loved ones were laid to rest … 42% of Civil War dead remain unidentified.

The dog tag as we know it came into being first as a round aluminum disk. In 1913 US law required all soldiers be identified. By 1917 all US combatants wore them. (World War 1 was fought from 1914 through 1918.) The familiar rectangular shape was standard by World War 2.