Life in the Grand Army

The town is often threatened by forest fires, most recently on July 29, 2006. Much of the town was evacuated for two days, but the fire was later controlled with little damage due to the efforts of federal, state and local firefighters.

That’s about the time I was traveling along Highway 299, having been to the coast for a short visit with my sister and her family. I was forced to stop for a little while as a parade of fire engines and water tenders rolled their way north to the blaze burning up some few thousand acres of Redwood forest.

So in order to kill some time – which I hate to do – I strolled up the sidewalk to a little diner and had a plate of eggs and potatoes. After washing them down with some coffee, I started back to my truck.

Along the way I spotted a sign advertizing a “wide assortment of antiques.” I’m like a moth drawn to a flame when it comes to looking at collectibles.

The store was located in the ante-room belonging to the historic Weaverville Hotel. There were glass counters with old skeleton keys, tea cups and saucers, thimbles and such.

But at the back of the room – was a shelf full of older, hard bound books. I found myself looking at them with interest.

It didn’t take me too long to find one that really interested me. It was a personal account of the Civil War by a man who fought in it: Robert W. Patrick.

I thumbed through the first few pages gentle.

“Knapsack and Rifle,” was published in Philadelphia in 1886 by Calypso Publishing Company, which would make sense knowing more veterans of that era were easterner. So I found it intriguing to say the least that this book would be found so far west – even after so many years.

I had to buy it.

When I got home I did a little bit of research only to find little to nothing about Patrick. And there is even less noted about the illustrator, E.B. Williams.

It’s a shame there’s no history to be found directly on either of these two people. I haven’t given up though as there is a chance I’ll stumble upon that one key piece of information that’ll unlock the whole story of both the author and the artist.

Finally, I thought I had a real bargain at 30-bucks for the book. But in my excitement and haste, I discovered after looking at the small set of numbers written in pencil on the inside of the tome, I paid ten-times that amount.

Needless to say – my wife was a bit ticked off at me for not double-checking the credit card slip before signing it. Oh, how I hate expensive lessons.