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I'm here again with Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara. This time, we're looking at the conflict thus far in the book, and keep in mind that I'm barely 20% through the book, so it's not much.
Being a novel of the Civil War, you'd think there would be some fighting so far. Nope. There is only a bit of mention here and there, although some pistols have made an appearance. Besides that, the main focus of external conflict has been in the dialogue of Robert E. Lee. After his two-month leave to attend to his wife, Lee returns to Fort Mason, where he finds it more deserted than how he'd left it. Upon his return, Lee asks Major Thomas: "'I was wondering, it seems there are not many troops here. Are they out on patrol, something up?'...'Men have been assigned, scattered all over Texas, spread pretty thin. Begging your pardon, sir, but since you've been gone, the situation here, all over, has gotten a good deal worse.'" (Shaara 78) Lee returns to Fort Mason to find out that his troops have been assigned elsewhere, to deal with, what the text later goes on to say, the Indians. At the time, the setting is September 1860, so this information correlates with actual history.
An internal conflict is also happening, with Lee. He is approached one day, while still on leave, by a freed slave that once belonged to his son. The slave's name is Nate, and had found work in Pennsylvania, and Nate had returned to buy his brother, a cripple. Lee accepts the offer without much persuasion needed, but Nate stays to ask a question rather than another request. "...started to go, then stopped. 'Colonel, how many do you gots left here?'... He could not say the word slaves...'Thirty or so, I believe.'" (Shaara 74) Nate then asks "'When they gonna be freed, if you don' mind me askin', Colonel?'...The question sank deep into Lee. It was the same question he had asked himself when he first read the old man's will...'I'm working hard on it, Nate [...] I believe the Negroes are where God wants them to be, and when God wants the Negroes to be free, then He will free them. God has set you free, through my hand."' (Shaara 75) Lee, and his devotion to God, are being questioned by the ethics of slavery. Being a man who aligns himself with the South, Lee owns and has the power to control the freedom of his slaves. But he is internally conflicted with whether he should or not, because if he did, he knows that the would have no where to go, considering that nearly all of them had never been off the ground of the enslaved. In a way, he's doing them all a favor by sheltering them and providing a sure direction in life, cruel as it may be.
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