In a very famous story of the American civil war, a general came up to the front line and saw men ducking for cover as the bullets whizzed overhead from the enemy a thousand yards off. He remained standing and tut-tutted at their timidity saying: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” A bullet promptly struck him and he dropped down dead.
It is a classic story of comeuppance that is trotted out whenever a writer wants to puncture someone’s balloon. In the North American tradition of humour, we always reserve our most pointed ridicule for the Boss, the pompous guy with gold braid and scrambled eggs on his hat, who bullies his way to the top, relies on other people to do the work and takes credit for every victory. We love to see that arrogant twerp taken down a peg.
But the New Testament warns us that this urge to see justice done on earth, preferably right now, is not a healthy instinct. This is particularly true in farming. Crops and livestock often grow in full public view which invites comparison, competition and judgment. Competition may be good for performance but it is the death of community. Judgments lead to resentments that can harden into lifelong hostility.
I had a neighbour, Hughie, who knew how damaging rivalries and feuds could be for the neighbourhood and he often stepped in to put out fires. He never had any patience with gossip and he discouraged any conversation that strayed in that direction. He had two bachelor neighbours, Billy and Kenny, who worked together from time to time in various cattle and crop deals but they often got on each other’s nerves. Billy could be chippy and outspoken while Kenny was quieter and did his best to avoid conflict. Eventually, Kenny would take offense at something Billy said and hive himself off. During one of these rifts, Kenny and Hughie were driving down the side road together and met Billy coming the other way. They waved but Billy just stared straight ahead and drove on past.
“This will not do,” said Hughie. The next day the two of them were in the truck and Billy approached them once again. “Don’t wave,” said Hughie. “Just look straight ahead.” They did and both parties passed without acknowledging the other. They did this for three days in a row and each time Billy went by like a darkening storm cloud. On the fourth day Hughie said, “Okay, now wave!” And they waved cheerily like nothing had ever happened. The next day they didn’t wave again.
It took more than a week of the wave campaign to break him but they finally did it. Billy cracked a smile, put the brakes on and backed up. They stopped for a visit and the feud was over. Hughie helped Kenny see that Billy may have had his flat sides but he was basically a good guy.
The general who fell to the sharpshooter’s bullet at Spotsylvania had his own story. John Sedgwick was always a front line general and at this particular moment he was supervising the placement of artillery as the armies bore down on each other. This was his eleventh pitched battle and the third time he was cut down by enemy bullets. Sedgwick’s death came as a terrible shock to his men who referred to him affectionately as “Uncle John” because of the efforts he made for their welfare. His last words don’t seem quite so ironic when they are placed in the context of his second last words: “What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line?"
The general was war-weary and his last letter home expressed a keen desire to be out of it altogether. Fate has been terribly unkind to his memory by making him the butt of an old comeuppance story.
It is never worthy of us to chuckle behind our hands at someone else’s misfortune. What goes around does indeed come around. In the end, Billy, Kenny and Hughie all managed to leave each other as friends and good neighbours. In a competitive, scrambling and judgmental world, they still managed to get the last laugh. And there is a satisfying justice in that.
- Dan Needles