by
Nate
ear Diary,Tis July 31, 1860 My name is Mark and I live in Kentucky. I am age five . My mother sells clothing for a living. My father works by chopping wood for other people. To day I went onto my porch to play and look at the sky. All of a sudden I heard a low beat like a drum. "Bum! Bum! Bum!" I could see a boy with light brown hair in the distance. "Mommy, Mommy!" I screamed as loud as I could. She came out as fast as she could, as if the house were on fire! I pointed to the boy off in the distance. "Why, that's Mr. Lincoln's drummer boy to bring us a message," my mother explained. Thirty seconds later the drummer boy was at my house. He looked at my mother for one minute. "Get out of here fast!" he ordered. "The Civil War has just begun." Then he left with nothing else to say. My mother told my father and my father packed some stuff that we needed. My family left lots of furniture and bookshelves. They were too heavy to carry. Now we are on our way to Gettysburg Pennsylvania. It is hot and sweaty in the covered wagon. My father says it will take two whole weeks to get there.
Dear Diary, Tis August 30th, 1860. I am six years old now. We didn't have time for a birthday party. Since I traveled so nicely and my birthday passed by, I got a tan drum that my mother and father worked on to make for me. I practice playing it. I play it on my front porch. Finally I can really work !
Dear Diary, Tis July 7th, 1861. Every morning I go around town to wake every body up for work. I also go drumming around town at noon and in the evening. I am the most famous person in my town and I am only six years old. I am happy that no more slaves are being sold around here. It made my father mad when he saw one when he was a boy. It makes me mad to know that slaves being sold to other people. Today as I was on my porch playing, I happened to see a very strong and famous slave. It was Harriet Tubman. Behind her I could see a crowd of tired slaves. I counted fifteen. She came marching up with everybody behind her and asked me if she could have any water or food. All of a sudden my mother came out. "Oh, my," she said . Then Harriet turned to my mother and asked if she could have any food or water. My mother went inside and brought out three bottles of water and a dozen biscuits. Harriet came onto my porch. My mother handed her the food and water. Then I asked how many slaves she had brought altogether. She said, " I brought three hundred slaves and this is my nineteenth journey." I said, "Wait here," and I left to get my drum. Then I came marching out with the same beating sounds that Mr. Lincoln's Drummer makes. She smiled at me. She said, "Thank you for helping me and these people." Harriet Tubman and her friends looked much better as they stepped off my front porch and marched away. Dear Diary, Tis July 31, 1863 I am very sad because my father died in the Battle of Gettysburg. It was a very bad and bloody battle. Dear Diary, Tis November 19th, 1863 Edward Everett and Abe Lincoln were making speeches today about the new cemetery. My father is buried there. I was stuck in the back of the crowd of people for all Edward's 2 hours speech. Then I managed to squoosh up to the front. Abraham Lincoln looked very serious. He was wearing a black suit and a tall, black hat. I wished that Abraham Lincoln would look at me and smile like everybody else. He said, “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. “But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” After Abraham Lincoln gave his speech, I played my drum. Then, he looked at me and smiled.
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