Lawyers Are Boring, And Some Bookblogging

Else, they are too cool to invite me to the awesome things they do. Either way, I’m left with a pretty boring work day. Work, surf, work, surf. Go home and pack for the move from HELL. Ignore phone calls and emails from landlord asking me DAILY when I’m moving out. What, did you want to clean the apartment or something? Cuz that’s more than you did for us, Mr. Nilla Wafers on the Fridge and Pregnancy Tests in the Medicine Cabinet.

I’ve been getting a lot of pleasure reading done on the commute, now that I don’t have casebooks to drag around with me. So far, I’ve read Prep, The Know-It-All, Wicked (whoa, did NOT see that coming! Totally thought it’d be all happy shiny musical-y. I was way off), and How It Was; Four Years Among the Rebels. The last book I mention was written by my great-great-great (great? There’s a fair amount of greats in there) Grandmother, Julia Morgan. It’s a short but interesting read about a Southern viewpoint of the Civil War. I don’t really know what to say about it. My ancestors owned slaves: this is a fact that embarrasses me. But their story is pretty amazing, what they went through to fight for their belief in states’ rights. Then again, it was the right to own slaves. These are complex emotions that I can’t put into words, pride and utter disgust all muddled together. I thought long and hard about not posting this at all because of it, but here you go.

The link above directs you to an online version of the book, should you have like, a lot of free time on your hands. Should you find yourself not so unencumbered, here’s what I thought was the best part- the story of my great-great-great (etc, etc) Grandfather Irby Morgan's battle wounds.

“Capt. Allen, of Mr. Morgan's company, was shot down, and so disabled he could not move. He begged Mr. Morgan not to leave him, and said that he would rather die than be taken prisoner. So Mr. Morgan ran back and was endeavoring to support the captain off the field. …He had gone only a short distance, when he felt a stinging pain in his side, and found the Yankees …were firing on him from all sides, and a ball struck him in his right hip. …When he got under cover, he looked down and found the blood gushing out of the top of his cavalry boot, and said to Capt. Allen: ‘Old fellow, I feel faint, I will have to lay you down, I can't struggle any farther.’ [someone then comes to take Capt. Allen to safety]

Mr. Morgan …crawled to his horse, and led the faithful steed along until he got to the surgeon's stand. Then he fainted from loss of blood. His brother got his surgeons to take charge of him. They laid him across some logs, examined his wound, and found his hip shattered and the ball lodged near his spine. They probed and probed, but could not get it out. …After consultation they decided the ball could not be removed without injuring the spine. His brother [gets some lieutenants to take him to the nearest town]. When he got to Cornersville, an old friend let him have a buggy and harness. …He could not sit down, so had to kneel on the pillow which was placed in the foot of the conveyance and hold on to the dashboard to steady himself. …The horse became frightened at something and began to rear and plunge and kick. Mr. Morgan …went over the back of the buggy. Fortunately, he had presence of mind enough to roll over into a ditch, and the cavalry did not trample him to death. His companions found him and took him into a cornfield, made a fire and kept him as comfortable as possible until morning, when they started for the Tennessee River.”

Greatⁿ Grandaddy Morgan then survives all this and some months later, recuperates well enough to go back into the army, despite being told that he would risk permanent paralysis if he ever tried to ride again. Apparently, he told the surgeons “pish-posh” because he up and got back on his horse. And then,

“They then told me that twenty miles from Augusta they had met a large force of Gen. Sherman's cavalry, and as they were making a double-quick charge Mr. Morgan's horse got his leg in a sand hole. The horse fell on him and nearly killed him, and but for the prompt assistance of his friends, who jumped down and lifted the horse off, he would have been dead in a little while. They got him to the rear as soon as possible. He had a violent contusion of the hip, and was badly bruised all over; but if he had no internal injuries, they thought that he would pull through all right. They remarked: ‘It is God's providence that he wasn't killed, for where he fell eighty were killed and wounded.’”

Okay, so to sum up:

1 bullet in the hip

+ 1 throwing from a carriage

+ 1 smushing by a horse

= NOT DEAD.

This, I think, is what my grandmother calls a “strong constitution.”

Anyway, as I wait for a friend to lend me her copy of The Kite Runner to read for the summer book club, I’ve picked up I Am Charlotte Simmons, as it is the only book I own that I haven’t packed that is not a dictionary because it is so damn big.