Saving CJ: A novella

By Donald Motier

What great things will you do if you discover a time portal?Will you save children from their imminent deaths, change your fate, and change history? Will it affect the present or make another past?Journey with Dr. Daniel Wallace and Willie Lincoln as they travel through time in Savin

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Vine Press
• Release date: Oct 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781953699114

Donald Motier

Donald Motier was born in 1943 and graduated from college in 1970 with a BA in Philosophy and minor in English. He did graduate work in Philosophy on Being and Time by Martin Heidegger under the distinguished Professor Dr. Rudolph Fischer of Vienna, Austria. Following his academic career, Mr. Motier worked in the library field first as an interlibrary loan librarian at a public library from 1970-76, and as a genealogy and reference librarian at a State library 1977-1993 when he retired to write full time. In 1970, while still in college, he began writing prose-poetry in the style of Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, publishing his first collection Faces of Being in 1971. After publishing several collection of poetry, he began writing novels, nonfiction and two works of “faction” based on the Civil War experiences of his great-grandfather who met Abraham Lincoln and his family while bivouaced on the White House lawn 1861-62 and was befriended by the president’s son William “Willie” Wallace Lincoln. On The Trak is his 15th book. I really enjoyed On The Trak. The pursuit of so many encounters, appreciation of so many human souls along the way, was very Kerouacian. - Gerald Nicosia, author, first definitive biography of Kerouac, Memory Babe.

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Copyright © 2020 by Donald Motier.

ISBN 978-1-953699-10-7 (softcover)

ISBN 978-1-953699-11-4 (ebook)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Printed in the United States of America.

Book Vine Press

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Palatine, IL 60067

Contents

Two Worlds, Two Histories

Washington D.C. April 12, 1867

Washington D.C. April 12, 2019

The Next Day, April 23, 2019

The Rescue, Thursday, April 14, 2019, 10 a.m.

April 16, 1867, Washington, DC

June 29, 1867 – July 7, 2019

Adoption September 23, 1867 – October 9, 2019

A New Life

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

This work is based on a true story and I’d like to thank the fine journalists from the following newspapers for their research and reporting:

Chicago Tribune,

Chicago Sun-Times

Northwest Herald

In memory of

A J Freund

October 14, 2013 – April 15, 2019

and

Willie Lincoln

December 21, 1850 – February 20, 1862

In honor of

Parker Freund

born December 30, 2014

The past is obdurate – Stephen King 11/22/63

The universe doesn’t just have a single history,

but every possible history, each with its own

probability. - Stephen Hawking The Grand Design

Acts of tremendous violence and acts of

transcendent love hang in the air forever

and possess a forever half life – Aaron Henry Quest

Two Worlds, Two Histories

My father died in 1990 and in the process of going through his belongings I discovered an old wooden weather-beaten steamer trunk in the attic that aroused my curiosity. Considering the layers of dust covering the lid, it appeared that it had not been opened in many years.

The lid seemed to creak and strain with the weight of the ages as I lifted the heavy oak. A neatly folded Union Civil War uniform complete with kepi (cap) stared up at me from the lost past. Although obviously worn, great care had been taken in its preservation. I gingerly lifted up the jacket and immediately noticed the three yellow sergeant stripes on the blue cloth of the upper arm. I knew then who had worn it.

My great-grandfather, Sgt. Charles M. Powers, had served two tours of duty during the Civil War and in 1861-62 had been stationed in Washington with the thousands of other troops guarding the city from what many thought as an imminent invasion from the South. During that period of 1861-62, he was at various times assigned to guarding the White House, Capitol and Arsenal.

Sgt. Powers lived till 1918 and my father, born in 1908, used to travel with his parents from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Lancaster about 35 miles to the south to visit his grandfather. He would sit on the old man’s lap and be regaled with stories of the Civil War and the Lincolns. My father then passed these stories down to me.

Underneath the uniform was a canteen, slightly dented with the US stamped clearly on it, his pension papers that described him as having a fair complexion, blue eyes, light hair and 5 feet 4 inches tall. Also, there were two letters dated 1861 written from Washington home to his mother in Lancaster. One letter in particular caught my immediate attention as it was dated December 25, 1861. I untied the blue ribbon holding the two letters together, carefully opened the one and took the yellowed paper out of the envelope and read:

Dear Mother:

I miss you all very deeply, especially on this day. I am fortunate to be assigned to the Executive Mansion grounds as so many of the fellas are down by the river living in very squalid conditions and the Pox and Typhoid are rampant down there.

One of the President’s sons, William, who prefers to be called Willie, has taken a shine to me. I think because his namesake and uncle Dr. William Wallace who married Mrs. Lincoln’s sister is also from Lancaster and Willie’s brother Robert, who is away at school, is my age. He is an exceptionally bright boy and although I am eight years his senior, it seems like I am talking to a comrade my age. He is almost as tall as I am and will probably take after his father that way.

This evening I was invited along with a throng of people from all walks of life from Washington and even from Springfield, Illinois to Christmas dinner. It was a welcome respite from the cold of the bivouac tents on the lawn. After dinner, Willie and Thomas (nicknamed Tad cause’ he resembled a tadpole as a baby) came back from their friends the Tafts and had a jolly time firing off Crackers.

Dear Mother, I don’t know what the future holds; there is talk of an invasion from the Rebs and I may be called to fight. Please give my love to brothers and sisters.

Your Loving Son,

Charlie

After removing those items, I came to what appeared to be a false cardboard bottom as it was several inches above the floor of what would have been the trunk bottom. I slid my finger under one end that was slightly warped and lifted the cardboard out. All that was under there was a small. old, worn, brown leather book and the word Journal embossed in barely visible gold-colored lettering on the cover. With great anticipation I couldn’t wait to open it thinking it was my great-grandfather’s Civil