Author’s Note: The following narrative is a work of historical fiction based on the life of Sergeant James R. Crooks (1840–1936). While the specific dialogue is imagined, the events described—from the surrender at Harper's Ferry to the tragic loss of his children—are grounded in primary historical records. To view the original military documents, photographs, and census records that inspired this story, please visit lepley.consultchris.us - James & Mary Crooks .
The Last Guard
A Fictionalized Memoir of Sgt James R. Crooks Based on the true events and records of the Lepley-Crooks family archive.
Prologue: The Empty Chair
Van Wert, Ohio — 1935
My Dear Leah,
I am ninety-five years old, a fact my joints attest to with every turn of the weather. The newspaper boys call me the "Grand Old Man of the Regiment." When I sit rocking on this porch, the townsfolk see the white beard, the Sunday suit, and the gold star of the G.A.R. on my lapel. They tip their hats and offer a respectful word. Occasionally, a younger man—one of the boys who came back from the Great War with a limp or a haunted look—will catch my eye, and we share a nod. We know things the others do not.
I sit here in the window at 803 South Elm Street, holding your last letter. You tell me you are singing now, standing on stages in bright lights. It brings a warmth to this old chest.
Outside, the automobiles rattle down the Lincoln Highway. They move so fast, little one—shiny machines of steel and glass, rushing toward a future I will not see. Did you know I saw the very first one? It was John Lambert’s contraption, sputtering through the mud of Ohio City back in ’91. We laughed at it then. We said a horse would never run out of oats, but an engine would surely run out of gas.
Now, the horses are gone, and the world moves at the speed of a piston.
But when the house is quiet and the traffic fades, I am not thinking of machines. I am looking at this table. I planed this oak myself, Leah. I built it for my Mary, my grace-filled wife, and it was at this very wood that I fielded your endless questions.
"Pap, did you really see the ocean?" "Did you see any sea monsters?" "Pap, tell me again about when your war was won."
I can still feel the weight of you on my knee. "Pap, swing me again," you’d cry. And I would.
This table is worn smooth by years of meals, prayer meetings, and the tinkering of my own hands. But my favorite hours were spent right here, with Mary’s hand resting in mine, listening to you fill this house with the Lord’s songs—singing so beautiful it caused me to turn my head toward the window, lest you see the tear fall.
My Mary. My precious half. She has been gone one year now. The house is too quiet without her skirts rustling in the hall.
I look at the empty chairs. My father, Robert, has been gone since '84. My brother Josiah—my chaplain, my compass—left us forty years ago. Little Elizabeth, the sister I promised to protect, is gone too.
But the hardest silences are the ones that should have been filled with the laughter of my children. I buried my little Florence when she was just a babe. I buried your mother, Mary Eleanor, when she was in the bloom of her life, leaving you to us when you were barely walking. I have buried grandsons before they took their first steps. And my son... well, the darkness took him, and some shadows are too heavy to speak of, even now.
Yet, even with all the loss, my heart is not empty. I have lived a long life, Leah. My cup runneth over.
Of all the Crooks men, only Charles and I remain. He is far away in Maryland, preaching the Word. But you... you are the one we held close. When your father moved on, Mary and I took you in. We raised you not just as a grandchild, but as the daughter we lost twice.
Before my soul is free to rejoin with my Mary and with my Lord, and my earthly body retires in Woodland Cemetery, there is one last story I would share with my little songbird. It is a lesson I learned in the freezing mud of Tennessee and the shame of a Virginia valley.
It is a story of how to stand when everything around you is falling.
This is the first installment of a fictional short story of the life of a very real man, "JR" Crooks. Visit Lepley-Crooks family archive for more. Follow this blog for the next installment.
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