Today my family drove down to the Holbrook Island Sanctuary in Brooksville, Maine, on Cape Rosier, a tiny cape that forms the farthermost tip of the Blue Hill peninsula, jutting out into the Gulf of Maine. It is perhaps one of the most beautiful places on the East Coast, a wild, rugged and remote little chunk of jagged lumpy ridges, steep fields, and few roads. We drove to a small trail that leaves the main road and climbs through the forest to a small graveyard, utterly surrounded by trees, desolate yet still cared for. In this cemetery lies the body of Johnson Howard.
Johnson's grave lies at the foot of a huge tree that has lifted his stone and set it at an angle. But next to the stone is a tidy metal flagholder marked US veteran and a small flag is in the socket. Here is the inscription:
Johnson,
Son of Johnson and Sarah A Howard
Co. K, Ist Rgmt C Cal
Died April 19, 1864
at Alexandria, Va
Ae. 15 years
He died for his country's cause,
From his kindred and home far away.
He fought for the stripes and the stars,
May they wave o'er the spot where he lays.
I sat and told Johnson that his work was still going on. Brave men and women still fight for the stripes and the stars. I told him that the peril to his country is as great now as when he answered the call over 140 years ago. The enemies of the constitution gather and wave their torches. Those who would close the door of freedom and create a police state are trying to destroy the greatest democracy in history. The struggle to defend the constitution for which he gave his life goes on today.
I tried to imagine the long train ride back from Alexandria in a pine box. The brokenhearted parents with their buckboard at the Ellsworth train depot. Johnson's father survived him by only five years and is buried near his two sons. He was 46 years old.
I snapped off my best salute and went down the trail after my family. This child gave his all for his country and his constitution. What can we give?