Finding Billy Battles

Prologue: Ted Sayles My first meeting with William Fitzroy Raglan Battles was on a warm June afternoon in 1958. We sat on the veranda of a red-brick dormitory building on the grounds of the Wadsworth old soldier’s home in Leavenworth, Kansas. Battles was really old, and the truth be known, he kind of frightened me, though I didn't let on that he did. I was only twelve at the time, and I didn't even want to be there. Chances are you have never heard of William Fitzroy Raglan Battles, and there is no reason why you should have. I know I hadn't—until that humid afternoon in the waning days of the Eisenhower era. Today, I often wonder how I could not have known about Battles, how a life as full and audacious as his could have gone unnoticed for so many generations. God, how I wish I could have known him better. But his life—as was no doubt the case with that of millions of other anonymous participants in history—was simply lost, crushed underfoot in the unrelenting stride of time. Of course, there was no way I could know at the time that this meeting would trigger a series of events that would lead me on an extraordinary journey into the past and change my life in ways I could never imagine. When I look back on that first meeting, I wonder why I was so fearful. William Fitzroy Raglan Battles was not a particularly menacing man. But there was a definite hardness to him—the kind of stern, leathery countenance that you get from taking, and perhaps giving, too much punishment over a lifetime. I particularly recall his eyes. They were the color of pale slate, and almost as hard. Maybe that was what frightened me—those eyes and the way they cut into you. It was my grandmother who had insisted that I meet the man with those flinty gray eyes and that gristly exterior. One day she simply announced that we were going to drive to Leavenworth, to meet her father—my great-grandfather. That winter, my father had suffered a fatal heart attack, and my mother thought it would be a good idea if I spent the summer with my cousins on their farm near Troy, Kansas. Most of the time, I roamed the hills by myself, riding horses and occasionally helping out with the chores. I wasn't thrilled about spending an hour in the car with my grandmother driving the forty-five miles to Leavenworth. First, she drove really slowly; and second, I didn't even know I had a great-grandfather. Nobody, including my grandmother, had ever really spoken about him—at least not in my presence. Why this was the case I was to learn much later when I was older and could "understand such things," as my grandmother put it. The only explanation for this visit that I was able to extract at the time from my grandmother was that she wanted me to go with her because the home was commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, and my great-grandfather and several thousand other Kansans had played a significant role in it. Big deal. The Spanish-American War. Who cares? I thought as my grandmother maneuvered her pastel-blue 1957 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham south down State Highway 7 through the undulating farmland of northeast Kansas and into Leavenworth. The Spanish-American War was ancient history. And besides, being around so many old people made me nervous. Death had taken on a new meaning for me. It was no longer some abstract event that happened to others. I had seen and felt its uncompromising manifestation when the emergency crew carried my father from our home several months before. And now I would be in the presence of someone who could die at any time. Those were the kinds of self-indulgent thoughts that pranced through my adolescent brain that day. Today I know a lot more about my great-grandfather. The biggest regret of my life is that I was too young and too obtuse to understand what kind of human history database my great-grandfather was. I would only learn that many years later when, as a journalism student at the University of Kansas, I began to appreciate the value of personal narratives from people who could speak firsthand about events I could only read about. That's the way it is when we become absorbed with history. We discover that the events and people of antiquity are not ghosts, or simply lifeless words on a page, or fading sepia images. They have an essence we can touch and hear and even speak to if only we have the right medium—someone who has experienced the past with passion and perceptiveness and has the keen senses with which to make it come alive to those who, until that moment, could only fantasize about it. In this case, that medium was a rare individual who lived during what might have been the most tumultuous years in American history. Luckily, my grandmother, intractable and single-minded as she was, made sure that I would not forget this event or my great-grandfather. When we arrived at the Wadsworth Old Soldiers Home that summer day in 1958, we were met by a Mrs. Lenora Crow from the home's resident information office. Wadsworth, which was originally built in 1885 as a home for aging Civil War veterans on Leavenworth's south side, was a collection of classic Georgian and Romanesque Revival buildings that sprawled over some 640 acres of well-manicured, tree-covered grounds. A few years later, Wadsworth was renamed the Dwight D. Eisenhower VA Medical Center. Mrs. Crow, a bespectacled woman in her midfifties with gray hair pushed into a tight bun, ushered us onto the broad veranda of one of the buildings and arranged some wooden chairs into a small semicircle. "I will bring Captain Battles out," Mrs. Crow said. She motioned for me to sit. A few minutes later, Mrs. Crow emerged, followed by a man carrying a wooden cane. He wore a gray slouch hat, neatly creased light-blue gabardine pants, a white long-sleeved cotton shirt buttoned at the neck, and highly polished brown army boots. He towered over Mrs. Crow. When he was about ten feet from where we were sitting, he stopped and looked at my grandmother. "Well, I'll be damned," he said. "Anna Marie. This is a surprise." Later I learned that my grandmother had lost contact with her father for almost thirty years and didn't learn of his whereabouts until someone from Wadsworth had tracked down his next of kin barely a year before our visit. Great-Grandfather Battles simply had shown up one day and asked to be admitted. He presented his military discharge papers, and in he went. Grandmother had made a couple of visits to Wadsworth before this one with me. Those visits had been awkward and difficult for both. I learned why years later. Great-Grandfather Battles' stride was long and sure. At ninety-eight years, he was the oldest of the veterans at the home. "Captain Battles is our pride and joy," announced Mrs. Crow. "Our oldest Spanish-American War veteran." My great-grandfather gave Mrs. Crow a look that seemed to freeze her in midsentence. Then he sat in a rattan settee opposite us. My grandmother cracked a tight, reluctant smile. "Well, I'll just leave you folks alone, then," Mrs. Crow said and then headed off across the lawn to the administration building. There was a moment of clumsy silence. My great-grandfather finally cleared his throat to speak, but before he could, my grandmother spoke up. "Papa, this is your great-grandson, Theodore Remington Sayles." I was mortified. I hated it when my grandmother pronounced my full name. I especially hated Remington. At least I could make Ted out of Theodore, but what do you do with Remington? And then there was my grandmother calling somebody Papa, and someone referring to her as Anna Marie when all I had ever known her by was Grandma. It was just all too much. In my eyes, my grandmother was already ancient. She was seventy, and here she was, calling somebody Papa. My great-grandfather looked me over the way a rancher might examine a cutting horse. "You're a tall drink of water, that's for sure," he said in a voice that was surprisingly strong and even for someone his age. I was sure he would sound feeble and dry. "How tall are you?" "Five feet seven, or so I guess," I said. "But my mom says I am still growing." "Hell, I bet you'll be damn near as tall as me someday," he said. "Come on over here and let's see how far you have to go." I looked at my grandmother. She had winced at the word hell. Grandmother, a member of the First Christian Church Ladies Auxiliary, was not one to abide cursing—even from her own father. But she nodded, and a minute later, my great-grandfather and I stood back to back. He was still a good six to seven inches taller than me. "I bet you'll make six feet four in a couple of years." He was almost right. I would make six feet three—actually, six feet three and one-quarter of an inch by the time I stopped growing about seven years later. "Well, Anna Marie, how have you been?" Great-Grandfather Battles had turned his attention to his daughter for the time being. The two engaged in some small talk about various relatives who had recently passed away or were about to. "Damn," I heard Great-Grandfather Battles say, a little too loudly at one point. "Old Charley Higgins gone. Seems like I only saw him a few months ago." "It must have been eight years ago, because he passed away in 1950," my grandmother said. "Must have been. I lose track of time these days, but no matter… I thought for sure he would outlive me, that old son of a b***h!" "Papa!" My grandmother's face was flushed, and her fingers were digging holes in her black leather handbag. "Please!" "Oh hell, I bet the boy's heard a lot worse—right, boy?" I nodded. "Who is Charley Higgins?" "Why, Charley Higgins was one of the meanest SOBs in Kansas," Great-Grandfather Battles said. I looked at my grandmother. She squirmed in her seat. Charley Higgins must not have been one of her favorite people. "What would he be to the boy here, Anna Marie? Some kind of a cousin?" My grandmother nodded. "Yes, some kind of a cousin, because he was your uncle Vernon's boy." The fact that this Higgins person had been described as a mean SOB had gotten my attention. "What did he do?" I asked eagerly. "You name it, and Charley Higgins probably did it—and probably more than once too. Why, I remember one time in Dodge City—" "Papa!" my grandmother practically yelled. It was like someone pouring water on a small fire. "We don't need any history lessons today, please—not about the likes of Charley Higgins anyway." Great-Grandfather Battles looked over at me. He could see my eyes had grown twice their normal size and I was leaning forward in my chair. "'Well, Theodore," he began. Then seeing how I winced at being called Theodore, he stopped. "I mean, Ted. Look, we will save that story for another time, eh?" I nodded. "Sure, I guess so." My grandmother was relieved. "How about going over to the canteen for some refreshments?" she asked. My eyes wandered over the vast grounds of Wadsworth. There were old cannons and other military paraphernalia everywhere. Perhaps two dozen men in various uniforms or parts of military uniforms sat on benches or strolled slowly across the lush grounds. The three of us got up and walked to another red-brick building called the Dugout, where a couple of dozen wooden tables were scattered across a wooden floor. On the way, I was surprised at how briskly my great-grandfather walked. There was the hint of a limp, which explained the cane; but for someone ninety-eight, he moved well. The real name for the Dugout was actually the Amusement Hall. It offered alcohol, pool, and card games. The place had an interesting history. Carrie Nation, the famous Kansas prohibitionist, had visited Wadsworth in 1901 to protest the sale of alcohol. She got an earful from the old veterans—many of them dressed in their Civil War and Indian war uniforms—who hooted and whistled their disapproval of her mission.