The narrator is Ward Lumpkin, a lame soldier on the gray side of the American Civil War. The story explains how a group of misfit confederate soldiers volunteered to pilot the doomed H. L. Hunley, a primitive submarine, and successfully destroy a Yankee ship.
The conclusion of this tale presents an emotional scene. The submarine is sinking. Lumpkin is up to his neck in water. The spirit of his dad comes to visit him. They talk about what it means that these few sailors volunteered to die, when the Confederacy was so close to capsizing. With vicksburg and New Orleans in Federal hands and the Charleston Port under blockade, a mission to sink a Yankee ship in the harbor was suicide. They discuss the idea that in 100 years people will point to the optimism of the would be heroes. Lumpkin argues that their motivation was closer to Desperation.
It is Thanksgiving Eve and I am in Denver, Colorado with my good friends Michaela and Jarrod. We are celebrating Thanksgiving with some of Jarrod's friends because Denver is closer than my parents' in The Gila Valley, and Jarrod and Michaela's families in Seattle, Washington. Jarrod served a two year LDS mission here. I have loved the day. This is my first trip to Denver. However, I am terribly homesick. Denver is wonderful. The weather is perfect, our host family is interesting, and my friends are the best company anybody could ask for, but something about Thanksgiving without family is troubling. I've celebrated the holiday away from home twice before, but It was as hard then as it is now. My family may take the vestiges of my Thanksgiving Vacation to be a college student's whim by going to Denver and being spontaneous. What I really want is some sense of family. Just as the people who judge the wreak of that submarine, they see optimism, and I feel desperate.
This short Story comes from: The Best American Short Stories: 2009 Edited by Alice Sebold.
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