Across Five Aprils: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

The federal officers fall afoul of Jenny’s sense of right and wrong when they make it clear that they’re interested in rounding up deserters only while it remains easy and safe for them to do so. Confronting the problematic mass of deserters at the camp would risk their own lives, which they appear unwilling to do, even though they profess values like honor and commitment. Their sexualized comments about Jenny and teasing of a boy whom they believe to be uneducated further suggests a shallowness of character and value systems that stands in stark contrast to the conscientious Creightons, especially Jethro and Bill.

It seems that Jethro faces danger with greater bravery and equanimity than the adult federal agents who harassed the family about Eb; despite the threats the agents made to his and his family’s safety over the past year (at the instigation of Guy Wortman), Jethro continues to work alone in the fields. This also points to the necessity of his hard work on the farm due to the ongoing sacrifices the war demands from everyone, especially families with most of their men in service.

In Eb’s case, deserting represents a failure to follow through on his initial choice to serve—he hasn’t had the courage to follow his convictions wherever they lead. Eb contrasts his momentary lapse with the undifferentiated mob of deserters at the camp when he expresses a guilt that he implies they do not share. In this way, he denies their humanity, and the book seems to agree with him, although presumably many of those men have similar stories to Eb’s. But in the context of Jethro’s coming-of-age narrative, the stories of such strangers matter little except to clarify the book’s vision of responsibility.

If adulthood means accepting responsibility for one's actions, Eb provides another example of what this looks like to Jethro. Some choices, like deserting the Army, will be with a person until the end of his life. Bill’s choice carried a similar finality, but because it took him away from the family, it can only lead Jethro through memory now. Eb, however, remains close at hand. Moreover, the fact that the much older Eb now relies on his little cousin Jethro shows how much Jethro has matured already.

Eb’s desertion forces Jethro to confront questions of morality and conscience that were previously theoretical to him. It’s clear that Eb has suffered in the war—not only did he lose his cousin and best friend, but he’s also suffered battlefield trauma, disease, and starvation. These circumstances don’t excuse his desertion, but they do make it more understandable. On the other hand, from following the war closely in the papers, Jethro has a good understanding of the stakes, and he realizes that Eb’s decision not only endangers other men in his unit but—if enough people follow the same path—the chances of Union victory and the future of the United States as well. Early in the novel, he disagreed with his father’s choice to plead for Travis Burdow’s life—to choose mercy over justice. But now that he’s older and wiser, Jethro begins to see that even justice isn’t simple. It’s not right for Eb to desert. But it’s also not right for Union generals to waste their soldiers’ lives as they did at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and elsewhere. Justice, it turns out, is hardly as unequivocal as Jethro thought. And now that it’s one of his own family members whose life is on the line, Jethro feels the pull of mercy much more strongly.

Up to this point in the story, Jenny and Jethro have grown ever closer, not further apart. Pushing his sister out of his deliberations about Eb signifies Jethro’s growing maturity and independence. It also aligns him with Bill, who deliberated about his choice to join the Confederates without confiding in anyone; in this way, the book suggests that true adults figure out their own problems by themselves. But Jethro isn’t entirely on his own in his decision; he has various role models to call on as he tries to figure out what to do. And the invocation of the president—whose temperament so closely mirrors Matt Creighton’s—comes naturally to Jethro since the question involves balancing mercy and justice. 

Eb rewards Jethro’s confidence by making himself a person worthy of helping—he’s not just some deserter who grew tired of war or soured on Northern ideals. His desertion represents a momentary inability to follow through on his commitments and at the most basic level, he remains a decent and honorable person who wants to do the right thing by his ideals, country, and comrades. And although he wishes to undo his fateful choice, he shows a willingness to accept the consequences of his actions.

Jethro maintains his distance from Jenny while he waits for a reply from Washington, D.C.: he has learned the lesson of his brothers and others that being an adult means making your own choices and accepting the consequences of them. Admitting anyone into his decision-making process would undermine this important step of his maturation process. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have doubts, and the instant he realizes that he’s about to face this hard truth, he wishes he were still a little boy instead of a maturing man. But he faces his fears and owns up to his choices, and in this moment, he crosses the threshold into true maturity.

The fact that as great a man as Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, finds himself mulling over the same thorny issue as little Jethro Creighton of Illinois suggests how much Jethro has grown up over the course of the novel. It also indicates his intellectual promise, since he already understands much about the complicated and messy world and has already figured out how to find strength in the ideas of self-determination and responsibility. President Lincoln embodies the spirit of adulthood the book wishes to promote, one that is deliberative and careful and that balanced justice with mercy to create a better world.