by P. G. Nagle
A man was brought in raving, both his legs smashed irreparably above the knee. He was laid on the floor at the end of a row of wounded, but his agonized thrashing threatened to harm his neighbor. Emma, who had been washing the face of that neighbor, grabbed at the newcomer’s flailing arm and was astonished at the strength in it. He nearly pulled her off her knees.
“Here, move aside!” said one of the soldiers who had carried the poor fellow in.
Emma yielded her place to the larger man. It took both him and his fellow stretcher-bearer to hold the unfortunate soldier down. Dr. Palmer came over and looked at him briefly, shook his head, then went on to someone who could be helped.
Emma watched in horror as the poor man shrieked and wept, his head thrashing back and forth, practically beating against the stone floor as he cried out to God to release him. Inflammation soon granted his wish, to the dreadful relief of all. He was carried out again, laid with the other dead in a heap more grim than that of the lost arms and legs.
No time to bury them. Emma turned her face from the horrors outside the church, offering what comfort she could to those yet clinging to life. Working without rest, scarcely conscious of the day wearing on, she moved from man to man, offering water, bathing fevered brows, joining broken voices in prayer.
One man she came to was plainly close to death, his face white and grimly set against his pain, though he bore it in silence. He shook his head slightly when she offered water, eyes beseeching as he looked up at her.
“Do you think I’ll die before morning?” he asked.
Emma gazed at him, blinking back a sudden threat of tears as her throat tightened. She would not deceive him; he had the right to an honest answer.
“I think so,” she said, nodding. “Has death any terrors for you?”
“Oh, no.” He smiled, the smile of one looking forward to rest after long toil. “I shall soon be asleep in Jesus.”
Night descended and the roar of artillery finally ceased, but the crisis continued in the hospital. Lanterns were lit and the surgeons went on with their grisly work. The church was now filled, as were the other buildings the surgeons had claimed, and still the wounded kept coming.
An assistant surgeon collapsed against the wall, overwhelmed and exhausted. Emma watched him sink to the floor, and was about to go to him, when a harsh voice stopped her.
“You there. Thompson. Come here!”
It was Dr. Palmer who had called her, his hands drenched in blood to the elbows, rolled sleeves stained dark with it. With a sodden rag he wiped the blood from his empty table. It spattered like rain upon the stone floor.
Uneasy, Emma approached him. “Yes, sir?”
“You’ll have to help.”
“I don’t know how—”
“Put him here,” the surgeon said to two men carrying a third.
They placed their burden on the table and left. Emma stared in horror at the soldier’s mangled foot, still covered by part of a boot, whose top dangled around his ankle.
“Put that bucket underneath,” Dr. Palmer told her. “That’s right. Now hold him down. Rogers will hold his legs. No, across the chest, and mind he doesn’t get his arms free. You may have to sit on him, if he’s too strong for you.”
Glad to be able to turn her face away, Emma flung her body across the soldier’s. She had thought he was insensible, but soon learned otherwise. His moan rose to an agonized cry and then to a shriek that made her squeeze her eyes closed, wishing she could cover her ears. The man’s body beneath her rocked slightly as the surgeon plied his saw.
“No more! No! Please! Please—aaaaaah!” cried the man, ending in a wordless howl. He thrashed, and she leaned all her weight upon him.
When the rocking finally stopped, the man was sobbing, rasping with each breath. Emma slowly eased her weight off of him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, though she doubted he could hear.
“That’ll do,” said Dr. Palmer. “Go out to the wagons and find Warren, send him in to me,” the surgeon said. “You’re too small to hold them.”
Emma swallowed, ashamed of the relief she felt. She obeyed this order, then retrieved her canteens and returned to making her rounds, glancing in the direction of the battlefield as she moved from building to building. At sunset, on the heights above the town, she had seen troops stack their arms and throw themselves on the ground to rest. Now the darkness hid them, and still the agonized screams rose from the church as the heap of discarded limbs grew higher.
Mr. Brown, the Second’s chaplain, caught Emma’s arm as she was returning to the church with freshly-filled canteens. Like Emma, he had spent the day offering comfort to the wounded. His sleeves were stained with blood, his face pale in the light spilling from the open doorway.
“The army has retreated toward Washington,” he said, frowning in dismay. “We are abandoned.”
“That cannot be true!” Emma said.
“It is true. We must follow them, or be captured.”
“No!”
The threat of capture held its own terrors for Emma, but they were overshadowed by dismay at the thought that the army would abandon its wounded to the enemy. She looked at the church and the other hospital buildings, thinking of the helpless men lying within.
“I cannot believe they would desert us,” she said. “They have moved their camp, perhaps. I will go and see.”
“Frank!” the chaplain called after her, but she was already striding up the road to the heights.
A few minutes brought her to the ground where she had seen the men stacking arms. It was indeed abandoned. Thinking she might find them by searching the field, she strode across it, and soon spied a glimmer of flame.
A campfire. Only one, but perhaps others were nearby. Emma hastened toward it, seeing as she came near that the fire was tended by a solitary figure.
A woman crouched beside the flame, feeding it with sticks, coaxing heat from the coals beneath a battered pot filled with water. Nearby stood a huge heap of blankets, haversacks, and canteens that she had evidently collected. Emma recognized her as she came near; it was one of the washerwomen who followed the army, married to a soldier in the Second though Emma could not remember who.
The woman’s hair was a wild tangle, and she wore a soldier’s overcoat. She glanced up as Emma entered the circle of firelight.
“Good evening, ma’am,” Emma said. “I am looking for the army’s camp. Can you tell me where it lies?”
“I don’t know anything about the army,” the woman said irritably. “I am cooking my husband’s supper, and am expecting him home every minute.”
Home? Emma glanced around. As far as she knew, the field was empty save for the woman’s campfire. No tent stood nearby, not even a horse or a mule.
The woman suddenly sat up and smiled. “See what a lot of things I have got for him?”
She gestured toward her pile of battlefield spoils. Emma closed her eyes. This woman was wounded, she realized, as surely as any of the men in the hospitals. Wounded in her soul. She had lost her mind, from grief, perhaps.
“Ma’am,” Emma said gently, now convinced of the danger of their situation. “The army has gone. The enemy will surely come here soon. We must leave if we are not to be captured.”
“No, my husband will be home soon. I must wait here for him.”
She stirred her pot of water with a stick, paused to peer into it, then stirred again. Emma begged and pleaded with her, but nothing would move her. At last Emma gave up and started back toward Centreville.
She had gone only a short distance when she heard the clatter of hooves behind her. Turning, she saw a squad of cavalry stopping at the poor mad woman’s campfire. They were not Union troops, she was certain. Cold fear washed through her limbs.
Hide, or be captured. The washerwoman would not think to conceal Emma’s presence from the Rebels, not in her fuddled state.
Emma glanced at a fence nearby. The field beyond was too open, but there were several larg
e piles of brush close against the fence. In the darkness, she might hide beneath one and escape the cavalrymen’s notice.
The horses’ hooves sounded again. Glancing back, Emma saw the cavalrymen approaching, following the washerwoman whom they compelled at gunpoint to precede them. A drizzle of rain was beginning. Emma crawled beneath the nearest brush pile and lay still, watching as the horsemen came closer.
“You’re sure he came this way?” a man’s voice demanded.
“Oh, yes,” said the woman, her voice high with fear.
“Because if you’re lying, we’ll shoot you, old woman.”
“It’s the truth! It’s the truth! He walked right down this hill!”
The horsemen halted not ten paces from where Emma lay. She shivered, more with fear than with cold, though the rain dripped from her cap and ran into the collar of her shirt. She held her breath, watching and listening.
There were five horsemen in all, and their leader now commenced a heated argument with the washerwoman, who wanted to go back to her fire and wait for her husband. He threatened again to shoot her, and she began to cry. Emma was sorry for her, but dared not try to intervene. To do so would be to give herself up a captive.
The leader sent three of his men searching along the fence, and Emma cringed, her heart thudding in her chest so loud she feared it would give her away. Darkness, the rain, and the brush pile protected her, though. At length, the cavalrymen left, taking the poor washerwoman with them.
Emma lay silent, counting a full five minutes before she dared emerge. Crawling out of the brush, she stood shivering for a moment, looking and listening.
The fire had guttered, or else the cavalrymen had extinguished it. She heard no more hoofbeats, but she could not deceive herself that the Rebels were gone. They would come, more of them, and take Centreville. She hastened back to the church.
Only one lamp remained, its light far too feeble to fill the church, nor even reach the door. Emma stood in the doorway listening to the groans of the wounded.
“Water,” someone said feebly nearby, and another took up the plea.
Emma hastened to find a canteen. It was empty. She collected a dozen more and carried them outside in the rain to fill them. Returning, she gave canteens to those who could lift them, and helped those who could not to drink.
“Did Chaplain Brown leave?” she asked a man who was well enough to sit up and drink.
“Yes,” he said, gasping between long gulps at the canteen. “and so must you. The chaplain said we would soon be in the hands of the enemy. You will be taken prisoner if you stay.”
For a moment Emma considered it. If she might be allowed to continue to care for these poor suffering men—but no, she could not take the risk of discovery.
“If you do stay the Rebels will not let you do anything for us,” the wounded soldier told her, as if he had read her thoughts.
Others murmured agreement, urging Emma to go. Her heart breaking, she filled all the canteens again and gave them to those who could use their arms. Turning to go, she was called back by the feeble voice of a young officer from Massachusetts, who lay near the wall. Emma came to him and saw that he held a gold locket in his hand.
“Will you please to open it?” he said, holding it out to her with a trembling hand.
He was dying, Emma realized. She opened the locket, which contained a portrait of a lovely young woman holding a baby in her arms, and held it up so the officer could see. A name and address were printed on the opposite side of the locket.
The officer seized Emma’s hand and dragged it closer, gazing feverishly at the locket, then pressing it to his lips. Emma waited, thinking he would give her some message for his family, but he only kissed the portrait again and again.
Outside a rumble that was not thunder arose, coming nearer. Horses.
“Go,” whispered another soldier nearby. “You must go!”
Emma put the locket away in her pocket and slipped out of a window at the rear of the church. Rain brushed her cheeks. She pulled her coat closer about her.
Glancing toward the streets, she saw that they were already filled with Confederate cavalry.
The rain was falling more heavily now, and the ranks of dark shapes moved through the abandoned town like so many demons. Emma climbed over a fence and cut across a field, keeping as far from Centreville as she could.
Crossing several more fences and fields, she skirted the town for a mile and more until she came out upon the Fairfax road. Here there was no sign of the Confederates as yet. They would be occupied some time in Centreville, no doubt, securing their wounded prisoners.
Emma closed her eyes, saying a brief prayer for the safety of those brave men. Not a one of them had bemoaned his cruel fate, nor begrudged her the freedom to escape it.
She dared not linger, for she was still in danger of being captured. She set off along the road, running as far as she could, then walking to rest until she had strength enough to run again. The rain soaked her uniform, and at times she paused to turn her face skyward and catch some of it in her mouth, as she had left her own canteen with the wounded.
She had no food; the rations she had been issued were long gone. Her haversack was empty of all but her Bible and a number of letters and remembrances she had accepted from the wounded, promising to send them on to loved ones.
The sky lightened as dawn came, though the sun struggled feebly against the continuing rain. Emma trudged wearily on, passing signs of the army’s scrambling retreat all along the road. Wagons lay broken and overturned, their contents spilled in the road or alongside it, some with the horses that had pulled them lying dead in the traces. Ambulances that had carried civilians from Washington in picnic spirits to view the battle, now foundered in mud with broken wheels or axles, ruined and blocking the roadway.
Emma wondered idly what had become of those sightseers, then decided she didn’t care. It had been foolish of them to come to the battlefield as if it were merely another review. The spectacle to which they had been treated was no doubt unlike what they had expected.
From what she could see, the retreat had been no less than a rout. She could have wept for the waste of the broken wagons and ruined supplies, and did weep a little for the poor men she had left behind in the church.
She found her regiment at noon, encamped on a farm at Arlington. Exhausted, her boots nearly worn off her feet, she wandered through the dismal, rain-soaked camp until she found her company huddled around sputtering fires beneath some spreading oak trees.
“Frank!” Damon cried, jumping up, a blanket clutched around himself.
Several others exclaimed, bidding “Frank” welcome. Emma thanked them and edged closer to the fire, holding out her chilled hands.
“You’re wet through,” Damon said. “Here, take this.” He took off his blanket and, despite Emma’s protests, wrapped it around her shoulders. “We thought you’d been captured,” he added, frowning in concern.
“I nearly was, I think,” Emma said.
“Ho! Got a story to tell, have you?”
Someone shoved a tin cup of coffee into her hands, and room was made for her beside the fire. Emma sat down with a weary sigh, grateful to be among her comrades again. She wrapped her hands around the hot mug and swallowed a mouthful of the scalding coffee, then told her friends about the hospital in the stone church, her encounter with the washerwoman and how she had hid from the Confederates, and her wet and weary journey on foot. It was not so grand a tale, but the Grays heard it appreciatively.
“Lucky you weren’t taken,” said Shelley.
“I know it,” Emma said.
“Ah, he was just lollygagging,” said Green, grinning as he reached over to clap Emma on the back. Her coffee sloshed onto her knee.
The Grays then told Emma their own stories, mostly of the dubious behavior of the rest of the army during its disgraceful retreat. Deserters there had been aplenty, and cowards who scrambled out of harm’s way, their oaths to flag and count
ry forgotten. None from the Second Michigan, of course.
Emma was proud to learn that the Second had been the rearguard, and though the Grays’ description of the retreat consisted mainly of grumbling, it seemed to her that they had conducted themselves well in that duty. While the bulk of the army hastened away in disarray, the Second had kept order and halted time and again to face off the enemy, protecting the retreat.
Emma’s thoughts drifted as the stories gave way to boasting and foolishness. The soldiers amused themselves with ridiculous tall tales, but Emma felt the shadow of dread beneath the laughter.
This war was now in earnest. What everyone had assumed would be a swift victory had instead been an ignominious rout. Far from over, the effort was scarcely begun. Emma saw a long, dreadful fight ahead.
Three years. She had promised three years of her life to this. She had not really expected she would be called upon to serve so long. Home for Christmas, Captain Morse had said. Now she knew that was merely a dream.
The Second returned to its old camping ground, and Emma and Damon reestablished their shared tent quarters. The first evening there Emma took out a candle and stuck it into the socket of her bayonet, shoved the blade into the ground beside the cracker box that held her few belongings and doubled as her table, and began writing letters.
The first was to the young mother in the portrait inside the gold locket. Emma took the locket from her pocket, opened it, and copied off the address, then turned the page over and set up the locket where she could look at it. Writing slowly, for her hands kept threatening to tremble, Emma told the poor widow of her beloved’s demise, there in the rain-lashed church while the Rebels marched into Centreville. Her throat tightened as she wrote, remembering him, and all the others.