by P. G. Nagle
Morning came and still the field was littered with wounded as well as the dead. Daylight brought the awful task of identifying those who were killed, and laying them to rest. The dead were laid out in rows, their faces covered, awaiting burial in the long trenches that were being dug.
Emma worked on until, too exhausted to walk another step, she stumbled to the woods outside the hospital and collapsed, sleeping like the dead. When she woke she smelled coffee, and followed the aroma to a field kitchen that had been set up to feed the hundreds of wounded. A cup of strong coffee and a hard biscuit restored her enough to return to work.
She sought out Damon and almost cried aloud with relief when she found him sitting up with the aid of a nurse, sipping gingerly at a cup of hot broth. He looked weak, but alive, and he grinned as Emma came up to him.
“Here’s our woman, come to fuss over me.”
Emma smiled. “I’m glad to see you looking a little better.”
“Hmph,” Damon said, and took another sip. “My head is spinning.”
“You lost a lot of blood. We didn’t find you until almost dawn.”
“How’s the captain? I heard he was wounded.”
Emma nodded. “I last saw him a few hours ago. He was well enough, considering.”
“Did they take off the leg?”
“No.”
Emma did not say what she feared, that Captain Morse eventually would lose his leg. It was quite badly broken, as she understood, though she had not examined him herself. Still, men of courage often recovered from worse wounds, and she had no doubt of the captain’s courage.
For the next several days Emma worked in the hospitals, helping tend the wounded of both armies. When she first visited a group of Rebel wounded, she was startled to see familiar faces from Yorktown among them, one the sergeant of the picket guard who had given her a shake and threatened to shoot her if she fell asleep while on duty.
A sharp tingle went through her upon seeing him, but he showed no sign of recognition and thanked her kindly for the water she offered. The coloring had now faded from her skin, and in her normal guise she little resembled the contraband she had been in Yorktown.
She moved on, and soon came to where a negro lay groaning on the floor. Kneeling beside him, she spoke to him gently.
“Can you drink some water?”
He turned his head and opened his eyes, and Emma caught her breath. He was Deezer, the young water carrier whom she had paid to exchange work with her. His face was now contorted in pain, and he gazed at her unseeing. Emma lifted his head and held her canteen to his lips. He swallowed a few sips of water, then lay back exhausted and let out another groan.
Emma continued dispensing water until her canteen was empty, then sought out the surgeon. “That man,” she said, pointing to Deezer, “is his wound mortal?”
The surgeon glanced at him and shrugged. “Likely not.”
“Will you see that he is well cared for? I owe him a favor.”
The surgeon gazed at her strangely, but gave another shrug and a nod. Emma watched him walk over to where Deezer lay and squat down to examine him. There was no more she could do—she could not explain to the surgeon her reasons for wanting to help Deezer—so she filled her canteen and moved on.
As the days passed and the crisis of battle had ended, Emma returned to her duties as mail carrier, but the loss of many of her friends was a blow. Captain Morse and Damon were both sent home to Michigan to recover from their injuries. The Second had been hit hard at Williamsburg, with seventeen killed and nearly forty wounded.
The rest carried on, and Emma sought distraction from loneliness in long talks with Chaplain Brown, attending prayer meetings when they occurred, and visiting the Second’s wounded still recovering in the hospitals.
One day when Emma stopped at the Second’s headquarters after fetching the regiment’s mail, she was asked by the Assistant Adjutant General to stay. Colonel Poe wanted to speak to her.
Ushered into the colonel’s presence, she wondered in trepidation if he was now going to relieve her of her mail duties. This would be hard to bear, for she loved the freedom it allowed her.
Colonel Poe sat behind his camp desk, glancing through the mail she had just delivered. At last he set the stack aside, folded his hands, and looked up at her.
“Your work at Yorktown was successful,” he said.
Surprised, Emma blinked. “Yes, sir.”
“A pity the information you gained was not put to better use.”
Emma made no reply. The colonel straightened one of the papers beneath his hands and cleared his throat, then spoke quietly.
“I have been given to understand that General McClellan would welcome any intelligence from behind Rebel lines. He wants to know what we will face when we cross the Chickahominy.”
Emma drew a breath as understanding dawned within her. She was being offered another opportunity to go spying.
She knew that McClellan was building bridges across the Chickahominy to replace those the Rebels had torn down. When the new bridges were complete, he would send his siege guns over them to hammer Richmond.
“I see,” she said. “Has the General given specific instructions?”
“No. Look for an opportunity. When you are ready, come to me and I will write orders placing you on detached duty.”
Emma swallowed. She would get no help, then; she must rely upon her own resources if she were to go at all.
“Have you any other questions, Thompson?” said the colonel, his voice unusually gentle.
“No, sir,” Emma said slowly.
“Then you are dismissed.” He took up his correspondence again and started to look through it, though he glanced once at her, frowning slightly in concern, as if to express his understanding should she choose not to pursue another foray behind enemy lines.
Emma left, and spent the rest of the afternoon in a state of distraction as she handed out the regiment’s mail. Contemplating McClellan’s request, she knew a hesitation she had not previously felt. To go again behind enemy lines, to risk her life to gain whatever information she might gather, possibly to have these efforts go for naught once more, gave her pause.
Perhaps it was Williamsburg that had changed her view. The horrors of the battlefield remained with her, a reminder of the seriousness of the effort in which they were engaged. Her thoughts confused, she set out to visit the hospitals hoping it would give her opportunity to reflect and resolve her conflicting feelings.
She certainly could not use her contraband disguise again. It would be too dangerous. If anyone among the Rebels recognized and remembered “Ned,” she would undoubtedly be shot for deserting her post on the picket line.
No, if she went, she would have to come up with a different disguise, one that did not put her in danger of betraying herself by her unsuitedness, as her blistered hands had done after a day’s labor.
The hospitals were quieter now. The crisis of battle being over, now the silent struggle to survive was underway—to survive the wounds, the sickness, the despair and the nightmares that followed battle. Emma visited all the Second’s casualties, and many from the other regiments in her brigade. She accepted messages, wrote letters, and most of all listened.
The stories the men told of how they were wounded and what they had faced on the battlefield were similar to what she had heard before, but having now been on the field herself she heard them with increased appreciation. She, too, suffered nightmares from time to time.
As she listened to the patients’ deepest fears, often told in a whisper so that she had to bend close to hear, the conviction grew in her heart that she must do everything she could to minimize the casualties borne by the Federal army in the future. If she must go behind enemy lines to do so, practice deception and risk her own life, she was willing.
The nurses gave her silent, grateful glances, for they knew that a new face, a visitor, did much to cheer the men. Emma spent several hours at the hospital, and by the time sh
e departed, burdened with messages and requests, the day was ending.
She walked toward the regiment’s camp, passing the town square of Williamsburg on her way. In the market there she saw a tinker hawking his wares, and several peddlers with carts or baskets full of goods. Reminded of the traitorous peddler in Yorktown, she at first bristled, then felt a dawning comprehension.
This could be her next disguise. Peddlers came and went among the armies—there was always demand for the comforts they sold. She would be in no danger of conscription to hard labor. She could pass through the enemy lines unquestioned, a refugee fleeing the Federal advance.
An old woman in a drab dress and a red woolen shawl noticed Emma staring and came up to her. She hefted a large wicker basket and pulled back a calico cloth from its contents.
“Buy a pie, me darlin’? Fresh, swate berry pies!”
She was Irish. She peered up at Emma through dusty spectacles, her gray hair curling beneath the shawl. Fascinated, Emma took out her wallet.
“How much?”
“Ten cents for one, twenty-five for three.”
“How many have you in the basket?”
“I’ve two dozen in all, just come from the oven this hour.”
“I’ll give you three dollars for all of them and the basket.”
The woman’s brows flew upward. “Bless you, me boy! Three dollars for all!” Emma could see her greedily calculating the total. “But the basket cost me two dollars, it did.”
“Four dollars, then.”
“Done! And may the dear lord bless your kind heart!”
Emma handed her the money and took the basket, turning to start back to the hospital. “Will you walk with me a little, ma’am, and tell me about yourself?”
“Now, what could the likes of you be wanting with the company of an auld woman?”
“I am curious about the people of this town. Have you lived long in Williamsburg?”
“Oh, aye! Twenty years, I have. If it’s gossip you want, I’ll oblige you, though I’d welcome a pint of ale to moisten me throat.” She glanced toward the public house with a hint of longing in her eye.
“I’ll give you the price of a pint if you’ll accompany me,” Emma said. “I haven’t the time to sit, I’m afraid.”
“Well enough.”
With a shrug and the tiniest of sighs, the old woman turned away from the square and hobbled along beside Emma as she walked back to the hospital. Her name was Bridget O’Rooney, she said, and she told several colorful stories along the way, Emma prompting her for information about herself whenever she paused.
Mrs. O’Rooney’s life had been varied, gypsy-like, and filled with adventure. She had three grown children, one of whom had baked the pies. Emma drank in every word, including the odd turns of phrase and the lilt of her voice.
When they reached the hospital Emma thanked the peddler woman, gave her some coins, and bade her farewell. Flashing a grin, Mrs. O’Rooney darted away with surprising liveliness, no doubt to repair to the public house for her pint.
Emma went into the hospital, distributed the pies to the delighted patients, then returned to the square with her empty basket. Evening was coming on and the peddlers were packing up their wares, but Emma was able to purchase a dress, a shawl much like the pie-seller’s, and several trinkets that might be amusing to soldiers. She put all in the basket and carried it back to her regiment’s camp. It seemed she had acquired a new vocation.
General McClellan celebrated the victory at Williamsburg by moving his army closer to Richmond; first to West Point, then to White House Landing, where he seized control of the railroad terminus. Emma was often there, where she picked up news and gossip along with the mail. Word of the Monitor’s victory over the Merrimac and the Rebels’ subsequent abandonment of the Norfolk naval yards was celebrated throughout the army, and did much to raise the spirit of hopefulness in the hearts of the men.
Meanwhile Emma continued to collect her peddler’s costume and the wares she would carry as evidence of her trade. She added a couple of the watches she often sold in camp to the basket to augment her store of trinkets, and hired one of the Second’s more talented cooks to bake several cakes and pies.
She bought an old pair of shoes and a tattered petticoat from one of the regiment’s laundresses, and acquired a surplus patchwork quilt from the hospital. She obtained another wig, this one a steely gray, which she intended to cover with a matronly cap.
At last she was ready. She visited Colonel Poe, who duly wrote our her orders for detached duty. These she tucked into her Bible and left in her writing desk; it would never do to carry them on her person.
With fresh pies and cakes tucked in amongst her other goods and the pieces of her disguise, the whole wrapped in the patchwork quilt and tied into her basket, she rode toward the Chickahominy River in the company of Private Shelley, who had agreed to accompany her to the shore and look after her horse. She had told him she would be back in camp by sundown. In fact, she had no idea when she would return, if at all.
“Why are you crossing the river?” Shelley asked.
“A lark,” Emma said. “I want to see if I can get a look at the Rebels.”
“Why not just volunteer for picket duty?”
“Too easy. And too many bullets in the air. I’d rather catch them unawares.”
Shelley shook his head. “You’ve gone mad, Frank.”
“You’re probably right.” Emma laughed, feeling a wild recklessness. It was indeed mad to do this, but she was determined.
Was this what the gambler felt, when he staked all he owned on a throw of the dice or the turn of a card? If so, she could begin to understand the attraction of sin.
Reaching the river’s edge, Emma paused and with the Shelley’s help tied the basket onto her back to keep it out of the water. She then shook hands with her friend and urged Samuel into the water. A few strides across the swampy, sucking shore, and they were into the current.
The river was cold, and Emma clenched her teeth together to keep them from chattering as Samuel swam across. He lurched up onto the opposite bank, grunting with the effort, and stamped into the swamp as if seeking dry land. Emma halted him and dismounted, led him back to the shore, and with a friendly pat sent him back to where Shelley was waiting. Waving farewell, she turned and went into the swamp.
She strode well away from the shore, still shivering with cold from her dunking in the river. When she judged she was well out of sight among the dismal, moss-draped trees of the swamp, she untied her basket from her back and made an unpleasant discovery.
The basket and everything in it was soaked. It had gotten wet after all, and the pies and cakes were ruined. Disgusted, Emma threw them on the ground, but she was determined to go on. She changed from her wet uniform into her wet peddler’s costume, then buried the uniform near a quaintly twisted tree. All of this took considerable time, and by the time she was ready, night was approaching.
She had no intention of trying to slip past the Confederate pickets again. In this guise, she might walk up to them and request passage, but she should best do that in daylight. She must spend the night in the swamp, she concluded. Resigning herself to an uncomfortable night, she wrapped herself in the quilt and tried to find a bit of ground that was not too sodden to lie down upon.
Chills soon shook her. An ague overtook her, and with it the most violent, dreadful shivering, so severe that she thought she would freeze solid. Later in the night, the chills were followed by their opposite—a fever so high she became delirious, and imagined herself beset with all manner of horrors. Fiends tormented her, and the horrors of a thousand deaths seemed to be concentrated around her.
The boom of cannon-fire and the screaming of shell through the woods jarred her awake. It was morning, and she was under attack.
Chickahominy Swamp, Virginia, 1862
Sitting up against the tree under which she had slept, Emma tried to quell the panic that arose in her. The roar of the cannon contin
ued, frighteningly near and intense. Had she been discovered? Did it merit the deployment of a battery to subdue her?
She knew McClellan had sent a corps across the river to ensure that the engineers rebuilding the bridges would not be harassed. Perhaps ill chance had placed her between them and the Rebels.
Her head swam, and her ears rang. She was weak as a kitten, and could no more rise and escape the cannonade than she could fly. She sat waiting for fate to overtake her.
Glancing down at the dress she wore, she laughed aloud at the irony of it. All her years of avoiding the traps and restrictions of feminine life, and now look at her. Would she die in her proper costume, then? Not that this guise was especially proper.
All the trouble she had gone to—assembling this costume, learning the Irish phrases and copying the brogue of good Mrs. O’Rooney—would it all go to waste? The ludicrousness of her situation made her burst out in uncontrolled laughter, but soon her mood sobered.
Her mind wandered to the battlefield at Williamsburg, then to the hospitals there, where she had carried the wounded and tended their hurts. In her confusion Jerome was there, her friend and companion as he had once been. She thought back through all the events of her life, and indulged in the hopeless contemplation of what might have been if she had not chosen this particular path.
She might have encountered Jerome in other circumstances, in the guise of a woman, and been able to win his heart as well as his friendship. She might have become a wife. In the delirium and discomfort of her present situation, that fate seemed less dreadful to her than it once had.
The cannonade ceased after a time, and she concluded she had not been its object after all, but still she was too weak to rise. Chills and fevers continued to assail her by turns, and she lay for two more days and nights in the dismal Chickahominy swamp. Mosquitoes tormented her, and delirious visions robbed her of sleep. She imagined herself discovered, hauled before a tribunal, court-martialed. Helplessly, she wept.
On the morning of the third day after crossing the river she felt somewhat better. She got to her feet without too much dizziness, and stood looking about her. Deciding she preferred any fate, even to be shot by Rebel pickets, to that of rotting away in the swamp, she arranged her costume as best she was able, picked up her basket, and started toward where she hoped she would find the enemy lines.