“Now let ’er go,” Old Whiskers said with a laugh. Felix and Carroll’s brother (Alden) gave a nervous chuckle too. They came back around to the tail end of the gun pausing for a moment, as though they were thinking twice about it. But it was too late. They knew, like I did, they would have to carry through with it to save face in front of the rest of us.
“You can go on and do it,” the Carroll brother offered.
“I don’t mean to take away your fun. If you want to do it that’s all right with me,” Felix Newburn said.
“No, no. You go on ahead.”
Felix took the heavy lanyard which was attached to the friction primer in both hands, standing as far back and to the side of it as the rope would allow. Everyone else got clear back, huddled in a half moon shape near the trees, and waited. Felix gave the thick rope a strong tug to fire it.
The effects were nearly immediate. The sound was deafening, which made us all start and cover our ears as the ground shook thunderously beneath our feet. The ten thousand pound metal tube kicked back, the wooden undercarriage on wheels lurched forward, and to the dismay of us all, the gun ended up pointed toward the sky with its bottom end in the dirt. The cannon ball shot forward a good distance, directly into the fortifications the Rebels had set up. Luckily there were no Confederates in the vicinity, for it ripped the line to pieces.
We all remained dazed as we stared wide-eyed at the results. Felix looked as if he might wet himself, he was so distraught. How would he explain what just happened to his superiors?
“Standing right up on end!” the other Carroll brother Leonard remarked with a whistle. “That ain’t gonna be easy to put right.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Darby yelled. He took off toward the woods, and the rest of us were not far behind.
There was some talk in camp about how the heavy gun ended up off of its carriage. We remained silent on the matter, unable to meet eyes and unwilling to murmur a word on the subject. But justice was yet served. Captain Kidder addressed the 121st in a very candid manner. He was not happy and he let us know it, letting loose a string of foul words and name calling that could have curled our hair. Our company and a few others were chosen to put the gun back on its carriage. We were forced to work through the night in the rain like a bunch of mules pulling the gun back into place with heavy ropes.
We stayed there for over a week, still with no idea why. Then we got word there was fighting up at Brandy Station. Oh, the cogs began to turn and the inner workings began to come alive. Lee was on the move. The fox had outsmarted us. He left some of his men behind, just enough to make us believe he was staying put. But all the while he was taking most everybody else in his army on a trip up north, headed for Washington. If he should make his target, the results would prove disastrous for the Union. If he should attack Washington, all would be lost!
Chapter 7
GENERAL HOOKER WOULD BE hard pressed to catch up to Lee and somehow make a barrier between the Confederates and the capital. There was clamor and chaos as we crossed over the river again, urgent in our mission to get to the Confederate forces before they got to Washington. Because we were across the river, we were some of the last to leave camp and ended up at the tail end of the great procession.
Our departure was heralded by the boom of thunder and the flash of lightning as the heavens opened and poured out upon us a strong and steady rain. The downpour made uniforms, bedrolls, and equipment heavy with water. We were traveling upon corduroy roads, slick with mud and rain, and finding it difficult to keep our footing as we marched. I had spoken very little to Sam, as he continued to sleep out beneath the oak tree while we were in camp and kept his distance when we were camped across the river too. I remained resolute in avoiding him when possible, yet we somehow managed to get thrown together in our march.
I would never have believed being around him could be difficult, because before our falling out we were the best of friends. Now I was uncomfortable with him, and I could tell he was uncomfortable with me too. At times he tried to make small talk, and I attempted to say something back when he did. But mostly it was awkward. I felt the loss of our companionship deeply. Although I didn’t want to admit it, even to myself, I missed him.
As we marched, I nearly slipped and fell. Sam caught me by the arm and held me steady until I could get my feet under me again.
“Are you all right?” he asked, with something like concern in his voice. I was not happy I needed his help. I pulled my arm roughly away from his hand.
“Yes, fine,” I said.
He didn’t venture to make any more small talk. It was enough just to try to stay on our feet. We marched in this way all night long and into the morning. Finally the rain abated for a time, and we sat to rest in the scorching heat near the Potomac Creek Bridge. I got the feeling Sam wanted to say something to me, he stayed close and kept glancing over at me as if he might, but then he must have thought better of it, because he never did speak to me.
We stopped for a short rest, lying ourselves out upon the grass and propping ourselves up against our packs. When Mr. Haney got up to relieve himself near the tree line, Sam came and sat next to me, speaking to me in a low and confidential tone.
“I think it best if we remain jointly in a tent and keep to bunking together,” he said, wiping the sweat dripping and wet from his forehead.
“What for?” I asked him.
“Well, so you won’t be sleeping with any men,” he reasoned.
“You are a man,” I told him.
“Yes, but I mean a man who might take advantage of you should he find out…” Sam trailed off. “Besides, if we don’t share a tent like we always done, it might arouse suspicions.”
I shrugged. “I suppose.” And even though I had told him I hated him, I knew then it wasn’t true. It seemed like such a thoughtful thing for him to do, and I couldn’t help but feel that familiar thrill run through me. I was angry at myself for feeling it and scowled.
“It’s up to you of course. But I just thought I would offer.” He got up to go.
“Sam…” I said.
He stopped and turned to me with an earnest expression. “Yes?”
“I never said thank you for helping me with old Jack Monroe,” I said, for I’d learned since Old Whiskers was really named Jack Monroe. “It was decent of you.”
He nodded. “Anybody would’ve.” I knew it wasn’t true. No one else was stepping up to assist me that night. No one but him. Still I didn’t say anything more.
I suppose he had time to think things through, to get accustomed to the idea I was a girl, and maybe he regretted our falling out. I know I did. I missed him terribly. He was to me a sympathetic ear, a friend to lean on, someone who understood me and who cared about me. My life felt very empty without him. I tried to suppress a smile as I watched him leave.
We marched on, sleeping only a few hours upon the ground. The next day we came upon a sight that was horrific beyond belief. We passed the scene of the previous battle at Bull Run, and what we saw would have turned any man’s stomach sour. It was such an eerie feeling it set us all on edge, making us mindful of our mortality. Thanks to the heavy rain, the shallow mass graves were washed away from the ground.
Rising to the surface of the muddy fields were the bones of the deceased in appalling jumbled heaps. Like crumbs of bread meant to mark the way, we saw teeth scattered in the dirt. Perhaps I should have been more offended by the decaying remains of a man, but it was the fabric from the clothes the bodies wore when they were laid to rest that upset me more. The thought that they were wearing those garments in their last moments of life, and they had then been buried in them, was more tangible to me than the fleshless vestiges of their bones. The wool of a coat, the splash of a calico with its varied patterns from a shirt or the homespun, painstakingly crafted by hands of loved ones, all fighting to be seen, all covered in the filth, refusing to be forgotten. The earthly apparel of dead men.
Most everyone just tried to keep the
ir eyes forward, avoiding having to look at it. But I could not seem to pry my gaze away from the sight. It was as if my eyes were drawn to it unwillingly, and I was meant to record all of the particulars to convey to future generations so they might profit from our mistakes and avoid the same. It made me sick, but I couldn’t turn away from it. I wondered if maybe there was something wrong with me, if perhaps there was some gross flaw in my constitution that made me suffer from such a morbid and sinful curiosity. I was certain my involuntary interest was not normal. I finally distracted myself from looking by fastening my gaze upon my boots and refusing myself the chance to look up again.
When we stopped for a brief rest and to have some food, I could not eat. My stomach pitched within my gut, and it was all I could do to have a drink of water. The mind is a funny thing. It remembers everything in detail, at times even embellishing the facts, or it stores some memory away in a place you cannot retrieve it at all. We do not remember the joy and pride of taking our first steps, or the specifics of some ordinary but pleasant day in the country, but the things we wish to forget the most are the very things which haunt us. Random and without order, they sit up in those heads of ours, the source of joy, pain, emotion, and torture. No matter how I tried, I could not erase the picture of those graves from my brain.
As I dwelt upon it, I had a fleeting notion that I didn’t want to have children. I didn’t want to bear a child who would grow to an adult and be forced to face such a cruel and bleak world. I didn’t want to love a child so very much with my whole heart and soul only to have its spectacular body of bones, muscle, sinew, hands, feet, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and mind—a glorious and miraculous creature created in God’s image—to be disposed of so thoughtlessly. To be alive and breathing, feeling, and thinking and then to suffer such a malevolent end, to be tossed like so much trash into a pit of dirt without even last rights given, was unbearable to consider. Cherished flesh became nothing more than victuals for worms.
“Are you all right?” Sam asked me, standing over me as I sat with my head bowed down resting upon my fists.
“Fine,” I mumbled.
“You look white as a sheet,” he said. “Feeling kinda peaked?”
“I said I was fine,” I told him, defensively. I didn’t want to talk to him just then. I didn’t want to tell him what I was thinking or have him know I was so deeply affected by what we saw. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?
They called for us to fall in. We scrambled to collect our things, then hustled to get into our neat rows and columns and again begin our march in earnest. I was close to tears, having done everything I could think of to expunge the terrible thoughts that plagued me. Try as I might, I couldn’t calm my mind.
“It helps to count,” Sam whispered.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said with a frown.
“As I march, I count. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. It takes my mind away from things,” he confessed.
“How can counting help?”
“I don’t know, but it does.”
So under my breath I began counting, and it did help some. After a while, I didn’t even need to count. The business of marching made me so weary I didn’t have to train my mind; it was already numbed beyond any coherent thought. We marched quick time, just under a trot, as we followed the road north. The discomfort was terrible. The rain was bad, but the sun beating down on you, and the dry dust choking your throat, and the dirt sticking to your perspiration and irritating your skin, was even less desirable.
I thought maybe I was able to forget because my brain was being fried within my skull from the heat, just as bacon fries in a skillet. Was it only my imagination, or did I hear it sizzle and pop in the cavity of my head? We stopped for the night to make camp, if that’s what you could call it. Really it was just all of us scattered over the ground, sleeping under the stars. They woke us well before dawn so we might march without the heat and sun. But the darkness was no easier to bear. We stumbled over uneven ground, rocks, and roots. It was difficult to tell which direction we were even headed. I just knew to follow the fellow in front of me, as he followed the fellow in front of him.
The longer and farther we marched, the more men we saw lying by the wayside, sick and tired and weary and hopeless. There were moments when I thought I would like to just sit and rest, just for a moment. What could it hurt? I began to note it wasn’t just soldiers littering the roads, when out of desperation the men began abandoning their belongings. Anything and everything that was weighing heavily upon their backs, the smallest and largest of items in all varieties, were carelessly left behind.
It says a lot about how those men were suffering. All the things dearest to them, all of the things they kept up to now, some vital to living such as canteens and knapsacks, deserted like so much rubbish. If this were desperation, surely we were beyond it. My side, not completely healed, throbbed with a deep and piercing ache. Sam could not carry his rifle and necessities as he should with his shoulder the way it was. He didn’t say anything, but he began to drop things here and there too, trying to lighten his load. Everything else he shifted to his right arm to carry.
The battle was imminent, and all would be lost if we did not stop Lee before he made it to Washington. Every one of us knew what was at stake, and we did our best to push on. As we were amidst our meal one evening, word came we were to march to Gettysburg with all speed. Our new General, one General Meade, appointed only a few days before, needed reinforcements. A battle was underway. The excitement grew and was infectious as the particulars of it were spread from one man to another. As weary as we were, the seriousness of the situation compelled us on.
The band played as we marched. I did not recall ever having heard them play at a march before. It was Colonel Upton who requested it to cheer us onward. We marched all the long night, with no chance to stop and rest. I could hardly raise my feet from the ground to walk, I was so tired. Twice some fellow fell asleep while riding on his horse and tumbled to the ground.
Some of the men tried to get out of the march and the fighting altogether. Two men went so far as to shoot off one of their own fingers. I saw Captain Kidder threaten bodily harm to anyone who should think to try to get out of their duties using such tactics. One fellow started limping and tried to hold back and take up at the rear. Captain Kidder pulled his pistol from his belt and pointed it right at the man, right in his face.
“I shall not be troubled with cowards,” he said. “If you’d like to trade your pantaloons for petticoats, well now, that can be arranged!”
The night seemed to drag on so. I wished for the comfort of a soft bed, and then I wished for the comfort of a hard bed. And then I wished just to sit, to sit and rest my limbs. There were long stretches of the march I could not recall, as if I were sleep walking and was not conscious for it.
Chapter 8
MORNING CAME, and we were told we could stop and have ourselves a cup of coffee. I sat upon the ground, not caring for coffee, or anything else for that matter. My only thought was to rest. I took my boots from my feet, noting the holes in the bottoms of the soles. They were worn clear through. I peeled my stockings off, only to discover the terrible effect the march had upon me. My feet were covered in blisters, and on top of those blisters were more blisters.
“Looks as if you could use a new pair of boots,” Felix Newburn observed as he sat down heavily next to me. He laid his sack and rifle out next to him and took a great breath, finding some relief, I suppose, in being rid of his burdens.
I noted Sam was in the midst of starting a fire so he might boil water for coffee, but he was watching us all the while. Not outright, just glancing our way on occasion, catching us out of the corner of his eye. And it seemed to me as if he were trying very hard to act as if he did not care one bit what I was up to. He only noticed me as much as he was noting his surroundings, and I was a part of them.
“Breaking boots in is more painful than wearing the old ones with holes. I s
uppose they’ll do for now,” I replied.
“True,” he agreed with a chuckle. “With the rate we been walking everyone’s feet probably all look about the same.”
“Doesn’t make it hurt any less,” I told him.
“You aim to get yourself some coffee?”
I pulled my cap over my eyes. “I only wish to rest,” I said.
“I will leave you to it,” he said as he got up, collected his things, and left.
No sooner did I shut my eyes than they were yelling commands for us to get up, to get moving. Sam had only just got his fire going and hadn’t even begun to make himself some coffee. I scrambled to get my stockings and boots on, while others were shoving their gear back into their packs. We knew whatever was transpiring up ahead of us was a dire fight, and we were needed right away.
The sun was beating down upon us, the heat more than we could bear. I began to think how wonderful it would feel if I could only take off my jacket. I could see men falling by the wayside, too tired, too hot, too sick to go on. I longed to be one of them—to say I quit and find a nice quiet place on the side of the road to throw myself down upon and sleep.
It was late afternoon when we arrived in Littlestown, Pennsylvania. In the distance we could hear the cannons, and the smoke hung like a great cloud ready to burst with rain on the horizon. The people of the town rushed forward with drink and food. One fine lady gave me a cider and some biscuits as I walked along the road. I took them up and ate and drank. The cider ran down my chin and wetted my chest, but I didn’t care. I drank more. The lady looked as though she might cry.
“I’m sorry, it’s all I have…” she said.
“Best cider I ever drunk,” I told her.
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