House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  Trav obeyed, having no longer any will of his own. He was rather stupefied than excited, seeing all clearly yet not believing what he saw. This was some absurd make-believe. Here were a thousand men and boys grouped in a roughly oval enclosure, surrounded by banks of fresh dug earth. The road, including a fork above the church, was within the enclosure. Except for the church and a few trees beside it, the oval was all open ground; but forest walled it on the west. Below the church the road dipped into a wooded ravine, and over the tops of the trees Trav saw a bridge. Beyond, the road ascended a low plateau toward scattered houses and small buildings some distance off.

  Brett introduced Trav to Major Randolph, standing by his guns below the church; and the Major, his small, narrowed eyes fixed on the road beyond the creek which his guns here commanded, acknowledged the introduction without turning his head. “Mr. Currain! Servant, sir.”

  Brett bade Trav stay here. “My place is over yonder. You’ll be able to see everything.” He hurried toward the bridge, and Trav felt himself lost and strange in these surroundings. Then Colonel Hill, mounted, coming to speak to Major Randolph, recognized Trav, and asked sharply:

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve a few wagonloads of food coming along behind me, sir. I rode ahead to tell you, but if I’m in the way . . .”

  “Good! No, stay.” Colonel Hill seemed distracted, his eyes resting on the church near which they stood; and he was silent so long that Trav felt upon himself the burden of speech.

  “It’s a good many years since I’ve been this far down the Peninsula,” he remarked.

  The Colonel smiled faintly. “Yes, I too.” He added: “This was my mother’s church, Mr. Currain. I was baotized in it, worshiooed here till I was a boy of sixteen.”

  Before Trav could reply, a distant shout drew their eyes, and on the low knoll across the creek Trav saw a man wave and point along the road. He looked that way and caught his breath. The road ran in the deep shade of trees that lined its eastern side; some small buildings obscured it on the right. In the shade Trav saw movement, and small gleaming shafts of light, and Major Randolph turned and spoke to Colonel Hill:

  “There they are, sir.”

  The Colonel nodded. The men at their guns began to talk together in sharp tones; and one of them called: “What time is it, please sir, Colonel Hill?”

  “Nine o’clock.”

  “Thank you kindly, Colonel.”

  Colonel Hill said, half to himself: “There’s a cool lad!”

  Trav tried to speak his agreement, but his lips were dry, his throat full. He was trembling with a ridiculous violence, and when he sought to speak, his teeth chattered so loudly that he was afraid someone would hear. He tried to cut a bit of tobacco from his twist, but his hands shook so that he could not open his knife; he gnawed off a piece instead.

  Major Randolph spoke. “They’ve halted there, Colonel.”

  “That’s the advanced post,” Colonel Hill decided. “They’ve sighted us, but they’ll wait for the main column to come up to them.”

  “Shall I scatter them? The Parrott gun will reach.”

  “Not yet.” The Colonel spoke with a grim humor. “Wait till they lay a few more necks on the block.”

  “You will give me the word?” the Major asked. Colonel Hill nodded, and Major Randolph went himself to lay the gun. It seemed to Trav an endless time they waited. His eyes glazed with staring at those bright things yonder.

  “What is it we see, Colonel?” he asked. “Those shining things.”

  “Their bayonets,” the Colonel told him curtly. “The blades flash, even in that deep shade.”

  There was more waiting, till Trav felt himself suffocating, and filled his lungs, and realized that he had forgotten to breathe. Even to draw breath became at this moment a conscious act, so completely were all his functions paralyzed. Was this fear? Perhaps. His mind was not afraid, but his hands shook, his knees knocked together, his teeth were chattering. He could not even spit! The tobacco in his mouth was hardly moist, a shredded ball. He expelled it with an outblown breath, and suddenly he realized that there were many more bright blades in the shade yonder, the steel catching the morning sun. So the main column had come up to the advance.

  Beside him, Colonel Hill said calmly: “Fire.”

  With the discharge of the Parrott gun that opened the action, Trav’s senses were at once sharpened and confused. He was conscious of tremendous noises, but they merged and overlapped and lost all meaning. He saw the gunners a few paces off active at their pieces, heard their gleeful shouts; he saw the flashes and the smoke; through the smoke now and then he saw men in motion. His attention fixed itself on small things, things that were comprehensible, welcome little things which since they fitted into the world he knew brought this fantastic scene nearer reality.

  It was this hunger for the familiar that led him to watch one of the cannoneers who was trying to lead down from behind the church a mule attached to a caisson which had been made by securing ammunition chests on the running gear of a common farm wagon. The chest seemed to be loaded with cannon balls, for a rolling and thumping in it alarmed the mule; the beast set stubborn heels and refused to move, and the man tugged and swore and then abandoned the struggle and tied the reins to a tree.

  “Stay there, then!” he shouted furiously. “You long-eared son of a jackass! I hope the first shot takes your cranky head off!”

  He began to pass the cannon balls by hand, carrying them the dozen paces to his gun; and Trav watched the mule, now calmly content, jerk at the reins till it got slack enough so that it could reach the weeds at its feet and begin serenely to graze. About that time the Yankee guns came into action, and Trav saw men fling themselves down to avoid the cannon balls, and then spring up again; and he felt rather than heard a sudden, thumping sound and turned to look.

  A shot, a solid shot, striking the mule fair and full just behind the fore legs, low down, had passed clear through its body. When Trav turned, the beast was trying to rear; and from its wound poured a cascade of blood, a stream as thick as a man’s leg, bright crimson, a torrent. Then the mule fell on its side and lay feebly kicking. It was incredible that so much blood could come out of one mule! Why, that mule was a barrel of blood, a bag of blood, draining and emptying now. Trav took one uncertain step toward the dying mule, and slipped and looked down and saw a brook of blood running across his boots.

  A convulsion shook him. Instinctively he ran as far as the corner of the church. There he fell on his knees, and opened his mouth and saw helplessly another torrent pour like a cataract out of his open mouth. Not blood, this! It came again, but it was less; again, again, till there was only a thin bitter trickle which he tried to spit away. But it clung stickily to his lips and would not let go, hanging in nasty strings. He crawled aside and collapsed on his face there by the church, his body still tormented by fruitless retching, till all the strength went out of him, and exhaustion drugged him, and the world receded and was gone. He lay insensible, knowing neither place nor time.

  It was Brett who roused him, shaking him, turning him over, lifting him into a sitting position. “Trav! Trav! What’s the matter, man? Trav! Trav, wake up!” So Trav came slowly back to full consciousness again, to consciousness of jubilant voices all around him, of the smell of burned powder, of the smell of blood. His stomach again revolted; but Brett said quickly: “Here!” Raw liquor found his mouth, he spat it out; yet enough of the fire of it still stung him so that his senses cleared. “Are you hurt, Trav? What happened?”

  “That mule!”

  “What mule? Did it kick you?”

  “It was so full of blood!”

  Brett said: “Stand up! Get on your feet. You’ll feel better.” With Brett helping, Trav managed it. The world around him swayed and whirled and then steadied slowly into place again.

  “What happened?” he mumbled.

  “We licked them, sent them skedaddling!” Brett’s voice rang; he laughed aloud. “Th
ey ran like sheep!” he cried. “The cavalry’s chasing them now.”

  “Is it over?”

  “All over! We licked them, sent them off with their tails between their legs! You should have seen Tony, Trav! He was grand. And Julian, the cadets, they were the steadiest men on the field!”

  “I saw the blood come out of that mule, and it just scared the dog-water out of me.”

  Brett laughed aloud. “You weren’t scared! Why, even some of the regular Numbers at one gun got sick. The blood turned your stomach, that’s all.”

  “I didn’t feel scared,” Trav admitted. “But it certainly cleaned me out.”

  “You were excited! So was I!” Brett said honestly: “I made the worst mistake of anyone. I was Number Three on the howitzer over across the creek. My job was to puncture the powder cartridge with a priming wire—through the vent, you know. I got in too much of a hurry, stuck the primer in before the cartridge was in place, and the rammer bent the wire so I couldn’t get it out. That spiked the gun and put it out of action. Oh, everyone was excited! I saw more than one of them vomiting, too. That’s not being scared!”

  Trav grinned weakly. “Well, if that wasn’t being scared, I don’t ever want to be.”

  “You’re all right. Where are those wagons of yours? Everybody’s hungry!”

  “Why, they can’t be far off. I’ll ride back up the road, see if I can hurry them.” To have something definite to do was reassuring. “I left my horse somewhere.” His world was still a great confusion.

  “I’ll borrow a mount, go along with you,” Brett decided. “Wait till I speak to Major Randolph.”

  They had not half a mile to go before they met the wagons. Trav wished Brett to take charge of them, proposed himself to ride homeward; but Brett insisted that he return. “You’ve thanks coming to you,” he promised. “Colonel Hill will want to see you.”

  Brett was right in this prediction. When the train of wagons reached the earthworks, shouting men crowded around them; in a moment fires were going, and the fragrance of fat pork broiling in the flames began to fill the air. Trav saw in all these men and boys an equal exhilaration. Even Colonel Hill, when he came toward them with Major Randolph, showed the same unnatural stimulation. Was this what battle did to men? Did it make each individual a little more than his usual self, multiply and magnify him? It was as though all these warriors had drunk deep of some heady wine.

  “You’re responsible for this bounty?” Colonel Hill demanded. “Why, Mr. Currain, this is better than another victory! You understand soldiering, sir.”

  Trav grinned. “I’m afraid not, Colonel. I haven’t the stomach for it. Sight of blood—even a mule’s blood—sickened me.”

  “Pah! That can happen to anyone! It takes boys with no imagination to do the fighting—did you see how gallantly my cadets handled themselves today, sir?—but older men like you and me are needed to lead and to feed them. The South needs men like you. Colonel Magruder will make a place for you as commissary—Mr. Vaughan is acting for him temporarily—if you’re at liberty to serve.”

  “I’ll have to make some arrangements first, sir,” Trav confessed. “But—I doubt my own fitness. I lost my senses so completely I don’t know what happened, even now.”

  The Colonel’s eyes lighted. “Ah, it was a day of glory, sir! Yes, two days of glory, Saturday and again today. Twice Saturday we chased the Yankees across New Market Bridge, and now Captain Douthatt and his dragoons are chivvying them along the same course! Every man on the field today bore himself like a hero of legend, Mr. Currain! Major Randolph and his guns—” He pointed, and Trav saw the Major and Brett talking quietly together a little way off, thought Major Randolph alone among all these men here seemed calm and normal. “I tell you, Mr. Currain, as an artillerist, Major Randolph has no superior in any army in the world!” Trav thought with faint amusement that the Colonel in this hour of triumph was taking in a good deal of territory! “My field officers, my captains—By the way, Mr. Currain, Captain Currain and his Martinston men especially distinguished themselves. When Captain Bridges was ordered to retake our advanced position he was so excited that he forgot to tell his men to follow him, ran forward alone! Captain Currain saw the situation and led his own men forward, and Captain Bridges’s company went shoulder to shoulder with them! Ah, sir, it was glorious! The Yankees were five times our numbers, and we’ve chased them for miles!”

  Trav nodded. “That’s fine, sir.” He asked: “Were there many—hurt?”

  “One of our fine boys, Henry Wyatt, yes. I fear for him. A few others were lightly wounded.” His voice rang. “But the fields yonder are littered with Yankee dead! They must have lost three or four hundred men!” He laughed dryly. “I can’t place their losses lower without accusing them of a degree of cowardice disgraceful even in a Yankee! For they were five to our one, Mr. Currain! Five to our one! Yes, in fact the odds were nearer ten to one, since not five hundred of our men even fired their pieces.”

  He was willing to talk endlessly. Trav had never seen him so vocal. The little man seemed taller than usual, as though inches had been added to his stature in this hour. Then Colonel Magruder appeared from the church and gave a dispatch to a rider who galloped away; and Magruder too, when he heard what Trav had done, was grateful. Trav was amused by the splendor of the other’s uniform and by the Colonel’s childish lisp, incongruous in such a gorgeous figure; nevertheless these profuse acknowledgments impressed him. Clearly, within this business of war, to supply the men was a task worth doing. Before he went to Richmond for Burr’s wedding he had put affairs at Great Oak in such order that he could if he were needed be absent for a while.

  21

  June, 1861

  FOR the four years after Sumter, the whole business of the South was war; but to each individual war wore a different aspect. To Vesta Dewain, its onset was a spur, an urgent warning: “Hurry, hurry, hurry! Hurry before it is too late!” She was twenty years old, and she had known Tommy Cloyd through most of her childhood at the Plains; but not till a year or two ago had she begun to see in him something more than a nice, awkward, stammering boy. Since then she had come to be sure that she loved him and that he loved her, and to assume that time would in some beautiful fashion presently bring them close to each other and that they would cleave together forever.

  But now with the sudden roll of drums there was no more time. When Sumter fell, Vesta and Burr were alone in the house on Fifth Street, Cinda and Brett in South Carolina. Vesta wished her mother and father were here; and Burr’s happiness with Barbara made her long for Tommy. She wrote him, not to say any of the things she wished to say but only because to write him somehow eased her loneliness; but before her letter had time to reach him, one from him came to her. He said his company would soon reach Richmond as a part of Colonel Gregg’s regiment, and a week before Cinda and Brett returned from the Plains he arrived.

  Vesta was one among hundreds of pretty girls at the station eager to welcome these valiant boys. Had not some of them been among the heroes in the bloodless victory at Sumter! Oh, war was glorious and beautiful and fine! Vesta caught the infection, she cheered and sang with the rest; but while she lent herself to the smiling confusion of that happy welcoming, her eyes sought Tommy everywhere.

  When ranks were formed she discovered him, stiff and straight, visibly gulping with excitement while he awaited the command to march; and through brimming, laughing eyes, she saw his Adam’s apple pump nervously up and down, and knew how he must be trembling, and loved him because he was so young and so anxious to look every inch a soldier. She tried to come near him, and when a moving file blocked her way she called: “Tommy! Tommy! Oh, Tommy Cloyd!” He did not turn his head; but she saw his ears red with pleasure, so she knew he had heard. Then the column began to move, small boys tramping proudly beside the soldiers in the dusty street, pretty girls with a skip and a run to keep the pace scurrying along the sidewalks. Vesta saw Dolly, on the arm of a tall young officer, watching the regiment pas
s, and Dolly introduced her escort, Lieutenant something or other.

  “He’s in the army at Yorktown,” Dolly explained, with a flashing upward smile at the bedazzled youngster beside her. “They’re going to keep the Yankees shut up in Fortress Monroe till they all die of yellow fever or something.” Then, as Vesta tried to hurry on: “Don’t go, darling!”

  “I have to. I want to keep up. Tommy Cloyd’s with them.”

  “You know perfectly well he’ll come to call this evenin’,” Dolly argued; but Vesta laughed and scurried on.

  She kept up with Tommy’s company all the long way to Camp Pickens, and saw the men dismiss, and when Tommy was free she captured him and kissed him and felt his shy embarrassment and said in laughing reassurance:

  “Oh, Tommy! Everybody’s kissing everybody! Don’t be so bothered! Tommy, can you come right away home to supper?”

  He could, and they set out together, Vesta’s hand through his arm, her heart full of happiness. She poured out many questions.

  “Was the trip hard?”

  “Why, I guess so. But everybody was too excited to mind. You know the way you feel when your foot goes to sleep! I felt like that all over. I was some excited, and some scared, too.”

  “Pooh! I bet you’re not scared!”

  “Yes’m! I guess most of us are. I guess that’s why everybody keeps saying how the Yankees won’t fight, and how quick we’ll be in Washington, and what we’ll do to old Abe Lincoln when we catch him.”

  “I bet you will, too. The Yankee papers say they’ll hang President Davis in Washington on the Fourth of July, but I’ll bet you’ll go and hang Lincoln instead.” She asked: “Is Rollin Lyle in your regiment?”

  “Yes, ma’am, in the Richland Rifles. His old company, most of them wouldn’t come, so he joined the Columbia company.”