House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  But even in that first glance she was sure of Dr. Hammond, he towered above the others so commandingly. Tall and broad shouldered, with a huge dark beard that rested on his chest, he stood facing them across the table where the hurt man lay.

  “Get that bandage off,” he said; and something strong and sure in his voice warmed Anne through and through. The bandage, darkly hideous, came away with little sticking sounds, and Dr. Hammond shifted a cigar from his hand to his mouth and turned back his cuffs over his coat sleeves and bent to inspect the swollen and discolored arm thus exposed. He took from a basin a wet cloth and mopped at the arm and the cloth slipped from his hand and fell to the floor. He picked it up and wetted it and squeezed it dry and scrubbed at the dried blood and pus around the wound and tossed the cloth into the basin again, and muttered something. He removed the cigar from his mouth and said curtly to the other men:

  “This should have been taken off on the battlefield. Wiseman is right: ‘Cut off the limb quickly, while the patient is heated and in mettle.’ If we did, we’d save half the men who die. Too late for this lad, I’m afraid. We’ll see.”

  The two men in frock coats nodded respectfully. Dr. Hammond replaced his cigar, opened a mahogany box on the table beside him, took out a slender knife, tried its edge on his thumb and then stropped it lightly on his palm. “Ready?” he asked.

  One of the other doctors said hurriedly: “Oh, just a minute.” He took needle and thread from the box in which instruments were kept, touched thumb and finger to his tongue, twisted the thread to a point, threaded the needle and thrust it in his lapel to be in readiness. Then he picked up a hooked steel instrument and a length of string. Dr. Hammond nodded and lifted that dark arm that no longer looked like an arm at all and with a keen blade drew a circle clear around it, near the shoulder.

  Anne saw the quick oozing blood, and then a spurt, and then the doctor was busy with that length of string, tying knots. She tried to look away and could not. The grate of the saw seemed to rip through her spine. When one of the men in shirt sleeves threw the severed arm aside, she saw it fall upon a heap of other arms and legs in a corner of the room, a heap out of which drained an almost colorless liquid streaked with pink, spreading across the floor.

  A moment later Dr. Hammond wiped his hands on a towel already soiled and turned away. “You gentlemen can stitch the flap,” he said, and relighted his half-smoked cigar and came toward the door where Anne and Cinda stood. He saw them and stopped in surprise.

  “Well, ladies, what is it?” His voice was crisp, impatient.

  Through the now open door, Anne could see more clearly; and she felt her knees give way . . . and then she was lying on the floor, and Aunt Cinda was fanning her, and Dr. Hammond’s voice was fading into distance, to the beat of his departing footsteps. She tried to sit up, and with Aunt Cinda’s help she managed it, and asked a question, and Aunt Cinda said wearily:

  “Well—we may as well go home.”

  Anne, once on her feet, was able to walk. Aunt Cinda found the room where they had discarded their bonnets. In the open air Anne’s senses returned, and she began to shiver, and she whispered: “Oh Aunt Cinda, wasn’t it terrible?”

  “I shouldn’t have taken you. Yes, it’s terrible.” Cinda’s voice was remote and calm.

  “I should think they could at least keep things clean!”

  “Clean?” Cinda looked at her in honest surprise. “Why—I’ve never seen an operating room as clean as that, Honey. Compared with that, our hospitals are—pig pens! They didn’t even have any flies there!” Anne felt ridiculously young and ignorant; and Cinda said gravely: “Cutting people to bits isn’t clean work, you know, Anne.”

  “But all those horrible—arms and legs—on the floor!”

  Cinda said drily: “They had chloroform. I’ve seen surgeons doing amputations on men who screamed and fought and had to be tied down—and other hurt men lying in the same room, listening and watching while they waited their turn.”

  Anne shivered piteously. “Did you find out where Julian is?”

  Cinda shook her head. “No. Mr. Gilby had already seen Doctor Hammond. The doctor is too busy now, with so many men here from the last battle. He can’t even try to help us.”

  “So we have to wait?”

  “Yes, wait,” Cinda wearily agreed.

  They had reached Washington on the twenty-sixth of August. It was a month lacking only five days before their waiting ended. To receive the terrible flood of wounded from the second battle at Manassas—Second Bull Run, Mr. Gilby called it—and then from the battle on the hill between Antietam Creek and the Potomac, the Washington hospitals had been cleared. Convalescents were sent north to other cities, and patients who could be moved were shifted to make room for those in greater need. Under the pressure of the times, registrations were neglected, records vanished; and it was only after days of tireless inquiry that Mr. Gilby traced Julian. He heard, late one Saturday night, that some Confederate wounded had been put into a warehouse in Georgetown. Since other such hopes had proved groundless, he said nothing to Cinda, but drove to Georgetown to see if Julian were there. Before he came home, the household had retired; but at breakfast he told Cinda that Julian was found, and at once they went off to Georgetown together.

  Anne would have gone, but Mr. Gilby said there were sights she should not see, and Mrs. Gilby stayed at home with her. At dinner time Mr. Gilby returned alone; and he was in a flurry of exhaustion, flinging up his hands in despair. To Anne’s eager questions he said wearily: “Julian? Oh yes, he’s right enough, glad to see his Mama. He’d begun to think she was never coming. She stayed with him, wouldn’t leave him, says she won’t leave him there. It’s a filthy place, damp, full of stinks, full of vermin, food miserable; and it seems I’m to get him out of there.” He laughed helplessly. “Mrs. Dewain knows her mind, Miss Anne; but untangling Washington red tape is hard enough on week days, let alone Sundays.” He was under Cinda’s orders to take back clean sheets, blankets, a mattress, a hamper of food. “And she swears she’ll stay with Julian till she can bring him here.”

  “Well, why not?” Mrs. Gilby cried. “I think that’s sensible.”

  “Why not?” He laughed helplessly. “Oh, Dr. Hammond’s willing enough. He gave me permission as soon as I finally found him. But after all, Julian’s a prisoner.” He looked at Anne. “It seems your Government has been pretty severe with some of General Pope’s officers, in retaliation for one of Pope’s proclamations. The windbag! I’m glad Lee whipped him! But at any rate, Provost Marshal Doster says Stanton’s orders are to accept no parole, and Julian can’t be released without one. I’m going to find Dr. Hammond again as soon as I’ve had a bite, and see if he can do anything.”

  Mrs. Gilby packed the things Cinda wanted and he loaded them into the carriage and set off. At dusk they heard the carriage at the door, and Anne ran to the window to look out; and she cried: “Oh, Mrs. Gilby, they’ve brought him! They’ve brought him!” She hurried to fling wide the door, and saw Cinda and Mr. Gilby and the strapping Negro coachman supporting between them—someone Anne was sure she had never seen before. This was not Julian! This was a tall, thin, pale man with a thin beard of a straw-red color. He had only one leg, and that hung as limp as a rope; and his garments were rags and he was hatless, his hair hanging to his shoulders.

  But when they carried him up the steps, the light from the gas chandelier fell on his face and she saw his lips part in a smile and he said in a hoarse, weak voice: “Howdy, Miss Anne. Mama said you were here.”

  So this was Julian after all! Anne’s eyes flooded, and she could see no more; but Julian seemed to sag, and the big Negro picked him up in tender arms and asked Mrs. Gilby: “Where you gwine put him, ma’am?”

  Julian was borne away upstairs, and Cinda and Mrs. Gilby and all the household for an hour were busy in his service; but Anne stayed with Mr. Gilby. He told her in a chuckling triumph: “I found Doctor Hammond. He soon settled it, ordered Julian moved here in my
custody. I thought Stanton might find out he was here and have him arrested; but Dr. Hammond said Stanton would never learn where Julian was from him, and if I let the cat out of the bag I’d be responsible! So! Now we’ll soon have the youngster well again.”

  Julian in the days that followed came quickly back to some measure of strength. Before Anne saw him a second time, that absurd thin beard was shaved off and his hair cut to a proper length; and clean, in a clean bed, he seemed to gain by the hour. Cinda smilingly declared she would never have known him. “I declare, Anne, he’s grown at least three inches since May!” she cried proudly. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Julian laughed and said: “Why, I had to do something to kill time, Mama. There was nothing to do but lie abed. Besides, with only one leg I’m going to need a long one!”

  Anne saw Cinda’s lips white. “Of course. That’s sensible,” she agreed; but her voice shook, and he said in sternly tender warning:

  “Don’t cry over me, Mama.”

  “No, darling.”

  “I’ll be as good with one leg as with two, as soon as I learn how to use crutches.”

  “Of course! I’ll get you some.”

  He laughed. “We had a song in the hospital, to keep us from feeling sorry for ourselves.” And he sang a lively jig:

  “ ‘Felix was you drunk?

  ‘Felix was you mad?

  ‘What did you do

  ‘With the leg that you had?’ ”

  Then, seeing his mother’s eyes fill, he said apologetically: “I guess it wasn’t much of a song, but it cheered us up. You know, right at first.”

  Anne cried: “I think it’s a beautiful song! Teach me all of it, will you, Julian?”

  “I certainly will. Come on!” He began to sing again, repeating that verse. Cinda rose, her face convulsed; but they looked at her with pleading in their eyes, and sang in defiant chorus:

  “ ‘What did you do

  ‘With the leg that you had?’ ”

  Cinda stamped her foot, her tears suddenly streaming. “Oh you idiots!” Then, smiling through tears: “Darlings!” She almost ran from the room. Anne wished to follow her, but Julian caught Anne’s hand.

  “No! Second verse! She’ll be all right. Sing!”

  So they sang till they laughed till they cried, and when Cinda returned they taught her that song together.

  Julian was eager to be out of doors. Fine days, he and Anne spent together in the garden behind the house; and as he became used to his crutches they went farther afield. They saw the unfinished Capitol, and the shabby mansion set in unkempt grounds where the President lived and where the air was hideous with a sickening odor that came from decaying refuse in a near-by ditch; and they saw the Monument that looked in its uncompleted state like a factory chimney with the top broken off. No one challenged them. Legless men were not rare in Washington. This tall boy and the lovely girl beside him attracted many glances, not because he was crippled, but because there was the bright beauty of youth upon them both. Mr. Gilby somehow acquired for Julian a faded Confederate uniform, and Julian wore it without insignia; and there were so many paroled Confederates in Washington that he went unhindered. One day they had their daguerreotypes taken by Mr. Whitehurst; once Julian bought Anne a little flower pin at Mr. Hood’s jewelry store.

  In these happy hours, Anne forgot to wonder how soon they could depart, but she knew that Cinda was trying to secure the necessary permission. Then one day when Cinda returned to the house after a morning’s absence, Anne saw in her eyes some profound emotion. She sprang to the older woman’s side.

  “Aunt Cinda? What is it?”

  “Why—we’re going home.” Cinda spoke in a hushed voice, like a whisper.

  “Really, Aunt Cinda?” Anne was breathless with delight; and Julian struggled up from his chair.

  Cinda nodded. “Yes. We’ll get our passes this afternoon, leave tomorrow.”

  Julian cried: “Grand, Mama! Grand! How did you do it? Did you have any trouble?”

  Cinda nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, a great deal of trouble. But it’s ended now.” She spoke like a person asleep, and she opened her hand and extended it to them. A rectangular white card lay in her palm. They peered at it, their heads together. Anne saw a few lines written in a small neat script, and Julian read the signature aloud.

  “‘A. Lincoln’?” His tone was a question, and Cinda nodded again, in that strange abstraction, and Julian asked: “Mama, did you see him?”

  “Yes,” said Cinda. “Yes. I saw Abraham Lincoln.” She turned away, holding the card between her two hands, and walked quietly along the hall and up the stairs.

  19

  August-October, 1862.

  THE Howitzers left Richmond on the twenty-sixth of August. Brett had no word from Cinda. He wrote Vesta at the Plains that her mother was gone to Washington, and he asked Tilda to stop in as often as possible at Fifth Street, where Mrs. Currain, alone with the servants, was happily content; but there was no more he could do.

  Four or five days of marching brought the Howitzers to Rapidan Station, where they heard the news of Lee’s great victory at Manassas. On the fourth of September, pushing on toward the Potomac, they camped within two or three miles of that battlefield, and Brett and some others rode over to see the terrain. Brett would all his life regret having done this. The Yankee dead had lain unburied for days under the broiling sun, and the swollen, bursting bodies, covered with maggots, were sometimes so many that from a distance the ground seemed solidly carpeted with blue uniforms. The Confederates had buried their own dead and collected their wounded; but since the Confederate surgeons had inadequate facilities and insufficient medical supplies even for their own men, hundreds of wounded Federals still lay where they had fallen. An ambulance train sent from Washington was just beginning to collect those Northern wounded who had survived four or five days of hunger and thirst and pain.

  Sunday at dusk the Howitzers moved into Maryland. They crossed the Potomac at White’s Ford. The water was sometimes more than belly deep for the horses, but a sandy island in midstream gave a chance to halt and rest. Before Brett reached the farther shore night had fallen; but a fine moon almost at the full shone across the water and silhouetted the dark figures of men and horses and woke reflected gleams from gun barrels and from the metal in harness or bridle. Brett paused to watch and to listen to the shouts and curses of the drivers, the splash of plunging horses, the clank and rattle of accouterments.

  While he waited, he heard his name called, and answered, and Faunt rode up from the water’s edge to join him; so Brett had his first news of Anne and Cinda. “We saw them halted by a Yankee picket,” Faunt said. “And one of our men who lives in Alexandria slipped into town last Sunday to see his family and brought word that they stayed a day or two at Dr. Mason’s house there, and then went on to Washington.”

  Faunt and Brett had only a few minutes together. Stuart had crossed into Maryland at this same ford two days before; but Faunt, weakened by a severe attack of dysentery, had stayed two days in Leesburg to recruit his strength. He spoke of that great victory at Manassas.

  “I rode over the battlefield,” Brett told him. “It was horrible. The Yankees hadn’t been buried. You could smell them for miles.”

  Faunt laughed shortly. “Remember what Catherine de Medici says in that book by Dumas? ‘A dead enemy always smells sweet!’ ”

  Brett looked at the other in the moonlight. “I haven’t read much Dumas.” His tone must have betrayed his distaste, for Faunt said a curt good-by and rode away.

  In Frederick, two or three days later, Brett saw Burr for a heartening hour, and heard the story of the ball which Stuart and von Borcke had organized Monday night at the Academy at Urbana. “When the fun was at its peak,” Burr explained, “the Yankees attacked our pickets and the officers had to leave their pretty partners and gallop off and take a hand. But after the Yankees were driven away, they went back and danced till daylight. Then the ambulances came along and turned
the Academy into a hospital, and the young ladies in their party dresses took care of our wounded. That’s quite a mixture of fun and fighting, Papa.”

  Brett asked whether many Marylanders were enlisting to fight with the Confederates. “I expect that’s one of the things Lee hoped for,” he suggested.

  “They were certainly glad to see us here in Frederick,” Burr said. “But I don’t think very many have enlisted. No.”

  From Frederick the Howitzers toiled up the pass across South Mountain, the horses straining with cracking sinews as they breasted the steep grade; then with wheels braked hard they came briskly down to Hagerstown. Thence new orders sent them back across the Potomac at Williamsport and so to Shepherdstown. They lay idle there during the bitter day of fighting at Sharpsburg, and they heard there of Jackson’s fine capture of Harper’s Ferry. Three or four days later, temporarily under Stuart’s command, they crossed into Maryland again to fight a skirmish near Williamsport; but by that time Lee had completed his withdrawal into Virginia, and McClellan did not pursue.

  A week after Sharpsburg, the Howitzers were in camp two miles from Martinsburg when at dusk Brett saw a man on a great black horse accompanied by a gigantic Negro passing along the road toward town. He recognized Trav, and at his shout Trav swung Nig that way and dismounted and the two men clasped hands.

  Trav had intended to push on to Martinsburg. “I’m told General Longstreet is there,” he explained. “But I’ll spread my bed near yours tonight and go on tomorrow.” It was hours before they slept. Big Mill somehow found a chicken for their supper, and they ate and drank and talked; but most of all they talked. Brett was hungry for any word of Cinda and of Julian; but Trav could tell him little except that Cinda and Anne were at Mr. Gilby’s in Washington.