Andersonville

by MacKinlay Kantor

  Another letter, later. Your box arrived on a Saturday in fine order. Only the peaches were broken, and leaking rum along the way, no doubt to the satisfaction of sundry baggage-handlers. Nevertheless I salvaged them with content, and rinsed off the glass and mildew. Tell our loyal Naomi that her tin of Federal Cake made many mouths water and many hearts beat high. The sugar itself would have been a treat, since recently that commodity was lacking in our messes—why, I know not. Tell Naomi that henceforth, however, it must be dubbed Confederate Cake. Come evening, a few of the elect assembled in my narrow quarters to taste and to enjoy: those gentlemen around me with chicken-guts on their sleeves. Lucy will shrink, but that is merely soldier slang for the braid we officers wear. The redoubtable Lt. Elkins was in attendance. I must say, he is a saint as to good humor, never complaining, and always ready to crack a joke in his peculiar voice. It has come to my attention that the men respect him, and find comfort and perhaps inspiration in his dry sallies. . . .

  Another letter. Elkins is a remarkably fine horseman, at least for the demands of a martial life. He is not spectacular in the saddle, he does not cut a fine figure, because of his odd posture; but he can take a horse anywhere. After our arduous traverses of the past week, several officers were complaining of saddle boils, chafing and the like. Including The Undersigned. Rob Lamar should be with us—there is a Centaur for you! But I must add that the un-Centaur-like Harry Elkins had no complaint of mayhem at the hands of a horse, and was fresh as the proverbial daisy. . . .

  Another. It was our baptism of such concentrated fire. They were fairly focal upon us. With all that smoke and banging and—I regret to state—the sight of blood round about, many in the company might have felt like taking French Leave. It seems in battle that sometimes there is a concentrated if brief period of silence—a vacation between the cannonading and musketry. In such a holiday of silence there spoke the easily recognizable accents of one Harry Elkins. He was remarking with a degree of pain that he wished the Yanks would cease throwing stones at us. In fact, dear parents and Lucy, what he said was not stones but another equally commonplace commodity in a stableyard where animals have been segregated for some time. You should have heard the men roar with laughter. It made matters indubitably easier for all concerned. . . .

  ...I have had to lecture Harry severely about exposing himself to enemy fire. He looked contrite, but finally faltered out with a statement that he was sure he was constantly more scairt than anyone else in the Confederate States Army, and that if he didn’t consciously ignore the bullets snapping about him he might be guilty of some unfathomable act of cowardice. Furthermore, his opinion was that since a rank of infantrymen are compelled to stand up and attempt an advance in the face of withering fire, it behooves their officers to be nonchalant, even to the point of suicide, in disclaiming any attitude which might suggest that they were not invulnerable to minié balls. I wonder if there is wisdom here?? Certainly food for thought. . . .

  ...He is so kind hearted. I feel that he is like a brother, now that Moses is no more, and Badge far away. Sunday night we had a fine talk by the fire. Harry told me of his ambitions as a physician and surgeon. Strangely he was instigated in these ambitions by the example of a relative who possessed experience and technical skill, but no Christian heart and soul. Harry declares that as a youth he swore that, since this relative was a bad doctor, he should grow up to be a good doctor. There is a strange and valuable salt flavoring his conversation; I enjoy it heartily. When this war is over we shall all be the patients, when necessary, of Doctor Harry Elkins. He says that he will give me physic without charge! . . .

  ...My own wound is a bagatelle: a mere splinter near the left elbow, which made me bleed pints and causes some pain, but will not disqualify me for full duty after a fortnight or so. But the thought of Harry occupies more attention. We are eager for word of him, and nothing is heard. His hemorrhage was severe: he was struck in the neck, at the base of his head, in the shoulder and chest. He kept insisting that no one should carry him to the rear; he was quite comfortable; no one must leave the firing line on his account. The last time I spoke to him he murmured something about, Give those Yanks a belting for me. They broke my specs. . . .

  Harrell Elkins heard his own voice saying those words, now, as he sought sleep in Sutherland Claffey’s old room. They had held that deep love which is disassociated from sex because of the nature of the lovers: they are men made for women, never men made for men. Abhorrent as decay itself was the notion that ever either of them could have loved physically one of his own fashioning, in intimacy. Elkins hoped wistfully that after long search he might find a woman who would (according to the Scriptural phrase he learned early) cleave unto him. The affection between himself and Suth was an attraction of opposites, solidified by peril into a union which only those who’d functioned together in equal peril might ever know.

  Suth had known many women, although he was too much the well-taught young gentleman to discuss them. He was handsome, devoted to any phase of the patriotic career to which he had dedicated himself, pleased by his own accomplishments, a bit too vain for popular taste until the close song of bullets blew the swelling from his head. Fear of the death which was to come made him admirable at last, and so he remained to the end. In passing Sutherland Claffey was bewailed by his superior officers, envied in retrospect by subordinates, mourned by his men. He became the complete effigic pattern of a Crusader on a tombstone. So Harry Elkins thought of him now, resting in that sacred bed.

  From the first moment of contact, from Lucy’s primary flutter in the wash house in front of dyeing-kettles, and from Ira’s handclasp and gentle knowing manner, and from the worshipful agony they shared as they sipped from silver cups— From these and subsequent sharings through the evening hours, Harry Elkins knew the Claffeys, father and daughter, as new dignities and beauties to be respected. In no degree could he have considered Lucy as a love for himself. He dared not look at her romantically (not yet) even if he had admitted for an instant that he longed to. She belonged in sanctified association with a dead lover, with her brothers’ memory, and with a father who was so obviously a man above most men, and with a mother who suffered as a casualty of the conflict.

  He thought, It was so good of them to take me in. He thought, It was more than good of them to accept me as I scarce dared wish I might be accepted. I am very fortunate. His twenty-five-year-old body (not yet twenty-six, despite the scrubby hair and barren scalp and the facial lines) relaxed in a baby’s contentment. His arms slid up across the pillow, his big fists were bent loosely, his fingers curved in rest. He slept, but feeling in the last coverts of awareness that some benevolence would be offered him.

  In the middle of the night, Lucy Claffey walked and rolled once more in that pagan dream wherein violets grew, laughing children tumbled, the man come bare and heartily to claim her, to bear her down among flowers while distant flutes were playing and the fallow deer of legend were running past. The man was Harrell Elkins. She roused herself from this sinful illusion with strength and in decided horror. Never again, dear Lord, never, never, she prayed. Oh, that I could be so carnal. Desperately she flung out her hand and found the Shorter Catechism of her childhood, a thin brown tiny volume on the round table by her bed. What is forbidden in the seventh commandment? The seventh commandment forbiddeth all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions. She held it as a talisman until she slept again deeply and her limp fingers fell away from the book. She was inordinately silent at the breakfast table, and her father wondered about it to no avail. He had been up early, showing Cousin Harry about the place.

  Lucy avoided being left in the room alone with Harrell Elkins; that did not take much managing, since he was so shy of her. Soon after they had breakfasted he asked for his horse, and little Buncombe led the animal proudly to the front. Cousin Harry thanked them for their hospitality, and rode toward the new stockade. It seemed that Ira Claffey had invited him to be their gue
st while he proceeded on duty in the region, and Harry accepted willingly. Lucy told herself that she did not approve of the invitation, but Suthy would have wished it, so she must say nothing. Never again, she swore, would she dream such a dream.

  IX

  Eben Dolliver shouted at the guard in thickening darkness. What in thunder did you lam me for? Like to busted my head—

  The guard called across the heads and shoulders of other prisoners jammed fast. I’ll bust it sure enough if you don’t shush.

  I wasn’t talking—

  Somebody back in that corner of the car was talking. You heard me order you to cease.

  You like to busted my head, repeated Eben in fury.

  Again the guard drove his musket butt toward the obscure corner of the box car, but men squatted and ducked and the butt thudded against the wooden side. Keep quiet, Ebe, a boy whispered. He’s mad. You’ll but make him crosser.

  The guard withdrew his weapon and again took up a station beside the closed door, speaking with fervor to a fellow guard about what he would do if the prisoners didn’t shut up. The prisoners were talking about exchange, the all important subject, but the young guard believed that they shouldn’t talk about exchange or anything else. He had been commanded to maintain order in the box car, and to his nervous taste maintaining order was synonymous with maintaining absolute silence. He was a frightened, fat, stupid youth, trembling at being shut into this small space with dozens of savage Yankees. No telling when they might spring at you, seize your musket, perhaps twist your arms and legs out of their sockets.

  Certain of the prisoners were considering that very course. Sounds resolved into a disordered fluttering mutter, submerged by coughing, nose-blowing, a continual crunch of timbers as the car jerked into its couplings and again tried to pull loose from them, a chorus of clanking metal underneath. Woodsmoke from the antique engine drifted along the train’s top and found its way through every aperture. People were half gagged by smoke, including the guards.

  Pushed into a forward corner by weight of the mass on every downgrade, Eben Dolliver and his friends made queer plans and then abandoned them. How many’s in here? I was third in, I watched the door and counted: we got forty-seven. With the guards? No, there’s either four or five guards extra; I couldn’t make out exactly. That makes fifty-one or fifty-two in all.

  What I thought was we could pass the word around and have a signal. Somebody yell a signal. Then all at once we could climb on the guards and get their guns. Got enough to do it, weak as we are. Both doors locked on the outside. Couldn’t get them open. We could wait, Charley. They’re bound to open them in time. Then we’d have four or five muskets, and maybe even some knives or bayonets— Have they got bayonets on? One has. I seen him when he crawled in. Maybe we could bust out.

  Eben Dolliver whispered, And get mowed down. They always got troops standing by with rifles ready-aimed, the second they sling the doors open. Wouldn’t have a prayer.

  Guess you’re right. Well, it’s better than Belle Isle. Hain’t you droll? Least we could breathe on the Island. Can’t breathe in here. After while maybe they’ll stop, and march us out in the woods like they done the other nights.

  The engine struggled slowly on a long upgrade. The load of smelly people fell gradually away from the front end of the car, displaced by the pull of gravity, and a mingling of pleas and curses and bitter chuckling rose from the herd now squeezed toward the rear. Members of the Moon Hotel mess dug their fingers into cracks and around interior braces of the forward end. Thus they clung in comparative ease for a time. Two of them found room enough to sit down.

  Get stepped on down there, Kirke.

  Don’t care if I do. Good to stretch my limbs out. Gad.

  They called themselves the Moon Hotel mess after a hotel conducted in Iowa by the father of one of the members. Nine in all had messed together on the Island: three were Iowans, one was from Indiana, one from eastern Kentucky, the rest from Michigan. Andrew Kirke had enlivened earlier days of starvation with detailed descriptions of the table set by his father. That was when they were in a primary stage of hunger, fascinated unduly by any consideration of food. As they dried and thinned (one died) on the limited diet of the Belle Isle winter, they found themselves losing interest in such fragrant illusions. No longer did they prompt Andrew to describe black pepper scattered on the surface of prairie chicken gravy. His favorite tale had concerned a political dinner during 1860, when plank tables were erected under cottonwoods in front of the Moon Hotel, and guests came all the way from Fort Dodge to join in the rally and to partake of Mr. Kirke’s fare. Fried prairie chicken, two roast pigs, venison, platters of grilled pike; boiled potatoes, greens, hominy, green corn . . . Andrew had been fond of going into precious detail concerning the gravy. He said it had a brown film over the top as it cooled, being well thickened with flour, but when you put the spoon down through it the steam came drifting out, and the skin of the gravy was broken, and hotter softer gravy was paler underneath. Also Andy had a great deal to say about crab-apple pickles, and sauerkraut made by the local German saloon-keeper. Andrew was very fond of crab-apple pickles and plum butter; he said that he dreamed often of these luxuries. By February the dreams had fallen away, they no longer provoked in taunting routine, they no longer comforted in sleep as a promise of what might be if ever the men got themselves exchanged. (They did not refer to exchange in the cynical sense, but in the hopeful one.) Rarely did the fancies of food recur; then they came sharp and baking and quick, and left the dreamer staggering.

  The Moon Hotel mess promulgated certain rules; any person not conforming would be banished. Everybody had to take exercise, they had to walk about, it would help to keep their bodies and brains alert. They must boil every spoonful of water they drank. A man must keep himself as free from vermin as circumstances would permit. A lane lined by high boards ran from the Belle Isle pen down to waters of the James; at night this lane was closed by a high gate, but the gate was reopened each morning. Guards were on duty at the river’s edge: no chance for a prisoner to swim away, even if he felt stout and bold enough to try it. But he could wash, and every member of the Moon Hotel mess must wash daily. Above all no despondent conversation was permitted. Members should talk, laugh, jest openly about their situation. They had a debating society, although three or four of them did most of the talking. Andrew Kirke could sing Irish ballads, Ebe Dolliver sang like a minstrel, most of the others sang passably hymns or popular doggerel learned at school and singing school. They sang almost nightly, even on the evening after the morning when Sam Michols, Twentieth Michigan, was carried out dead. That night they sang, Rock of Ages, and, Glory, Glory Hallelujah. They considered it a direct result of their discipline that Sam was the only one they lost on the Island, and he had been feverish to begin with.

  Eben Dolliver referred to himself as middle-aged, meaning that he was the precise middle individual, in age, of the original nine. Four were older than he, four younger. Eben became twenty years old the month before he was captured in the Chattanooga campaign. He had marched four hundred miles with the Fifth Iowa, all the way from Memphis to Chattanooga, to take part in that fight, and it was hard lines to be captured in your first battle after such a wearing march. The Fifth Iowa had marched upwards of two thousand miles in two years; half the men of the regiment were already casualties; now they were serving under their third colonel. At Chattanooga they took to boats, and most of them had to find boats in the dark. They went floundering two-by-two on the edge of the Tennessee River, slipping in greasy wet places, barking their shins on stones they couldn’t see, when a calm voice spoke through the November night. The speaker was so close that Eben Dolliver could almost have reached out and touched him.

  Be prompt as you can, boys. There’s room for thirty in a boat.

  ...Who was that, talking there on the bank?

  Didn’t you know? Austin tolt me he was here, overseeing us.
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br />   No. It wasn’t Captain Byers—

  Not Captain Byers’s voice. Guess again.

  The colonel?

  Naw, naw, naw. Uncle Billy!

  Get along, now! You mean Uncle Billy himself?

  Sure enough.

  It made you feel better inside, turning with slowness on the broad black cool water, expecting to have Rebel pickets start poking holes through you every foot of the way— It made you feel better to know that General Bill Sherman was right there alongside, taking at the moment the same risk you were taking.

  Less than two days later, when the adjacent Army of the Cumberland ordered itself to take the top of Missionary Ridge after the commanders had only ordered it to take the bottom, Eben Dolliver was jumping over logs and rifle pits along with the rest of the Fifth Iowa. A lot of people started to scream warning ahead on the right—and there they were, seeming like more Secesh than Eben had ever seen at one time and in one place. They looked a lot meaner too. They were boiling and Rebel-yelling out of a tunnel which drilled the side of the mountain, and boiling up out of the railroad cut beside the tunnel. A few minutes later there was nothing to do but drop your gun and stick your hands up and waggle them desperately to attract attention so’s you wouldn’t get a hole through you. Looked like part of Company H was taken, and part of Company G, and some from A and B also. Only two or three fellows from C. Sixty-odd men gobbled by the Rebs in less time than a heifer’d take to switch her tail. And here they had thought they were winning a battle. Just went ahead too fast and too far. The Confederate artillery was already limbering up and streaking for the rear when they reached the artillery positions. Rebs marched them twenty-five miles that night to avoid their being freed by the Union advance. They were just about as dismal a gang of Hawkeyes as ever chewed biscuit.

  They were marched and shipped by way of Bristol, Virginia, denuded of most of their possessions by guards before they reached Bristol. Ebe Dolliver had no blanket with him at the moment of his capture, but he was wearing an overcoat, which he peeled off as bidden to do. A couple of days later he got even. The prisoners were being hustled through icy mountains, and Ebe Dolliver spied a guard who didn’t appear to be overly intelligent and who was wrapped in a crazy quilt. The quilt, a dirty one, was adorned with every color of the rainbow, but the material itself was tightly stitched, well stuffed, wearable. Hey, Johnny, what’d you say to selling your quilt for greenbacks? You can get another one from home. Yank, you all know we ain’t lowed to have greenbacks. Look, nice and green, and Dolliver displayed his roll. How many dollars you reckon you got there, Yank? Thirty-five.