My Heart Belongs in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

by Murray Pura

  “I’ll not be fighting just to win, Clarissa Avery Ross. I’ll be the officer you always wanted—the one leading his boys into battle to bring independence to every man and woman. Not just white Northerners or white Southerners.”

  “You’ll be battling your own people.”

  “My own people are the people who need freedom and the ones who are helping them to get it.”

  “The South says it’s fighting for freedom.”

  “White freedom. And white freedom to enslave others. You already know that’s not who I am. That’s why I became a conductor on the Underground Railroad.”

  “You used to say—when you first told me who the man under the hood really was—that if Southern troops captured you and realized who you were, they’d lynch you.”

  He shrugged. “They might. They’d see me as a traitor. Or they might not, if they knew the North would retaliate by hanging Rebel officers.”

  She sighed and reached out for his face. “I guess I can’t talk you out of this, can I?”

  “You’re the one who talked me into it.”

  “I don’t think Liberty needed much convincing. Kyle Forrester, yes. Not Liberty or Iain Kilgarlin.”

  “Am I still so many personalities to you?”

  “In a way, you are. I’m still trying to stuff all the parts of you into my one man and into my one head.”

  “If it helps … I’ll miss you terribly. Terribly.”

  He took her in his arms, the strong embrace filling her with a bright joy in the midst of a gloom that issued from her dark and dying heart. She grasped him as tightly as she could, as if she might be able to keep him in one place, keep him in Gettysburg, keep him in her house, the house she’d been raised in and where she’d dreamed a young woman’s dreams of falling in love. Don’t go, don’t go anywhere. You’ve done enough. You risked your life as a conductor on the Railroad—let others risk theirs now. Stay here, stay with me. Let prayer and preaching be your weapons, like the Kyle Forrester who told me that so many months ago.

  She broke off the embrace. “You … you didn’t say when you had to report for duty.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “Tell me.”

  “August.”

  “But … it’s the end of May now. That only leaves us two months: June and July.”

  “I’m aware of that. Clarissa, you know it could be worse. Far worse. I could be reporting to my unit in two weeks.”

  “So then why aren’t they making such a demand?”

  He shrugged. “I feel fit as a fiddle. But the army docs want to give it a little more time to make sure.”

  “I won’t argue with them.” She rubbed her hand over her face, bent her head, and closed her eyes. “I wish I could bring the 1861 Clarissa Avery back. I do want abolition and emancipation. And even though hardly anyone is fighting for that in 1862, maybe they will in 1863 or 1864, if this war goes blundering on. Something more than a union has to be worth the sacrifice of so many lives. The idea of liberty has to be more than a political statement. It has to be in the cities and towns and farms, It has to be in the neighborhood. It has to be next door.”

  “You’re talking a long way ahead when you say things like that. Many Northerners won’t accept that degree of freedom for slaves. The Union doesn’t consist solely of Quakers or Amish or operators on the Underground Railroad.”

  “I have to look ahead. If you’re going to go off to war and never come back, your life has to be worth it; what you die for has to be worth it. It has to be bigger than this conflict and this rebellion; it has to be something that matters to the whole world and the whole universe.”

  “Hey. Hey now. Calm down. You already have me six feet under. What’s gotten into you?”

  “Seeing you get shot, that’s what’s gotten into me. Most women don’t see those things. Only the nurses do. The others don’t even think of the blood and the broken bones and the gangrene. It’s flags and marching bands and handsome uniforms, so far as they’re concerned. I can’t help but think of what gunfire does to skin and bone, can I? The images never go away. No matter how much we talk it over or I pray about it, the daguerreotypes are always there, the photographic plates always in my head.”

  He gently folded her into his chest. “I’m sorry, Clarissa. I guess I’ll always be sorry for the pain the shooting has inflicted on both of us. Maybe I didn’t need to ambush the slave catchers that final time. Maybe I didn’t need to lag behind and fire two or three more shots. Maybe I was headstrong and careless and foolhardy. But I’m alive. You saved me. The doctor’s assistant saved me. God saved me. And either I get back to fighting my fight on the Railroad or I fight it in uniform, like my beautiful Clarissa Avery wanted me to do a long time ago. Whatever I do, I’m doing it for God and country and for those in chains. But most of all, I swear I can’t be strong if I’m not doing it for you. I can’t be happy and I can’t be strong.”

  “Oh Iain …”

  “I’m not saying that to please you or to make you say things to me you don’t want to say. It’s just true, that’s all. You mesmerize me. You enthrall me. You make me more than I have any right to be. You make me great. If I can’t fight for you, I can’t fight. That’s who I am. I’m not only the man you resurrected but the man you made all over again. I’m the sixth day of creation.”

  She had no idea why the tears began to cut down her face. “I know that. I know you’re different now. Some things are the same, but you’re a different man. It’s not my doing. God is the one who makes things new … not humans … not women … not even headstrong me.”

  “Not even headstrong you?”

  “Well, do you think you’re the only one with Gaelic inclinations in this courtship? The Ross family, we’re Scots.”

  “That explains a great deal, doesn’t it?”

  “It does explain a great deal. My fighting spirit, for one thing.”

  “And you love oatmeal.”

  “I do.” She did not want to lift her head from his chest. The sound of his heartbeat made her feel a special kind of strength she didn’t always have. Stay here, Iain, stay with me. But they were both fighters. “If you must go and strike a blow for freedom, who is this Scots girl to say no? This woman who is a conductor on the Underground Railroad? This redhead who would sooner have a good argument than a good dress or a good meal? This Yankee who wants abolition and emancipation more than she wants to draw another breath into her body? So I give you to the cause, sir. I give you up to God and my republic, and I pray you will give me a free country in return, free for all, not just a privileged few.”

  “I’ll do that. Before God and His Son, Jesus Christ, I swear I’ll do that.”

  “And I would like you to give me all the time you can spare while we’re still together, Liberty Iain Irish Kerry Kilgarlin. I feel like I’m just getting to know you and how all your many parts fit together. I need a few more weeks. I need what’s left of May, all of June, and whatever you can set apart for us in the months of July and August. I’ll make sure your uniform fits properly. I’ll take it in, bring it out. Sew on brass buttons. Iron your pants. Polish the boots Father crafts for you and make sure they are kind on your feet. Help you choose your horse, for a captain must have a horse. I’ll do anything to be with you another second or another minute. Do you understand that, sir?”

  “The sir does understand that. And does the miss know the sir feels exactly the same way about her as she does about him?”

  “The miss does. He made that plain long before today. Long before we rang in 1862. He made it plain at a rotted-out farmhouse in Chester County, Pennsylvania, when he took a knife to his hood just so he could kiss Clarissa Avery Ross’s crimson hair. She’ll never forget that moment. That’s when she understood she had brought the mighty Liberty to his knees and that love was in the air.”

  “A Yankee girl stole my heart.”

  “Yes she did, sir. Oh yes she did. And she intends to keep it.”

  July
<
br />   Round Top

  Gettysburg

  And she kept it by keeping Iain by her side as much as possible during the hot and humid summer days of southern Pennsylvania. They walked together, had picnics, enjoyed carriage rides, and she even watched him swim, fully clothed, in the waters of Rock Creek and Plum Run, though she did not join him, for such a thing could not be done without causing a scandal.

  “Oh, never mind the gossips,” Iain teased her at Plum Run. “Jump in, dress and bonnet and all. The water is wonderful.”

  “No thank you, sir.” She remained on the bank. “We already have one war going on. We don’t need another in Gettysburg.”

  “No one will notice.”

  “Ha. Every person in town will know an hour after I take the plunge.”

  “We could have a water fight.”

  “Quit tempting me, Iain Kerry Kilgarlin. I would like nothing better. And I’d beat you too.”

  “So, dive in and prove it.”

  “Will you leave off with your wickedness? I’m not coming in. However, I will take you up on horseback riding, and I’ll whip you at that.”

  He grinned and tossed water at her with a splash of his hand. Holding her parasol over her head as the July sun beat down, she made a face and stepped farther back.

  “I thought we already did the horseback riding,” he said.

  “That was while we were being shot at. I’d like to have a contest without half a dozen cutthroats on our tails.”

  “My new horse will leave you in the dust, Miss Ross.”

  “Don’t count on it, Mr. Kilgarlin.”

  They had selected a horse for Iain’s war service from one of the local farmers and breeders, a steed that was big and strong and a vivid black—like a glimmering midnight, she thought, and not like coal or tar or boot black—a fine seventeen-hands gelding they finally named Plum Run, after Iain’s favorite swimming hole. He had wanted to name the horse after her—Avery or Ross or Temper—the last suggestion had almost made her lose hers when he playfully insisted—but she finally drove the point home that she was not having a horse, any horse, ever, named after her.

  “Next, I suppose,” she had complained, “you will want to have a regimental mascot named after me—Clarissa or Avery or Missy—and it will be a dog or a mule.”

  “That’s a good idea,” he’d replied. “Thank you for suggesting it.”

  Her eyes had narrowed. “Honestly, dear boy, my only suggestion is you don’t name a dog or donkey or pony or cat, or anything in the animal kingdom, after me. If you do, believe me, you would be safer facing Stonewall Jackson and his brigade in battle than me.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Miss Ross.”

  “You do that, Mr. Kilgarlin.”

  They did have their horse race; they had several of them—usually doing a mile run along Taneytown Road, or on Emmitsburg, between the Codori farmhouse and the peach orchard a few hundred yards farther along—but Iain and Plum Run always got the better of her and her mare, North Star, though one Sunday afternoon she made sure Iain realized he had only beaten her by a neck.

  “And it’s just because your horse has a longer neck, that’s all,” she grumbled, her bound-up hair unraveling on both sides of her perspiring face. “You aren’t faster than us, just longer than us.”

  “I see.” Iain was leaning forward and patting Plum Run’s glistening neck. “Would you like to picnic?”

  “Well, that’s a grand idea, my love, but I wish you’d mentioned it back at the house. I don’t have any desire to go back and pack up a basket. I’d rather be out here in this glorious July weather with you … you and your long-necked gelding. Mind you, it is rather hot and humid, isn’t it?”

  “Follow me to some shade trees.”

  “Huh. You can follow me, sir. Or I can ride at your side.”

  “Let’s take the road past the wheat field and find us some shelter at the Round Tops.”

  “All right. There are a dozen trails up to the woods.”

  “Choose the one you like.”

  She did, riding past the ripening crop of wheat on their left and leading the way up the slope to Little Round Top and then, at the crest, picking her way down and up onto the higher hill, the big Round Top, her mare stepping over rocks and branches and scree. Iain and Clarissa reined in where there was a thick cluster of trees and flatter rocks to sit on. After dismounting, both horses having had a good drink below on the banks of Plum Run, Iain surprised her by tugging items out of his saddlebags, bags she supposed he had placed on his horse to get it used to military ones. He produced a large flask of lemonade, still cold since he had packed it in ice, a half dozen slices of smoked ham, a loaf of black bread, a small jar of pickles, a cup of butter—also cold—two slices of peach pie, and some fresh cucumbers, which he handed over to her along with a shaker of salt.

  “What do you think?” he asked. “Am I a wizard or not?”

  “Well, with my mother at your side, you certainly are.” They prayed, and she began to bite into one of the dark green cucumbers. “When did you find time to put all this together without my catching you at it?”

  “That wasn’t hard, Avery.” He often liked to use just her middle name. “You were bathing for over an hour before church.”

  “Oh, I was not.”

  “You were. So your mother and I assembled everything in a corner of the icebox, and just after lunch, when you’d disappeared for a second bath—”

  “I did not have a second bath, and you know it.”

  “—I got all of it into the saddlebags here, you none the wiser, and now, panem et circenses!”

  She laughed. “You and your Latin. And what does that mean?”

  “It means ‘bread and circuses.’ You know. We need food, and the things that make us happy, in order to stay happy.”

  “I see. And besides ham and butter and bread—and peach pie—and your horse—what makes you happy?”

  “You already know the answer to that,” Iain replied.

  “Do I?” She lifted one of her shoulders in a shrug. “Tell me anyways.”

  “I adore you. I cherish you.” He took the flask of lemonade from her hand. “Let’s tease less and compete less. At least today. At least right now.”

  She smiled. “All right.”

  “There wasn’t a Sunday when I was a seminarian that I didn’t run to church to be sure I could sit where I could see you without you noticing it.”

  “Oh.” She could feel some heat in her face. “I’ll be twenty-one this fall. You’d think I’d have gotten past blushing by now.”

  “When I began working with you on the Railroad, Avery, I thanked God. It was like He’d given me a dream. I enjoyed your strength, your bravery, your sharp wits, your faith. You became so much more than the pretty face at Christ’s Church. You were a woman of immense stature to me. Heroic. Beautiful. Unstoppable once you put your mind to something. You refused to let discouragement or cowardice in the door.”

  “Thank you.” She put a hand to her cheek. “But you really must stop this, my love. You are putting heat into me that is adding to the heat of this summer day and making the day quite impossible.”

  “I am so deeply in love with you, nothing else is important—food, sleep, the prospect of combat, picking up my seminary studies after the war—nothing.”

  She glanced and realized he had scarcely touched any of the picnic items from his saddlebags. “Iain, I love you too, but I don’t want to hold a scarecrow in my arms when we hug. Please eat something. I like picnicking with you, but not if I’m eating alone.”

  “The picnic will have to wait, sweet Avery.”

  “Oh, and for what?”

  “I have …” He stopped, then tried again. “I have a ring.”

  Clarissa’s mind emptied immediately. “What?”

  “I have a ring. A ring for you. If … if you want it.”

  She was sure her entire face had gone scarlet. “A ring?”

  “I’m not asking for
your hand. Well, yes, I am, but not for today or tomorrow. I spoke with your father. I advised him that I was not seeking a swift marriage and then an even swifter gallop off to war, a war from which I might not return, which would leave you a widow far too soon for your young age. I told him I only wished to say, with the ring, that I would come back, God willing, and make you my bride, if you wanted to be my bride, and he understood and said he felt that would be best.”

  Clarissa had a hard time finding her tongue. “You … you apparently had … a great deal to say … to say to my father … but what … what do you have to say to me?”

  “I don’t want to be forgotten.”

  “Oh Iain, I am never going to forget you.”

  “And I’m not asking you to pine away. You’re so young and brave and pretty. If I don’t return to Gettysburg, you move on and marry and raise a family here, far from the guns in Virginia.”

  “Please don’t talk like this.”

  “But, so long as I remain alive and intact and have my arms and legs and hands …”

  “You could lose all your limbs and I’d still want you, Iain Kilgarlin.”

  “… I want to give you a ring that’s a promise between us. That if I return … when I return … we’ll marry … marry and live together forever in some big old Gettysburg house, have a passel of kids, take care of your parents as they get older, take care of each other when we get wrinkled and gray …”

  “Iain.” Clarissa began to laugh, holding her hand to her mouth. “First you had me all nervous and blushing, and now you have me laughing. Wrinkled and gray? Honestly?”

  “Well, I do want to stay with you that long, Avery.”

  “I want to stay with you that long too, but you needn’t be so dramatic about what happens to us when we age. Can’t you make this moment a bit more romantic?”

  “All right. You’re blue sky. You’re sunrise. You’re stars and galaxies. You make every breath I take good. Every morning, every day, is better because you’re in it, because you’re in it and you love me, and it makes me feel like I’m sixteen or seventeen and so young and so excited and so wanting to ride away with you.”