Two Girls of Gettysburg

by Lisa Klein

  “We can’t take any wounded in,” said Margaret. “You’ll have to be on your way.”

  “I didn’ come for myself, ma’am,” he said.

  “Let’s at least get him some water and food,” I said, noticing how he swayed as he stood there.

  “First tell me, what is your business?” Margaret asked warily.

  “If it please y’all, I’m looking for the sister of Miz Rosanna Wilcox.”

  Margaret let out a cry and the poker clattered to the floor behind her.

  “Rosanna! You have news of Rosanna?” I said eagerly. But I didn’t want to hear it. It could not be good news, brought by this weary, injured Negro. “Don’t tell us she’s—”

  “Tell me,” Margaret said, trembling all over. “I am her sister.”

  “She’s a short ways off.” Thomas Banks nodded his head toward the road. “Comin’ across the fields was awful hard on her.”

  Margaret brushed by him and ran out into the darkness, shouting “Rosanna! Rosanna!”

  I helped Thomas Banks into a chair and poured him some water. He pointed to the door, as if urging me to go as well. A quick glance in his eyes and I knew he could be trusted, so I left him there and ran outside.

  Margaret was standing in the middle of Baltimore Pike, crying and holding up Rosanna, who could barely stand. Her head was wrapped in a bandage, but her familiar black hair sprung from beneath it in wild profusion.

  “My side! Oh, it hurts to breathe. Don’t … make me cry, too … dear sister!” Rosanna gasped, grimacing with pain.

  I ran up and seized Rosanna’s hand. “Is it you? You’re really here?” I said, choking back tears.

  “Yes, it’s me. I think. Lizzie? I don’t remember! My head.” She groaned and reached up to touch the bandage.

  “Hush now, Rosie, let’s get you inside and lying down,” said Margaret.

  “Oh, Lizzie, I’ve missed you so,” murmured Rosanna.

  Somehow Margaret and I managed to carry Rosanna up the stairs to her bedroom. We laid her on the quilt that I had smoothed only hours before. We undressed her and checked all her limbs, bathed her as best we could, trying not to touch the bruises. I saw that she wore John Wilcox’s wedding ring and a leaden heart around her neck. There was a small wound below her left breast.

  “What happened to you?” I kept asking, but Rosanna only shook her head.

  “Let her rest now; we’ll learn everything later,” said Margaret gently, drawing a clean nightgown over Rosanna’s head.

  But Rosanna seemed worried about Thomas Banks, and only when Margaret promised she would take care of him did she fall asleep. I confess I wasn’t much help as Margaret bathed and wrapped the Negro’s wounded arm. He explained that he had been John Wilcox’s valet but was now a free man. Margaret looked surprised but did not question him further. I went back upstairs, climbed on the bed next to my cousin, and gazed at her familiar features: the full, red lips, now cracked and sunburned, the arched brows over her closed eyes. I wanted to know everything she had been through. I held her hand, rough-skinned and brown, and touched her cheek, then her unruly black hair. Why was she in Gettysburg?

  I had so many questions, but what did the answers matter? My cousin Rosanna was alive, and she had finally come home.

  Rosanna

  Chapter 46

  Monday, July 6, 1863

  How strange it was to wake up this morning to find myself lying in a soft bed in my old room! Lizzie and my sister brought tea and oatmeal and did not leave my side until I pleaded to be allowed to sleep again. I am scarcely able to move for all my bruises and the pain in my head. But I can still write.

  The last thing I remember was kneeling beside Kate O’Neill and her husband. Then came blackness, until I awoke on a cot in a field hospital with Dr. Walker looming over me. My head throbbed and when I tried to sit up, dizziness and sharp pains in my side nearly overcame me.

  “You have broken a rib or two and sustained a concussion, but I believe you’ll mend.” He frowned but at least refrained from expressing his opinion that I had proved to be a nuisance after all. I tried to ask how my injuries had occurred, but my voice came out like the croaking of a frog.

  “You’ll have to ask that Tom Banks fellow who brought you in,” he said. “I’ve got amputations waiting.”

  I was relieved to hear Tom was alive. Shortly Tom himself came by and explained that he had been rounding up runaway horses when he heard the sound of weeping and discovered me bent over my journal. As he helped me rise, a bullet struck his arm and passed through, then knocked me to the ground. He carried me to an ambulance, not neglecting my satchel of medicine and my journal.

  “You took a bullet that could have killed me, and then you carried me despite your broken arm?” I said in wonder.

  “You ain’t so heavy, ma’am. I used my good arm.” Then he frowned. “Do you think Tom Banks would leave you lyin’ there?”

  I said I knew he would not. I wondered where the bullet had come from, for the fighting was over. Tom said it might have been a sniper. Or, he surmised, a man died with his finger on the trigger, and when his body started to seize up, it pulled the trigger and his gun went off. What grim luck—to be shot by a dead soldier!

  Once again, I owe my life to Tom. As usual, my attempts to thank him only embarrassed him. Nor was he eager to permit Dr. Walker to examine his arm, which was in a makeshift sling.

  “Perhaps, if he get the chance. But I’ll be goin’ now. It ain’t fittin’ for me to be here talkin’ with you anyhow.”

  “Damn what is fitting. None of this is fitting!” I cried out, thinking of the wounded crawling with flies in overcrowded tents, and the battlefields where blood and mud mingled. But had I really cursed all propriety? My head ached, and I feared my brain was addled.

  “What day is it?” I asked Tom, and he replied that it was Saturday, the 4th of July. Independence Day! The federals must be celebrating. But in our hospital was only misery. The rain drummed on the tent and the air inside grew dank and fetid. Rain trickled in, turning the ground to mud. The sense of defeat hung like a sodden blanket over all, hastening the death of many who might otherwise have rallied and lived. Dr. Walker worked without rest until he resembled a walking corpse. And I could do nothing but lie there.

  On Sunday, orders came to dismantle the hospital and follow Lee’s retreat. There were not enough ambulances and wagons for all the injured men, so many would be left to the mercy of the Yankees. Woe to those unable to walk! I saw a soldier get up from his bed, determined to go along, but his shattered leg collapsed under him, and he fell to the ground, crying, “Don’t leave me!”

  Dr. Walker stopped to check on me and said that I could not be accommodated on the retreat. Moreover, as a doctor, he did not advise traveling in my state.

  “I expected as much,” I said. “I would only be a hindrance to you.”

  We shook hands, and that was our awkward farewell. I believe he wished to say more but was unable, perhaps through extreme weariness and despair.

  What would the Yankees do with me? I was hardly going to stay around and find out. I would go to Margaret’s house. It couldn’t be more than two miles away if I crossed over the battlefields. I found I could walk if I took small steps and sat down often to combat dizziness. My ribs hurt, and my dress stuck to my wound, tugging painfully with every movement. But I had no other choice. I told Tom my plan and he insisted on coming with me. First, however, we had to store up our strength.

  By midafternoon nothing remained of the camp save the tent where the injured men lay waiting for death or the Yankees. Even Dolly, to my dismay, had disappeared, and Tom supposed she had been conscripted to haul artillery. Alas, my poor, gentle mare! Tom and I foraged enough provisions from abandoned knapsacks to cook up a stew, which we shared with those who were able to eat. When the day’s heat began to subside, we set out across the fields. The monster of war had burned and trampled the earth, scattered chunks of iron and lead, flung fence-posts and w
agon parts and dead horses in every direction. We saw no living souls, save a farmer surveying his ruined land. Fresh mounds of dirt marked where soldiers had been crudely put in the ground, and the rain had already uncovered an arm here, a leg there. Except for the sound of our own breathing and the mud sucking at our shoes, it was eerily quiet where two days ago the earth had shaken with hellish thunder. Tom kept watch for unexploded ordnance, and I stopped frequently to rest, so we made slow progress. Finally we reached the point where the roads converged on the edge of town. We waited, concealed by darkness, while Union troops passed by.

  We were only a short distance from Margaret’s house when a sudden fearful anticipation overcame me and I could go no farther. Tom went ahead while I sat beside the road, trembling. Would Margaret turn her back on me, her rebel sister?

  Alas, my brain must have been addled to come up with such a thought. Lizzie and Margaret welcomed me with such joy that I almost forgot my pain. Margaret examined my side and determined that my stays had broken from the impact of the bullet and cut into my flesh, yet they also had prevented greater injury and held my injured rib secure.

  “Perhaps soldiers should all wear whalebone corsets,” Lizzie joked as Margaret wrapped wide strips of linen snugly around my middle and put a clean gown on me. Then I fell asleep. When I woke briefly in the night, I discovered my dear Lizzie sleeping beside me, her hand resting in mine.

  Tuesday, July 7, 1863

  Today I ventured downstairs for the first time. My purpose was to treat Tom’s wound myself, for Margaret claimed it was beyond her ability. She helped me by removing his sling and wetting the dried bandage until it came loose from the skin. The wound indeed smelled foul and was teeming with maggots, like fat grains of rice. Margaret was appalled, but I explained that the creatures ate the decayed flesh and thus kept the wound clean. Probing with my fingers as I had seen the surgeons do, I felt a fragment of bone and asked Margaret to hand me the small scissors.

  “Your hands are shaking, Rosanna,” said Margaret. “Tell me what to do.” My head had begun to ache again, and my eyes could not focus, so I instructed her how to grip the piece of bone between the small blades. In a few moments, she produced the offending fragment. Tom made not a sound but only grimaced, and my sister deftly stitched the torn skin together.

  I’ve no doubt Tom would have lost his arm had it festered any longer, or even his life. At last I had the pleasure of repaying in part his goodness to me.

  Wednesday, July 8, 1863

  Lizzie has so much to tell me, and I her, that we talk for hours at a time. I listened with amazement as she recounted her adventures during the battle. She told me about her father being captured in May. Since then they have heard nothing! Poor Aunt Mary. Lizzie also counted up the local boys and men who had been killed or injured, and I realized how wrong I had been to imagine Gettysburg and my cousin untouched by war.

  What Lizzie finds most amazing, however, is that she and Luke and I all witnessed the battle, unbeknownst to one another. She concluded that providence made our paths cross so that she could be reconciled with Luke and with me. I thought for a moment before responding that I could credit neither providence nor chance for bringing me to Gettysburg.

  “My being here is the end result of many choices. I came of my own will. I believe I wanted more than anything to see you and Margaret again.”

  “Then you don’t mind so much—losing the battle?” she asked.

  “No, when I see how the winners also suffered. In war, death is the only victor.”

  I am beginning to sound like a philosopher!

  Thursday, July 9, 1863

  I have been walking and taking the stairs for exercise, testing my sore rib by how much it aches when I take a deep breath. I must be getting better, for Jack and Clara no longer give me headaches with their noisy playing.

  Lizzie visits me every day after the shop closes. Even then, she is all business. This week the cows and pigs were brought back from Wrightsville, their pens rebuilt, the store restocked. She is a born shopkeeper, with her head for figures and account books. She also has a good heart. She sent a ham to the family of a Gettysburg boy killed in fighting near Little Round Top, to feed the funeral-goers. I hear people are charging steep prices for such common things as a pail of fresh water, a loaf of bread, even a bumpy cart ride to visit an injured soldier. They should be ashamed to profit from the misery and sacrifice of others.

  Friday, July 10, 1863

  Lizzie came today and, without preamble, said, “I kept your secrets. I didn’t tell a soul.” And then she handed me my old scrap-book, tied with the red ribbon, and stepped back, as if she were glad to be free of it.

  Taken by surprise, faced suddenly with that reminder of my younger, foolish self, I buried my face in my hands and burst into tears.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you. Please don’t cry,” she pleaded. “I thought you would want it back.”

  I opened the book. An earthy smell rose from its pages. There was John’s photograph and his old letters. Love and shame, nostalgia and remorse swept over me. I couldn’t stop crying as I paged through the scrapbook. When I looked up, Lizzie was gone.

  Sunday, July 12, 1863

  Lizzie didn’t visit yesterday. Did my outburst yesterday alarm her? Perhaps she was too busy with chores.

  This morning I went with Margaret and the children to church. Mrs. Pierpont was there with her son Samuel, who was discharged due to an injury. She greeted me warmly, but the other ladies seemed aloof. I don’t care in the slightest for their good opinion. I only went to church for the walk and the chance to talk to Lizzie. As I observed her during the service, it occurred to me that she has no idea how beautiful she is becoming. The childish awkwardness in her is gone, like the spots on a fawn that fade and disappear.

  After church Lizzie agreed to walk home with me, but she was quiet, waiting for me to begin the conversation.

  “I’m sorry that I burdened you with keeping my scrapbook,” I began.

  “No, it was my fault for reading the letters,” she interrupted.

  “I knew you would read them, and I hoped that you of all people would understand me.”

  “But I didn’t understand you at all,” she said bleakly. “First, I was hurt that you kept the truth from me—”

  “I was ashamed, Lizzie. Surely you can understand why.”

  “Yes, but I cannot grasp why—forgive me for saying this, Rosanna—why, after John Wilcox caused you to steal, you married him anyway!”

  No one but Lizzie had ever asked me such a direct question. I didn’t know how to reply.

  “My theft tormented us both, but John and I made amends, you know,” I said, becoming defensive. “Can’t you forgive me?”

  “I’m no longer angry, Rosanna. I don’t cling to old hurts. And the money—that’s not important to me,” she said. “But why did you marry him?”

  She had laid her hand on my arm so that we both came to a stop. The hot sun beat on my face, but I did not pull the brim of my hat over my eyes. I looked directly at Lizzie and took a deep breath.

  “He looked so handsome in his uniform. I was confused and foolish. I thought what I felt was love.” These were truths I hadn’t dared to utter before.

  “So you didn’t love him?” she asked in wonder.

  I paused again as a fuller truth dawned upon me.

  “I started loving him the day we were married. I loved him more each day, and with every misfortune that almost took him from me. And I haven’t stopped loving him since the day he died,” I said.

  “Oh, dearest Rosanna!” Lizzie’s face crumpled into tears, and she raised her hands imploringly. I put my arms around her, and we stood there in the street, embracing, our tears wetting each other’s cheeks. Finally I pulled away, and with my handkerchief dabbed my cheeks and Lizzie’s. We smiled at each other.

  “I saw Martin Weigel during the service,” I said. “I hardly recognized the boy. You didn’t tell me he was so attractive,
with that wavy brown hair.”

  “Oh, you think so?” she said in an offhand way.

  “He stared at you during the whole service.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “I see you blushing, Lizzie. Now you’re the one hiding something from me.”

  My gentle rebuke prompted a full confession. Lizzie told me what had happened at the Weigels’ during the battle. “We almost kissed, there by the spring, but I backed away, and he has hardly said a word to me since then,” she wailed. “He could have spoken to me after church, but he took off like there were rebels at his heels.”

  “That sounds like love to me,” I said.

  Tuesday, July 14, 1863

  While Lizzie and I are reconciled, only time may mend the differences between Margaret and me. Today some item in the newspaper led her to denounce the South for provoking an unjust rebellion. I countered that the South went to war to defend herself against oppression by the federal government.

  “The gentleman planters of Virginia are not as oppressed as their Negroes!” she scoffed.

  “I grant you that,” I said. “But I do not see how you can justify war as a means to end slavery, when more men have died in recent battles than ever died under the yoke of a plantation master.”

  Without even pausing to consider my point, she shot back, “The Southern rebels began the war, and it is your own rebellious nature that makes you side with them.”

  “I hate this war as much as you do. It has claimed my husband,” I reminded her. It was a struggle to remain civil. “I hope that people of good faith will in time choose to reject the evil of slavery. You might be surprised to know that it was I who persuaded John Wilcox to grant Tom his freedom.”

  Margaret looked at me in surprise, and our disagreement went no further.

  Thursday, July 16, 1863