Philip’s fingers were numbing. He thought longingly of his gloves, safely tucked in his bedroll somewhere. Kneeling, he felt about, searching the ground to collect what the Rebels had disdainfully rifled and tossed aside. His head was cold, his ears freezing, and his cheeks becoming numb.
His shuffling walk in the dark, where the next step could connect with one of those low-lying flat rocks or into another sudden corpse, kept Philip moving for another half-hour before he entered another cedar growth. If this was the cedar brake that grew thickly a hundred yards deep and almost the length of the pike, he had perhaps another several hundred yards to get to the Nashville pike itself. If Rosecrans had managed to hold on to the pike, the enemy could be holding the other end—this end.
Philip stepped tentatively into the trees. A lot of noise echoed about the cedar trunks, like the rustling of a wind in dried leaves. The sounds of things moving about in thick undergrowth. Perhaps they were Union. Perhaps he’d already moved through the Rebel lines and was about to walk into his own. It would be impossible to tell in the dark. He could wait for light, but then he’d suddenly have no recourse but to surrender if he’d blundered into the front line of the Confederates. He could chance that the darkness and the trees would hide him and try to make it all the way through to the pike. He could also be shot by the jittery pickets of either side. No choice seemed a good one.
As Philip stood in indecision, a face appeared out of nowhere, right below where he stood. Enough of the moonlight was shining through the thick clouds to obscure anything in shadow and bring anything else into sharp relief.
“You a spirit?” a croaking voice asked.
“No,” Philip replied.
“You look to be a spirit. Do not harm me,” the voice pleaded.
A man lay propped up against the tree Philip was standing beside, his face turning enough out of shadow to make it seem as if he were just a disembodied head. He was a Rebel by the look of his collar with its two gold stars. An officer.
“I’m not a spirit, I’m mortal,” Philip replied. The man was delirious.
Philip knelt down to face him. A bloodied patch of darkened stain spread about his left leg at the thigh—a survivable wound if cared for, but one that would cripple him for life. Scattered about him were others of his kind, motionless and mere feet away. More were to be seen lying within the trees, as well as the darker forms of Philip’s own compatriots lying just as still in eternal repose.
Fierce fighting had occurred in this precinct of field and cedars, and the Union had taken a beating. The man looked drained and feverish despite the bitter cold. His eyes were wild, and as Philip knelt down he tried to shrink away, still under the impression that Philip was a spirit bent on wreaking vengeance.
“Be gone, be gone from me!” the Rebel croaked with a dry, gravelly voice. “Leave me be!”
Philip unslung the canteen and shook it slightly to slosh the liquid about in a show of how real he and the water both were. Still, the man did not come to reality. With weak, clawing hands, he tried to ward off a tormentor hovering over him with malicious intent.
“Here,” Philip said. He held the canteen close, giving it another slosh. “Water.”
The wounded always wanted water—water and mothers. No matter the age of a man, water and a mother’s touch were what most pleaded for. The cries for water could become white noise when the sufferers were gathered into one place. When they came from an open field between picket lines, it became an agony to hear the pitiful cries and be unable to do anything about them. If night brought an end to fighting, it brought the beginning of sharp suffering for the thousands of those hit and caught out between the lines, unable to move or find respite.
Philip could see in the man’s eyes that he was not in control of his senses. Relief from the uncontrollable thirst brought on by wounds and blood loss was being held out to him, and yet the man continued to try to ward him off, one limp attempt almost knocking the canteen from Philip’s hand.
“Easy, I’m no spirit. This is water, will ease your suffering.”
“Easy . . .” the man muttered in return. “Easy, Spirit, suffering so.”
“Here, take a drink. I offer you relief. I’m not dead.”
“Why do you torment me?” the man wailed suddenly, closing his eyes and rolling his head back and forth.
“I bring you peace,” Philip whispered. The Rebel was not seeing what was real. He was seeing something play in his mind’s eye that was not. Or, Philip realized, his own appearance and blood-soaked clothing really was a vision of the dead come back.
“Peace . . . peace be with you,” came the suddenly calm reply.
“You see me? You see that I am alive?” Philip asked.
“You . . . you come to bless or to torment?”
“I come to bless. I am a gentle spirit, a friend.” Philip felt shamed at the pretense, but the man was not going to come back to reality.
“Bless? You come to bless? You come to take me to Canaan?” the Rebel asked, opening his eyes and staring straight into Philip’s.
“I come to give you water, to ease your suffering.”
For a moment, Philip thought the man might have snapped out of it. His stare held for the first time since he’d started the odd conversation.
“You are a blessed spirit?” The man’s cracked and dry lips and swollen tongue fairly hung upon the word “blessed,” as if it took a great effort to pronounce. The water would be but a temporary relief, but one that he was struggling to realize.
“Yes, please take it.” Philip jiggled the canteen once more in front of the man, who turned his gaze to it as if regarding a curious object.
This was the fourth engagement Philip had been through. Cheat Mountain in West Virginia was his first taste of battle and of seeing those torn by fire afterward; and then Shiloh, where every fiber of his being was shaken by the result of two days of bitter fighting and their aftermath. Then Corinth, and now here, where thousands were probably suffering in the descending freeze of night. He’d seen to wounded on three fields and did not need to wonder how it would feel to be violated by a minié ball or shrapnel. He could watch a man suffer and die from the violation of his flesh. Men wild with agony entered into any sort of mental state, from composure to hysterics. There would be hundreds like this man within a hundred yards in either direction—men left behind and forgotten to expire alone. Hundreds more would expire amidst their fellow sufferers all night long at the hospitals. Better to die outright than to linger was the oath of the infantryman; better a wound to the head than a wound to the stomach. Better a wound to the neck than to the arms or legs, leaving one half a man afterward once the limb was removed.
The sawbones on both sides would be working through the night, removing limbs in one long, endless string of wounded men brought to their tables. This man’s thigh wound would be impossible to treat by such an expedient. He’d have a limp for the rest of this life if the ball had merely broken his femur and he was able to get help in time. If it had shattered his pelvis, there was little hope.
It was a tentative hand that finally grasped the canteen and gingerly brought it to his lips for a quick gulp. Another few gulps and the man’s countenance changed. He regarded Philip with sane eyes, a flash of recognition spreading upon his face.
“You look ghastly, sir.”
“Yes. Not my blood,” Philip replied, relieved that the man was at least back from delirium. He dug into his inner coat pocket. “Here, take a sip.”
The Rebel handed back the canteen and took the flask. Philip had learned from Chaplain Alexander at Corinth the necessity and use of brandy and water as a reviving agent. It was smoother than whiskey and not as potent, but it had a calming effect upon the stricken.
The Rebel took a pull and let the liquid course down his throat. He gave a satisfied sigh, the spirits warming the gullet. “You are a godsend, sir.”
“You’ve been left here. Can you move?” Philip asked.
“No,
not without a litter. My left leg can’t move lest I pass out once more. Took all my energy just to sit up against this tree.”
“Take another pull. It’s going to be a cold night,” Philip said and offered his flask once more. “I’ll find you a blanket.”
Philip stood and looked around him. With all the distance he’d covered, he’d not seen a single blanket or bedroll upon any of the corpses he’d passed. Many of the Union dead had already been stripped of overcoats and anything else of value hours before. Not daring to wander far lest he stumble upon more healthy Rebels, Philip peered furtively into the gloom but saw only expired Rebels and empty-handed Federals. He returned without a blanket.
“Sorry, no soul out there has a blanket left to give,” Philip said.
“My regiment pushed on through this cedar wood; they didn’t return. They ahead somewhere, you can reckon. You best move careful.” The man handed Philip the now lighter flask.
“Fruit of the vine,” Philip said and took a tug on the flask, a quick flip and sip. It did make one feel inexplicably warmer. “Anything else I can do to ease your discomfort?” He asked the question out of courtesy and the hope the man would not reply in the affirmative.
“The brandy was what I needed, thank you. Did I say anything earlier? I felt like I was in a dream and couldn’t wake.”
“You thought I was an evil spirit, wondered if I’d come to take you to the hereafter,” Philip replied.
“A demon; that’s what I seen in my visions. Demons flitting about and sucking the souls from my men as they died.”
“It is a wonder more do not see demons on this field,” Philip replied.
“I must have thought you was one, offering me some vile thing to drink so it could take my soul with it,” the man said apologetically.
“I seen wounds do terrific things to strong men, making them weak; and weak men made strong in their last breaths. I was about to give up giving you any water.”
“I am much obliged to you for the kindness, much more so for the company. I think I’ve been sitting here for hours drifting in and out of madness. Seeing you only intensified the images, but I see that you are not wounded yourself, though your coat is soaked in blood.”
“Wrestling with the dead,” Philip replied and blanched a little at the memory. He paused and then added, “If you are a man of some faith, you might take greater comfort in the almighty God, but I’m warmed that the brandy has done something for your spirits.”
“I think I let that go when I seen my company cut to pieces taking this wood. No amount of faith kept any of those men upright and standing, nor saved me this wound. I do not know what else to take any comfort in but an easing of the pain.”
With that, the man laid his head back against the tree and sighed. “The pain comes and goes, and breathing is sometimes painful in itself, a reminder that something is wrong with me.”
“I can only offer the quick sip, but faith offers you what cannot be had in this life alone: a hope for after your toils are complete,” Philip said.
“You say what offers little for the moment, but I understand why you say it. Death reaped a harvest today, and those souls go somewhere. There be those who think all that is life is this mortal shell, and then nothing more. I’m not one of those, but the God of the universe was absent today on this field. If he were with our arms, we would have pushed beyond the road and crushed Rosecrans. If he were with you, we would not have threatened the road and pushed you for miles. God forgot to look over his shoulder here.”
The man spoke with his eyes closed and his head still thrown back against the tree.
“I have given up trying to explain what I do not know or can know of God’s hand on anything in this life,” Philip conceded. “I can’t say if he did or didn’t turn his back today. All I know is that you and I are alive at this moment for a reason. You might survive the night and I get shot by one of my own pickets. One does not know what is to come but a certain death. Just know that you are destined for eternity, as are all men. Which eternity that is is up to you.”
“You must be a chaplain. No one else in either army talks of such things.” The man lifted his head slightly to look Philip in the eye. “Seems the demons not the only ones about harvesting souls.”
“No, not harvesting souls,” Philip replied. “But you admit that eternity is on every man’s mind as he steps forward and right before he breathes his last.”
The man almost smiled. “Let this, then, be for the ages, that I have forthwith accepted the Good Lord’s invitation to sup at his banquet table.”
Raising his arm, he weakly motioned for the flask which Philip handed him. “To eternity,” he said and made a toast with another pull of the flask.
“Agreed,” Philip replied and took another tug himself.
“See, you thought you was going to preach another man out of hell.” The man winced and tried to shift a little, but he only winced harder and began to breathe heavily.
“Only the truth. Not what I can do, but He,” Philip replied.
The man’s head lolled for a moment as if he had fallen into a deep sleep, only to jerk back upright. Leaning once more against the tree trunk, he closed his eyes, and his breathing became easier again. Philip stayed looking at him for some moments, waiting for him to say something or return from wherever it was he’d gone mentally. The man stayed resting, his breathing coming in short, billowy puffs from his nostrils. He had lapsed into sleep.
Stirred by the exchange, Philip felt invigorated to press on. The man might never leave that tree he was leaning against, might die laid out in a hospital, might be found and sent home to die an old man—fate or the will of God was waiting to take its turn with him. Fate and death had already claimed so many, one more would not be missed.
Philip fixed his eyes ahead again. The trees would have to be explored and the enemy avoided, but judging how far he had yet to traverse was unsettling. That the enemy line was still in front of him was the only intelligence he was going to get. He silently thanked the man for his help.
Picking his way as deftly as possible, Philip moved from trunk to trunk, holding himself steady and stepping lightly. The forest was quiet and the dead, dry leaves on the floor noisy. Occasional cracks echoed about the trunks from the left and the right—others were moving about indiscriminately, and the faint sounds of chopping wood reached Philip’s ears: the enemy building breastworks and felling trees.
Even deep into the cedar trunks, still forms barred the way. Battle lines had formed to resist the enemy push and the dead were left where they expired in parallel rows. Tree trunks stripped of bark and marred by rifle fire, pockmarked by the ferocity of the fighting and bleeding sap from wounds, made Philip’s hands sticky and rough as he balanced himself from trunk to trunk.
Then he was out again, facing open sky and another long field before another cedar brake. This time, the enemy was there. Strung out in a long line of regiments before a line of cedars, the impossible part of his trek lay before him.
The enemy brigades were sleeping on arms, arranged in double lines of sleeping soldiers with camp guards out. A picket line would be ahead, ranged out in the forward thicket and across the road. Further beyond that would be the picket posts of the Union army, watching and waiting for the enemy to make a move.
Soldiers were up and moving about, some stumbling off into the trees, others quietly talking. A short distance away lay a blanket roll, an indiscriminate patchwork of cloth with repairs to a butternut-brown woolen cover. It looked full, bulging at the ends where the owner had stuffed his most prized possessions and extra clothing. Walking to it, Philip threw his arms through the still-tied loop and let it rest easily upon his right shoulder.
Taking a purposeful stride despite his pounding heart, Philip walked to the intersection of the road that drove past the gathered line of Rebels and between the growths of cedars. Scared, exhausted, hungry, lost, and finally resigned to whatever God was going to allow, he prayed silently wi
th each step forward.
The road divided two units by several tens of yards, leaving the roadway clear. The seam between the units was unguarded or imperfectly so—after all, the threat was in front of the enemy, not behind them. As he crossed the middle of the track, Philip came to a tree-lined road intersecting it from left to right: the Wilkinson pike. Forward from there, another long field stretched before him, and in the distance he could hear the sounds of rumbling wheels. The Nashville pike. Across that long space was safety or death by jittery picket.
Steeling himself, Philip moved across the Wilkinson pike and into a cotton field. Tufts of dirty white cotton clung to the ground like patches of snow refusing to melt. Even in the dark the tufts shone. The earth felt hard and stiff between furrows of decayed plants. The enemy pickets were nowhere to be seen, perhaps ranged in the cover of the trees he’d avoided walking through.
Taking easy steps, Philip concentrated on the ground in front of him, looking for anything that might reveal the telltale form of a man in a rifle pit or one lying prone. Cotton strands clung to his shoes and trouser legs. Anything moving in this direction was fair game to be shot at, pickets unconcerned with shouting “Who goes there?”
Philip’s numb toes barely felt the uneven ground, and stepping over the low-lying cotton plants became a terror of excess noise as the tips of the dried and dead plants crackled under his step. All was still blackness about the ground, with few things of discernible pattern leaping to view until he kicked a tin cup lying by a discarded and rifled haversack.
He was lost in thought when it happened, his mind carried away as the ground in front of him became a monotony of dead plant and frozen ground. Of all the places to go, he’d wandered back to the day he and Elizabeth Harper enjoyed their last truly warm conversation upon the porch of the Harper farmhouse. Before he volunteered, before her brother was shot by a jealous Mr. Puget, before he refused Robert Harper proper burial for his fornicating ways.
River of Blood (Shiloh Series Book 4) Page 32