No Common War

by Salisbury, Luke;

  “Women like ‘em like that,” Merrick said.

  A ragged-looking civilian came up the hill. He walked, stumbled, looked at his feet, heaven. This man appeared more confused and lost, more hurt inside, than a wounded soldier. A soul in hell couldn’t look so hopeless.

  This civilian was unlike the others. He didn’t have carriage or horse, and he looked worse than the Congressman had. He wore a long white coat that had the lightness and consistency of a smock. The coat was wrinkled, muddy and useless against any sort of weather. It hung to the ankle and he had a sword under it. The man could be any age except young. He had bushy reddish-brown hair, a triangular beard that came to a point three inches below the chin, and oblong wire-rimmed eye-glasses. The left lens was cracked.

  “That sword couldn’t protect him from a swarm of bees,” Merrick said.

  “Water?” I asked.

  The civilian looked at me as if unfamiliar with human speech. “Water? Water? Water. Thank you.” An Irishman. He accepted my canteen and slid down against the oak, as if the weight of the canteen dragged him to earth. The sword stuck out from the duster like an artificial limb. The Irishman closed his eyes and kept them shut. I thought he was asleep, but he removed his wrinkled white hat and took a drink. We looked him over. He wasn’t wounded, just scratched and miserable.

  “Lost,” said the Irishman.

  “You’re not lost,” I said. “You’re on the road to Washington.”

  “Lost.”

  “The battle’s lost,” said Merrick.

  “Can’t be done,” said the Irishman.

  “Rest up,” I said. “You’ll see things different.” I saw Merrick getting annoyed. “You’ll be in Washington before we will. We’re here till the Rebs come, or go home.” I sat down.

  “Can’t be done.”

  “What, friend?”

  “Can’t get close. By the Lord Jesus, it was the chance of a lifetime. No man’s photographed war. He who does is immortal.” The Irishman looked at us. “You wasn’t there?”

  “No,” said Merrick. “We’re the Rear Guard.”

  “Pray the Rebels don’t get here, lads. The noise. Smoke. Men running, screaming. You can’t photograph it. It’s too far till it’s too close. You get killed. You get lost. You can’t get an image.”

  “You want to photograph men killing each other?” Merrick said.

  “I’d photograph anything, lad.” He rubbed his eyes. “I lost my driver, my wagon, my camera, the plates. We drug two hundred glass plates over every root and branch between Washington and Bull Run Creek. Never broke a one. And I lost ‘em all. I’d photograph hell if I could, man.”

  “You tried,” said Merrick.

  The Irishman acknowledged the remark with a bow. “We set up on a hill, like you men here. I got a special wagon. The camera points out one end, like a gun. Totally sealed from light. Strange-looking. Every man who saw it says, ‘What is it? What is it?’ It’s truth, lads. The camera sees truth. It sees nothing else.

  “I sat in the wagon on that hill. I wanted to photograph those devils when they charged. It’s too fast. You can’t get close, and by the Lord, you don’t want to. The noise. Oh, God. The heat. Smoke in waves. I choked. Hades in the wagon. I got out to breathe and got separated in the smoke. I must’ve run, everybody ran. Then it was night. I was in some woods. I could’ve walked right into the Rebel army. The New York Zouaves, the firemen in French pants. There’s an Irishman or two in that bunch. One of them gave me his sword. I walked all night.” The civilian sat back and closed his eyes.

  “Damn,” said Merrick. “We’re waiting for the Reb army and what comes along but a Congressman who wants other men to be brave, a swell, a pretty girl, and a Leprechaun who drags a camera thirty miles to find out bullets don’t stand still.”

  Merrick took out a pipe, lit it, and put a cloud of smoke between us and the photographer.

  13

  Upton’s Hill Va.

  Oct 4th, 1861

  Dear Mother,

  This is the first time I have had a chance to write since we came out here, so I’ll scribble a few lines. Your letters are a wonder and a comfort. They are better than the socks you send, and that’s saying much. A good pr of stockings is a gift indeed. Stockings outdo a good sermon, and you know how much we all appreciate good preaching.

  “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”—Matthew 6:21. My treasure is home. There’s nothing like leaving a place to make you feel it. Now I can’t wait to get back. I’m always thinking of you and Father and Helen and nothing makes me happier than thinking of you and Helen together—knitting, cooking, sending socks and eatables.

  It’s not just eatables, marching and socks for us. We sometimes hear a sermon or two. You spoke of hearing Mr. Bliss preach. He was here yesterday, and preached a short sermon to our Regiment. I like him better than our regular chaplain, but please don’t tell anyone that. Not even Mr. Bliss, even for a compliment. Hearing Mr. Bliss’ voice was a touch of home.

  You spoke of our needing some shirts, and socks. I have plenty as yet, and I guess most of our boys have too. We have just received a new suit. (Two shirts, two pr stockings, two pr drawers, one jacket, one pr pants, one cap, and one blanket.) So you see, we are pretty well provided for. The only complaint (about clothes) among the boys is that they have got more than they can carry. I have no doubt you would like to send us some such things, but you would please us better by sending something we would not have to carry.

  I know you worry, but so far Providence has been on our side. We started from camp last Saturday just before dark. We had been out nearly all day (with our knapsacks and other things on) to be inspected by Mc-Dowell. We marched four or five miles, then turned into a field for the night. We had our overcoats with us to sleep on. They made us stack our guns, and we lay down near them. I got to sleep, but did not sleep long, for we have such heavy dews here that it is cold before morning. I woke up and found that I was decidedly cold. The other boys were in the same fix, so they went to work and made a good fire, and I improved it. The boys were lying around the fire in nearly every shape, and as soon as I got warm I followed their example and lay down with my feet to the fire, and my head on a stone. I had nearly got to sleep when we heard a volley of muskets. It was not long before all of us were behind our guns, but we did not get any orders so we did not move. Captain Ferguson insisted we wait for orders. Some of the men were hot to shoot. The Captain said since we couldn’t see a blamed thing, we’d wait. During the night we heard three or four volleys, and in the morning learned that a California regiment, and one other regiment of our men, had taken each other for enemies, and fired upon each other. They killed eleven men, and wounded nearly thirty more, but since then we have had no serious skirmishes. Somebody’s prayers were answered that night. Thank heaven for the Captain. There is a place for prayer and caution out here. We have both.

  I miss Helen and I miss you. I miss fall in Sandy Creek and think of wind rippling the creek and cooling the lake. The popples turning. I’ll miss walking by the creek before it freezes, and taking John Brown to Woodville and Belleville and down by the lake. I serve this great Cause, but dream of pies, breads, apples and cheeses, Helen and you. I know you will look after her.

  It is a comfort.

  May God give us strength.

  Your son,

  Moreau

  14

  At twilight of the day we met the photographer, mosquitoes and gnats furiously swarmed over the redoubt. It had been fortified with more branches and mud and deeper trenches. Merrick and I ate hardtack and made a fire and coffee, which tasted good. The traffic on the muddy pike dwindled. After “dinner,” we walked down the road to share a pipe.

  A big carriage came slowly toward the leafy hill through the twilight. It was pulled by a handsome, mud-spattered horse.

  “Must be a blooded horse,” I said. “Everything in the South is ranked by blood.”

  “These people oughta get ribb
ons, like pigs at the Sandy Creek Fair,” said Merrick.

  We laughed.

  “Another fool who went out to see a Sunday battle and came back with a Monday war,” Merrick said.

  The carriage moved slowly in the humid, gnat-and mosquito-filled air. It was the first rich man’s equipage we had seen not in a hurry.

  “He ain’t bein’ chased by the Rebel Army.”

  “We could push him faster,” said Merrick.

  We watched the carriage come closer, slowly start up the gentle grade, taking the ruts straight on, not side-to-side, as if driver and horse thought they were on a flat surface. The ruts had hardened, like plaster mixed with horse hair, and the carriage bumped along. The driver looked straight ahead. He was an old Negro who tried to keep the mosquitoes away from his face with his free hand. It was a fine carriage balanced on big springs that took ruts well. On a deep, black-leather backseat a bare-headed gentleman, coat off, silk sleeves rolled to the elbow, fanned a sleeping soldier whose head was in his lap. The bareheaded gentleman’s face was swollen with bites and looked almost as bad as a man with syphilis whose photograph had made the rounds of camp.

  I looked at the soldier, who had lieutenant’s bars, and thought he must be Godawful tired. Mosquitoes, hovering around the older man like a halo, landed and bit. He made no effort to keep them off, and suddenly I knew, soul to bowels, the soldier was dead and the man was his father.

  As the carriage approached us, it bogged down and Merrick, me, Lyman Houghton and David Crocker jumped up to help push it over the ruts and up the hill. The gentleman tried to thank us but couldn’t. I saw the carriage floor, the old man’s trousers, and the leather seat were covered with dried blood. I looked away. It wasn’t the blood. It was the flies—walking, buzzing, gathered like a tribe on the carriage floor. I felt sick, but the way the old man held the dead soldier and kept flies and mosquitoes from the dead face while others sucked his own blood was brave. If he could fan his son, I could push his carriage. Lyman Houghton said, “I’m sorry, sir,” and David Crocker removed his cap.

  “It’s his boy,” said the driver. “Wound in de leg. They cut it off and he die a shock. Po’ boy.” The Negro spoke so the man in back might not hear, though he didn’t appear to be listening. “Po’ boy. Went to fight for de Union.”

  Merrick, me, Houghton and Crocker pushed hard. We pushed for our fathers. It wasn’t easy.

  Midway up the hill, I stepped away and cried against a white oak. Mosquitoes, wormy crackers, wounded men, a beaten army, even a beaten idea were trivial. I thought I could look at wounded men. Not this. Not a face stung with grief and insects. A father. I cried. Had the son gone for his father? Had his father cheered? Been proud? His father found grief. He found flies, blood, and mosquitoes. For a moment, I couldn’t stop crying.

  I wiped my face and joined the men with their shoulders against the carriage.

  “You don’t have to,” said Lyman.

  “I do.”

  “It’s all right, Ro,” said Merrick.

  We got the carriage to the top of the rise, helped it by our fortifications, and guided it down the easy slope of the other side. We helped them home, whatever home is when a father brings back the body of his son.

  Moreau

  The Elephant

  August 1861-September 1862

  15

  The 24th returned to camp, suffering insect bites and dysentery, and camped in tents with sweat-soaked bedrolls and ate regular, if unappetizing, meals on the grounds of Robert E. Lee’s mansion in Arlington, Virginia. The location was a great satisfaction to Merrick and me. We admired the house with its Greek columns and big-swollen grandeur. This was what the wide-pillared houses in Sandy Creek aped.

  “Horse shit,” said Merrick. “Who the hell do these people think they are?”

  “Why would someone with such a fine view of the Potomac go to war against his country?”

  “So he can keep his Goddamned slaves,” answered Merrick.

  “Sad, isn’t it?”

  As reward for three tentless weeks on a hill, two brigades, each with five regiments, were called to parade on an August morning. We were to be reviewed by President Lincoln, Secretary of State Seward, who was from Auburn, New York, and General McClellan. McClellan was the hope of the Army, Lincoln the hope of the Union, and Seward the key “insider” in the Cabinet, and an ardent Abolitionist. Another opinion—“Them’s all politicians”—was voiced by Merrick. Many were skeptical of the President. Lincoln was portrayed as a baboon in cartoons, and called worse by those who didn’t like him, including McClellan, though we didn’t know it. The General looked down on “our original gorilla,” because Lincoln’s mother was illegitimate, and Mr. Lincoln, though a lawyer, had received no regular education. The General was a doctor’s son from Philadelphia and a West Pointer. Many who wore a mortarboard and whose grandparents were married, felt the same. The President’s lack of respectability didn’t bother me—no Salisbury ever graduated from a college. I say better a bastard than a slave. I knew from father, who knew from Oren Earl, our Assemblyman before father, that Seward thought himself the real power with an ignorant westerner in the White House, and had proposed war with England, France and Russia to take Canada, Mexico and South America, to replace the Confederacy. Thank God he wasn’t President.

  The regiment turned out with polished boots and clean rifles. Merrick wished he’d polished his “damn face,” which was lumpy with insect bites, but “a far sight better than David Crocker’s chigger-bitten bum.” The two brigades lined up smartly. I looked at our men. Each had shoes and a rifle. None were starving, though some were pale from illness, and I wondered how we did so poorly at Bull Run. It had to be leadership and courage. Officers who ran, scared men who dropped weapons. The review was supposed to provide esprit.

  Merrick smiled a rather-be-fightin’ smile, but we stood smartly and watched close. I wanted to see Lincoln and McClellan, even Seward. These were the men Father wanted to be, dreamt to be—men who rise and lead. Many are called by the god of ambition, but there is only one President and one Commander of the Army. One Secretary of State too, but that was second prize.

  The brigades stood in rows across the parade ground. It was a clear, warm morning, not yet hot. We stood at attention. There was spirit, readiness, courage—an army, even if only on the parade ground. Even Merrick, ever skeptical, stood straight, shoulders squared, and craned his neck as McClellan rode out on his powerful horse, Dan Webster. McClellan’s staff, in gleaming uniforms on fine-groomed horses, rode behind.

  The troops bristled with pride. Here was the man the President called to save the Federal Army, and the Federal Army needed saving. No one knew this better than the 24th. McClellan was handsome, raven-haired, secure in the saddle and in motion. A man of action, or so he looked that August morning. Merrick and me and every soldier felt the need for a man of action, a deliverer, a savior. The man on Dan Webster waved his hat to the troops. Little Mac was the “Young Napoleon,” the man of the hour—of the century, if he saved the Republic. I cheered, but wished the man of the hour had another nickname. I knew about Napoleon.

  Merrick cheered and I cheered. Then we saw the carriage carrying Lincoln and Seward. It stopped at the end of the column and the President stood and bowed to the troops. Dressed in black, wearing a stovepipe hat and standing in a carriage, Lincoln looked ten feet tall. He wasn’t handsome. He didn’t cross a parade ground on a horse waving a general’s hat, letting his hair fly like a matinee player or a god sweeping down from heaven. Lincoln was different. The boys didn’t cheer as loud. We watched.

  The carriage went down each column so every man got a good look at the President and the Secretary of State, who was a foot smaller than Uncle Abe. If Seward was unhappy playing short fiddle, he didn’t show it, but he lacked the dash of the General and grit of the President. I caught Lincoln’s eye. It held something I hadn’t seen in a man of power. All day I wondered what it was.

  Later I knew.
It was humility.

  This man who worked so hard to be President—and I’d seen how hard men work at the deal-making, backslapping, back-stabbing mess called politics—was humble. Lincoln had marshaled an army two hundred thousand strong and would be the most powerful man on earth, if the army learned to fight. Yet he didn’t come on a blood-horse, trailing subordinates. He came in a carriage so every man might look at him, and he looked at each of us.

  He looked at each one of us.

  16

  I went to Washington City after the review and it wasn’t for an ambrotype. The bumps and bites went down, the infernal itching stopped, and hardness got me. I wondered if I weren’t getting like Merrick. Seeing dead men, wounded men, skedaddling, beaten, pathetic men, and getting our asses bit by flying critters showed who was hardy, as we put it.

  I constantly thought of Helen and touched the tintype. We wrote letters, tender letters, but now I’d been hungry, miserable, wet and scared, awful scared, I was willing to look at temptation. Until we marched out of Bailey’s Crossroads, I had intended to remain pure. The war was supposed to have been short, but we were here for the winter. Come spring there’d be fighting. Real fighting, Merrick figured.

  I promised Cousin to go to town with him. “Not for combat, but as a forward observer.” He’d gone to Washington City and got cut over the right eye. Cousin needed a pard.

  Before we left for town, I wrote father about Lincoln and McClellan.

  I don’t know what sort of President the westerner will be, but I know this: He’s no play-actor.

  The men love McClellan. Little Mac makes us feel part of a grand machine. He’s a hard worker and looks and acts his part as if on stage. I suppose we are all on stage, Mr. Lincoln too, but no one struts his part like the general.

  Seward doesn’t look unhappy, but he wasn’t the star. Not yesterday. I doubt he is the power behind the throne. Mr. Lincoln doesn’t look like a man on a throne, or a man who doesn’t know what’s going on behind him. Do you think Seward will be President?