Each army had moments of panic. A Zouave from New York City tripped over the regimental dog, fell into a stack of rifles and two regiments scrambled wildly, banging into each other, cussing and running amok until they discovered they weren’t under attack.
In the West Woods, the other side of D.M. Miller’s cornfield, a line of Rebel horses spooked. Sentries remembered it was quiet when something or Something—it was later described as a spirit—frightened the horses who broke their tethers and ran into the night. Major Sorrel and his men chased them till dawn.
The night was noises, blunders, palpable fear.
I sat with David Hamer—we were sergeants—and Merrick, who would have been a sergeant but for a reputation for recklessness, and David Crocker, Tom Cox, Dan Buck and Martin Dennison. Martin told again about Baldwin getting his ass shot in Turner’s Gap.
“We got our laugh,” said Merrick. “Tomorrow we get Rebs. Lots of ‘em.”
The men nodded.
“Both armies are big,” I said. “It’ll be a hell of a fight.”
“We’re ready this time,” said Hamer. “We know how to fight.”
“So do they,” said Tom Cox.
“They learned quicker.”
“They know what they fighting for,” said David Crocker.
“And what’s that?” said Sergeant Hamer.
“Show us we can’t lick ‘em,” said Crocker.
“‘Cause we invaded,” said Dan Buck.
“They invaded us now,” said Hamer.
“What the hell are we fightin’ for?” asked Buck. “What’re we dyin’ for? Don’t tell me niggers, ‘cause I ain’t and never was fightin’ for niggers.”
“We die for the Union,” said a figure, stepping out of the deep shadow of the cold, wet night.
“Lyman!”
Tall Lyman Houghton stepped into the circle. We fell on him, hugged him, kissed him, felt his ribs. He was thinner. By daylight we saw the bruises on his face, but he was here. Alive and here.
“What happened to you?”
“Captured and paroled.”
That meant Lyman had taken the oath not to fight again.
“Captured and paroled? What are you doin’ here?”
“They’ll hang you for comin’ back!”
Houghton sat down and we sat in a circle—warm, forgetting night, drizzle, apprehension.
“They got to capture me first.”
“They already done that,” said Tom Cox.
“I thought you were shot in the face,” I said. “You went down that Sunken Rail Road and killed a man. Why didn’t they kill you?”
Lyman looked at each of us. “I don’t know. Maybe they thought… I don’t know.”
Word spread through camp that Lyman was back, and the circle turned into a crowd. One of ours had come back from the dead. Nothing, nothing on earth, could have raised our spirits so. It figured, we said. Lyman Houghton, of all people, didn’t leave his comrades.
Captain Ferguson joined the crowd. He hugged Lyman, gave him a cigar, listened to his story. He heard how Lyman had given an oath not to fight.
“Lyman,” said the Captain, “if you’re captured, they’ll hang you.”
We got quiet. We looked at each other. Looked at our feet. Escape, no matter how miraculous, was temporary. We knew it.
“Captain,” said Lyman. “If I die, it’s but one man. A few will grieve. If the Union dies, many will grieve.”
“They’ll hang you,” said Martin Dennison.
“I am of little consequence.”
The men got quiet, then cheered. Several flasks were passed. No talk of hanging.
Merrick touched my shoulder and pointed with his chin at a dark cluster of oaks. We walked away from men singing an unbearably slow “John Brown’s Body.” McClellan had banned the song as beneath the dignity of his army, but the words about the abolitionist’s body rotting while his spirit marches on meant too much to men who routinely saw rotting bodies.
Merrick and I stood under dark, wet trees and Merrick said, “Ro, what did you learn in seminary?”
I looked into wet darkness. Merrick never asked such questions. It made me shiver. “Nothing we won’t learn tomorrow.”
“I figure you went about them heads. Ask forgiveness or some damn thing. Try to stop seeing ‘em.”
“I thought I could square it. Understand it.”
“Lem Brown told me he saw God’s face at Gainesville.”
“He saw it all right,” I said. “He got killed.”
“Did you square it, Ro?”
“I called on the Lord,” I said. “He didn’t answer.”
“Is He supposed to?” asked Merrick.
“‘God is departed from me, and answereth no more, neither by prophet nor dreams.’”
Merrick smiled. “You got some preacher left.”
Mist wet my cheeks. “The heads aren’t squared. Asking forgiveness wasn’t enough. Seminary wasn’t enough.”
“Ro, I think about your friend Gib sometimes. We got reason to be here.”
“Reason to die?”
Merrick nodded.
I was glad he nodded. Awful glad. “Merrick, what did you learn with that woman in the woods?”
He leaned against the trunk of a thick oak. “I hope they bury me under a big tree.”
“What did you learn?”
“Same you learned at Seminary.”
“What?” I said.
“With or without Him, with or without her, we’re alone.”
“Is that what I learned?” I said. Could a man with a child ever really be alone? Did Father think that?
“Sounds like it,” said Merrick.
“Like tomorrow?”
“After tomorrow,” said Merrick, “them heads’ll be gone.”
34
We were up at 3:30. The rain slackened, then stopped. We heard the stray clatter of picket fire and exploratory artillery. I chewed coffee beans and salt pork and drank canteen water. It made a harsh, stirring swill. The bitter coffee-salt taste matched the damp.
Now we know McClellan had planned a three-pronged attack. If the attacks had been simultaneous, Lee’s army would have been crushed.
If.
First Corps would hit along Hagerstown Pike, which passed the Miller farmhouse and a thirty-acre cornfield. Beyond the cornfield left were the East Woods, where pickets had fired all night. Beyond the cornfield right were the West Woods, full of Rebs. The three-quarters of a mile from East to West Woods was the left flank of Lee’s army. It was defended by Jackson’s Stonewall Division. Rebs were in the West Woods behind trees and limestone ledges. They were lying down on line behind the cornfield, hidden by a grass ridge. They were in the cornfield.
General Hooker rode out at dawn. Pink sky crept behind gray clouds, turned orange, made hard shades of blue. Hooker was on a milk-white charger. He was clean-shaven, as if barbered by the scythe of the Reaper. Many thought: Behold a pale horse. In the cornfield, bayonets gleamed in the early light. The corn was five feet high, the stalks yellow, leaves green-yellow white, ears ripe. Harvest time.
Merrick, me, all, tried to steel ourselves against the harvest coming. We’d seen killing, but no one, not Hooker, not Lee, not Jackson, not any man living or dead had ever seen anything like what was coming.
The night before, Hooker had told the men, “Tomorrow we fight the battle that will decide the fate of the Republic.”
Tomorrow was here.
The 24th marched over a field of playing-card and naughty pictures, quick-buried or scattered under trees. Men didn’t want “calling cards of Satan” on them if they died. “Fellas want to play a different hand at the Pearly Gates,” said Merrick. Everyone laughed. David Hamer said, “As if God don’t know.” I laughed, but thought: As thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death. Cox and Dennison wrote their names on paper and pinned the paper inside their shirts.
Artillery boomed. It was unceasing. The earth trembled. We stood and waited,
watching streaks of dawn—pink, red, orange, blue. Night meant safety. Armies didn’t move. Every sound frightened, but no one died of fright. Morning was different.
The morning of Wednesday, September 17th was hot and clear. For seven thousand men, clarity itself. At first light, mist hung in the depressions of rolling fields. Brigades were hidden. Gunners couldn’t see. At five, it was clearing. At six, gone.
The 24th had forty men. Our column was four across. We were behind Gibbon’s men. The Black Hats made the first assault through D.R. Miller’s cornfield. We stood as the air hissed and shrieked with shells. The noise was awful. The ground shook. To the right, on Nicodemus Hill, Rebs wheeled in artillery and fired at massing Union troops. Beyond the cornfield and a clover meadow was a white building and the main Reb batteries. The batteries were our objective. The white building was a Dunker Church, the pacifist German Baptist Brethren who baptize by full immersion. The church had no steeple. We had to go through the cornfield and up the Hagerstown Pike. The Pike was a country dirt road. On our left rear, Union artillery fired into the West Woods and at the guns by the church. We waited behind the Poffenberger farm. We would march down a gentle hill, cross the yard, and go into the cornfield.
Full immersion.
35
We went into the cornfield at 6:31. A thousand Wisconsin and Indiana men went first. Colonel Phelps’ Brigade had four hundred. The ten companies of the 24th had been reduced to four. Company G had eight men.
The air boiled with shot. Reb artillery fired from the Dunker Church. Federal artillery behind the Miller farm and Antietam Creek blasted the cornfield. I didn’t see rows of men blown apart. I didn’t see lines of butternut rise beyond the cornfield and fire into Union ranks. Didn’t see Wisconsins, Indiana men, and New York Zouaves shout, load, fire at butternut, who fired back, across the Hagerstown Pike, ten yards away.
Thank God the 24th didn’t go up the Pike. We took our chance in the corn. Cousin was on my right. David Crocker on my left. That’s all I saw. Cousin and Crocker were all I saw.
We were angry. We were eight. On Union soil.
“Forward!” shouted Captain O’Brien.
We had two officers. Captain O’Brien and Lieutenant Penfield, promoted after South Mountain. The others were dead or disabled.
“Double-quick! Double-quick!”
We moved up a gentle slope. The corn was as tall as a man. Blue sky pushed out gray dawn.
The Pike was a quarter-mile of corn away.
Men came running at us. Twos. Threes. Blue. Bloody. Limping. Cussing. Two by me got hit. Simultaneous red halos splattered green-yellow stalks. I ducked and pushed bloody stalks away from my face.
“Forward!”
“Double-quick!”
Merrick was ahead. We came to an open swath littered with Reb bodies, parts of bodies, muskets, canteens, shredded haversacks. The dead lay in rows where they’d stood. I stepped in guts. Kicked an unattached leg. I went forward, bayonet fixed. Bodies thrashed. The ground was alive and trembling. The corn was bloody. We reached a line of kneeling Wisconsins. They fired at Rebs coming under a rolling cloud of smoke.
“Fill in! Fill in the line!”
On the Pike a dog stood over a dead man.
A Reb battle flag was tied to the rail fence. Two Federals raced for it. The officer got there first. Blood splashed the rails.
A ball passed my cheek. The air was thick and hot. I struggled to breath. My throat and chest hurt. My eyes burned. Ears pounded.
Rebs came through the smoke. They kicked and tripped over bodies. Balls whistled or thudded in men. I knelt. I tore, rammed, panned, fired. Merrick fired. Crocker fired. I was deaf and lay down. A corporal gave me a rifle with his left arm. His right was next to him. Two balls struck the corporal. I aimed over his stomach. My hands were bloody. I saw boots and bare feet under the smoke. I fired. The corporal convulsed. I crawled to another body and took another rifle. I steadied it on a dead man’s back. The stock was bloody. I saw corn and Reb feet.
I was calm.
I pulled the trigger. It didn’t fire.
I lay with my cheek on the ground behind a corpse, closed my eyes.
In God’s hands.
I opened my eyes. Reb feet running. Men cheered. Men got up. I got up. Couldn’t hear. Felt. My face was black, hands bloody, mouth full of grit and powder-taste, but I felt it. Power. I picked up another rifle.
“Right wheel! Right wheel!” Captain O’Brien led with his sword.
We were a ragged line, but a line. We wheeled to the Pike. Bodies were in the corn. Bodies were doubled-over on the fence. Reb bodies covered the ground from the Pike to the West Woods. Rebs ran for the woods. They limped. They crawled. We shot them.
A Reb officer, a general on a big horse, sword in the air, rode out. He shouted. “Stop! Stop it now! Stop!”
I saw his courage.
Captain O’Brien touched Lyman’s arm and pointed his sword. Lyman shouldered his Enfield. Black-haired, powder-black, dead-shot Lyman Houghton aimed. Brave man at brave man.
Lyman fired.
Others fired.
The General tumbled off his horse.
That was the last I saw of Lyman Houghton.
“Forward! Up! Forward!”
Wisconsins and Yorkers walked over dead and writhing Rebs. They begged for water, for their mothers. We reached the rail fence and pushed off the dead. I loaded and fired. A limping Reb dropped. I loaded again. The rifle was hot, the barrel dirty. I fired.
“Forward!”
Crocker, me, Merrick, Cox, Dennison, Penfield. The line wavered. Balls came thick. A shell dug a furrow on our right. A haversack, a hand, and a leg jumped into the air. We were what was left of Company G. A shell cut a furrow on our left.
“Forward!” yelled Penfield.
One push! Destroy the guns! Turn the Reb flank!
Rebs came down the Pike. They came by the Dunker Church on the double-quick. Over road, over clover, over dead, over wounded. By crawling men and dead horses. Let out of Hell.
Crocker, Merrick, me, Cox, Dennison, Penfield.
A ball cut Martin Dennison’s forehead. Lieutenant Penfield put his hand over the wound and pulled Martin back.
Crocker, Merrick, me, Cox.
Rebs left. Rebs center. A Reb dropped to one knee, aiming at me.
I saw him.
Ankle. Awful pain. Down.
Sky spinning.
Pulled up, hauled by something, someone.
“Let me down! Damn you!”
Three-legged beast. Rail fence? How? I was dragged out of the cornfield. Was it Merrick?
Couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear.
Mason
Fathers Bury Their Sons
September-October
1862
36
The telegraph brought news of battle, but the newspaper supplied the casualty list. Word traveled like electricity from the station up Railroad Street to Main. It flew like the Angel of Death and we hoped the Angel would pass us by. Three days after Second Bull Run, the Angel swept through Sandy Creek, Ellisburg, Boylston and Orwell. I, the Honorable Mason Salisbury, stood on my porch. It was a fine, clear September morning—ripe apples in full orchards, invigoratingly cool nights, the lake still warm for swimming. Little Wilbur Corse rode by bareback on a chestnut mare, tears streaming off his round, red cheeks. I thought of pity, the newborn babe astride the blast, as Shakespeare says. The word, the Angel, the almost telegraphic arrival of news passed our house. Someone, even little Wilbur, would have stopped if Moreau or Merrick were among the slain.
“It must be Henry,” said Mary, joining me on the porch. “That poor child.”
Up and down the street, cries ripped the crisp autumn morning.
I resisted a terrible thought. If Moreau or Merrick died, it would be easier to face other parents. Easier to be eloquent. Easier to stand for reelection.
I had asked for war. I had prayed for it. And now?
“Such a price,” said M
ary, joining me on the porch. She wouldn’t cry now—later she would bury her head in her pillow and weep with grief for our neighbors, and relief it wasn’t one of ours.
We went into the parlor because our neighbors’ cries were unbearable. Mary and I didn’t want to intrude. Later we’d make those dreadful, necessary calls. Men would look away, clasp a shoulder, remain wordless. Women would look each other in the eye, speak, hold, weep, and offer to stay over.
The war was here, now, in Sandy Creek. It wasn’t pies and speeches. All of us were part of it.
Sunlight fell through the open curtains in bright ribbons on the Persian carpet. It was a beautiful day, a perfectly beautiful day. Every day we had no bad news was Eden. Every morning I stood by the American flag hanging proudly on the porch. We were proud. We weren’t grieving. That September morn, Eden was lost. Eden wouldn’t survive 1862.
By mid-afternoon, we still had no word of our boys. “I believe we’ve been spared, Mary.” I sat in my cracked-leather chair.
Mary stood by the window, looking at the chestnut oaks and tall elms on Railroad Street, then closed the curtains. “I believe in the Cause, Mason, and I believe in you. But this is so hard for so many. How long will it go on?”
“Until it’s finished.”
“Until they all die?”
“Or the Union.”
Mary took my hand. I rely on words. Mary on touch. Her way is better.
A knock at the door made us start. Mary did a turn like a startled deer. I was opening the door before I realized I was out of my chair. My brother Lorenzo and Oren Earl, Sandy Creek’s most prominent citizen, came in.
“Mason,” said Lorenzo, “one of our boys has been hurt. I don’t know which or how bad.”
My brother was powerful looking and broad-shouldered, though much weathered since we followed the Cheese twenty-seven years ago. His face had lines, especially around the eyes that bespoke, even at fifty, an abiding toughness.
Oren was taller, not weather-beaten, not strong-looking. He was clean-shaven, had a high forehead and receding hair, which gave an impression of intellect. Oren Earl was a banker, a former Assemblyman—his retirement had allowed me to stand—and married to our cousin, Jeanette. His eyes usually sparkled with a look between the childlike expression that childless men sometimes develop and the deep concern of a successful man who feels responsible for his family, church, and town. The Earls had no children and Oren was very much an uncle to those of the Salisburys. Today he was solemn.
No Common War Page 12