The Sentinels of Andersonville

by Tracy Groot

  “How old are you, brat?” Burr said. “Nine? Ten?”

  “Twelve!” the nipper said indignantly. “Enough to tag me a Yank!”

  Burr snatched him by the collar and held him eye-height. “You fire that musket one time and I’ll pitch you into that pen. Are we of an understanding?”

  “Yup!” he squeaked.

  “Gimme your bullets.”

  The boy fumbled in his bulging pockets and produced enough bullets to lay down a herd of pigs. Burr waited until he’d handed over the last one, then tossed them into the water trough.

  The other guard came down and smacked Burr on the back. “Got a present for ya, sitting out front.”

  “Well, I got one for you.” He gave the boy a little shove.

  “Wife’s makin’ biscuits and gravy and I ain’t sharin’.” He looked at the boy. “Say your prayers, son—that there is Burr, more to be feared than a pack of screamin’ Yanks.”

  “Is the present dead?” Burr called as the guard left.

  “Yep.”

  “Then call me down a stretcher.”

  “I ain’t on duty no more!” He laughed and gave a salute.

  Burr grimaced, and then turned a stare on the boy. “Well, get on up there.” The boy, white-faced, clambered up the ladder.

  Burr smiled a little and had his foot on the bottom rung when the turnkey at the pass-through door said, “Burr—come over here.”

  There was something in his voice. Burr walked over.

  “I ain’t sure, but . . .” He opened the pass-through and motioned with his head. Burr glanced at the turnkey, and then stepped through.

  The heap of Yankee blue was maybe ten paces off—and Burr stopped halfway there.

  “Oh, no,” Burr said in a very small voice.

  —

  Drover found a piece of paper as they gently eased Pickett’s body onto the stretcher.

  THIS IS WHAT WE THINK OF YOUR PLAN, WIRZ.

  “What plan?” Drover shouted to grim-faced Yankees on the outskirts who watched with folded arms. He tore the paper up and threw it at them. “What plan, you fools?”

  For whatever reason Pickett went in, it wasn’t for Wirz. Dance hated Wirz.

  Drover looked down at Pickett’s ruined body, clad in Yankee blue, and knew Pickett had done someone good. He looked again to the Yanks, all the fight gone out, said, “What plan, you pitiful fools . . .” He didn’t dare look at Burr or he’d come all apart. Burr had gone over the deadline and sat against the stockade wall, watching the sun come up on the spiked rim of the palisade. A thin Yank drawn up with scurvy sat across from him at the deadline.

  “You just say the militia don’t lose men too,” Drover said to no one. “You just say we don’t know war. Come on, Zeeff,” he said, dashing at his eyes. “Let’s get him to his daddy, for I know he is in town.”

  But Zeeff wasn’t listening. Not to Drover. He’d crouched low to Pickett’s body, and then suddenly went to his knees and laid his ear on his chest.

  Drover’s own heart missed a beat.

  Zeeff looked up at Drover, and then over at Burr. “Burr!”

  —

  The guards at Andersonville knew better than to take Dance to the Federal hospital on the grounds or to the Hospital for Confederate Soldiers in Andersonville; if there was any chance at all of saving his life, he’d forfeit it later if they did. So they took him to the pine-bough dead house outside the south gate—right under the nose of Wirz, on the hill at the Star Fort. They laid him in a corner, and stacked corpses on either side. They stopped what bleeding they could, though there wasn’t much of that, and put Zeeff on dead house duty. Then Drover went to fetch the only doctor who would come.

  Drover took the magnificent, spirited Maxwell horse from the corral behind Captain Wirz’s office, and rode it into flying bits of foam for Americus.

  25

  IT DID NOT SEEM to Mrs. Stiles that Posey was particularly sick. In fact, as it was Sunday and they were readying for church, she was sure she wasn’t. But when Ellen, whose judgment was unerring and absolute, pronounced Posey as poorly, that was that. While Ellen prepared restorative tea for Posey, the rest of the family, with Violet quite remote and poor Cousin Pickett quite silent—which Mrs. Stiles had never once witnessed—set off for the Methodist church.

  Ellen and Posey watched them go from behind a lacy curtain.

  —

  Lew’s night in the cave was heaven compared to Andersonville. It smelled of rich, clean earth. Nothing would smell bad again after Andersonville, but for a fruit farmer to spend a night cradled in good clean earth with the sound of the river nearby was as close to home as Lew had come since he’d been away, and the fact that it was here, here, so few miles from that hellhole prison, was something fit for philosophical study.

  The child came late in the morning with a tall, thin, elderly black woman.

  “Well, how did you stand your night?” the child asked.

  “I stood it grand. This is a pleasant place, and it reminds me of home.”

  “I am glad to hear it. You may be the first of many. I wish there was wood you could carve to say you slept here.”

  “Will I ever know your name?” Lew said. “It is something I would keep in my pocket all the rest of my days.”

  She beamed. “That is lovely to say, and I will treasure it. But it’s best we don’t swap real names, for I plan to make a habit of this. You can call me Traitor Christian. What can I call you?”

  “Little Mite Badger.”

  “Well, Little Mite Badger, who isn’t so little, here is a poke filled with food, and here is Ell—” She looked up at the black woman. “What shall we call you?”

  “Sojourner Truth.”

  “Sojourner will take you to Elder—what shall we call him?”

  The woman thought it over. “George.”

  “Why, that is kind.” To Lew she said, “George was the brother I never met. Now, Little Mite Badger, Elder George will take you to someone I do not know, and so on, and so on, and thus we will get you on up to the dreaded Sherman.”

  “I am deeply grateful, Traitor Christian. Do you know I have a girl your age? She is just as fair and bright. I will speak of you to her one day.”

  The little traitor smiled. “You tell her I said how do.”

  —

  Posey had just time to dive under the sick shawl on the parlor sofa before the front door banged open. But she did not have to fake sick, and almost regretted it—she could truly “put on the pale” as Mama called it, and considered it a skill—but it was only Rosie and Daisy, and they burst into the parlor, both talking at once.

  “What do you think?” Rosie shouted.

  Posey threw off the shawl. “I hardly know. Say it quick.”

  “Papa was called out of service!” Daisy said.

  “Whatever for?”

  “We don’t know,” began Daisy.

  “But we surmise,” continued Rosie.

  “That it is not a medical emergency, as it was not just—”

  “Papa who was called out, but—”

  “Cousin Pickett!”

  “So that means—” said Rosie.

  “Dance is found,” Posey breathed. “Where is Violet?”

  “She ran out with them.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “We don’t know,” Rosie said, disgusted, dropping to the sofa. “Mama promised death if we followed.”

  “That is anticlimactic!” Posey shouted, pounding her knee with a fist. “Blame it all to—” She stopped as Mother walked into the parlor. Then the porch door banged, and Posey saw Violet run upstairs, Lily on her heels.

  Posey discreetly reached for the sick shawl.

  “Well. You certainly seem better,” Mother said dryly.

  “What is Violet doing here?” Posey said. “Why does she not run to her love?”

  “Papa wouldn’t let her,” said Mother.

  “When does Papa stop her?”

  “He put his foot
down.”

  Posey raised an eyebrow.

  “Girls,” Mother said to Rosie and Daisy, “change out of your Sunday dresses. We must clear out the Trades Pile and make up a place in Papa’s office. If all goes well, and let us pray it does, we may be receiving Dance.”

  “It is a medical emergency?” Rosie said, alarmed.

  Mama came close and knelt. “The guard from Andersonville says Dance is in a very bad way.”

  Posey sat up. “What happened?”

  “It seems he was set upon.”

  “Set upon!” the girls cried.

  “You must prepare yourselves—he is in a dreadful state, near death. It seems he has already . . . he has lost vision in one eye.” She forced a tremulous smile. “But you know what a fine doctor your papa is.”

  “The best!” Rosie declared, rubbing her eyes with her fists.

  “He’ll see him through!” said Daisy. “We all will!”

  “So we shall. Rosie, get out the cot and make sure there is no mildew. Scrub it clean if there is, and fetch some bedding. Daisy, put all the trades things in the larder. Ellen and I will prepare Papa’s things. Hettie is on her way.”

  Judging by Mama’s calm and clear state, things must be very bad indeed, as she was only this clear when they were. Oh, how Posey liked it better when Mama was frazzled.

  As soon as the others left the parlor, Posey slipped upstairs to Violet.

  Violet lay on her stomach on the bed, very still. Lily sat beside her, and she had been crying.

  Violet was only this still when things were very bad.

  Posey came inside, and closed the door. She sat on the floor next to the bed and settled in to wait like women did.

  —

  Word passed to Sergeant Keppel of a certain body in the dead house.

  All his days he’d remember the look on General Winder’s face when that preacher had slammed a handful of foul prison fodder square in the middle of his desk. It brightened the sergeant’s soul every time he called it to mind, and for this he owed Dance Pickett. Yes, the boy had gone AWOL, and yes, Wirz was mad—madder than usual—because with Sherman’s advance, several guards had already deserted for the cowards they were. They were sure he was headed to Andersonville to tread the grapes of retribution, because they had too little common sense to realize Atlanta was the prize.

  Keppel frowned. They had put Dance in the dead house, but no one could fetch him from there. Wirz had a clear view of the place. He’d pick up on anything unusual, and a doc visiting the dead house was unusual. Especially that doc. Wirz had been feeling poorly lately, but Keppel did not count on this as favorable. He had to intercept any rescue party before they made for the dead house.

  There was only one way to get Pickett out, and that meant grim things for the boy. Keppel hoped he stayed half-dead for the time being. The very thought of Pickett waking up in that company put him in a sweat, and he quickly called to mind Winder Stares at Prison Food. He added the preacher’s I will not leave until you eat that. A smile soon twitched, and he was able to turn his thoughts to practicalities.

  Men were dropping so fast, death hastened by the roasting sun, that Wirz had ordered the burial trench to be lengthened. He’d ordered it a week ago, but this was Andersonville—things didn’t get done when ordered. Spare shovels for a large detail of men had to be first requisitioned, and then found, and they weren’t, as the locals refused any loans. They were ordered from Albany and until they came in, the large detail of men scheduled for dead duty would wait; today there were two, and Keppel swapped those two out for Drover and Zeeff.

  He told his corporal he had to check on the shipment of shovels and left Castle Reed for the commissary building.

  The commissary building was directly across from the train depot. Whether they had taken a train or the road from Americus, they had to cross here to get to the stockade. Here, Keppel had to intercept anyone bound for Dance at the dead house. He sat on a barrel just inside the door with some old bills of lading he’d borrowed from the corporal.

  —

  They took the same rig they had rented only yesterday, leaving a note for the hostler since he was in church, and followed the man called Drover. The train was faster, but they didn’t bother to check the schedule; they needed a conveyance for Dance, and they would need to keep him concealed.

  “He thinks he has lost an eye, does he?” said J. W. Pickett. “Well, he is no doctor. We shall be the judges of that.”

  Dr. Stiles noted the we but did not comment. It was good to see the elderly man lively once more.

  “We Picketts have the natural-bred constitution of the mountain man, as our ancestors hail from the Carolina Smokies. Dance was sick but once in his life. Pneumonia. But he pressed through.”

  “We need to think of how to get him off the compound without notice,” Dr. Stiles said.

  “Why should that be a difficulty? He is my son. He has done nothing wrong.”

  Dr. Stiles did not bother with a response. Cousin may yet be sharp in a courtroom, but when it came to his children his thinking went a little dull. He let the old man talk while he mentally tended to damages he had not yet assessed and considered ways to save an eye he had not yet examined; but first, they had to figure out how to carry off a body from a place where all they did was watch, and watch, and watch.

  —

  Keppel left the papers on the barrel and came alongside the three men. One was the doctor, one was J. W. Pickett, and one was Drover. Drover was arguing with Pickett.

  “Sirs, let us turn in here for a spell,” said Keppel in a tone not to be overheard, indicating the commissary building. “Let us consider our ways.”

  “That’s what I keep telling him,” said Drover between his teeth. “He wants to bring Wirz into it!”

  “What have we to hide?” Pickett insisted. “Let us simply go to the captain and talk this out. I do not understand why Dance went into that place to begin with. While it is true he is given to hyperbole, I am sure—”

  “Shut your mouth and get in there,” said Keppel, and Pickett’s mouth snapped closed.

  Keppel ushered them to the far corner of the building near barrels of sorghum and sacks of rice and, once he was sure they could not be overheard, began to lay out his plan. “Now. Drover and Zeeff will—”

  “Where exactly is Dance?” said J. W. Pickett. “Your man will not tell me. He said they hid him, but—”

  “Your son is concealed among the corpses in the dead house.”

  That silenced him.

  “I’ve not seen him, but those who have say he is unconscious and that’s a mercy.” He glanced at Drover. “I’ve swapped you and Zeeff for dead house duty.” He looked at the other two. “Drover and Zeeff will load up the wagon as usual and get him to the Yankee burial ground about a quarter mile north of the stockade. We must stick with the usual times they load the wagon to not invite notice. It is hard, but we must.”

  “What’s the usual time?” said Dr. Stiles.

  “Two loads go over before ration time. They need the wagon for rations right after. To save time—”

  “The same wagon used for dead bodies, used to bring in food?” said J. W. Pickett.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Dance said it’s not even washed out. I . . . didn’t believe him. Of course—who would?”

  “Is he with hospital or stockade bodies?” said Dr. Stiles. At Keppel’s impatient shrug, he said, “Hospital bodies are more gangrenous. I am deeply concerned about infection.”

  “Gangrene!” exclaimed Pickett.

  Keppel clapped his hands once. “Listen!” He lowered his voice. “Whichever bodies he is with, he’ll go out in the second load. I want to get him out of there as soon as can be done, so I told Zeeff to go ahead and lay out the first load of corpses in the trench but wait to cover them with dirt later. That bought a half an hour, and that’s all I dare. Then Drover and Zeeff will come back for the second load as usual, this time putting Dance with them, and
then head for the burial trench. Now listen sharp: just past the trench is the main road, and that’s where you’ll wait for them to bring out your boy. But here’s the thorny part: Winder has a picket line standing watch not far from there, a bit further east. Stop your carriage just at the bend, and you’ll avoid them—there will be a bare space in the pines on the right. That’s where our Confederate boys are laid to rest. Well, you all best get going. Good luck. I wish him the best.”

  Dr. Stiles and J. W. Pickett started off, then Pickett stopped and turned to say, a little distracted, “Thank you.” He hurried to catch up with the doc. Keppel and Drover followed behind to the entrance of the commissary and watched them go.

  “You think Dance will make it?” Keppel asked.

  Drover watched the old man. “He don’t believe how bad things are.”

  “Well, you and Zeeff be careful. I’m tired of losing—hey!”

  Drover caught up with J. W. Pickett and made him stop. He pulled off his hat. “Things are grim, sir, and I wish you’d believe it. He’s stood much. If he does not stand more . . . well, I want to say . . . what a fine boy, sir.”

  He clapped on his hat and trotted back to Keppel. “Sometimes, Sergeant, I just wish I wasn’t born.”

  “Well . . . that may cheer you some.” Keppel pointed at the handbill tacked to the load-bearing post. “Did you see that?”

  Drover went over and read it. “There they go again.” His face softened. “Didn’t they learn?”

  “Some don’t.”

  “Well, I’m gonna borrow this.” He took it down, carefully folded it, and put it in his pocket. “If he comes to, he still has one good eye.”

  —

  Dr. Stiles waited, reins in hand, peering ahead. J. W. did not feel like waiting in the carriage. He could not see through the pines in the bend. He couldn’t see how far away the picket line was, but if he listened close he could hear the men.

  He got down and looked through the thinned pines to the Confederate soldiers’ burial ground. A little farther up the road was where they would bring out Dance from the Union burial trench. He went up the road as far as he dared, until he heard voices at the picket line, then slipped into the pines.