Today We Go Home

by Kelli Estes

  After the workers left, Emily knelt and laid a hand on the fresh soil. “I love you, David.” She wanted to say more, but her words failed her.

  When they finally turned away from the grave, the sun was not even at its crest. They walked for a long while without talking. As they left the cemetery and blended into the crowds on the street, Emily’s mind turned to something she had been considering since last night. “What do you think about joining the 9th Indiana? Pa and David’s regiment?”

  Ben’s head swiveled sharply toward her. She stopped walking and turned to look straight into his eyes to show she was serious. “The soldiers there knew Pa and David. They could tell us stories about their last months.”

  “I would love that, but…” Ben seemed to be struggling to find the right words as his gaze searched her face. “Last chance, Em. Are you sure you can do this? You’ve seen how brutal this war has already been.”

  Emily nodded just as a little boy running along the sidewalk bumped into her. She and Ben were blocking the way. She nudged her brother’s arm, and they fell into step again. “I think I can. I know I can. I’m not that different from you, you know.”

  They walked for several blocks without another word until finally Ben guided her toward a building and opened the door for her.

  She didn’t know what he was up to until she went inside the building and saw a ticket counter and a large board with several different cities and times listed on it. “The train station?”

  Ben smiled and headed toward the counter. “We need train tickets if we’re going to get to the 9th Indiana’s camp, don’t we?”

  Chapter Nine

  October 12, 1861: Union Army Encampment, Cheat Mountain, Western Virginia

  Emily stood outside the surgeon’s tent with trembling knees, trying her best to appear stoic. They had come all this way, had successfully found the regiment camped on Cheat Mountain in western Virginia, and had convinced the officers to allow them to enlist. The only hurdle left lay in the medical examination that Emily had not known would be required until now.

  What would they do to her when the doctor discovered she was a woman? Several newspapers had reported on women like herself, and it seemed these women’s fates were entirely in the hands of the commanding officer. At best, she would be sent home. Without Ben. At worst, she would be labeled a Confederate spy and hung.

  A shudder went through her body, and she felt her bowels threaten to release. She held her breath and squeezed her eyes tight, willing herself to regain control. If she broke down into a weeping mess, they would discover her for sure. Her only hope was to carry on with this charade.

  Ben, who was standing beside her at attention, swayed his body toward her so his arm brushed against hers. She let go of the breath she held and filled her lungs deeply.

  “Who do we have here?” Surgeon Meeker threw back the flap to his tent and strode out carrying a sheaf of papers. “We have two enlistees by the name of…” He brought his spectacles to his eyes and squinted at the forms they had filled out. “Wilson. Jesse, age nineteen, and Benjamin, age eighteen, of Stampers Creek, Indiana. Any relation to Calvin Wilson?” The portly man in uniform eyed them over his spectacles.

  His white hair made him appear to be a friendly grandfather, but Emily wasn’t fooled. She knew her life was in this man’s hands. “Yes, sir,” she answered, her voice cracking.

  “What’s that?” he nearly shouted. “When an officer asks you a question, you will answer in a manner that allows him to hear you. Now, I will ask again. Are you a relation of Calvin Wilson of Stampers Creek, Indiana?”

  “Yes, sir!” both Emily and Ben barked back.

  The doctor nodded. “Then it is with a heavy heart that I give you my condolences. He was well respected by everyone who knew him.”

  Emily nodded in thanks.

  Surgeon Meeker dropped the papers onto the portable desk in front of his tent. “Let’s get this over with.” He crossed the distance to stand a foot in front of Emily. “Open your mouth wide.”

  She squeezed her hands into fists and complied.

  “Close your teeth as if you are biting. Good. Good.” He stepped back. “Now, jump up and down.”

  Emily wondered when he’d ask her to remove her clothing. After she’d jumped up and down to his satisfaction, the doctor placed one hand on the center of her chest and another on her back, thumping first one, then the other, listening through a stethoscope. Emily dreaded the moment he would feel the bindings under her blouse, but he dropped his hands and moved on to Ben without saying a word.

  After the same examination of Ben, Surgeon Meeker returned to his desk where he unscrewed a pot of ink, dipped in his quill, and scratched his signature onto their enlistment papers. “You both are fit for service. Welcome to the Army.”

  Emily’s relief was so great, she thought she might faint. She turned to Ben and found him smiling at her with equal wonder.

  “Take these to Colonel Milroy’s tent to be sworn in.” Surgeon Meeker handed them their papers. “Dismissed.”

  They hurried across the dusty camp toward headquarters, staring in wonder at everything they passed. A-frame tents, Sibley tents shaped like upside-down cones, tents that had been fashioned into roofs for small, wooden cabins. Soldiers were everywhere, sipping from tin cups as they poked at a campfire with a stick, lying in the shade sleeping, wrestling on the ground with a group of onlookers, cleaning their firearms, playing musical instruments and singing, or playing games with cards or dice. All of this activity didn’t even take into account the rows of men in the field beyond doing activities that made little sense to Emily. They looked to be walking around in circles to their officer’s commands. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of gunfire, but no one seemed concerned about it so she assumed it was practice rather than a battle in progress.

  As they neared the largest tent in the camp, she saw a group of uniformed men sitting on campstools around a rickety-looking table, upon which a map was laid out. One of the officers looked at them and then smoothly slid his hat off his head and over the map as though to obscure it from their view.

  The man who seemed to be in charge, judging by the way the others looked to him, as well as by the shiny additions on his uniform, looked up as they stopped in front of him. He had short dark hair parted on the left and combed so neatly he looked as if he was on his way to church. His face was shaved except for a heavy mustache and a bushy strip of hair on the center of his chin. His critical eyes studied Emily and Ben. “These must be our new recruits.”

  The silence lengthened, and Emily realized they were expected to respond. “Yes, sir!” she answered, remembering to speak loudly.

  An aide reached for their papers, looked them over, then handed them to the officer. “These seem to be in order, Colonel.”

  The colonel got to his feet and approached them. He towered over both of them and ordered them to raise their right hands. “Repeat after me. ‘I, state your name, do solemnly swear.’”

  “‘I, Jesse Wilson, do solemnly swear.’”

  Colonel Milroy gave the next line. “‘That I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America.’”

  They repeated the line and continued until they’d given the full oath. “‘And that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies and opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the armies of the United States.’”

  As she spoke the words, tears stung Emily’s eyes. These were the same words Pa and David had spoken six months earlier. The words filled her with pride. Finally, she would be doing something big with her life that wasn’t caring for a home and family. She’d be doing something that few women experienced, and maybe she would make a difference.

  As s
oon as the simple ceremony concluded, they were shown to the quartermaster’s tent and given their uniforms, which consisted of a kepi hat with a horn insignia on the front, a blouse, an overcoat, a dress coat, a poncho, trousers, shirts, drawers, socks, and boots. They were also each given a haversack in which to store their rations, a knapsack to store extra clothing and personal items, a canteen, a half shelter tent, and two blankets, one woolen and one rubber. The quartermaster let them change into their uniforms in his tent—Ben turned his back to give Emily some privacy, which she appreciated—and then they stood before each other with their chests puffed in pride. Neither of their uniforms fit quite right, which Emily was grateful for, since it would aid in keeping her secret. But ill-fitting garments aside, they looked sharp as official soldiers of the United States Army. If only Pa could see them.

  From there, they were shown to an open spot in a line of tents and told to make camp. They fastened their two half tents into a full tent that they would share, using the buttons and holes fashioned into them for that purpose.

  Word got around camp that two new recruits had arrived, and soon they had several fellow soldiers hanging around. One of them, a lean, freckled man named Quincy Rawlings, even brought them an armful of wood and got a fire going in front of their tent. “Cook will give you a plate, a spoon, a knife, and a cup when you’re given your rations at supper. Lose them, and you’ll need to buy more from a sutler. You’ll also want to be getting yourself a coffeepot and pan to cook in for when we’re on the march. We’re all on our own at that point.”

  “Keep your belongings stashed away inside your tent,” advised Quincy’s tentmate, a younger man who introduced himself as Willie Smith. “The creek is over there, so everyone from camp, even the camp followers, pass by here every day. If you leave anything lying around, it won’t be there when you return.”

  Emily appreciated their advice. She’d seen the disorganized area on the other side of camp where the camp followers lived and was happy not to be among them, as had been her original plan. Pitching their tent in the orderly row with their fellow soldiers made Emily feel like she belonged. She had a purpose.

  With their gear stowed safely inside their tent, they were free to relax, as the day was drawing to a close and duty would not start until morning. Emily dragged a log from a short distance away and used it as a bench in front of the fire where several men were regaling Ben with their stories of soldiering. Those that had known Pa and David shared memories of them that made Emily both laugh and have to fight to keep tears in check. She hid her emotions with a scowl.

  As she sat at the fire with the other soldiers, Emily could almost believe she was one of them. She laughed at their jokes and knew not to believe everything they told her, for many stories were obviously greatly exaggerated. But then one man, a big-boned, beefy soldier a handful of years older than her, looked up from a letter he was reading and said, “Listen to this, boys. My wife sent along a newspaper clipping about a soldier in a New Jersey regiment who gave birth to a baby.” At the exclamations of disbelief from the others, the man slapped his knee in delight. “Turns out it was a woman who disguised herself as a man and a soldier. Boy, they must be idiots in New Jersey.”

  “That’s for sure,” another man whose name she didn’t know agreed between loud laughs. “Either that or they benefited from keeping the secret, if you catch my meaning.”

  That started several of the men backslapping each other and offering more crude suggestions. Emily laughed so she wouldn’t stand out, but the talk made her nervous.

  “If my tentmate were a woman,” boasted one man in a voice tinged by a soft Southern accent, “you can bet I wouldn’t get much sleep. Wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off her during the day neither.”

  “But if anyone saw you, you’d look like you were buggering another man,” his friend countered. “Or maybe you go for that kind of thing.” His comment earned him a rough shove that landed him on the ground, where he collapsed into fits of laughter.

  Emily looked at Ben and saw that he was thinking the same thing she was. She would be in terrible danger if any of these men learned her secret. She would have to be careful.

  She’d been a man for a handful of days now, and she’d spent all of that time watching and listening. She knew how to fit in, and she knew that now was a good time to display a new skill she’d been dying to try.

  Silently, she sucked at her cheeks and drew all of the saliva in her mouth onto her tongue. And then, when the loudest of the men looked her way, she turned to the side and spat onto the ground beside her. To finish the performance, she spread her knees wide and leaned her elbows on them in a decidedly unladylike fashion. Even though she didn’t catch the next joke, she laughed loudly along with the others.

  Maybe tomorrow she’d have the courage to say a swear word or even try chewing tobacco.

  She could hardly wait.

  * * *

  The next morning began early, but Emily was up before almost everyone else. She’d slept in her clothes, as they’d been told, so all she needed to do was put on her boots and coat and step out of the tent, leaving Ben still asleep. She knew she’d have to work extra hard to hide her true gender, and part of that meant bypassing the company sinks, as the latrine trench was called, to squat in the bushes far from curious eyes.

  She found relief behind some shrubs a good distance into the forest and wondered how she’d manage later in the day when everyone was awake. She’d best limit her need by restricting how much she drank.

  As she returned to camp, the bugle announcing roll call sounded, and she followed the rest of her company to the parade grounds, lining up between Ben and Quincy. Next to Ben was Willie Smith, and Emily was surprised to see them joking around like old friends. When had they become acquainted? Emily had been with Ben all last evening.

  When her name was called, she forgot about Willie and turned her face forward to call out, “Present!” A thrill went through her whole body. She had never felt so alive in her life. Here she was, a woman, standing among men and serving her country.

  She took to soldiering like a duck to water. Drilling—the strange formations she’d seen the men performing in the field yesterday—appealed to her sense of order. At one point when she turned to face right, as commanded, and found herself face-to-face with Ben, they’d both burst out laughing as he looked around and saw that he’d turned the wrong way. By the end of the morning drill, Emily understood every command and felt like she’d been following them her whole life.

  Next, they went to a field where the rest of the company was to practice firing. Ben and Emily first had to go through training on how to properly load and fire their rifled muskets, although both had been shooting for years. Once they’d proven proficient in the task, the sergeant trained them how to fix bayonets and practice ramming them through a bale of hay over and over again. Every muscle in Emily’s upper body ached from the exertion. Finally, the sergeant handed them each a cartridge box holding forty rounds and released them to the line with the rest of their company where they learned how to follow the multistep commands to load and fire together as a unit.

  Emily had never had so much fun.

  When it was time to transition from one task to another, Quincy Rawlings and Willie Smith teased Emily and Ben about being so green, but they also helped them know what to do and where to go. Soldiering, Emily decided, was like having dozens of brothers looking out for her instead of just the two she’d grown up with.

  The reminder that David was not here made her heart ache, but she forced herself not to think of him. At least, she did not think of him during the day when there were plenty of other things to occupy her mind. As the sun started slipping behind the trees to the west, however, she found her thoughts going back to David and Pa and wishing they were both here, sharing this adventure with her and Ben.

  As Ben joined Willie Smith at his campfire, Emil
y sneaked away into the woods to relieve herself. She had planned to wait until lights out, but she’d learned the previous night that being out of her tent and in the woods after “Taps” was a serious offense.

  The woods around camp were ablaze with color so vibrant it seemed to glow even in the fading light. Interspersed between spruce and fir trees were all the warm colors of autumn—red, orange, gold, yellow. As Emily picked her way through the trees looking for privacy to do her business, dry leaves crunched underfoot and made it impossible to move without notice to anyone who might be about. But, she realized, this also meant that anyone else would alert her to their presence, so she felt reassured.

  Once she’d gone far enough away from camp that she no longer heard the sound of the men laughing or playing the banjo or harmonica, she relaxed. Behind a large laurel shrub, she dropped her trousers and squatted, her relief immediate after holding it in for hours.

  As she was finishing, a twig snapped nearby and she froze. Someone was there.

  Frantic, she pulled up her trousers and fastened her belt as silently as possible. She didn’t bother with tucking in her blouse and instead pulled her overcoat tightly around her. For the first time, she realized how foolish she was to walk away from camp without a weapon. Her sergeant had told her to always have it at hand, but she hadn’t listened. Now she would pay. Anything and anyone could be out here: an animal about to eat her, a fellow soldier who watched her and now would use the knowledge of her true gender against her, a Confederate sympathizer about to put a bullet in her back… Each idea that came to her was worse than the last.

  She hunkered down behind a tree and tried to find whatever had made the noise, but nothing moved. The forest was hushed and growing darker by the minute. Safety could only be found back at camp, but if she turned and ran for it, she could be killed by whoever—or whatever—was out there.