A Soldier's Secret

by Marissa Moss

  “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again,” Dr. Evers continues, “so I gave your horse to the quartermaster of General Grover’s brigade. I’m sure he’ll hand him back to you.”

  I’m fond of Lucky, but Flag is more than a horse to me. He’s my friend. I’ve missed his nickering for apples, his head shoving against my shoulder, the way his ears cock toward my voice, listening. He knows when to gallop and when to hold up just from the lean of my body. Flag understands me. There isn’t anyone else I can say that about.

  A strange, tingly excitement grips me as I near Grover’s quartermaster. I can’t help thinking of the moment when Pa gave me Trig. Holding the halter of the fine young horse, I felt that same way, like something wonderful was about to happen, like an enormous gift was being granted to me.

  But when I talk to the quartermaster, he just shakes his head. “I paid for that horse with good money. He’s mine now.”

  “But Dr. Evers said he gave the horse to you,” I protest. “And anyway, he wasn’t the doctor’s to sell. Flag belongs to me.”

  “To you or to the army? Either way, the doctor took fifty dollars for him, so he wasn’t free. Perhaps that minor detail slipped the good doctor’s mind, but I haven’t forgotten. The horse is mine and there’s nothing more to be said about it.” The quartermaster turns to the sheaf of papers on his desk and breaks wind loudly.

  I cover my nose from the foul stench, but I’m not about to give up. “You can’t take advantage of the chaos of retreat to steal my horse from me. Flag is worth much more than fifty dollars and you know it! It’s such a laughable sum, the doctor probably thought you were offering a tip, not recompense.”

  The quartermaster refuses to look up or answer me. Unless you count the fresh explosion from his nether regions as a response. The army should use him as a secret weapon, sickening the enemy with his fetid fumes.

  I stomp off, directly to General Meade’s headquarters, gulping in fresh air on my way. To my surprise the general sees me right away and listens patiently as I explain my case. Of course, I don’t say anything about Flag being my friend. That would make me look silly. I simply describe the facts of what happened as calmly as I can, leaving out the gaseous incidents. When I’m done, he snorts in disgust.

  “Lord, forgive us such idiots! I’m sorry for your troubles, Private.” He leans over his crowded desk and quickly scribbles something on a piece of paper. “Take this back to that stubborn quartermaster. I’m ordering him to return your horse without delay. If you have any further difficulties with the man, you come back here right away. We’ll straighten out the so-and-so.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I say. For every selfish, self-serving man I come across in the army, I meet someone else so noble and bighearted, it washes out the bad taste left by the mean-spirited. I think of all the brave, ordinary soldiers I know—so many, compared to the few like the piggish chaplain, the cowardly colonel who pretended to be wounded, or the greedy quartermaster who refuses to recognize Flag’s rightful owner.

  Seeing the order, the quartermaster pales, his mustache trembling. Even his rear end behaves. “Well,” he sputters, “since it’s like that, of course you’ll have your horse.” He points to the stable down the street, where Flag is in a stall next to an old dappled nag.

  Flag tosses his head, nickering when he sees me, as if he’s wondering why I’ve taken this long to fetch him home. He stamps so much, the horse next to him gets agitated, then the one next to him, until horses are neighing and snorting all along the row of stalls. I can’t help grinning. He’s as happy to see me as I am to see him.

  “Flag, my friend”—I rub the blaze between his eyes—“did you miss me?” He noses my pocket, expecting the usual treat.

  “Sorry, boy, I don’t have anything for you now, but I’ll get you something, don’t you worry.” I bury my face in Flag’s neck, savoring the familiar smell. We’ve been through so much together. I think of Jerome, my other best friend. His absence is like a hole in my chest, a missing piece of myself. But at least I have Flag again. That’s a comfort, an unexpected one.

  The next day I’m ordered to appear at regimental headquarters. I brace myself for more arguing over Flag, but it isn’t the quartermaster who has demanded to see me. It’s the colonel who pretended to be wounded at the Battle of Williamsburg, the one Dr. Bonine ordered back to the field. He’s been on furlough since his cowardly behavior but has managed to present himself so well that he’s been promoted to brigade commander, all without any achievement in battle whatsoever. He’s invented his own past, telling reporters his “story,” so it’s now widely believed that he was “severely wounded at the battle of Williamsburg while gallantly leading a desperate charge on the enemies’ works, and was carried from the field, but no sooner had the surgeons bound up his wound than the noble and patriotic colonel returned again to his command and led his men again and again upon the foe, until the day was won, when he sank upon the ground, exhausted from loss of blood and fatigue, and was carried the second time by his men from the field.”

  The colonel presents the newspaper article describing his noble exploits to me as if proof that my own memory is faulty. I read it, my stomach sour with disgust.

  “Why show me this?” I ask.

  “Because,” answers the colonel, “I’m told that you were one of the men who carried me when I was wounded. I need you to corroborate the truth of this story, because the doctor on the field that day, some miscreant named Dr. Bonine, had the nerve to write to the newspaper that the whole incident was a pack of lies, that I was never wounded, not noble, nor patriotic, but a sniveling coward. You saw the truth! You know how the doctor abused me and called me vile names!”

  I push down the anger boiling inside me and answer calmly. “If the doctor called you unpleasant names, it was only because your behavior was despicable. You let me and the other nurse carry you to safety when you didn’t have so much as a scratch on you!”

  The colonel peers at me as if trying to take my measure. His lips curl in an oily smile, and his tone shifts from outrage to fawning. “Now, Frank, there’s no need to make this situation difficult. You saw what you think you saw. I know what I know. And I know that I can make this handsomely worth your while. All you need to do is sign this document, and you’ll find your purse quite a bit heavier than it is now.” He slides a paper across his desk.

  Not wanting to touch anything fingered by this repulsive man, I lean over the desk and read the short paragraph:

  This is to certify that Colonel Burgess has been infamously treated and maliciously slandered by Doctor Bonine, while said colonel was suffering from a wound received at Williamsburg battle. The two undersigned carried him bleeding from the field, and witnessed the cruel treatment and insulting language of Doctor Bonine.

  I clamp my lips together, holding in an enraged roar. Bad enough the coward has been promoted, now he’s trying to slander someone who truly is brave, noble, and patriotic. I glare at the colonel, who leans smugly back in his chair, sure that money can buy him a valorous past.

  Not from me. “There is no way I’ll ever put my name to such a lie,” I say, seething. “You’d spit in someone’s eye and call it honey.”

  “But I can pay you!” The colonel’s voice is shrill.

  “No,” I say. “You can’t.” I turn and walk out. I walk until my fists stop clenching, my breathing relaxes, and the sour taste in my mouth melts away. I reduce the colonel to a funny story and imagine telling Damon about it, acting out the colonel’s insulting offer. I wish I had a copy of the bogus newspaper story—we would both have a good laugh over the willingness of reporters to believe whatever anyone tells them. At least I can write what really happened to Mr. Hurlburt. His newsletter can tell the truth, revealing the falsehoods other papers have printed.

  As I ride along the Potomac on Flag, I admire the dome that is being constructed for the Capitol. The scaffolding is lit by the setting sun. Washington is a beautiful city, but it cares too much about
appearances, about fancy uniforms and family names. I’m eager to leave it, to get back to honest, simple people, my comrades and friends, to get back to the reasons I enlisted in the first place. It’s been nearly two years and we’re further from winning than ever, but I have to believe our luck will change. There are too many good men fighting for the Army of the Potomac for us to lose. I think about Dr. Bonine and his selfless sacrifices, about Damon’s earnest heart, and Jerome’s loyalty to his patients. They’re all decent people, fighting for the right reason, and I’m honored to be one of them. When I was young, my life was defined by Pa, then by my decision to reject an unwanted marriage and strike out on my own as a man. But now there’s a deeper, grander story framing who I am—it’s the story of this war and my place in it, what I’ve done to help my comrades, from spying to nursing to fighting to foraging for food. When it’s all over, I want to be able to lift my head proudly and say I was worthy of serving with my friends, that I knew what an honorable life was and chose to live one.

  ACK IN HARRISON’S Landing, I return to nursing duty, where despite my efforts more men die than recover. The mood in the regiment is bleak. It’s as if the Confederates have already won and we’re simply waiting to get the news.

  Rumors fly through the camp about where we’ll be heading next.

  “I swear,” growls Damon, “if I have to march through the Chickahominy swamps one more time, I’m quitting this army and walking home!”

  “You’re not a deserter,” I protest. “You’re too loyal for that. Besides, I thought you were growing fond of wet feet and mosquitoes.”

  Damon snorts. “You can have them both! A man can only take so much. Why don’t we just let the South secede? Who wants this land anyway? If you ask me, they can have it, and good riddance!”

  Usually I can joke Damon out of his rare foul tempers, but he’s stretched thin. We all are. If humor won’t work, maybe reminding ourselves of why we’re fighting will.

  “We can’t leave the Africans as slaves,” I argue. “There are too many reasons to win this war to give up on it. You believe in the Union. Our cause is just—you know that!”

  “I don’t care about the slaves. That’s their problem, not mine.” Things are worse than I thought if patriotism can’t rouse my friend. Damon throws some twigs into the camp-fire. “I’m sick of sitting here, waiting for nothing.”

  I sigh. I’m impatient too, but I do a better job of hiding it. I seem to be good at hiding lots of things. Besides, I’m too worried about Jerome to focus much on the prolonged stay at Harrison’s Landing. Every day I ask Colonel Poe if there’s any news. Each time he shakes his head sadly.

  It’s become part of my morning ritual. After the morning drills, I head for Colonel Poe’s tent and wait until he can see me. Sometimes he simply pokes his head out and frowns before I can even ask. Until the August morning when the colonel greets me with a broad smile.

  My heart flips in my chest. “You’ve heard something? You know what happened to the men?”

  “Indeed I do.” The colonel gestures to a camp stool. “Have a seat. It’s a bit of a story.”

  As I feared, the Confederates took the hospital the next day, led by Colonel Fitzhugh Lee, General Robert E. Lee’s nephew. The colonel could have been vengeful, having just heard that our retreating army had burned his aunt’s home in White House Landing to a pile of smoking ashes. Instead, he was the perfect Southern gentleman, considerate of the patients, polite to Jerome and the other nurse who stayed behind. He didn’t even take the men prisoner. Instead, he offered to parole them.

  I’ve never heard of parole, but Colonel Poe explains that it’s an ancient custom of freeing captured soldiers on the condition that they promise not to take up arms again until they’ve either been ransomed or exchanged for an enemy prisoner captured by their own army. Earlier in the war, doctors, nurses, and patients who were taken prisoner weren’t given that choice. They were simply put in prison, in horrendous conditions. But I have to give the Confederates credit. It was General Stonewall Jackson who considered that practice unethical and started paroling any enemy medical staff taken in battle. Our army followed suit, and by the summer of 1862 such exchanges have become common.

  It sounds like an odd situation for the parolees—not prisoners, yet not free to leave either. Jerome and the others were guarded by Jeb Stuart’s cavalry—the same group that later ambushed the troop train. Then they were moved to Camp Parole in Annapolis, Maryland, a holding place run by our army where the ex-prisoners would stay until they were traded or ransomed. In some ways it was like being held by one’s own side, but naturally the conditions were much better than in an enemy prisoner-of-war camp.

  “So Jerome is in Annapolis?” I ask. “I could have seen him when I was in Washington delivering mail?”

  “He’s only just arrived, but you’ll have other chances to see him, I’m sure. And in the meantime …” The colonel offers me a folded piece of paper. “He’s sent you a letter.”

  “A letter?” A wide smile blooms on my face. It’s the first personal letter I’ve ever received in my whole life, all twenty years. Not a letter from a stranger, like Virginia’s, and not a professional request from a former employer, like Mr. Hurlburt’s. But a letter written to me purely out of friendship. And it’s from Jerome. I feel a twinge of guilt for all the letters he’s written to Miss Anna that I’ve lost, but it doesn’t last long. I’m too excited by the thought of reading my friend’s words, of knowing how he’s feeling, of what’s happening to him, of being invited into his life through the single page I carefully unfold.

  I float out of the tent, gripping the letter until I come to a spot behind an oak that offers some privacy.

  Dear Frank,

  We’re all well and were treated quite kindly by our Southern hosts. Now we’re in Camp Parole, on Chesapeake Bay. It’s a beautiful place and quite comfortable, but I feel guilty to be doing nothing while the rest of you still fight. As parolees, we’re not allowed to drill or do any work that could help the Union cause, so we sit around all day, getting soft, reading books, writing letters, or playing cards. There’s not much else to do. I’ve asked the commander here if by taking the parole oath, we’ve deserted the army (since in fact that’s what we’ve promised to do), but he assures me that being on parole is a special circumstance and not considered dereliction of duty. That’s some comfort, but boredom is hard to contend with. I hope I’m released soon and can rejoin you, wherever the Second Michigan Regiment ends up.

  Your loyal friend,

  Jerome Robbins

  It isn’t a romantic message, but the warm friendship, the closeness it shows, means more to me than a syrupy love poem. Besides, what matters most is that, of everyone in the regiment, he’s chosen to write to me—to me! And he’s telling me honestly how he feels, his guilt and boredom. Who wants flowery sentiment when you can have that kind of friendship? I rush back to my tent to write an answer, enclose some money in case that would be handy, and add the envelope to the stack I’ll deliver the next day. I hum happily, mending an old shirt, sitting in front of the tent, when Damon comes by.

  “What are you so cheerful about? Have you heard something? Are we finally going to move from here? Or did you get another letter from Virginia? Has she declared her undying affection yet?”

  “She’s written no such thing! I did get another letter from her, but it’s all bland formulas and pleasantries. I don’t know that she’s actually saying anything at all, though she did talk about the kitchen garden a bit.” I bite off the thread and tie a lumpy knot. I never have been much of a hand at sewing. “I don’t know how you write to a lady. I can’t tell what would be interesting to Virginia. I just write to her the same kind of thing I write to Mr. Hurlburt, and that’s probably not a good idea.”

  “Forget about Virginia, then—you know something!” Damon insists. “I can tell!”

  I grin. “Yes, I do! I got a letter from Jerome. He wasn’t taken prisoner. They paroled him in
stead, so now he’s at some camp in Annapolis.”

  “Paroled? The lucky so-and-so! He’s not in a prison camp and he doesn’t have to fight in this blasted war anymore. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  I fold up the patched shirt. “He doesn’t think he’s so lucky. I mean, of course he’s relieved not to be a prisoner, but he’s frantic from doing so much nothing. He wants to be useful, to help. He’s more a nurse than a soldier. I don’t think he’s ever fought in any battles, just worked with the doctors in the hospitals. He wants to be where he’s needed most.”

  “Well, if you ask me, that’s home, with his sweetheart, that little gal of his that’s been waiting on him so long. He should just sneak out of that camp and get himself back home.” Damon sighs. “That’s what I’d do.”

  I frown. “He’s not like you. He doesn’t care how long he’s apart from Miss Anna. He cares about the wounded soldiers.”

  “So he says. Every man would rather be with his honey than in a war. That’s only natural.”

  My ears turn red. I don’t want to hear another word. “You’re wrong,” I snap, throwing down my mending and stomping off.

  “Oh, no, I’m not!” Damon yells after me. “You’re just jealous because you don’t have your own girl yet! If Virginia was in love with you, it’d be a different story!”

  For two days we don’t speak to each other. Our mood fits with the tense misery that pervades the whole camp. And a couple of weeks later that sour mood swells to anger when General McClellan orders the entire army to leave the Virginia Peninsula, shipping out the way we came. In five months we’ve given up whatever ground we’ve taken and lost fifteen thousand men. The utter waste of it all, the complete failure of the campaign, is a terrible omen for how the war will end. Even worse, when the Second Michigan arrives back in Alexandria, we’re ordered to march to Manassas, the site of our first terrible defeat at the start of the war. I don’t see how things could be worse. We seem cursed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, and each time, thousands more die.