A Soldier's Secret

by Marissa Moss

  “I do! And many others do, too! Why, I heard that even General Bobby Lee himself doesn’t own slaves, and he freed the ones his father-in-law left to him. Their own general doesn’t believe in slavery!” We’re moving down the rows of cots, arguing across the sick soldiers.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Jerome admits. “Anyway, besides that ruckus there’s not much to tell except that General Poe’s commission has run out and he hasn’t been reap-pointed. Talk is he’s being punished for sticking with Franklin at the Battle of Fredericksburg.”

  “You mean he’s leaving? He hasn’t said a word to me!”

  “He hasn’t had the chance, has he? You just got here. Go see him yourself and see what he says.”

  “I will.” I finish changing a dressing and turn to Jerome. “Do you know who’s replacing him? Who’s our commander now?”

  Jerome shrugs again. “I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s all the same to me.”

  “How can you say that? I don’t want another Burnside!” I slump down on a stool, suddenly exhausted. “I’m tired of this war. I’ve been fighting for so long, I’m not sure there’s any fight left in me.”

  “C’mon, Frank. You’ve got more grit than anyone I know. You love the army.” Jerome pulls up a stool and sits next to me.

  I sit up stiffly, keeping my body away from his. “I don’t love the army—I love the men in the army.” I look at the bandaged men filling every bed. “They’re like brothers to me—they’re my family. I’d do anything for them.”

  “I know you would. And they know it, too.” He takes my hand and pats it. “But you deserve a rest. Why don’t you ask for a leave?”

  I let my hand linger in his, the touch a rare gift. My heart pounds as I try to sound casual, normal. “After I’ve had it so easy, sleeping in a hotel these past few weeks? I don’t think so.” As if suddenly aware of what he is doing, Jerome pulls his hand away roughly. I’ve kept the contact a second too long. Now he won’t even look at me. I stand up. “I need to see General Poe. I have to find out what’s happening to him and who’s taking his place.” I sigh, aware of a second conversation underneath the words, the one where my every fiber turns toward him, asking him to love me, the one where he pulls away and makes it clear that will never happen. So I ask a safer question. “See you at supper?”

  Soldiers at rest after drill, Petersburg, Va. The soldiers are reading letters and papers and playing cards.

  Jerome nods stiffly. “I’ll save a plate for you.”

  It’s the time of day when drills are over and the men are free to go to prayer meetings, write letters, patch their clothes, or even boil up a pot of laundry. I amble toward headquarters, letting the cozy, domestic feeling of the camp wash over me, relaxing more with every step. The light is low and golden, the air soft with the coming evening. It’s my favorite hour, ever since I was little, that time when work is over and a soft, tired feeling spreads through my body.

  I knock on the post outside General Poe’s tent.

  “Enter!” his voice calls out. “Frank!” The general looks up from his table heaped high with the usual papers. “I heard you caught yourself a nest of spies—good work!”

  “Thank you, sir. And I heard you’re leaving us. Is that true?”

  The general nods. “Yes, for once the rumors are right. I’ve been assigned as chief engineer on General Burnside’s staff.”

  My eyes widen in surprise. “You’re being punished, sir, for disobeying General Burnside!”

  “It looks that way, yes.” He raises an eyebrow. “I’ll follow orders and do my best. But I’ll miss you, Frank, and this brigade. You’re good men, all of you. We’ve fought well together.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I offer my hand. “It’s been a privilege and an honor to serve under you, sir.”

  General Poe clasps my hand and shakes it warmly. “The honor is all mine.”

  Walking back through the camp, I realize nothing has changed. It’s just as peaceful as before and that’s reassuring. The army is bigger than any one man. We’ve gone on without McClellan. We’ll go on without Poe.

  I think about Damon, how much I miss his lopsided grin, his complaining, even his crude jokes. He’s not the same person in his letters, as if writing down his thoughts changes his voice somehow, makes it more formal. His last letter was all about farming, not a word about Polly, nothing about Virginia.

  When I get back to my tent, James is packing his knapsack.

  “I just get back and you’re going somewhere?” I ask.

  “Frank! I didn’t know you were back!” James shoves a book into his bag. “But yes, I’m leaving.”

  “Have you asked for a transfer or been reassigned? Are you following General Poe?”

  “No.” James sighs. “Nothing like that. You know my wife has been ill for some time, and she’s gotten so bad that I’ve taken your advice and tendered my resignation. I need to take her home to Scotland. I’m leaving tonight.”

  “I said you should ask for a leave, not resign!” I protest.

  “I can’t say when I can return. Resigning was the right thing to do.”

  I sit on my bedroll, head between my hands. “I’ll miss you, James,” I say. “It won’t be the same without you.” Though really, I know it will be. Everything will be exactly the same, just lonelier.

  James ties up his bag and sets it outside the tent. He sits next to me and puts his arm around me. “I’ll miss you, too.” My shoulders tremble under his touch. Without a word, he pulls me toward him and kisses me gently on the lips. I freeze, stunned. He presses himself more firmly. I can’t help it—I kiss him back.

  “Oh, Frank,” he murmurs. “Or whoever you really are. Be safe.” He kisses me again as the tears run down my cheeks. I close my eyes, not daring to face him. He knows what I am, who I am. When I open my eyes again, he’s gone.

  I curl up on the bed, shivering, pulling the blanket tight around me. I feel drained and queasy. How could I have let James kiss me? How could I kiss him back? I’m disgusted with myself. My body feels heavy and clumsy, my head thick and cottony, as if I’ve literally made myself sick by failing to act like a man. I’ve slipped, let down my guard, and for one minute I’ve been a woman. The shame is overwhelming.

  But it’s more than shame that makes me tremble. The familiar fever grips me again. I haven’t had a bout of the swamp fever for months, but now it’s back fiercer than ever. I welcome the oblivion, the escape from thinking about what’s happened.

  When I open my eyes again, late-afternoon light slants through the tent flap and Jerome is sitting next to me, pressing a cool wet cloth to my forehead.

  “Frank,” he murmurs. “You’re awake. It’s good to see your eyes open. You’ve been asleep a long time. When you didn’t come to supper, I checked on you and found you thrashing around with fever dreams.”

  “Thanks for taking care of me.” My voice is hoarse and weak.

  “Of course.” Jerome smiles. “But you really should be in the hospital. This is the worst I’ve seen you. I can bring you quinine, but you really should have a doctor tend to you.”

  “No,” I protest. “I can’t do that. You know why.”

  “It’s not like we undress our patients. Your secret will be safe. You know I wouldn’t put you at risk! There was an article in the Louisville Daily Democrat yesterday about a woman dressed as a man in the Fourteenth Iowa Regiment.” Jerome looks like he’s sorry he’s said it as soon as the words have left his mouth.

  “What article? Why didn’t you tell me? How did they find out she was a woman? What happened once they did?”

  Jerome frowns. “I didn’t want to worry you. And I shouldn’t have mentioned it just now. I forgot that it’s not a pretty story, not something you need to hear about.”

  “What do you mean?” I press. “You brought it up. Now you have to tell me what the article said.”

  He sighs, stares at the ground, but doesn’t answer me.

  “Jerome!” I insist. “
You have to tell me!”

  He still avoids my gaze, but he at least answers. “The newspaper didn’t say how she was discovered. It just said that after the soldiers in her regiment found out, she killed herself.”

  “You see!” My voice squeaks with panic. “That’s why I can’t go to the hospital! I’ve seen doctors unbutton men’s shirts to listen to their lungs and heart. I’m not taking that chance.” I want to say more, but I can’t. My head is heavy and thick, and I can feel the pulse throbbing in my ears. The thin daylight is more than my eyes can bear, and I squeeze my eyelids shut.

  “Don’t worry, Frank, I’m here with you. You rest now.” Jerome’s voice is low and reassuring. I follow it in my head into a dark, warm place.

  When I wake up again, Jerome is gone, but a bottle of quinine has been left near the bed. I drink some down and fall quickly back to sleep.

  When I open my eyes, it’s the middle of the night, or early in the morning before sunrise. My clothes are sticky with sweat, my bones achy and brittle. “I’ve got to see a doctor,” I mutter. In the dark, I pack my knapsack and sneak out of camp, my legs wobbly and weak. I’m too sick to worry much about being caught—all I can focus on is moving my feet, planting one step after another in the crisp night air. I scan ahead for guards but don’t see any. All I can hear is my own heavy breathing. I’ve marched miles and miles without much effort, but now I can barely force myself to cross the sleeping town to the train station. I collapse on the bench outside, waiting until morning. When the first train pulls into the station just as the sky turns pink, I clamber onto it, explaining to the conductor that I’ve been given a week’s medical leave from my regiment. I look sick enough, so he doesn’t doubt me. After I get out in Oberlin, Ohio, I stop at a dry-goods store and trade my watch for a dress, a gift, I explain, for my sister. Then I stumble into a rented room and sleep. The whole escape has happened in a feverish haze. I can’t tell which part I’ve dreamed and which has really happened. All I know is that I need to see a doctor, and for that I’ll have to turn back into a woman.

  The next day, I take off the blue uniform I’ve worn so proudly for the past two years. I fold it up carefully, tracing my fingers around the familiar gold buttons. Then I do the unthinkable—I put on a dress for the first time in five years. As I stand in front of the mirror, I remember the moment when I first took off my dress, how freeing it felt. Now, putting on the heavy skirts, it feels like I’m caging my body and spirit. I’ve never thought of clothes as a prison before, but now I wonder why women wear dresses in the first place. The bony corset body holds my chest tight, making it hard to breathe, as if being a woman is meant to be suffocating. The skirts seem intended to drag me down, making any movement unnatural and difficult.

  Even in a dress I look like a boy, with my square shoulders, broad forehead, and short hair. I don’t know how to lower my eyes modestly, how to giggle instead of guffaw, how to sashay instead of stride. I make an unconvincing lady, but good enough for the part I have to play now, a sick woman who needs medical attention.

  I wrap a shawl around my short hair and totter down to the parlor of the rooming house, my legs unsteady though my feet are still sturdily shod in men’s boots. My left foot is so misshapen from how it healed after the accident with the mule, it can’t fit into a woman’s narrow slipper. Besides, I draw the line at women’s shoes—they make it too hard to walk or run or ride. The skirts cover my feet enough for me to get away with my old boots.

  The owner of the rooming house, Mrs. Brown, a portly woman with a shelf of a bosom, looks up from her embroidery when I stumble in.

  “Where did you come from? I don’t recall renting a room to you,” she wheezes. I brace myself for an interrogation, thinking of how to explain myself. But I can barely stand and my brain feels thick and heavy.

  “Are you all right?” Mrs. Brown reaches for my arm. “You look terrible! Should I call a doctor?”

  I collapse onto the poufy chair next to her. “I’m sorry to trouble you. My cousin, Frank Thompson, rented the room for me.” The words spill out. I hope they sound plausible. “He’s on his way back to his regiment, but he brought me here so I could get a doctor’s care. Can you please send one to my room?”

  “Certainly, my child, of course! And you are?” She peers at me over her half-moon glasses.

  I gulp and sigh. “Sarah Emma Edmonds,” I say.

  There, I’ve done it. Even if it’s only for while I’m getting cured, I’m Sarah again. The name feels almost as binding as the dress.

  ACH DAY LIVED as a woman seems to pass twice as slowly as normal. It was work to keep my male mask on, but now it seems much more natural than taking it off. I’m doomed to be neither fish nor fowl. Sometimes as I lie in my sweat-soaked bed, staring out the window at a wedge of sky, I wonder if the fever isn’t a good thing, a purging of my errors, my lies, my weaknesses. When it’s over, I’ll be a finer, purer me. I’ll know who I really am.

  After the longest month I’ve ever lived, under the diligent care of Dr. William Bunce, I finally feel strong enough to rejoin my regiment. When I take my first walk outside, the air is fresher, the colors more vibrant, the sounds crisper than I remember. I move on unsteady feet, but I’m moving. The clip-clop of horses, the distant whistle of a train, the trill of birdsong are music to me. I admire the peeling paint on the barbershop sign, the rich black lettering on the window of the telegraph office. The world is new and sharp around me. It’s time for me to rejoin the living, to become a man again.

  As a woman, I let my hair grow (having told the doctor it was shorn because of lice), but once again I cut it close to my nape and unfold my old uniform. It’s a tremendous relief to take off the cumbersome dress and put the familiar shirt and pants back on. I meant to write to Jerome, to tell him where I went, but I didn’t want to get him in trouble should any officers ask him about my absence. Besides, it would be better to explain everything in person, now that I’m healthy again.

  I repack my old knapsack, hesitating over the dress. Should I keep it, just in case, or get rid of it? I certainly don’t plan on wearing it again. Still, leaving it in the room might seem suspicious. So I shove it in and tie up my pack, shouldering it easily and walking downstairs, enjoying the freedom of movement pants allow. It feels good to be back in my old skin again, and I’m eager to get back to my regiment.

  I say good-bye to Mrs. Brown and stroll into the street, my limbs loose and easy, and head for the train station. As I near the low wooden building where I disembarked a month earlier, a poster on the station wall catches my eye. “WANTED!” it calls out in large letters. “FOR DESERTION! PRIVATE FRANK THOMPSON, FLED FROM THE SECOND MICHIGAN IN LEBANON, KENTUCKY.” A brief description follows, and then the words “SHOOT ON SIGHT!” My stomach drops and the blood drains from my face. I never meant to desert. But how could I ever explain? I hurry back into town, pulling my cap down to hide my face. I run into the boardinghouse in a panic.

  “Is something wrong?” Mrs. Brown asks as I rush in.

  “I’m afraid I left something in the room. Can I go up and check?”

  “Of course—here’s the key back.” Mrs. Brown hands me the silver key and turns back to her embroidery. “No need to hurry. I don’t rent out rooms that quickly,” she says, chuckling.

  I force myself to walk calmly up the stairs, but my heart races. Do I have to stay a woman? I wrack my brain, but I don’t see any other choice. Back in the room, I tear off the uniform and put on the despised dress, wrapping my shorn head in a shawl. Now the clothes are more than a prison—they’re another disguise, cloaking me from the identity of a deserter. But how do I explain to Mrs. Brown that a man went up to check the room, yet a woman is leaving it?

  Best not to say anything, I decide. I tiptoe down the stairs and lay the key on the parlor desk, sneaking behind Mrs. Brown, bent intently over her needlework. I slip quickly out the door, then stop, dazed in the street.

  Where can I go? What can I do? I need time to think, to
figure things out. I turn around and walk back into the boardinghouse for the second time this morning.

  Mrs. Brown peers over her glasses. “Is that you, dear? Your cousin was just here, looking for something you left in your room. You can probably still catch him if you go up now.”

  “Actually”—I push my mouth into a smile—“I’ve decided I need the room for another month. Is it taken yet?”

  “Hardly!” Mrs. Brown says. “As I told your cousin, rooms don’t rent that quickly. No need to hurry. It’s yours as long as you want it. You can get the key from him.”

  “Thank you.” I pick up the key, still lying unnoticed on the desk, and climb the stairs again. I have an idea of what to do next. I think of my old boss, Mr. Hurlburt. He won’t hire me as a book salesman again, not now that I’m a woman, but he liked my army dispatches. He said they were popular with his readers, was always urging me to write more. Maybe it’s time I did just that.

  For the next few months I sit at my rented desk and write. I’m used to keeping a daily journal, sending out a regular dispatch, but this is different. I write to capture my life in the army, to make Frank Thompson real. I write to explain why I enlisted and what my time in the Second Michigan has meant to me. I write to sort out my feelings for the people I’ve met: Jerome and James, Colonel Poe and General McClellan; Alice, the Southern widow I captured, and Captain Logan, the confederate officer I shot; Damon, and the woman officer who had the baby, and all the soldiers I tended on the battlefield and in the hospital. I collect a jumble of impressions and work to weave them into a coherent story. I reread my journal for specific dates and battle plans, but mostly I rely on memory, shards of clear images, scents, and sounds.

  At first, I spend all day in the room, leaving it only for meals in the boardinghouse dining room. Though I’ve convinced myself I can be my own kind of woman, I’m uncertain about other people’s reactions. But the more I write about my life, the less I care about others’ judgments.