The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3

by Phillip Bryant

  By rights, Will was in charge, not only by personality but by rank. He’d included himself in this enterprise by force of will and audacity, and now he was taking charge of how they were escaping. He’d found himself taking some pride in the position. But at this low ebb in his energy, he wondered if it wouldn’t be worth it to let themselves be recaptured and sent back to Camp Chase. They would be fed at least.

  “I don’t think I can keep going,” Peter said. “My feet are blistered something awful, and I can’t move another mile.”

  Fredrick rubbed his belly. “We need to chance getting more food, sure.”

  “I’ll see what the lieutenant wants to do,” Stephen said and crawled over to where Will was, his legs too worn out to stand fully.

  “Lieutenant, we need to get more food, or we’ll not make it very far tomorrow.”

  Will opened his eyes slowly and raised his head. “I know. I’ve been putting this off, but we will have to chance approaching a farmhouse again.”

  Stephen nodded in the gloom. “Sir, can I ask you something?”

  “What is it?” Will yawned and exhaled slowly in a sigh.

  “You say you’d been this way before as a slave catcher. How’d you get along?”

  “Planters and owners paid me to track down their runaways, and that often led me into Ohio. That is, before the war made Northerners suddenly law-abiding citizens,” Will stated flatly, with a tinge of disdain. “Folks used to tell you if they seen any suspicious blacks about on the roads or in the woods, but after the election that all changed.”

  “Folks used to help?” Stephen was incredulous that any Yankee would help any Southerner.

  “Law used to. Law of the land. Most Northern and border states had fugitive slave laws, an’ folk mostly obeyed. Time were you show a writ of ownership for a runaway, an’ local sheriff and police let you alone or lend a hand or turn them over. With tensions rising, it got harder to get them to cooperate. Laws ain’t changed none, but cooperation did; no one keen to help catch no runaways.”

  “Peter’s in a bad way, sir. He weren’t used to hard marching, an’ he’s ‘bout to give up.”

  “He needs to be made a man or he’ll always be a boy.” Will wasn’t inclined to be fatherly; he’d seen early volunteers decide they couldn’t live with the privations and desert or find some other way to get out of active service. Most Peter’s age were used to difficulty already before they volunteered, farm boys who knew hard work. He certainly wasn’t going to allow them to get captured just because the boy didn’t want to push himself.

  “We can’t leave him. They’d know we was nearabouts when they found him,” Stephen whispered.

  “He can go along an’ shut up or stay put fer a day, if we trust him to give his word.” Will knew the boy wouldn’t stay hidden if left alone. Hunger would drive him to the nearest farmhouse as soon as they were safely out of sight.

  “If Lewis were here, he’d have brained him by now.”

  “Well, Lewis ain’t here, but we may just need to split up an’ go for our own way; we be harder to catch if we’re each alone. I’ll not be killing him, but I’ll not be captured because of him neither,” Will replied. “If he don’t go on, we tie him up and gag him. We give him a choice.”

  “Tie him?”

  “He’d tell anyone he’d meet about us all for a mouthful o’ food, and that’s the truth. I got you an’ Fredrick this far; it’s just south all the way down this road to Cincy an’ then across the river to Kentucky. I’d think you should be able to make it easy enough. Don’t give in an’ take him with you if he ain’t prepared to suffer like the rest of us. He needs to choose.”

  Stephen sat in stunned silence, though he knew it was true: Peter would sell them all out for a good meal right now. It didn’t matter that he’d signed papers that made him legally bound to the Confederate army. At this moment, Stephen wasn’t even sure he himself wanted to escape to anywhere if it meant starving to death and being bone weary. No, all he wanted right now was a bed. But who would break the ultimatum to Peter? Who would offer the choice of pressing on and shutting up or being bound and gagged and possibly never found alive? They were not close to the road, and anyone left tied up and silent might not ever be found.

  Conflicted, Stephen said, “I don’t know, sir. Seems like a death sentence to leave him here.”

  “I’ll give it to him plain,” Will replied. “He’ll choose to come along quietly or stay quietly.”

  Stephen glanced over his shoulder at Fredrick and Peter. Peter was sitting slumped against a tree, his head bowed and chin tucked in tightly. At this moment, Stephen would not have minded being caught himself and hauled back to Camp Chase. At least they would have food and a bed. Leaving Peter felt like betrayal. It felt like leaving a wounded man to die even though you might have eased his suffering. It felt like combing the grounds of the Shiloh church in the darkness looking for one wounded man in hundreds but refusing to minister to any. He swallowed a lump in his throat. William, his closest friend, had not been found among the throng of wounded laid out around the church, and he’d not stopped to give the aid demanded of him by dirty, bloody, clutching fingers that grabbed hold of his trouser legs as he moved by. He hadn’t lacked for compassion; he’d lacked it for any but the one he was desperate to find. How desperate was he now?

  It was becoming a question of survival over morality. Morals would do him little good if he were dead or captured.

  A rustling of leaves and sounds of staggered footsteps made them all freeze. Even Peter stopped his whimpering. Will tensed, ready to spring on whoever it was who might appear out of the gloom.

  “Thank God, oh thank God; didn’t think I’d find you!”

  “Captain?” Stephen said.

  Chapter 17

  Germantown, Ohio, August 17, 1862

  Philip bade goodnight to his traveling companions and sat idly on the porch of his father’s home. Major Sheffield and Captain Pickering were going to board at a hotel.

  The evening was quiet and the house still, save for a solitary lamp lighting a corner of the drawing room. Nearby stood the Germantown Methodist Episcopal Church, the parsonage and cemetery taking up the land allotted to the house of worship for the small community. This had once been his church. Sitting here, the flood of memories returned, memories of days spent fretting about sermons to give and the gossips who needed to be gently admonished to use their tongues for more useful pursuits.

  Those were days when he’d thought he knew what he was supposed to be doing with his life. A stirring from within the house roused him from his reverie, and he turned to find his father standing in the doorway. Charles Pearson looked old and careworn.

  “Your fellows set off?”

  Philip stretched and replied, “Yes, sir. They found rooms at the Germantown Hotel. I invited them to stay with us, but they declined. Said it was best for it to just be family for a day before we all complete the last leg of our trip.”

  Philip’s discharge had drawn out to two whole months of idleness before his appointment with Governor Tod to secure his commission. The trip to Columbus had been short but eventful as uniforms had to be fitted and purchased, orders drawn up, and himself oriented for his new duties. Visiting the families of those in the old regiment had kept him busy and out of the house, and now that he had his commission, it was time to leave once more. There were several Ohio regiments without chaplains, but one regiment was as good as another.

  “We ran into a Confederate officer yesterday evening,” Philip added. “Said he was exchanged and headed home.”

  Charles replied with disinterest, “Oh?”

  “You didn’t happen to see him?”

  “No, not seen any lone Confederates wandering about,” Charles replied.

  “I half expect to see him wandering by here anytime. He was on foot.”

  “I’m sure someone will have seen him; don’t see too many Rebels around here, so he would be conspicuous. Where’s your regiment, the 2
4th Ohio?” Charles asked, changing the subject.

  “Corinth still, as far as I know, sir.”

  “To read of a bloodless victory—for once—did us all good,” Charles said.

  “It wasn’t all bloodless. The butcher’s bill was still long, but it wasn’t the certain death we were expecting from an assault on their fortifications.” The loss of Mule was an unwelcome memory. “We lost some good men along the way.”

  “Your new regiment—where are your orders for?”

  “Oh, Nashville. I report to General McClernand’s division and the 21st Ohio there.”

  “When we read of Shiloh in the papers and in your letters, son, we could hardly fathom thirteen thousand souls lost or maimed forever. The enemy still has an army in the field, and we will attack him again, and there will be thirteen thousand more souls to consign to the depths. If God has mercy, it will be that or less,” Charles said and took a seat, sinking slowly onto the wooden bench. “Taking Corinth was much less bloody. Halleck did one right.”

  “Yes, sir; God willing it will be less next time. It was worse than you read. I walked those fields after the battle, and it was worse than anything anyone could put in words on paper. We didn’t know it at the time, but Johnston died the day of the attack, and God’s providence gave the next day into our hands. But for that, we might not have staved off defeat.”

  Philip shuddered as the scenes of the bloody pond and the vast field hospital came back to him. “Corinth would have been worse, thirteen thousand if it were provident. I left the 24th before we’d even seen an enemy soldier after two weeks of marching and camping. We were just getting close to their lines. An attack would have been bloody.”

  “You visited the Harpers yet?” Charles changed the subject.

  “The Harpers; no, I’ve not yet. I’ve the courage of a Gideon, but no winepress to hide in. There are things you ought to do but do not want to do, and that visit is in that category.”

  Charles shifted and folded his arms. “Well, son, you should visit them and swallow some of that pride. That Pearson pride is famous for getting its minister sons in trouble. Pay Mr. Harper and Elizabeth a visit. You were with his Lee when he died—you owe it to them.”

  “Yes sir, I know,” Philip replied reluctantly. “I don’t see much good coming of it.” He meant it, though seeing Elizabeth again might be some recompense for the discomfort.

  In his darker moments, Philip could not help but relive, with variations, the scene at the funeral. It had been two years before but a lifetime lived in between, a lifetime since the anger and the recrimination and the uproar of the small farmer’s community in rural Ohio, served by his father before him for the cause of Christ and Methodism. A simple thing, a funeral. Burying the dead, and a few words said for the bereaved family and friends. Nothing to prevent the scene from becoming one in many that he and his father had conducted before. The burial plot, hole prepared and waiting, the casket to be lowered with slow, smooth, and reverent precision. The mourners gathered in the church in black. The freshly strung garlands adorning the pulpit and surrounding the casket. Special attention paid to the family, especially the mother and grandmother of the deceased, and the father and brothers sharing quick, discreet tugs on a flask kept hidden in a jacket pocket. The singing of psalms and the recitations of creeds. What simple thing could a minister do to ease the pain?

  Charles sat down and placed a gentle, fatherly hand on Philip’s shoulder, saying, “What’s done is done, son. Go and do the right thing and move on. It is not incumbent on them to forgive you, but on you to seek forgiveness.”

  “Yes, sir. Lee wouldn’t forgive me, even though he knew he was dying. He said Beatrice Harper had, but now she is gone too. There is little reason for Andrew even to open his door to me. Do they still attend services?”

  “Don’t matter, son. If you don’t go to them now, your new ministry will not be a blessing to you until you do. Leave your sacrifice on the altar and seek forgiveness. But no. I see Elizabeth about town occasionally, but I’ve not seen the elder for some time, not since before you volunteered.”

  Forgiveness—had that been it all along? Philip wondered. The humiliating defrocking at the hands of the bishop and then the firing on Fort Sumter had made his course seem clear, but had it had to be that way? Even men of the cloth did not always see their own sins. He’d counseled others from the Good Book but was just as blind to his own transgressions and failures as anyone else. It did not follow, as a matter of course, that he should have stepped down or that the Harpers should have petitioned for his removal. Forgiveness had always been an option, but one left untouched. He’d often thought of Jonah, and his own circumstances and the parallels now seemed even more disquieting. Even in the army he could not escape, as Jonah could not. Lee Harper’s death on the battlefield and Philip’s last-minute confession of sin had brought things to right in some God-ordained way. But with that had come the hand of God through him in that field hospital with all of those eyes on him, begging him to administer something they could easily have received on their own. All faiths were ministered to, though he could not and would not have been able to perform the Catholic ritual of the Eucharist as they would have known it. It did not matter on the dying field. They all wanted a sense of God before they passed on; a sense of the immortal before the mortal was complete. He had somehow given them that.

  “You know, sir, it was Lee’s death, his mortal wound, that brought me full circle. I’d been running away from the collar ever since I stepped down, but even in the ranks the men would not leave me alone—especially Lee, though for other reasons. The others would not see me as anything but a minister since most had grown up with me and sat in the pews while I taught. But it was Lee who brought me back in some strange way. I suppose it was the first step in leaving my offering at the altar.”

  Charles shifted in his chair and said, “You are ready to take it up again? You are ready to minister to the souls of men?”

  “With some trepidation, yes, sir. I’m through denying that I’m for this life. I’m through denying a vocation that is possibly what I am for.” It was not an admission of guilt or of giving in to the inevitable, but of a willingness to see that there was some truth to what the Scriptures said: he had made his plans, but something was directing his steps. Not an abstract idea, not fate, but a force that defied explanation or exegetical summary.

  “What are you going to do differently?” Charles asked. “You are a Methodist, not a Calvinist or Lutheran or Catholic. What are you going to be able to do with a regiment of men who will not share our brand of the faith?”

  “To be honest, sir, this time I will try to be me. I tried to be you for those years and failed miserably. This will be something different, though. I won’t be ministering to a Methodist congregation but one made up of many faiths. I’ve read that sometimes the colonel of the regiment has even appointed a chaplain or recommended one and that others have ignored the chaplains completely, leaving them nothing to do but make their own way.”

  Philip paused, then continued, “On the field at Shiloh, when all those maimed men were begging for some absolution or the merest show of some familiar ritual, they did not care that I did not make the hardtack into the body of Christ or that the wine was sipped from a soot-encrusted tin cup; they wanted to hear a word from God spoken from anyone who would dare to speak it. They wanted to partake of something of the memory of the divine sacrifice. That is all they cared for. I will have to speak truth, not just Wesleyan canon.”

  “Have you reconciled that truth within yourself?” Charles said, with less fatherly or ministerial concern than stern challenge.

  “Which means … “

  Charles stared at his son for a moment, waiting for the answer to dawn on him before proffering his own. “That what you undertake is not for you alone or your influence or for tradition, but for the souls of your charges. You fell from that over the Harpers when you chose piety over compassion. The world is full of pious
men; what it needs is men of compassion who love the Lord more than they do themselves. That was the lesson of the Harpers, son.”

  Philip remained silent, taking it in like a bitter pill. His father was correct in his assessment about what his choice was. To enter the ministry was to choose something over self. Anything over self. Donning the collar had been for his father, to satisfy what Philip thought was his father’s wish for his churches to pass on to his sons. It was poor reasoning. He’d allowed himself to become convinced the Harper affair was an indication that he’d made a mistake. In retrospect, the mistake had been to run away.

  Swallowing hard, he answered, “I suppose, sir, only time and God will tell how I do. On another note,” he said, glad to be able to switch subjects, “I conversed for some time with Colonel Moody at Camp Chase … Granville Moody.”

  Charles eyes lit up. “Granville Moody volunteered, and not as a chaplain?”

  Philip had been waiting for days to spring this on his father. Granville Moody was the best-known Methodist theologian and speaker in Ohio, and indeed, in the Midwest. Philip knew this would pique his father’s interest.

  “No, sir, he was elected colonel of the 74th Ohio and has command of the POW compound and of the camp of instruction. I reported to him briefly after accepting my commission and drew some of my equipment from their stores. It was an enlightening visit. The man is an imposing figure in his colonel’s uniform. He wanted to do more than just serve as a chaplain, even though it meant he’d have to order his men into death and order them to cause the death of others. He said it was the duty of Christian men everywhere to answer their call, and this was his.”

  “Moody is a man of strong conviction and ability; I am gratified you were able to spend a few hours with him. His congregations are strong and charitable. What does he say of this war?”

  “He has nothing very charitable to say of some of the citizens of Columbus who harbor or aid the paroled Confederate officers who are often seen strolling the streets as if they have no care in the world. He’s made himself a thorn in the sides of many a devoted Democrat sympathizer to any Rebel in his charge. He did say he envied my going to the theater of battle, as so far he’s been relegated to the backwater of the war with his regiment. I told him, respectfully, that the theater of war was a place to be avoided if and when possible. I told him about Shiloh and the acres of dead horses and torn men one could not help but encounter even for weeks after the battle. It was not a place to wish to be for very long. I said it not to dissuade him, but to tell truthfully the experience that the papers cannot hope to convey.”