The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3

by Phillip Bryant

  Stephen’s journey was over.

  Chapter 22

  Let the Dead Bury the Dead

  Seth and the others sat listlessly in the wagon as it rumbled up the west Kossuth road. They had been rousted early in the morning and loaded up onto army wagons, and they had spent the last hour trying to hang on, the back of the wagon also full of tools and other digging equipment. Chaplain Alexander had been the one to wake each tent and get his charges up and out. No coffee and no breakfast, just climb aboard and be driven to someplace, for what they had an easy guess. Burial detail.

  Yankee engineers were already working on the burned-out Crum’s Mill bridge, but Seth and the others were taken far past the bridge to the Bone Yard road, a quiet lane another few miles away. Horses, cavalry horses, nibbled grass off to the sides of the road, several of them and untended. As the freedmen clambered down from the wagon, it was clear what they were intended to do. Bodies lay about upon dark-stained earth, Yankee and Secessionists intermixed; and up and down a fenced lane were more, as well as dead horses. It would be a pit for the Rebels, a load up onto the wagons for the Yankees, and a bonfire for the horses.

  The men got to work, no one standing over them to supervise. No one needed to. They were free men, and Chaplain Alexander had asked each one, Would they go and help? No orders given, no threats, no whip. Strong backs and callused hands bent to the work of gathering and planting death.

  “How’s you likes it, Set’?” Ben asked as the two men bent to the work of dragging the corpses off to the side of the roadway.

  “I’se likes it; Chap’lin Alex a good man. I’se thinks I’se gonna likes it bein’ free wif de others. I’se gonna likes it bein’ free.”

  “I thinks Emma is sweet on you already,” Ben said with a grin.

  “You has a wife an’ childrin?” Seth asked as he pondered this.

  “Slave or free?”

  “Slave,” Seth replied.

  “No, had what white man call a wife, but massah no let us marry. She still slave.”

  “I’se too; a nigger’s wife an childrin, still in Alabama.”

  “Chap’in Alex marry you to a free woman, see to it you married proper. You get married an’ live proper,” Ben said with a nod.

  Seth paused and leaned on the shovel. “Lawd yes, live proper. Live like a Christian man like the Good Book say, not in sin—that what you mean?”

  “Dat what I means, Set’. Live like the Good Book say wif one wife under one roof. Chap’in Alex want to build proper houses an’ a school an’ a church. Chap’in Alex want us to work hard an’ learn to take care of ourselves. Dat’s what we doin’ here, takin’ care of ourselves. No white man standin’ over us, be he in gray or blue. Just us doin’ what need to be done. Dat’s what Chap’in Alex want fer all o’ us.” Ben rested. The pit had to be deep, and the bodies were becoming ripe.

  “We glad to has you wif us, Set’. We’s all glad when a new nigger comes an’ finds freedom. You no has to run no mo’.”

  “Lawd yes, good to run no mo’.” Aside from Hunter, his experience with whites had always required him to be circumspect, never knowing who could be trusted completely. Picking up all of these dead Rebels and burying them took him back to just days ago when all seemed to be going their way. The journey with Stephen, the boy from Mississippi who never looked cross at him or said anything that was mean, had him wondering what had happened to them both, his two Rebels. It was good to be free.

  ****

  After a day’s march northeast along the Purdy road, the 21st Ohio’s fresh fish, no longer referred to by that term since the fighting, arrived at Pittsburg Landing and boarded a steamer headed back up the Tennessee River to connect with the Cumberland River and then down south to Nashville. Several days’ ride, it would take them weeks to march it if they had supplies enough.

  They had left men behind. They had seen the war and had the mental scars to prove it. Paul was standing out among his peers as a cool and collected man under fire, having stood his ground, finally, when the enemy pressed in close.

  “He’ll get corporal stripes before long,” Captain Wofford said to Philip when all were safely aboard the steamer and spread out upon its decking.

  “I confess,” Philip replied, “that I was being a mother hen with him. I had to keep him in my sight the whole time, or tried to. But I didn’t need to.”

  “He rallied some of the men when they broke our lines initially and we fell back to the town. I had to drag him back lest we all get captured,” Wofford added.

  Philip shook his head in mock annoyance. It was good to be back on the way to their command and finally on with his official duties. Thoughts of home, of his father seated in his study reading and preparing the next sermon, of Elizabeth sitting at home caring for the aging patriarch of the Harper clan, and of Paul’s betrothed danced about his mind’s eye one at a time as he finally had time to think. He’d not written to Elizabeth these past days, not since their last riverboat ride; the letter was still in his haversack. That one was filled with questions about duty and his need to finally be off doing chaplain’s work. It was letter number five. She’d never promised to read them or reply, but he’d made up his mind to write anyway. Miles and blood had intervened since that last letter. What was there to say? They had not expected to be involved in a fight, and though the papers would soon be filled with accounts of the action to those back home, he was already supposed to be in Nashville and safely away from it. Should he worry Father any? He might be interested in hearing how Paul had carried himself.

  The gentle movement of the steamer was lulling the company into a lethargy. The breeze was nice, and the soldiers sprawled out on any space they could find to call home. The sun was beginning to set, and the long shadows of the tree-lined Tennessee were covering the open decks with a shroud. The smell of death was pleasantly absent.

  Philip dug several blank sheets of paper from his haversack and pulled out a stubby pencil. He would write to Elizabeth first, then Father. The papers would have something to say of Corinth, but would it be of near disaster or of glorious victory? From what he had witnessed of the fighting in Corinth and heard of what had happened at Iuka, these were both near things and victories only because the enemy had left Rosecrans in command of the field. Old Rosie, as his men called Rosecrans, had been left in command of the field each time after an enemy retreat. However the papers might spin the yarn, perhaps he’d get his thoughts down to Elizabeth regardless. Hopefully, one day, she would actually read the letters or reply. It would be good to get his thoughts down and let her know of his health.

  Dearest Elizabeth.

  I hope this note finds you well. I’ve written several and have posted them all at once. You will note that it has taken us longer to get to our new regiment than planned. An odd thing happened to us on the way to Nashville . . .

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