Yes, I have recovered completely from the measles. I am thinner now than I have ever been, but I think I am stronger. Thank you for your prayers. I am sure they helped pull me through that terrible time.
I wish that Ewald Ehrenreich had not died of that terrible disease. I wish it had been Seb Woolard, instead. Oh, I should not say that. It is wrong, and un-Christian. Forgive me. It’s just that Seb is as rotten as Colonel Morgan. He steals from not only the Secesh families but good Union people. He is no better than Col. Morgan, who I heard owes the hotelkeeper, where he is staying, $50, and refuses to pay. I don’t know why that hotelkeeper does not throw Col. Morgan out. Well, I guess I do. He has heard about Platte City, and about poor Parker Pruitt. He does not want to be executed, or have his home and place of business left in a mound of ashes.
Maryanne, please don’t show this letter. I don’t know why I even write you about these horrors. I pray you won’t think I am an evil man. It is just …
* * * * *
He crumpled the pages, swearing, and tossed the letter into the fire. How could he let Maryanne Corneilison know what he had done? Why torment her?
Watching the flames envelope the paper, he sat there, his eyes dead, his heart aching.
“Caleb. Caleb!”
Caleb blinked, looked up to find Boone Masterson pulling on his hat with his left hand, grabbing his rifle with his right. “Can’t you hear?”
Only then did the notes of a bugle reach his ears. Confused, he rose to his feet. “Assembly?” he asked, and thought: At three in the afternoon?
Boone didn’t answer. He was already running to fall in.
Fetching his rifle, Caleb trotted through the mud. Men scurried like ants, equally struck dumb by the blaring call for assembly. Once he located his company, he took his place in line, stood at attention, and waited.
No one spoke. In front of them strode Colonel Morgan, whose face seemed ashen. Near the commander stood a stout, thick-bearded man in a Union frock coat and wide-brimmed black hat that he had to hold down with his gauntleted left hand. At last Colonel Morgan stopped pacing, shot the stranger a glance, and took a step toward the regiment. He had to shout to be heard over the wind.
“Officers, chaplain, and men of the Eighteenth Missouri!” He swallowed. “It is …” His voice cracked, and he stared ahead blankly for several minutes. “My fight is not done! I leave for Palmyra immediately to seek redress, to defend my rights …”
Boone Masterson shook his head. “What the Sam Hill is he talking about?”
“Be quiet,” Sergeant Masterson growled.
“There are traitors within these ranks!”
That caused Caleb to blink. His lips parted.
“Men envious of my command! Men who desire my position!”
Caleb tried to crane his neck, to look toward Captain Pratt, the big planter from Linn County, the one he had heard many men say should be running this outfit.
“Cole!” Sergeant Masterson snapped hoarsely, and Caleb’s head shot back straight, eyes forward, barely breathing.
The wind carried away Morgan’s words. He turned, saluted the newcomer, who merely nodded—too scared to lose his hat, Caleb figured—and stormed angrily away.
“He resigned,” a whisper shot down the ranks.
“Relinquished his command.”
“Bet General Halleck made him quit.”
“Good riddance.”
The barrel-chested man removed his hat and held it at his side. “Men of the Eighteenth.” A big man, yet one who looked mild, downright timid, his firm voice rose above the howling wind. “I am Colonel Madison Miller, until recently captain of the First Missouri Light Artillery. Now, by orders of General Halleck, General Schofield, and Governor Gamble, I am colonel of the Eighteenth Missouri.” He walked toward the assembly as he spoke. “Let me say this once. I am a black Republican from Saint Louis. The lot of you, it strikes me, are nothing more than a bunch of long-haired Democrats. A rough set of men, I’d dare say.” He stopped in front of Caleb’s company. “I do not see soldiers. I see swine.”
Swine. Caleb’s heart beat. He knows I’m a pig farmer. He’s talking right at me. Colonel Madison Miller’s powerful eyes sure looked as if they were trained on Caleb Cole. He almost wet his britches.
“All right, so you can burn down a town. So you can murder two prisoners of war and write US in their martyred blood on the railing of a bridge. So you can ride or march after a bunch of cowardly bushwhackers but are unable to shoot down even a horse. The only prisoners you’ve been able to catch are two boys coming out of church. Hurrah!”
He jammed his hat on his head. “I do not command banditti. I command a volunteer regiment in the United States Army that is fighting to hold our precious Union together.” At least now, Colonel Miller was heading down the line, away from a trembling Caleb Cole. Caleb could breathe again.
“You have enlisted in this regiment, and so you will become soldiers. Soldiers with honor. Soldiers who are devoted to duty. Soldiers. Disgrace me, disgrace our United States, disgrace the state of Missouri, disgrace this regiment, disgrace yourself, and I will see you condemned to Hades.”
* * * * *
Caleb couldn’t believe it. If not exactly vindicated, at least he felt excited. He wrapped a handful of coffee beans in the neckerchief Folker had given him, then dropped it into the pot, which he set on the glowing coals. He wasn’t alone.
“That Colonel Miller, he doesn’t look like much, but he’ll make the Eighteenth a regiment those Rebs will sure remember.” With a little whoop, Boone Masterson smiled and shook his head.
“He’s a soldier. A soldier’s soldier,” Rémy said, his head bobbing in agreement—as if he really knew what a soldier’s soldier was.
“That’s straight.” Even Harold Masterson had forgotten about the sergeant’s chevrons he had sewn onto his coat sleeves. He tossed a piece of salt pork into the skillet, and began gossiping more like a barber than a non-commissioned officer in this man’s army. “He was a captain in a volunteer unit from Indiana or Illinois … maybe it was Iowa … during the war in Mexico. Got wounded at Buena Vista.”
“Left behind a big job with the Saint Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad, I heard, to join that artillery regiment,” Folker added, “and is big in politics. Governor. In the assembly, and …”
“Governor?” Sergeant Masterson laughed. “You mean mayor.”
“Well, he holds some office.”
Masterson added more salt pork to the skillet. “That’s not all. He wasn’t just a captain in that artillery regiment. When the Rebs started acting up, when we knew it would be war or disunion, Colonel Miller helped form the First Missouri Infantry. You boys might not know this, but there’s a law that anyone who tries to recruit a militia without the governor’s approval, he can be hanged by the neck until dead. But Colonel Miller did it, anyway.”
Rémy’s head bobbed. “Soldier’s soldier,” he said.
Sitting a few rods away, his back braced against an oak tree, Seb Woolard snorted, spat, and swore. “Ask me, he don’t amount to much.”
Caleb turned, angered, but refused to be goaded into a fight or argument with the likes of that bit of trash.
“What do you mean, Woolard?” Sergeant Masterson asked.
“Colonel Morgan put up his own money to get our regiment going. You talk about him like he’s just some common thief.”
No, Caleb wanted to say, you’re the common thief.
“But …” Seb pulled himself to his feet. “But you forgot all about that. All that money he spent. It wasn’t for glory or riches. It was to preserve the Union. Now, boys, you tell me what this Miller bloke has put up. Can you? ’Course, you can’t. Because this Miller, he ain’t put up one dime. He ain’t nothing to me.”
“He’s your commanding officer, Woolard.” Harold Masterson pushed the salt pork with
a knife. “Best not forget that.”
* * * * *
Colonel Madison Miller wouldn’t let them forget it.
For the next week, they drilled. Miller pushed them harder than Morgan had ever dared. Where Morgan didn’t like target practice, saying it was a waste of powder and lead, Colonel Miller had them shoot until their faces were blackened and their muscles screamed in agony.
They marched. Double-stepped to the Missouri River and back. They carried full packs northwest to Iatan, east to New Market, south to Platte City, and back to Weston. Their socks became threadbare, their brogans ventilated from marching over stones. Their legs stiffened. They swore they would die.
Yet they went on.
Until their legs no longer hurt, until the muscles hardened in their arms, until they could load and fire their rifles, muskets, and shotguns four times a minute, and—those still not toting shotguns—hit a target eight hundred yards away.
* * * * *
“Rise and shine, you green peas of Company E.”
Caleb’s eyes fluttered opened. He shut them and rolled over. “The sun isn’t even up.”
The blanket ripped off him, and Sergeant Masterson’s voice roared: “I said up, you lazy tramps! Up! Pack your gear and fall in!”
Somewhere in the darkness, Boone Masterson cursed his aunt for ever giving birth to his older cousin. Caleb fumbled for his britches. Seb Woolard complained that he couldn’t find his hat.
“You’ll find it when we come back to camp,” Rémy told him.
“We’re not coming back!” Sergeant Masterson thundered.
* * * * *
Silently they marched north, spending the night in a field outside St. Joseph. On Sunday, February 16, the Chaplain Garner led them in prayer. He delivered his sermon, which he called “This is the Last Time,” but it lacked the bombastic assaults, the clamor, the demands for salvation, the pleas for the destruction of the South. It was quiet, moving. Beside him, Rémy sobbed. Even Seb Woolard seemed moved.
They started the doxology, but couldn’t finish. Tears flowed freely. Chaplain Garner started the benediction, but stopped. His voice cracked. He brushed aside his own tears, and muttered: “Please, lads. File out. Go to your homes.”
Home? Unionville was, what, a hundred, two hundred miles from here? North? Northeast? Caleb didn’t really know. He’d never been out of Putnam County until … His head shook. Numbly he walked out of the field where Chaplain Garner had held service. He went back to his camp, and sat there, quietly.
Two days later, they left their makeshift camp for the Hannibal & St. Joseph train. There was no singing, no chorus, no cheers. The men quietly loaded onto the cars, found their seats.
“Where are we going?” Rémy asked at last.
That had been the question everyone had been asking since they had marched out of Weston. Asked a hundred times. Hundreds of answers.
Caleb let out a mirthless chuckle. It was so unlike him. Or would have been unlike him six months ago.
“To war,” he said flatly.
Chapter Thirteen
April 1–3, 1862
Corinth, Mississippi
April 1, 18 and 62
Mother and Father:
This will be quick as we just arrived in Corinth. I am now one experienced traveler as we got here by rails (as you know), steamboat, and what we call the “ankle express.”
I’m at the depot now, but we did not arrive by train, but on foot. Ladies are meeting us here and have been passing out coffee and cake. As I scribble this hurriedly, they are serenading us with “Dixie,” although nary a one has as fetching a voice as yours, Mother. A young girl is waiting patiently for me and others to finish these notes so she can take them to be mailed out soon.
Colonel Moore has gotten us new uniforms, and I must get mine before they are all gone.
If you see Mrs. and Mr. Bryson, tell them that Matt is well, though his face is dotted with mosquito bites. We did not go to Arkansas. Like as not, you have heard that General Van Dorn was defeated at some place called Elkhorn Tavern and he retreated. General Ben McCullough was killed in that battle, or so we were told, although you can’t believe everything you hear. Father, let me know if you have heard about McCullough. Van Dorn retreated, but now General Johnston and General Beauregard are saying that we march to meet the enemy—Grant, who caused the forts along the Cumberland to surrender.
Must run now. Love to you all. Tell Mrs. Cravey …
* * * * *
He couldn’t finish. The girl was waiting, so he signed his name, stuck the paper he quickly folded into the envelope he had already addressed, and thanked her as she took it with a smile. Somehow, she reminded him of the likeness of the girl on the cover of the sheet music for Stephen Foster’s “Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair.” Her eyes weren’t as haunting, her face not as round, but this girl was real, not an artist’s fantasy. Maybe, it struck him, she was even more real than Irene Vardakas, who he still imagined to have been only a raven-haired dream. This Mississippian certainly was much taller. He wanted to ask the girl her name, but that would have been too forward. She had been walking along the depot with other young girls, each one carrying a wicker basket, to collect letters to mail home to loved ones. Watching her walk away, Ryan couldn’t believe how tall the girl was.
Matt Bryson whistled for him to hurry, so he grabbed his musket, and rejoined Company C.
The huge depot reminded him of the wharves along the Texas coast, although even at Galveston he couldn’t remember ever seeing so much cotton. Bales were stacked higher than buildings. He crossed the tracks of the Memphis & Charleston in front of a smoke-belching, steam-hissing engine, and slogged through the thick mud. He had to stop, let mules pulling caissons and cannon pass. He started again, only to have to duck away as a Confederate officer galloped down the road, the horse’s hoofs spraying Ryan’s legs with thick gobs of mud. He didn’t mind the mud. By now, he was used to mud, mosquitoes, and bowel complaint.
From Memphis, they had marched a hundred miles, slightly south but mostly east, through hilly forests that teemed with ticks and other bloodsucking parasites, trudging through swamps and quagmires in rain showers that never seemed to let up.
For two weeks they had been on the move, beginning with a locomotive from Houston to Beaumont, then by steamboat up the Neches River to Weiss’ Bluff. From there they had marched—although it often felt as if they swam more than walked—to Alexandria, Louisiana. Back on another side-wheeler, they made their way up the Red River and then the Mississippi to Helena, Arkansas. That’s where they learned that Van Dorn’s army had been turned back at Elkhorn Tavern near the Missouri border earlier that month. That’s where the Second Texas had been issued new orders: Report to General Johnston’s Army of the Mississippi at Corinth. So it was back onto another steamboat, this time a sternwheeler, and up the Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee, and, from there, footing it on the “ankle express” to Corinth.
It was a city of fewer than three thousand, Ryan had been told, but he had never seen so many people—mostly soldiers, then slaves, and well-dressed women of all ages, ignoring the misting rain, running to men clad in gray, offering them Bibles, cups of coffee, slices of cake.
A long brick building stretched out before him, and he read a sign, Tishomingo Hotel—he had no idea how to pronounce that—dripping rain water. Many men of the Second Texas had crowded under the long porch roof to escape the rain. Canvas-topped wagons lined the front of the hotel, and, from them, some Brazos County boys from Company E tossed down bundles of white cloth to various corporals and privates while sergeants and lieutenants barked out orders.
Sniffling, Ryan hurried across the street.
“General Johnston!”
Captain Ashbel Smith’s shout caused Ryan to stop and turn.
He looked rougher than a cob, this Albert Sidney Johnston, cert
ainly not as tall as Sam Houston, but a solidly built figure all the same. Ryan altered his course slightly just to get a better look at the general who would soon lead the Second Texas, and scores of other regiments from across the South, into battle.
Drops of rain glistened on the gray wool of Johnston’s frock coat like diamonds, and he sported a thick mustache, flecked with gray. His face seemed too small for his body, but those blue-gray eyes, which shot a quick glance at Ryan before training on Ashbel Smith, could drill through a mountain of granite.
“Ashbel.” Johnston’s voice sounded like a mix of grits and gumption. “It is good to see an old friend’s face. How is Texas?”
“Texas is Texas, Albert … I dare say, General.”
“We must march soon. Get your men their rations, Captain Smith. I don’t know how much we have left.” Johnston’s tone softened, and he smiled warmly at Captain Smith. “We will talk later, old friend. After we drive the enemy across the Tennessee River.”
Ashbel Smith fired off a salute.
“Conquer or perish,” Johnston said, his voice full of power again. After returning the salute, he mounted and kicked his towering black horse into a trot.
Captain Smith’s eyes left the figure of General Johnston and landed on Ryan. “Better get your new uniform, McCalla,” he said pleasantly enough, and strode through the mud toward the depot.
The Memphis & Charleston locomotive was pulling out as Ryan squeezed onto the hotel’s porch. The whistle blew, and, as the train picked up speed, every eye of every soldier standing on the first-story porch of the Tishomingo Hotel looked up at the wooden second-story porch that served as their roof. The whole thing shook, and several soldiers, fearing the upper porch would collapse, jumped back into the boggy streets.
And There I’ll Be a Soldier Page 11