The Last Confederate

by Gilbert, Morris

  The two officers left, and Mark beamed at Thad. “Good! I knew what you’d do.” He pulled a sheet of paper from the sheaf on the small desk and placed it on the map, preparing to write. He looked up, saying, “We just got word that Jackson and Lee have done Pope in, Thad.”

  “They won?”

  “Sure did—but now Lee is calling for every man he can get, ready to march at once.” Mark’s eyes shone and he lowered his voice. “Don’t breathe a word of this—but I think we’re going to invade the North!” He turned back to his chore, saying, “Better get your goodbyes said, Thad. We may be gone for a long time!”

  ****

  The camp meeting was in full swing when Thad and Pet arrived. They had come alone, and after hitching the buggy, they made their way to the outer circle of the congregation. The singing rose from hundreds of throats:

  “How firm a foundation,

  Ye saints of the Lord,

  Is laid for your faith

  In his excellent word!”

  Then as soon as the sound of that died down, another rose, one that Thad had heard before:

  “Am I a soldier of the cross,

  A follower of the Lamb?

  And shall I fear to own His cause

  Or blush to speak His name?”

  The words had a peculiar effect on Thad, especially the reference to a “lamb.” He shifted uneasily and tried to shake off the feeling, but then the next song arose:

  “Have you been to Jesus

  For the saving power?

  Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”

  The song leader sang this over and over, and with each repetition, Thad felt more and more strange. Finally, the singing stopped, and the preacher, a short, muscular young man with a full beard and a rich bass voice, stood up and announced, “I will preach tonight from the gospel of John, chapter one, verse twenty-nine.” He looked up, and Thad felt the drawing power of the man’s gaze as he read, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”

  Thad sat there for an hour and a half, riveted by the words of the preacher. He had heard one sermon on this text, but it had only stirred his mind. Now, as the preacher spoke of the blood of Jesus, of His death on the cross, something began to break up inside Thad—something he had never felt before. It was like the breakup of the ice on the river that he had seen the previous spring. The solid river had melted under the heat of the sun, and broken up—first one large fragment of ice, then another, until the mass of frozen crust was swept away in a roaring torrent. So it seemed to be with him, his resolves and resistance leaving him empty and afraid.

  Pet sat beside him, keenly aware of the turmoil in him, for he was trembling, and his eyes were so fixed on the preacher that he seemed almost hypnotized. As the sermon went on, he unconsciously gripped her hand when she put her own in his, and soon her arm was numb to the elbow, so tightly did he grip her! She did not complain, however, but closed her eyes and prayed harder than she had ever prayed in her life.

  Finally the sermon ended, and as dozens began to go down to the front for prayer, Pet whispered, “Thad, will you let Jesus save you?” When he hesitated, she urged, “You wouldn’t let Him in when you thought you were going to die—but now it wouldn’t be a cowardly thing.”

  He turned to face her, and his eyes were filled with tears. “I—I never felt like this, Pet! I feel so bad!”

  Pet was weeping as she put her hands up to cup his face. “Oh, Thad, that’s because you know you’ve been a sinner! But you heard the sermon. All you have to do is look to Jesus—He’ll forgive you! Oh, Thad, He loves you so!”

  Then Thad Novak gave up. He suddenly fell to his knees and lifted his hands, crying out, “Oh, God! I have been such a sinner! Please—forgive me, and save me—for Jesus’ sake!”

  He was never able to tell what happened next. He had no words to describe the sudden rush of peace that fell on him. It was a little like the calm after a storm, or like waking up from a bad dream with a tremendous feeling of joy that all the horror was only a dream. Yet it was more than any of that, so when he rose from his knees and found Pet crying her heart out, he could only hold her and say, “It’s all right—it’s all right, Pet! Everything’s all right now.”

  As they made their way home under the full moon, they said little. He was too full of wonder at the peace that had fallen on him, and she was too happy to say much without weeping. Finally, when he pulled up in front of the house, he told her, “I’ll be leaving in the morning, Pet. So will your brothers and Captain Wickham.”

  “I—knew it would be soon, Thad,” she whispered. “Oh, be careful!”

  He nodded, then looked down at her; the tears in her eyes overflowed, making silver rivulets from the reflection of the full moon. “I’d like to say a lot of things to you, but there’s just no time.” He dropped his head, and the silence hung for what seemed an eternity to her. Then he turned to face her, the angular planes of his face sharp with shadows. “When I come back, maybe we’ll have more time to talk—about a lot of things.”

  She waited for him to continue, but he seemed to be far away. Finally she said, “Thad, I’ll be here—when you get back.” Impulsively she threw her arms around him, her body trembling violently as he held her close. When she pulled away, she whispered, “I’ll always be here—for you!” She reached up and kissed him and then dashed into the house.

  Thad slept little that night, and the next day at noon the entire regiment was loaded onto a train for the urgent journey. They disembarked, gathered into marching order, and for two days marched westward, where they joined the main body of the Army of Northern Virginia. Three days later, on September 4, Robert E. Lee led his troops across the Potomac into Maryland to carry the war north. On both shores stood Confederate bands playing “Maryland, My Maryland” and “Dixie” over and over again. The evening sun burnished the rifles and bayonets, making them glitter and blaze, but Thad could only wonder, How many of us will come back from this?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE BLOODIEST DAY

  On September 17, 1862, General George McClellan with nearly 100,000 men in his Army of the Potomac met General Robert E. Lee with his Army of Northern Virginia, which had at the beginning of the battle no more than 19,000 men. If Ulysses S. Grant had been in command, he would have thrown his entire force against the tiny army that lay across Antietam Creek just outside of Sharpsburg, for he was a man who believed in total war.

  George McClellan, however, lacked that streak of ruthlessness. The suffering of his men haunted him, and he spent sleepless nights thinking of his dead and wounded soldiers. So instead of throwing his magnificent force in one overwhelming assault, he committed his units one at a time.

  In effect, he did what he had done on the Peninsula; that is, he built up massive bodies of troops, moved them toward battle as slowly as he possibly could, and only when forced to do so did he attack. As always, he bombarded Washington with demands for reinforcements.

  Lincoln understood the general’s temperament. If the President was able to fill McClellan’s request for 100,000 more troops, he would promise to be in Richmond the following day—but then the general would discover reasons why he could not fight unless Lincoln gave him an additional 400,000. The President once said, “If I gave McClellan all the men he asks for, they could not find room to lie down. They’d have to sleep standing up.”

  Thus, in his attempt to spare his men, McClellan squandered them, and as Dooley Young later related it, “General McClellan was like my Uncle Seedy who had to cut off his dawg’s tail, but he was too tenderhearted to do it all at one time—so he jest cut off an inch or so a day until the hull job got done.”

  Dooley pulled out a dirty sheet of paper with a rough map sketched on it, pointing out the stages of battle as he talked.

  “Little Mac made three stabs at gettin’ us, and any one would have worked, ’cause they was enough of them bluebellies to run over us. All three times they come at us across Antie
tam Creek. First, Hooker come acrost and hit Stonewall Jackson—right here at the top,” he’d point. “The Yanks come through a cornfield right up to an old Dunker church; and I tell you, time we druv ’em back, they wasn’t a stalk standing, and you could have walked acrost that field on the bodies! They had us—but General McLaw come jest in time—and they was 2,000 Yanks died in half an hour!

  “Then right here in the middle”—Dooley would poke another mark on his map—”was Bloody Lane. It was a sunken road, and we got in it and the Yanks come at us like I never seen ’em fight! General Gordon was shot five times, and they wore us out. Right at that time if McClellan had made a push, they could of walked through us—and the hull shootin’ match would of been over. But they never done it.

  “Then—right here at the bottom”—Young placed another mark at the extreme southern point of the creek—”the Yankee General Burnside, he tried all day to get acrost a bridge—which was stupid, ’cause we shot them as fast as they crowded onto it! And when we finally pulled out, jest when they could of come acrost the bridge, they found a spot where the creek was only waist deep—and waded acrost it—but we’d done hightailed it!”

  Thad did not have this clear picture in his mind during the battle. He moved into the center of the line at dusk on the night before the battle and waited with the others for dawn. Tom Winslow came along the line, whispering, “They’ll hit us at first light, most likely. Try to get some sleep.”

  Thad put his cartridge case beside him, loaded his rifle and curled up, but as he did so, a form emerged from the darkness on his left. “Novak?” someone whispered.

  “Here.” Thad sat up and strained his eyes to make out the features of the man who came to crouch beside him. There was only a sliver of a moon, and he could not identify him.

  “It’s me—Studs Mellon.” The big man moved closer, saying, “I gotta talk to you.”

  Thad had seen Mellon on the trip to Sharpsburg, of course, but had not spoken to him. Now he said, “What’s up, Studs?”

  “Well . . .” Mellon whispered huskily, “I been tryin’ to figger you out, Novak, but I can’t get no sense out of what you done. Captain Wickham, he told me ’bout how I’d still be in jail if you hadn’t said for them to turn me loose.” He shifted uncomfortably, trying to put his feelings into words, but seemed unable to do so. He was an inarticulate brute, choosing rather to speak with his fists than with words, but he had brooded over this action ever since he had been released from jail at Richmond and returned to his company.

  With a puzzled tone he asked, “Why’d you do it—after I lied on you? I tried to get you shot—and then you get me outta jail.”

  “May not have done you a favor, Studs,” Thad replied. “You’d be a lot safer there than here. There’s about a million Yankees over across that creek.”

  “Aw, that ain’t no bother! But I never seen nobody give a break to a mug who tried to do him in. Why for did you do it? You got religion or somethin’?”

  Thad paused, thought about it, then said, “I didn’t have religion when I did it, Studs. I just don’t like to see anybody in jail.” He added quickly, “But I got saved just before we left Richmond—at a camp meeting.”

  Studs thought about that, shifting his bulk so that he could get a better look at Thad’s face by the pale moonlight. “I’m on my way straight to hell, I reckon—’least, that’s what the preachers all say. Never gave it much thought before, but I get a funny feeling looking across that creek, thinkin’ maybe there’s a bluebelly there with a bullet that’s got my name on it. But I guess it’s too late for me to get religion now.”

  Thad didn’t have the faintest idea of how to speak to the man, but he told him, “I don’t reckon that’s so—’cause that’s what I thought once. Let me tell you how I got saved.”

  They sat there in the moonlight, with the sound of many men sleeping fitfully and occasionally a night bird giving a lonely cry and a monstrous bullfrog bellowing from the creek. Thad used no theological terms, for he knew none; but he told of his struggle to get away from God, then related how he had simply called on God.

  “It sure wasn’t a fancy prayer, Studs,” he ended his story. “I just said, ‘God, save me!” or something like that. And ever since that minute, I’ve been all right.”

  Mellon sat still, breathing heavily in the darkness, saying nothing. Thad said quietly, “I’d like to see you do that before the Yanks come calling, Studs—and not just because we’re liable to get killed. It’s just that the best and happiest people I know are Christians. Seems like Jesus just does that to folks.”

  When Studs did not reply, Thad decided to leave him alone. “Reckon I’ll get a little sleep. Wish you’d think on it, Studs.” He lay down and the big man sat there, not moving. Finally Thad drifted off, and when he awoke at dawn he saw Mellon in his place twenty yards down the line. Thad was about to go and ask him if he had called on God, but cannon and musket fire broke out to his left.

  “That’s Hood over there,” Dooley said wisely. He had come to take his place beside Thad, and spat emphatically. “Sounds like the hull Yankee Army’s pilin’ in on him, don’t it, Thad?”

  The roar of gunfire reached a crescendo, and seemed to go on endlessly. Thad saw a horseman gallop madly out of the smoke, ride up and yell, “Major Lee, General Jackson says give him support!”

  Lee shouted at once, “Captain Wickham, take your company and engage the enemy with General Jackson!” He called out three other companies, and Thad stumbled along, keeping his head down as Wickham led the way through the curtain of smoke.

  “There’s Jackson!” Thad heard Mark Winslow cry out, and looked up to see a small church, the ground about it littered with bodies of both Confederate and Union dead and wounded. “They’re coming across that cornfield, Captain!” Mark shouted, and then waved the men forward, “Company A—come on!”

  Thad ran across the broken field until he heard Captain Wickham shout, “Form line of battle!”

  Thad fell into the line not ten feet from where a Confederate officer stood watching the Yankees threading their way through the green field of corn. The man seemed as calm as if he had nothing to do with the affair. Then he turned and his pale blue eyes fell on Wickham, who identified himself. “Captain Wickham, Third Virginia, General Jackson.”

  Jackson nodded and waved toward the cornfield. Thad was amazed to see that he held a lemon in his hand! “Have your men stop those people, Captain.”

  Thad stared at the legendary leader, but there was no time to waste, for Wickham, along with Beauchamp and Winslow, was urging the men to action. Thad lifted his rifle, fired, and saw a blue coat drop like a bundle in the midst of the corn. As he reloaded, he heard the whine of minie balls in the air, and flinched. Then he fired again, but just as he stopped to reload, he saw Captain Wickham fall to the ground. “Keep firing!” Wickham shouted. “I’m all right!” He got to his feet and limped along the line, favoring his left leg, where a ball had cut through the flesh of his calf.

  The Yankees faced a terrible fire, leaning against it as men will do against a hard, driving wind. As the men in front fell to the ground, those in the rear stepped over them and pressed on toward the church. The barrel of Thad’s musket grew hot, and Dooley shook his head, shouting above the din, “Ain’t they no end to them boys, Thad? Never seen so many Yankees.”

  The Confederates were not untouched, for the approaching Yankees fired as they came. Thad saw Les Satterfield, Dooley’s cousin, take a ball in the face, destroying his features. Dooley paused to stare at him, then resumed firing with a new fury. Gaps began to appear in the line, and Wickham walked among the company, calmly directing their fire. Thad saw that the captain’s left arm was dripping blood, and he held it away to keep his uniform clean. He stopped beside Thad and said, “Hot work!”

  “Sir, let me tie up that arm.”

  “No! Let’s get those Yankees back on the other side of the creek and then we’ll take care of that. Keep firing! Keep firing!�
�� he called out as he walked away to Thad’s left.

  The roar of battle swelled, and McLaw and Early arrived with reinforcements for Jackson and Hood’s thin line of defense, but fresh Union troops poured across the field; and there was no letup until nine o’clock, when the Union troops slowly retreated, leaving a bloody harvest of dead and wounded in the cornfield.

  In the momentary lull, Thad and his comrades crowded around the well beside the church to assuage their parching thirst. Novak filled his canteen and went back to the line, where he discovered one of his friends, Leroy Johnson, lying with a shattered leg. He knelt down and gave him a drink, saying, “I’ll get you to the ambulance, Leroy.”

  “Oh, good God!” Johnson burst out weeping. “They’ve killed me!” Thad was struggling to lift him up when Mellon appeared. “Let me have him,” Studs said. He picked up the man easily and Thad went with him, finding the ambulance behind a grove of trees. Mellon put the injured man into the covered vehicle, and the two went back toward the line.

  “Glad you made it all right, Studs,” Thad told him. “We must have lost a fourth of the company.”

  “Well—I’m glad you didn’t catch one, Thad,” Mellon replied. He seemed to be struggling with something. After a moment he said with some embarrassment, “I done it.”

  Thad glanced at him puzzled. “You did what?”

  “I—I asked God to save me—just like you did.” He grinned self-consciously. “And He done it, too!”

  “Hey, that’s great!” Thad cried, giving Mellon a hard blow to his shoulder. “I sure am glad for you, Studs.”

  “You reckon I could get baptized, Thad?” Mellon asked. “In the creek. My ma, she always prayed for me to be baptized.”

  “Well, it might be pretty hard to find a chaplain—but we’ll see.”

  They got back to the line, and just as they did, a crackle of musket fire broke out to their right. Captain Wickham yelled, “Come on, men!” They followed him back over the ground they had traversed earlier, and found General D. H. Hill and his group of Confederates in a sunken road under a furious attack. “We’ll make a line behind that sunken road!” Wickham shouted. He raised his bandaged arm and waved them into position, and for the next two hours the most savage fighting of the entire war took place. Again and again the blue-clad soldiers charged the trench, falling by entire rows as the Confederates raked them from their well-protected position. But slowly the weight of the heavy Union divisions enfiladed the lane, enabling them to pour a deadly barrage on Hill’s embattled troops from each end of the lane.