Jacob, mute and motionless, was among the last to be taken up, grasped roughly by two men in dusty blue coats.
The pain was so sudden, so excruciating that finally, finally, he managed a low, guttural cry.
The soldier supporting his legs, little more than a boy, with blemished skin and not even the prospect of a beard, gasped. “This fella’s still with us,” he said, and he looked so startled, so horrified and pale that Jacob feared the kid would swoon, letting his burden drop.
“Well,” said the other man, gruffly cheerful, “I’ll be a son of a bitch if Johnny didn’t leave a few breathin’ this time around.”
The boy recovered enough to turn his head and spit. To Jacob’s relief, the boy remained upright, his grasp firm. “A few,” he agreed grudgingly. “And every one of them better off dead.”
The darkness returned then, enfolding Jacob like the embrace of a sea siren, pulling him under.
2
Washington City
June 15, 1863
Caroline
Nothing Caroline Hammond had heard or read about the nation’s capital could have prepared her for the reality of the place—the soot and smoke, the jostling crowds of soldiers and civilians, the clatter of wagon wheels, the neighing of horses and the braying of mules, the rough merriment streaming through the open doorways of plentiful saloons and pleasure houses.
She kept her gaze firmly averted as she passed one after another of these establishments, appalled by the seediness of it all, by the crude shouts, the jangle of badly tuned pianos and rollicking songs sung lustily and off-key, and, here and there, fisticuffs accompanied by the breaking of glass and even a few gunshots.
More than once, Caroline was forced to cross the road, to avoid rows of ox carts and ambulance wagons and mounted men who took no evident notice of hapless pedestrians.
A farm wife, Caroline was not a person of delicate constitution. She had dispatched, cleaned and plucked many a chicken for Sunday supper, helped her husband, Jacob, and Enoch Flynn, the hired man, butcher hogs come autumn and worked ankle-deep in barn muck on a daily basis.
Here, in this city of poor manners, ceaseless din and sickening stenches, the effects were, of course, magnified, surrounding her on every side, pummeling her senses without mercy.
Runnels of foaming animal urine flowed among the broken cobblestones, and dung steamed in piles, adding to the cloying miasma. On the far edge of her vision, she saw a soldier vomit copiously into a gutter and felt her own gorge rise, scalding, to the back of her throat. The man’s companions seemed amused by the spectacle, slapping their retching friend on the back and chiding him with loud, jocular admonitions of an unsavory nature.
Seeing the disreputable state of these men’s uniforms, intended as symbols of a proud and noble cause, thoroughly besmirched not only by all manner of filth, but by the indecent comportment of the men who wore them, sent furious color surging into her cheeks. Only her native prudence and the urgency of her mission—locating her wounded husband, possibly lying near death in one of Washington City’s numerous makeshift hospitals or, if she’d arrived too late, in a pine box—kept her from striding right up to the scoundrels and taking them sternly to task for bringing such shame upon their more honorable fellows.
How dared they behave like reprobates, safe in the shadow of President Lincoln’s White House, while their great-hearted comrades fought bravely on blood-drenched battlefields all over the land?
She was mortified, as well as aggrieved, but her anger sustained her and kept her moving toward the rows of hospital tents just visible in the distance.
Toward Jacob.
She thought of the newspaper clipping listing the dead and wounded tucked away in her reticule. She’d read the list over and over again from the moment the newspaper had been placed in her hands, read it during the day-long train ride from Gettysburg, the small, quiet town in the green Pennsylvania countryside she had lived in, or near, all her life.
By now, the clipping was tattered and creased, an evil talisman, despised and yet somehow necessary, the only link she had to her husband.
The information it contained was maddeningly scant, listing only that, among others, a Corporal Jacob Hammond had fallen in battle on May 3, almost six weeks ago, at Chancellorsville, Virginia. She had learned from others that any casualties from his regiment had since been transported to the capital to receive medical attention.
As the granddaughter of a country doctor and sometime undertaker, Caroline knew what her husband, Jacob, and others like him would have to endure if they survived at all—crowding, filth, poor food and tainted water, too few trained surgeons and attendants, shortages of even the most basic supplies, such as clean bandages, laudanum and ether. Sanitation, the most effective enemy of sepsis, according to her late grandfather, was still virtually nonexistent.
The stench of open latrines, private and public privies and towering heaps of manure standing on empty lots finally forced Caroline to set down her bag long enough to pull her best Sunday handkerchief from the pocket of her cloak and press the soft cloth to her nose and mouth. The scent of rosewater, generously applied before she left home, had faded with time and distance, and thus provided little relief, but it was better than nothing.
Caroline picked up her bag and walked purposely onward, not because she knew where she would find her husband, but because she didn’t dare stand still too long, lest her knees give way beneath her. She tried to locate a central office of some kind, where a clerk might be able to look up Jacob’s name in a volume of records and direct her to him, but the effort had been in vain. Frustrated and anxious, she had let herself be swept into the general chaos and disorganization of a wartime city.
Propelled by a rising sense of desperation, she hurried on, through the mayhem of a city under constant threat of siege, doing her best to convey a confidence she didn’t feel. Beneath the stalwart countenance, fear gnawed at her empty, roiling stomach, throbbed in her head, sought and found the secret regions of her heart to do its worst.
She had no choice but to carry on, no matter what might be required of her, and she did not attempt to ignore the relentless dread. That would be impossible.
Instead, she walked, weaving her way through the crowds, crossing to the opposite side of the street in a mostly useless effort to avoid staggering drunkards and street brawls and men who watched her too boldly. Having long since learned the futility of burying her fears, she made up her mind to face them, with calm fortitude—as best she could, anyway.
As she’d often heard her beloved grandfather Doc Prescott remark that turning a blind eye to a problem or a troublesome situation served only to make matters worse in the long run. “Face things head on, Caroline,” he’d always advised her. “Stand up to whatever comes your way and, if you are in the right, Providence will come to your aid.”
Lately, she hadn’t seen a great deal of evidence to support the latter part of that statement, but, then again, Providence was under no discernible obligation to explain itself or its ways to questioning mortals, particularly in light of the stupidity, greed and cruelty so far displayed by the human race.
One by one, Caroline confronted the haunting possibilities, the pictures standing vivid in her thoughts. In the most immediate scenario, she couldn’t find Jacob, even after the most arduous search imaginable. There had been a mistake, and he’d been taken to some other place entirely, or died in transit, and been buried in an anonymous grave, one she’d never be able to locate.
In the next, she did find her husband, but she had not arrived quickly enough to hold his hand, stroke his forehead, bid him a tender farewell. He’d already succumbed, and all that was left of him was a corpse lying in a ramshackle coffin.
But there was one more tableau to face and in many ways, it was the most terrible of all. Here, Jacob was alive, horribly maimed, helpless, forced to bear the unbe
arable until death delivered him from his sufferings in days, weeks, months—or years.
If only she knew what to expect, Caroline thought, she might be better able to prepare somehow.
But then, how could one prepare for the shock of seeing a beloved husband broken and torn? Suppose Jacob was so disfigured that she didn’t recognize him or, worse yet, allowed shock or dismay to show in her face, her manner, her bearing?
She swayed, not daring to draw the deep breath her body craved, lest the dreadful smells of disease and suffering and death finally overwhelm her, render her useless to Jacob just when he needed her most.
And that would not do.
* * *
For what remained of the day and into the evening, Caroline searched one hospital tent after another, pausing at the foot of every cot, forcing herself to look directly into the face of each man. Some slept, gray with the pallor of approaching death, some moaned or wept in silence, staring up at the drooping canvas roof as though they could see right through it to the sky. A few lifted an imploring hand to her, beckoning weakly, another woman’s name on their lips.
Others had no hand to raise, and called to her with their eyes.
A touch to a hand, a brow. A kind word. A simple blessing. Perhaps a prayer.
So little to ask.
And so much.
Caroline made an effort to skirt the crumbling precipices of their individual sorrows, lest she lose her footing and pitch headlong into such hopelessness that she might never find her way back to air and light and solid ground.
Back to Jacob.
Because of Jacob, because he was her husband and she was his wife, she pressed on, pausing only long enough to look carefully at each face, if indeed one was visible, and not swathed in bandages, as so many were. In these instances, she studied the forms instead, the shapes and the contours, measuring lines, like a cartographer mapping the terrain.
Most bodies were clearly defined beneath thin blankets or sheets, a fact that was helpful, but sobering, too. Caroline saw too many flat surfaces where there should have been arms or legs, and had to steel herself against a compassion so overwhelming that it threatened to consume her. All the while, out of necessity rather than virtue, she trusted her most private instincts; she would, she must recognize the landscape, the hills and hollows, of the one body she knew intimately. Jacob’s.
Somewhere, in one of these cots, one of these tents or beyond, in the overflow, he was waiting for her, hoping she would come to him, perhaps calling her name.
She must not fail him.
Time soon became irrelevant; only a driving urgency remained.
As twilight fell, lanterns were lit, their dull glow fading into the ever-thickening gloom gathering in corners and pooling upon the sawdust and dirt floors, like intangible floodwaters, silent and slowly rising.
There were too few helpers, mostly soldiers recovering from wounds of their own, and Caroline had no opportunity to ask if any knew where Jacob was; they were too immersed in the task of tending to the wounded and she couldn’t interrupt them. Bandaged and gaunt and scarred, but ambulatory, moved among the cots, carrying buckets of water, holding ladles to parched lips, whispering hoarse words of awkward consolation to this one and that. In each tent, a small female contingent served as well, some apparently volunteers, others hired. All wore plain, sturdy dresses and aprons, dutifully laundered but still bearing evidence, however faint, of old stains, along with fresh ones.
These fading spills, Caroline thought, were the marks of their service, macabre medals of their valor.
She watched these women, in passing, as they carried bowls of broth or cornmeal mush to those patients who were able to feed themselves, patiently spooned the food into the mouths of the ones who were not. They seemed tireless in their dedication, and she knew they did far more than serve meals and bring water; they cleaned wounds, changed bandages, removed stitches, administered medicines, took down letters dictated in halting voices and made sure they were posted. Some were sitting by bedsides and she could hear as they read aloud—messages from home, lines of poetry, favorite Bible passages. The women listened to last words and sang familiar refrains, from the most sacred of hymns to funny little ditties known to every schoolchild. She knew they did what they could, understanding, as they surely must, that for all they gave, it would never be enough.
And still they were here, among these men, diligently doing their best while leaving other parts of their lives unlived. Many, she assumed, were widows, while others were the wives or sweethearts, mothers or sisters, of soldiers.
Caroline, although dazed, and feeling somehow separate from herself, marveled at the courage and selfless devotion of all these women, felt the pull of it.
But she kept moving.
Until, finally, she couldn’t anymore. Weariness pulsed through her like the beat of a second, much greater heart than her own. And although the smells and the surrounding horrors still sickened her, she knew she herself would have to eat soon, then find a place to rest before she resumed her search for Jacob.
She felt defeated by her own limits, emotional and physical alike.
In those first moments of realization, home seemed even farther away than it was, more dream than recent memory, a place she’d merely imagined.
Rachel. Grandmother. The farm. Jacob, on his last visit home before Chancellorsville.
She yearned for her loved ones now, and for the person she was in their presence, for the peace of the land, so green and open in contrast to this sea of suffering humanity.
Her mind drifted to the beginning of her journey. She had left in a hurry, asking her grandmother to let her friends know what happened.
The railway car had been crowded, the hard, sooty seats filled.
Bolt upright, Caroline had sweltered in her travel cloak the whole way, her bag resting on her lap, her arms tightly around it, careful not to meet anyone’s eyes, scooting closer to the window when a corpulent man in a dusty Union uniform dropped into the seat next to hers. He’d smelled of sweat and stale whiskey and rotting teeth, and his bulk pressed against Caroline, trapping her.
At first, the portly soldier had attempted to engage her in conversation, but besides an initial nod, she hadn’t acknowledged him. Instead, she’d stared through the murky glass at the passing countryside.
Though persistent, the stranger eventually gave up, heaving a gusty sigh and shifting about. Her relief was short-lived; she heard the strike of a match, smelled sulfur, then tobacco.
Cigar smoke had bloomed around her in a bluish cloud, stinging her eyes, scouring the back of her throat.
Miraculously, her breakfast had stayed put.
In retrospect, the incident seemed trivial now, many hours later, as dusk approached and she stood in the center of yet another tent, with human misery on every side.
A hand tugged lightly at the fabric of her cloak just then, causing Caroline to start so that she nearly dropped her travel case.
“I hope I didn’t frighten you.” The voice was feminine and kindly and conveyed a fatigue that no amount of sleep or leisure could cure.
Caroline turned, gripping the handle of her bag more firmly now, and with both hands, not from fear it would be stolen from her, but because neither arm could manage the weight of it without the other.
A slight woman stood beside her, plain as a mud-hen in her brown dress. Her hair was gray and billowing around her wrinkled face, and her sad eyes gazed up into Caroline’s face. “Are you looking for someone?”
A cluster of sobs rose suddenly from somewhere deep inside Caroline, and she barely managed to choke them back. “My husband,” she said, with difficulty. “Corporal Jacob Hammond. He was wounded at Chancellorsville—I’ve looked and looked for hours, but I can’t seem to find him anywhere—”
The woman patted Caroline’s arm, and interrupted gently, “Do yo
u know the name of your husband’s regiment, Mrs. Hammond?” she asked.
“Yes,” Caroline replied, summoning the last of her dignity. “Jacob serves with the Eleventh Pennsylvania.” The Bloody Eleventh, he’d called it.
“Ah,” the woman said with a little sigh. She brightened, no small feat at such a time and in such a place, and then added, “When possible, we try to keep the sick and wounded with their regiments, for purposes of order, of course, but mainly because they seem to do better if there’s someone they might know nearby.”
Caroline bent to put down her case. “Can you tell me where the members of my husband’s regiment have been taken?”
The woman sighed again. “I can ask,” she said softly, her face full of compassion, “but not tonight, I’m afraid. No pen pushers on duty at this hour.” She patted Caroline’s arm once more. “Come back first thing in the morning, and I’ll help if I can.”
Everything within Caroline clamored to find Jacob now, but she recognized that she had reached the end of her personal resources. “Thank you,” she said.
The woman nodded and put out a hand to Caroline, who reciprocated. Strong, calloused fingers, gnarled and thick at the knuckles, closed around hers. “I’m Bessie Engle,” she began. “And this tent is number ten. Remember that, or you might not find it again. Be sure you ask for Bessie when you get here, in case I’m out on some errand or off resting my feet.”
“I’m obliged, Mrs. Engle,” Caroline said, fearing her voice would break.
“Just Bessie,” came the reply. Bessie was smiling, but then a frown furrowed her brow. “You have a place to stay, Mrs. Hammond? Some people here to look after you?”
Caroline hesitated, thinking how odd it was that this kindness could bring her so close to losing what remained of her composure.
The Yankee Widow Page 3