Pickering chuckled, but his eyes were solemn. “On my knees,” he replied.
* * *
The battle raged until there was no light to see by, but Rogan and every other able-bodied man with two good feet to stand on worked well into the night, carrying stretchers to the hospital tents as rapidly—and as mercifully—as they could.
Past the Union picket lines, the Rebels were hard at work, too, recovering their own wounded and dead by lantern light.
The task was horrific, the casualties legion. They gathered Federals and fallen Confederates alike, leaving the dead behind for the time being, their bodies sprawled where they’d fallen.
The sights and sounds would spawn unimaginable nightmares in the minds of the survivors for years to come, decades, perhaps. Rogan was mute with exhaustion, and he was grateful for that, if only because it numbed his senses.
He didn’t allow himself to think about Hastings, lying out there in the darkness, with stones on his eyes, one of the thousands of dead littering the ground.
It was after midnight when orders came down from on high; there would be more fighting the next day, and every soldier, regardless of rank, was to return to camp, take his food and get what rest he could.
For all the lifting and carrying they’d done, it seemed to Rogan that they hadn’t made a dent in the job. Soldiers still cried out for help, for water, for the mercy of death.
Rogan felt both anger and a buckling of the knees when the command was relayed to the men. How could he eat and drink and fall senseless onto his bedroll, when so many people still needed help?
And yet the orders made a grim kind of sense. What use would he or any of the others be in battle, without rest and food?
Going back to camp was the hardest thing he’d had to do—yet—but Rogan was a soldier, and an order was an order.
So he returned to the spot where Hastings had brewed his vile coffee the previous night. Pickering and Alderman were there ahead of him, staring, spent and silent, into the low-burning fire.
He sought out Little Willie first, gave the gelding water and brushed him down, since that was the only way he knew to soothe a frightened horse.
After that, Rogan found a basin, poured water into it and gave himself a cursory splash. Every muscle in his body screamed for a hot bath, plenty of soap, and enough whiskey to wipe July 2, 1863 from his mind.
He joined the other men in the general area of the fire—it was too hot, even at night, to sit near it—and nobody said a word.
Alderman got up, poured coffee and handed it over.
Rogan nodded his thanks. The stuff kept some men awake, he knew, but he wasn’t one of them. He accepted the mug, found its contents as foul as always, and drank it. He forced down a serving of boiled beans, on their third day and starting to sour, and took care not to notice the empty spot where Hastings had slept away the last night of his brief life.
He listened stalwartly to the piteous calls of the wounded, as the beans roiled in his stomach, threatening to come back up with a vengeance.
There were other sounds, too—the stomping and nickering of horses, sad tunes played on banjos and harmonicas around other campfires, men talking, arguing over a game of cards or the throw of the dice. Ballads were sung, and, now and then, raucous laughter broke out somewhere nearby.
Rogan didn’t ask himself how a man could laugh, or make music or gamble, in such a time and such a place.
It was a way of bearing the unbearable.
He muttered a good-night to Pickering and Alderman, and went to lay out his bedroll.
He slept little, despite his exhaustion. He hadn’t yet heard about the battle’s full cost—the casualties, the wounded, the missing—on either side. Nor did he have that information about yesterday’s disaster.
His pain was considerably worse now that he was lying down, and as the countless campfires burned to embers and the soldiers quieted, the injured continued to call out for someone, anyone, to come to their aid.
Mostly, they called in vain.
12
Cemetery Ridge
July 3, 1863
Rogan
Pickets swapped shots throughout the night, and at around half past four that morning, some quarter of an hour before the sun rose, the fight on Culp’s Hill, about a mile from Cemetery Ridge, was on again, in earnest. The cries of the wounded were muted, but they continued, getting inside Rogan and twining around his guts like some fast-growing vine, fit to drop him to his knees.
His flesh smarted with yesterday’s shrapnel wounds, but he didn’t pay that much mind.
Ostensibly, there were a hundred men in his command, including two lieutenants, several sergeants and a corporal or two, but the number fluctuated considerably, depending on various factors, such as Confederate raiding parties, sudden illness and, more and more often these days, desertion. A teamster’s work was hard, dangerous and generally thankless, for all that the freight they carried kept the entire army on the march.
That morning, most of Rogan’s company was in transit between supply depots and field headquarters, and he was glad of that. There were more than enough men here, by his reckoning, to face the horrors to come and, alas, do their part to make them worse. Twelve of them—make that eleven, with Hastings gone—were present and accounted for.
He sent Alderman and Pickering back to stretcher-bearing duty, where their help was badly needed and they might be out of the line of fire, while the rest fell in with the nearest company of infantry, most of them eager to prove they were soldiers, not mere mule skinners, hauling hardtack and coffee beans from one camp to another.
Leaning over the pommel, the crack and boom and smoke of battle already gathering all about, Rogan patted Little Willie’s neck a few times, raising dust from the animal’s hide, and spoke quietly. “Stay on your feet, my friend,” he said, “and we’ll both get through this.”
“We’ll get our fill of fire and blood today,” he added. “And then some.”
The words were prophetic.
* * *
Under the leadership of Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer, the US cavalry fought hard that day, in what soon became known as East Cavalry Field, where the Union artillery exchanged thundering rounds with the Confederates. The objective was to hold off Jeb Stuart’s Rebel horsemen, and the fighting was fierce.
If Stuart reached the lines of artillery above, the consequences to the Union forces would be dire.
Little Willie proved agile, and he didn’t spook once, for all the minié balls and bullets salting the air around them. There were harrowing shrieks everywhere, as men and horses alike went down, but the Confederate war cry, a strange, piercing whoop usually called the Rebel Yell, chilled the blood.
As the roar of over two hundred cannon shook the ground and turned the air to smoke so thick it seared the eyes and scraped the throat raw, Rogan fought on.
Friend and foe fell on every side.
Then another horse bumped Little Willie on the flank, and Rogan turned, sword raised, to defend himself.
And froze.
There, grinning through a whorl of smoke, rode his old friend Bridger Winslow, a pistol in each hand. “By God, I thought that was you,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the din.
Rogan gave a strangled burst of laughter, mostly a reflex, born of surprise. “Damn!” he bellowed.
It had finally come to pass, after all these years. The meeting each had anticipated and dreaded. Friend against friend in the heat of battle.
Bridger’s mount danced fitfully beneath him, ears pinned back, but he kept his pistols in hand, rather than take the reins. He wouldn’t have seen the need, given that he could control any horse with a slight motion of his knees or heels. “Unless you mean to use that sword,” he said, his teeth flashing white in the filthy expanse of his face, “you ought to low
er it a while. Easier on your arm that way.”
“Maybe,” Rogan responded loudly, “we ought to do our jawing later on. And somewhere else.”
Bridger threw back his head and laughed, then nodded and gestured with one hand. “Between the picket lines, soon as the smoke clears,” he shouted back. “Bring as many coffee beans as you can scrape together.”
During that brief exchange, the battle seemed suspended, pushed aside somehow, but it soon reasserted itself.
“Look out!” Rogan yelled, when he caught sight of another Union cavalryman riding up behind Bridger.
But it was too late.
The bayonet struck, coming clean through Bridger’s right shoulder; it turned as the blade was yanked free, blood soaking his tunic and streaming down onto the horse. Before a second thrust could be made, he shot the man at close range, the blast propelling the other soldier out of his saddle, with his arms spread wide apart and a crimson stain blossoming across his chest.
Bridger faced Rogan and, incredibly, he was grinning again. “I really wanted that coffee, too,” he said, just before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell, unconscious, to the ground.
Rogan swore under his breath, looked around quickly, noting with a degree of relief that the men around them were preoccupied with fights of their own, then dismounted and crouched beside his friend.
He found a pulse at the base of Bridger’s throat, weak but steady.
After scanning his surroundings a second time, he caught hold of Bridger under the arms and dragged him into a cluster of brush nearby. Reminded of the end Hastings had met the day before, he felt sick, but he spoke the words called for, useless as they probably were.
“Hold on and stay put.” His friend’s eyes were shut, so there was no telling if he heard or not. “I’ll be back for you first chance I get.” He paused, ran a forearm across his face. “And I’ll bring that coffee.”
Praying Bridger wouldn’t bleed to death, or be discovered and finished off on the spot, Rogan ran to his horse, swung up into the saddle, and fought on, staying as close to that brush pile as possible.
Meanwhile, the cannon fire went on, destroying anything—and anyone—in its path, lasting more than two hours.
Stuart struck again and again, but Custer, a fierce little man with a head of golden hair, held the line. Both sides paid dearly over the course of the conflict.
Rogan had no sense of time passing.
He barely noticed the slash of a Confederate sword, slicing open his right thigh, but he registered his horse’s cry of pain when the same blade cut a deep nick in his withers. Rogan was never sure whether he ran that Rebel through to defend himself or to avenge his horse.
When he dropped to the ground, minutes later, two Union infantrymen dragged him into a copse of trees. He passed out before he could ask them to fetch Little Willie from the field, but when he came around, hurting everywhere it was humanly possible to hurt and yet still whole, the horse was standing over him, reins dangling, head down to nuzzle at Rogan’s chest.
He sat up, but a fresh wave of pain rendered him breathless. He checked his wound. Several minutes had passed before he realized that night had fallen and the fighting had ceased. A deep silence coursed beneath the inevitable moans and cries of the wounded, the shuffle of men’s feet as the stretcher bearers came and went, the pop of a gunshot as an injured animal was put out of its misery.
Rogan knew he ought to be out there, doing what he could to help, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand up and he wasn’t ready to try. He remembered Bridger, hidden in the thicket, and wondered if he’d been found.
If dead, he’d be left where he was.
If alive, he would be taken prisoner and, eventually, someone would see to his wounds. Naturally, he wouldn’t be a priority, but he might fare a little better than a foot soldier, because of his rank.
At least half an hour had gone by before Rogan figured he was ready to see if he could stand. Even then, getting to his feet took some doing. If it hadn’t been for Little Willie, he might never have managed at all, but the stirrup gave him a handhold and, from there, he pulled himself up just enough to get a grip on the saddle horn.
Little Willie stood patiently, letting Rogan lean heavily against his side until the dizziness subsided and he could catch his breath.
Finally, he felt strong enough to keep his feet without the horse to hold him up.
He took the reins in one hand and led Little Willie out of the deep shadows beneath the tree that had, somehow, sheltered them both until the battle was over.
Bodies everywhere, some dead, some wounded, but several ambulance wagons were there to receive the living and the soon-to-be-dead. Stretcher bearers came and went, but the pace was so hectic that, remarkably, Rogan and Little Willie went unnoticed.
Rogan searched, his heart pounding, and found Bridger still lying in the brush. In the dim light of the moon, Rogan saw his friend’s chest rising and falling. The motion was nearly imperceptible, but it meant Bridger was alive, and for now, that was enough.
“Stand,” Rogan said to Little Willie, and dropped the reins.
The horse obeyed, as always.
Rogan made no effort to go unseen; it would have been impossible, if anybody took a notion to look.
He squatted next to Bridger. “Hey, there, Reb,” he said quietly. “Can you hear me?”
Bridger opened his eyes, and one corner of his mouth twitched upward, fell into line again. “Hell, yes, I can hear you,” he responded, very slowly. “I’d know that Yankee twang anywhere.” He paused, struggling visibly to draw his next breath. “What news? Of the battle?”
“All I can surmise is that it’s over. Things are quiet now—as quiet as possible. There was a Rebel charge up Cemetery Ridge this afternoon. Far as I can tell, they withdrew.” Despite the chaos, he’d heard that much from one of his teamsters. Shrugging, he said, “That’s all I know. Oh, and one of the Rebs, a major general, is called Pickett. Another is Longstreet.”
“Know of him.” Bridger gave a slight nod, then asked, “Where’s my coffee?”
In spite of the pain and the filth and the fear of the sights and sounds he’d never be able to forget, Rogan had to smile. “We’ll get around to the coffee later,” he said, adding a silent If we’re lucky. “Right now, we have other concerns.”
Bridger chortled, a miserable sound, but courageous, just for the making of it. “Yes,” he said, closing his eyes. He was unconscious again, or maybe asleep.
Rogan stood and took another look around. The bodies were far-flung, some so distant that they might not be found and buried for hours, perhaps days.
Far, far out in the darkness, Rogan crouched beside the corpse of a Union soldier, checked for a pulse and found none. He ducked his head and closed his eyes for a few minutes. He didn’t recognize the young man but in some ways that left him feeling even greater guilt over what he was about to do. He offered a brief prayer of hope and thanks.
Then, when he could make himself do it, he rolled the body onto its side and began working the right arm free of the sleeve. Slowly, and as gently as he could, Rogan removed the dead man’s blue jacket, rolled it up tight; next he took a bloodstained piece of heavy paper, with the soldier’s name and regiment written on it, from the pocket and slipped it inside the white shirt he wore underneath. Then he returned to the place where Bridger lay.
This time, he tried to be quick, getting his friend out of his soiled gray tunic and replacing it with the one he’d stolen. He couldn’t do much about Bridger’s trousers, but they were covered in dirt and blood enough that a person would be hard pressed to make out their color in the dark.
He looked around again and, to his astonishment, spotted Alderman and Pickering, not fifty yards away.
Bridger regained consciousness just as Rogan turned his head and yelled, “Pickering, Alderman�
��over here!”
When he looked back at Bridger, he saw confusion in his friend’s face.
“Do as I say,” Rogan muttered. “Keep your mouth shut and do your damnedest to look like a Yankee.”
Bridger, not surprisingly, didn’t have the strength to object.
Alderman and Pickering rushed over, carrying an empty stretcher.
“Cap’n?” Alderman gasped.
Pickering’s grin nearly split his grimy face in two. “We thought for sure you were dead,” he told Rogan.
“I came close a few times,” Rogan said.
They glanced down and saw the bloody slit in his pants.
Rogan gestured toward Bridger, who lay prone in the bushes. He would have time to think about the shrapnel and the sword wound to his right thigh later. All he felt now was a distant throb. “I know you’re mighty busy, but I’d appreciate if you’d load this fellow next.”
The two men, although worn ragged from a day spent hauling the wounded to and from ambulance wagons, obeyed without hesitation.
Bridger’s gaze locked onto Rogan, but he followed instructions and didn’t say a word, obviously aware that his Southern drawl might cause confusion.
“What about you, Cap’n?” Pickering asked, when he and Alderman had Bridger on the stretcher and hoisted off the ground. “You need to tend to that wound or you might get gangrene. You’ll be needing both legs when this fighting is done.”
“I’ll be all right for now,” Rogan said.
“We’ll get this fellow taken care of, then,” Alderman said. After a quick look around at all the carnage, the erstwhile butcher said, as if to himself, “I might have to find another trade when all this is over.”
Rogan rested a hand on the man’s shoulder, just briefly. “You’re doing a fine job, both of you,” he said, and he meant it. He’d thought to spare them the dangers of battle by assigning them to this duty, and they were alive. But they were both exhausted, covered in gore and blood and dirt, with wounds of their own, the hidden sort that often fester for a lifetime in the mind and heart.
The Yankee Widow Page 15