The table had no more been scrubbed when Captain McBride succumbed; his knees gave way and he began to fold toward the floor. Enoch caught him from behind, beneath the arms, just in time to break the fall. Caroline helped Enoch get him on the table.
She wondered how many soldiers she’d have to tend to before the crisis was past, and the war moved on to ravage some other community.
Together, the two women disrobed the half-conscious man. The captain’s back and arms were pocked with sharp bits of metal, some large and some small, and he had sustained a bayonet or sword wound to the right thigh. He’d shed a considerable amount of blood at the time, and as it dried, it had bonded the fabric of his trousers not only to the surface of his flesh, but deep inside it as well. Even the drenching he’d gotten, driving in the rain, had not dislodged the scorched cloth.
Geneva asked Caroline to prepare a hot compress, while she gathered instruments from the medical kit, to be boiled before use.
While they waited for the water to boil, both Caroline and her grandmother washed their hands again.
The soap was harsh and stung Caroline’s skin, but it would not have occurred to her to complain. Though she had her small and private vanities, she was a country woman used to working with her hands, accustomed to thorns and stings in summer, chilblains in winter, and callouses the year around.
Tending to Captain McBride remained an awkward business; they had to prop him up so that Geneva could pull the metal shards from his back with a set of tweezers. He’d exhausted whatever strength remained in him, which meant that Enoch had to hold him in place. Caroline simultaneously applied a compress to the blade wound in his muscular thigh, soaking the embedded fabric until it could be pulled free without doing further damage.
McBride, when conscious again, endured all these processes stoically, although he gritted his teeth when Geneva, satisfied that Caroline had removed every fiber and thread of cloth, used whiskey to disinfect the wound.
With infection seemingly present, the wound could not be sutured shut, even though its location, on his leg, would advise that. Instead, they bandaged it.
Once more, Enoch braved the rain to head for the house, soon returning with more blankets and some of Jacob’s clothing for the men.
The two uniforms, beyond any hope of repair, were burned in the cookstove, while a pot of strong coffee brewed.
Finally, with both men resting comfortably, Caroline finished making breakfast, which she and her grandmother ate standing up.
Then Enoch carried plates for Rachel and Jubie to the house, the food covered with cloth napkins and tucked inside a lidded basket, then he came back to take his own meal.
* * *
“How is Rachel?” Caroline asked Enoch as he ate. “And Jubie?”
“They’re both doing fine, Missus,” Enoch answered gently.
Using the blankets he’d brought, he made a bed on the floor for Captain McBride, next to his sleeping friend, and helped him rise from the table, then lie down again. He was in too much pain to eat.
Caroline studied the empty table numbly. No matter how thoroughly she would scrub those familiar planks, she thought, she couldn’t imagine ever again sitting down to it for a meal.
Yes, the war had definitely changed their lives.
14
Hammond Farm
July 4, 1863
Caroline
Within an hour, two more men rode in on mules, grim-faced and soaked through, followed directly by several ambulance wagons and half a dozen mounted soldiers, all clad in Union blue. It was now past dawn.
Caroline, having left Geneva watching over the two captains in the kitchen house so she could check on Rachel, heard their approach. She stood at the window in the parlor, Rachel on tiptoe at her side, smudging the fogged glass with one small palm as she cleared a spot to peer through. Jubie took a place behind Caroline’s right shoulder, careful not to be visible to the outside.
“Them soldiers aren’t looking for me,” the girl said, probably addressing herself rather than Caroline or Rachel.
“No, Jubie,” Caroline agreed. “I think they’ve come for the wagons and supplies they left behind before the battle.”
They watched as Enoch went out to meet the party of men. The rain was still pounding down, splashing into deep puddles on the ground, lashing the grass until it lay flat.
“Reckon they’ll move on, soon as they get the wagons,” Jubie said hopefully. “Maybe they’ll take the captains away with ’em.”
Caroline said nothing, but kept her gaze fixed on Enoch, who seemed impervious to the rain as the discussion went on.
Finally, he stepped aside, gestured for the group to proceed.
The two men on mules dismounted, striding toward the kitchen house. Three ambulance wagons bumped and jostled after them, while the soldiers on horseback rode doggedly on, in the direction of the orchard, water pouring from the brims of their caps.
“Jubie, would you take Rachel upstairs to her bedroom to play,” Caroline said, turning from the window at last. She knew her brief respite was over, perhaps for a very long time.
Rachel was usually well-behaved but unwilling just now to stray from her mother’s side. “But, Mama,” she argued, “I don’t want to go upstairs. I want to stay with you.”
Caroline leaned down and placed her sore hands against the little girl’s cheeks. “We must all do our part, darling Rachel,” she said. “And your part is to be very, very good, so that Mama and Great-grandmother can look after the soldiers.”
Rachel’s small face crumpled. “I could help you, Mama,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “Please? I could sing songs and recite.”
Caroline’s heart, numbed by the day’s demands, awakened only to break into pieces. “That would be very nice,” she replied wistfully, determined not to cry. “But not now, sweetheart. When the soldiers are feeling better.”
“The men in those wagons look like they’ve been shot full of holes,” Jubie said. “They’ll need tending to.”
Caroline raised her eyes to Jubie, mutely asking her to be silent.
Jubie took the hint. She put one hand on Rachel’s head, summoned up a smile and said, “How about you sing me some songs, Miss Rachel? Recite some pieces, too—from the Bible and such. Might settle this babe of mine—he’s been jumping around in my belly like cold water spilled on a stove lid.”
Rachel paused, looked from her mother to Jubie and back again. “Would that be helping, Mama?” she asked, her voice small and uncertain.
Caroline smiled. “Yes,” she said. “That would be a very great help.”
Rachel regarded the bump under Jubie’s dress as though entertaining suspicions. “Can your baby hear what I say?”
Over her head, Caroline’s gaze met Jubie’s, and a tacit agreement was made.
“Sure he can hear,” Jubie told her. “And like I said, your singing will help settle him down.”
“Well, all right then, as long as I’m helping somebody.”
Caroline bent again and placed a kiss on the child’s head. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said.
Rachel and Jubie were already on their way upstairs. Caroline hurried out the door.
As she passed the ambulance wagons, which stood near the barn, with their teams of forlorn mules still in harness, heads down under the continuing onslaught of rain, she looked inside—and was stunned at what she saw.
In one, men were stacked on top of one another, like sticks of firewood. In another, soldiers lay insensate on the floorboards, or sat with their backs to the sides. Blood was everywhere, as though splashed randomly from buckets, dripping slowly between the cracks in the wagon beds, staining the grass beneath.
There were moans and pleas, and several soldiers, surely too young to fight, appealed to Caroline with outstretched hands, murmured entreaties
for help, or stared despondently.
Her heart went out to them, but she knew she needed to stand back from them, at least for now; if she held one soldier’s hand, she had to hold them all, and that was impossible.
“You’re safe now,” she told them, repeating the promise at each wagon except the one loaded with the dead. “We will do all we can for you.”
She might have stayed longer despite the rain, trying to reassure these desperate souls, if Enoch hadn’t come and squired her hastily into the kitchen house.
Her eyes sought her grandmother first.
Geneva was seated in the rocking chair, her face dangerously pale, it seemed to Caroline. But when her grandmother looked up, she smiled.
“Is Rachel fine? Is she with Jubie? And did you have a rest?” she asked.
“I have,” she answered, not wanting to worry Geneva. “I’m quite restored. And Rachel and Jubie are spending time together.” She resisted saying that Geneva, too, needed a rest. She knew there was no point in even suggesting it.
Geneva patted Caroline’s hand.
Caroline managed a slight smile and turned toward Enoch and two more soldiers who had come inside, now warming themselves. In contrast to the wounded and dead boys in the ambulance wagons, this pair seemed almost elderly.
“Things are bad at Gettysburg,” one of them was saying. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The other nodded, shrouded in sorrow, stoop-shouldered and incomprehensibly weary. “Thousands of bodies. Folks from the town and some of the soldiers been burying the dead as fast as they can, but the graves are shallow, and this rain is washing them out. Bringing the bodies right to the surface.”
“Going to have to burn what’s left of the horses and mules,” the first man put in, and Caroline saw tears standing in his eyes. “No, sir,” he went on, blinking rapidly, gazing at nothing. “Never seen anything like it.”
Caroline felt her legs weaken, and braced herself. “Where are the ambulance drivers?” she asked, surprised at the steadiness of her voice. “Those boys need shelter, and the mules have been left standing.”
“They’ve gone to bring the supply wagons down,” Enoch replied quietly. “Once that’s done, we’ll help set up the tents and get the wounded men settled.” He paused and heaved a great sigh. “Meantime, I’ll see to the mules.”
Caroline was nearly overwhelmed by the bleakness of the situation, but she knew she could not give in, could not fall apart.
“Tents?” she asked belatedly.
One of the mule riders turned to look at her then. “Yes, ma’am. We’ll put some of these poor lads in the barn, if that’s agreeable to you. Least till the tents are up.”
She looked around, took in Captain McBride and Bridger Winslow, both of whom were asleep on their makeshift pallets. “But it’s dryer in here,” she reasoned. “And cleaner, too. Surely, they’d be more comfortable, out of the weather...”
The man shook his head, a sad smile lingering in his eyes for a moment, but never reaching his mouth. “There won’t be room for them all, ma’am,” he said. “Kind of you to offer, but it just won’t do.”
Caroline could not let the matter go. Those were human beings out there in those wretched wagons, suffering and wet and afraid. They were sons and brothers, husbands and fathers, far from their homes and the people who loved them. “There’s the barn and the cabin and—”
But the man shook his head again. “No, ma’am,” he said. “Like I told you, it’s a kindly thought, and we appreciate your generous spirit, but these boys are just the first of hundreds, maybe thousands... They’re lying in every church and store and house in Gettysburg as it is, and before this crisis is over, every farm for miles around will be overrun with dead and dying men.”
Caroline wavered on her feet again, swamped by the magnitude of such a disaster. “Dear God,” she murmured. “What are we to do?”
She felt a hand grip her own, realized that her grandmother had risen from the rocking chair and come to stand beside her. “We are to do what we can,” Geneva said quietly. “And we will.”
Grateful, Caroline squeezed her grandmother’s hand. “Yes,” she said. And she could only feel proud, that her farm—Jacob’s farm—had become a field hospital.
At sunset, the rain was still coming down hard, pounding the earth like the vengeance of heaven.
Six large tents were erected and cots set up inside, quickly filled as Enoch and the other men carried stretchers loaded with bloody, rain-soaked boys, some out of their heads with pain and fever, others ominously still.
Geneva and Caroline covered them with blankets, served them ladle after ladle of drinking water, whispered merciful lies and administered doses of laudanum from Dr. Prescott’s stores to those who would—or could—swallow.
All the while, more ambulance wagons arrived. With them came more soldiers, able-bodied but stricken by all they’d seen and heard, along with a surgeon.
Hours later Enoch persuaded Geneva and Caroline to leave the wounded long enough to eat something, then go on up to the main house. He promised to take a meal himself, and give Captain McBride and Mr. Winslow food and water as well, if they were awake.
They weren’t.
Caroline managed to swallow a biscuit and a slice of cold bacon left over from breakfast; Geneva ate even less. Arm in arm, the two women headed for the house, holding Caroline’s cloak over their heads like a canopy as they hurried through the rain, wending their way between tents and busy men.
Inside, Jubie was waiting for them. “Miss Rachel sang and played with her dolls until she couldn’t keep her eyes open,” she said. “I put her in your bed again, Miss Caroline, because that’s what she wanted, and she’s sleepin’ sound.”
“Thank you,” Caroline said, almost too tired to speak.
Jubie took Geneva’s arm. “I’ll get the Missus to her room,” she said, in a tone of authority. “Then I mean to go on out there and see what I can do by way of helping them soldiers.”
Caroline blinked. “I don’t think that’s wise, Jubie,” she told her. “It’ll put you at too much risk. You never know what people are thinking, what they might do. And you have your baby to protect.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Jubie was already leading Geneva toward the back stairway. “But I want to tend them anyway.”
Caroline felt a new respect for Jubie then, and no small admiration. “Fine—but don’t overdo things. And...be careful. You’ve got to think of your baby.”
Glancing back over one scrawny shoulder, Jubie nodded. “Yes, Miss Caroline,” she agreed. With that, she rounded the corner and started up the stairs, murmuring encouragement to Geneva as they made the slow climb together.
Caroline paused for a few minutes, drew a deep breath, then followed them upstairs. She needed to rest, too, and think, absorb all that had happened.
After looking in on her grandmother, Caroline went to her own room. She did not light a lamp, but undressed and washed in the darkness, listening to the rain and trying not to think of the hundreds of dying men still lying helpless on the battlefields, at the mercy of the weather. And she tried not to picture the shallow graves washed open, water pooling around the corpses.
Even at a remove, the images were hideously vivid in her mind.
Moreover, she wondered how her friends and the rest of the townsfolk had fared, the stubborn ones who, like Caroline and her grandmother, refused to leave. So far, there had been no direct news from or about her friends and acquaintances, people she and Jacob had known since childhood. Perhaps she could make a brief foray into town in the next day or so, stopping at some of the neighboring farms on the way...
Donning her nightgown without removing her camisole and pantaloons, Caroline stood beside the bed, gazing down at the small, shadowy figure of her child. Had she made a mistake, allowing Rachel to stay with her, instead
of sending her on to New York with her good friend, Susannah Kronecker? Keeping the realities of war from her daughter had not been difficult in the beginning. Jacob was away, of course, and they both missed him, but there’d been those brief furloughs, and his letters, frequent and always lively, full of good cheer, funny stories and plans for the future.
How different that future will be, Caroline reflected sadly, easing into bed beside Rachel. So different from the future Jacob had envisioned for the three of them. Or possibly a bigger family, if he’d lived.
Lying on her side, Caroline touched her sleeping child’s cheek. She’d upheld the illusion of safety somehow, even after journeying to Washington City and returning with Jacob’s earthly remains in a pinewood box. As carefully as Caroline had explained her papa’s death, and despite the fact that Rachel had seen at least glimpses of him in his coffin, she was simply too young to comprehend the full meaning and permanence of such a tragedy. No father had ever loved a daughter more than Jacob loved Rachel; he adored the child. And yet, like every other man, he’d also wanted at least one son, someone to carry the Hammond name into a new generation. Someone to help run the farm and, one day, take it over entirely.
Had she given birth to a second child, another daughter even, one who thrived, like Rachel, he would have been pleased. Overjoyed, in fact. But her dreams of more children had died with Jacob. It would be just the two of them, Caroline and Rachel, on their own now.
Undoubtedly, her daughter still believed, on some level, that Papa was merely “away,” as he had been for so much of her short life, and that he would return at some point, with small gifts hidden in his coat pockets, smiling and offering piggyback rides.
Understanding would come with time, Caroline thought. She had seen no point in forcing the issue these past few weeks. It was too soon. Grief was a natural process; it was right and proper to mourn her husband, and to allow Rachel to mourn her father.
The Yankee Widow Page 17