Caroline had intended to wear black for one year, as was customary, but the only black dress she owned was the fancy one she’d worn to Jacob’s funeral. Given the present circumstances, she was not prepared to order the necessary yard goods, lay out patterns, pin them in place, and cut out the many pieces, much less stitch them together into day dresses, skirts and bodices. She knew her friends would help her if she asked, but so far she hadn’t. She wasn’t even sure she could find the fabric and notions in the first place, at a price she could afford. With the war devouring the output of virtually every mill and factory in the North, such things were scarce. Not only that, she and her friends had more important things to do in the aftermath of the battles that had taken place.
Nevertheless, if she continued to wear calico and gingham in lieu of dour bombazine and crepe for too long, certain women of her acquaintance were likely to gossip, although with the war so close to home now, they’d hardly have the time. But she could well imagine a future when scandalized whispers, the clucking of tongues and shaking of heads might prevail.
Then her thoughts turned to a more pressing reality—the two injured officers in her kitchen house, one of whom might be a member of the enemy army, and the crop of tents housing grievously wounded soldiers. Mere boys, most of them. The nearby battles had, by all reports, devastated the town and the countryside alike, leaving thousands of dead men, horses and mules behind.
She dreaded what tomorrow might bring.
15
Hammond Farm
July 4, 1863
Bridger
Bridger groped his way back to consciousness, a slow and arduous effort, with ever-greater pain as its only noticeable reward. By the time he finally managed to raise his eyelids, his shoulder wound burned as if it had just been cauterized with a red-hot poker—and simultaneously ached like a broken bone. He tried to raise himself from his pallet, but a flash of sheer agony forced him to lie down again.
“Rogan?” Bridger asked, breathless from the exertion and the pain. Had he really encountered his old school friend on the battlefield? Until now, he would have described the faint recollection as a fragment of a fever dream, if he’d thought about it at all.
“Yes, it’s Rogan,” the voice replied, in none too friendly a fashion. Evidently, McBride’s Irish was up. “Who else would be fool enough to risk hanging to save your miserable, contrary hide?”
“I’ll be damned,” Bridger said, exhausted. And smiling.
“A certainty if I’ve ever heard one,” Rogan muttered. At school, and afterward, he’d been famous for his quick temper, which had been equally quick to subside. He’d loved an all-out brawl, McBride had, but when the fight was over, he’d generally put out a bloody-knuckled hand and haul his adversary to his feet.
“I smell coffee,” Bridger said, quickening a little at the thought.
“Our luck it’s probably cold,” Rogan said. “And there’s no one here to light the stove and warm it up.”
A moment later, Bridger heard a stove lid clatter.
From the shuffling sounds, Bridger guessed Rogan had managed to rise off a pallet of his own and make his way to the stove.
The fact that he’d succeeded in getting to his feet was more than a little galling. Rogan lit a lantern and cranked the flame up high, and the outlines of a table and chairs, shelves and a cookstove sprang from the shadows.
Then Rogan loomed over him, oddly clad in loose trousers and something that resembled a nightshirt. He was bandaged, his face gaunt and sallow under the bristle of a new beard, dark as his hair.
“You look like hell,” Bridger observed. “Guess a man has to expect to take a beating or two when he takes up with an invading army.”
The breath Rogan expelled in response might have counted as laughter, if not for the bitter scraping sound it made. “For Christ’s sake, Bridger, shut up. I’m trying to think here. Figure out what to do next.”
With difficulty, Bridger raised himself onto his elbows, gritting his teeth against the pain.
“Here’s what you ought to do next,” Bridger told his friend. “Help me get to my damn feet. I’m at an unfair disadvantage, lying on my back like some old turtle turned wrong side up.”
Rogan grinned, his teeth white as bare bone beneath that scruffy beard. But then he leaned down, a move that obviously brought him significant discomfort, and extended a hand.
Bridger took it, forcing back a moan as Rogan hoisted him up off the floor.
He swayed slightly, breathing hard, but managed to avoid collapsing again by bracing himself against the heavy wooden table.
“Thanks,” he whispered when the worst had passed.
“About time you showed a little gratitude,” Rogan said. “Considering that you’d be under a foot or two of good Pennsylvania dirt by now, if I hadn’t intervened.”
Bridger took in his surroundings. Overhead, rain tapped at the roof like the beating of a million drums. Outside, wagons came and went, and men called to each other, and berated horses and mules. Beneath all this din, he heard the stark, muffled cries of the wounded.
“Never mind your heroism,” he said grimly. “Where are we, exactly?”
In the room’s poor light, Rogan’s dark blue eyes were nearly black. Like Bridger, he was hurting, and not merely because of whatever injuries he’d sustained on the battlefield. The screams and moans were a constant, inescapable part of war, a reminder that, in this supposedly glorious game of kings and knights, it was the pawns who shed the most blood.
“This is the Widow Hammond’s farm,” Rogan said at last. “Her Christian name is Caroline, and she is a fine woman.”
Had there been a warning couched in that statement? Bridger wasn’t sure and, for the moment, he wasn’t inclined to pursue the idea.
Instead, he pulled out a chair and sank into it. “We’re behind Union lines,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” Rogan answered without triumph. He drew back a chair of his own and sat down across from Bridger.
“The battle—?”
“Over,” Rogan said. “The whole Gettysburg campaign is over and finished.”
Bridger grimaced. “And?” he prompted.
The coffee was coming to a boil over there on the stove, and the smell of it was a comfort, even in the midst of spectacular misfortune.
“It was a Union victory,” Rogan told him. His expression was bleak. “So-called, anyhow. Seems to me there’s no way either side can call that kind of carnage ‘winning.’”
The coffee pot overflowed at the spout, some of its contents sizzling, fragrant, on the stove top.
Bridger’s mouth watered. He was half-starved, with no clear memory of the last time he’d eaten, but he could endure that. It was coffee he craved, hot and strong, the way a drunkard craves whiskey.
“Thank you,” Bridger said as his friend handed him a cup, and he meant it. The stuff was just barely off the boil, and a gritty foam rode the surface of it, but he had to hold himself back from lapping it up like a thirsty dog on a creek bank.
Bridger was briefly stymied by the bounty of these ordinary things, once taken for granted, now prized. “Thank you,” he repeated.
Rogan nodded in acknowledgment as he brought over a jug filled with cream and a small pot of sugar. He added generous portions to his coffee. Stirred industriously.
Bridger did the same, but more tentatively. He’d heard that the Yankees had to deal with short rations now and again, but they were a way of life in the Confederate army. Sugar and molasses were available when supply lines held, but coffee had long since vanished, thanks to Union blockades; it had been replaced by a variety of poor substitutes ranging from chicory leaves and ground acorns to tree bark, boiled singly or in combination.
He’d been hungry for long stretches, like most of his comrades, but he’d never been desperate enough to
drink such sludge.
His left hand, being usable and the one he favored anyhow, trembled slightly as he raised the cup to his lips. The brew scalded his tongue, but that wasn’t why he sipped it so slowly. He wanted to savor every mouthful.
Rogan pushed back his chair, stood carefully and went back to the cookstove. He took the coffeepot by the handle, and carried it to the table. He refilled Bridger’s cup, then his own, and sat down again. Then he carried over two plates fixed with food that had been placed on the counter. By Caroline Hammond? Her hired man? Or perhaps one of his staff? He assumed they’d been left for him and Bridger.
Each plate was piled high with sliced pork and fried potatoes, salted and peppered and crisp around the edges.
Bridger went weak at the sight. As an officer, he’d occasionally had access to more and better food than the regular soldier, but sitting down to a meal while his men went hungry was not something he could square with his conscience.
“Go easy,” Rogan advised him quietly. “If I’m not mistaken, that Confederate stomach of yours won’t take kindly to a whole lot of grub at one sitting.”
Bridger knew his friend was right, liked him all the more for the way he’d spoken, with no condescension and no pity. Just the same, it was all he could do not to get all that good food inside himself as quickly as possible.
“Might be my last meal,” he said. The pain still blazed through him, nauseating him, but at the same time, his very bones felt hollowed out with hunger.
“It will be for sure if you keep running off at the mouth about riding with Stonewall Jackson and Jeb Stuart,” Rogan remarked.
He ate moderately, Bridger noticed, as though trying to set a slower pace for the sake of his starving Confederate friend, and there was something touching about that.
“I am a prisoner of war,” he said, between bites of food so good it made the backs of his eyes burn and his throat tighten. “What did you expect me to say?”
“For a start,” he replied pointedly, “you could stop talking like that—saying you’re ‘a prisonah of whah,’ for instance.”
Bridger raised his eyebrows with more than a little sarcasm.
Rogan shook his head. “Oh, never mind that. We’ve got bigger problems at the moment.”
“I beg to differ,” Bridger said. “I’ve got bigger problems. You, on the other hand, are a hero. Wounded in battle, you nonetheless managed to capture a Confederate officer on the field. If anything, you’ll be handed a medal, maybe promoted, while I’ll be hanged, or worse, left to rot in some Yankee prison camp.”
Rogan laid down his fork. “Are you through?” he asked.
Bridger said nothing. He understood well enough that his friend’s intentions, where he was concerned at least, were good, even noble. Rogan had saved his life and risked his own in the process. Brought him here, to this farm, where some kind soul had cleaned and dressed his wound.
He was grateful.
Still, he didn’t see how he was going to avoid capture, with God knew how many Yankees right outside the door, not all of them lying helpless on cots, from the sound of it. He’d lost his horse, and even if he’d had one, he was barely able to remain upright, let alone ride.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Rogan said, breaking the ponderous silence.
“I’m thinking,” Bridger responded rhetorically, between forkfuls of fried pork, “that we both might’ve been better off if you’d left me on the battlefield.”
“Well,” Rogan responded, picking up his fork again, “I didn’t, though, did I?”
“No,” Bridger agreed. “You brought me behind Yankee lines. As favors go, my friend, this one leaves something to be desired.”
“You would’ve been fine if you hadn’t spoken with that damn drawl of yours the second you opened your eyes this morning. Damn it, Bridger!”
“Perhaps we could move on and discuss—say—how the hell I’m going to get out of here without being shot, lynched or sent to some Yankee shit-hole of a prison?”
“I’ll tell you, if you’ll listen,” Rogan said, gesturing with his fork for emphasis. “I’m an acting quartermaster, and as such I have access to supplies. I can get you a Yankee uniform—”
“Heresy!” Bridger couldn’t resist interrupting.
Rogan glared at him.
Rain drizzled at the windows and pattered on the roof, and a piece of wood snapped in the stove. Sunrise couldn’t be far away, and damned if he could guess what the day might bring, although it was hard to imagine anything worse than three days of wholesale carnage in the pastoral Pennsylvania countryside.
He shuddered at the recollection.
Rogan continued to stare him down.
Bridger grinned, remembering their school days. They’d arm wrestled, fought with their fists, fenced and raced each other on horseback, competed for the highest marks in their studies and for the prettiest girls at dances and socials off the campus grounds. In every instance, they’d finished dead even, both of them exhausted from the effort, forced to declare a draw or die butting heads.
“All right,” he said, with an exaggerated sigh. “Explain your master plan, oh, great seer of the North. Not that I’m agreeing to anything, mind, because I’m damn well not.”
One corner of Rogan’s mouth twitched, but he managed not to smile and thus give an inch of ground. Boneheaded Irish bastard. “You should know I’m as much motivated to save your hide for your sister’s sake as for your own. I promised Amalie in my last letter that I’d keep an eye out for you should I ever run into you on the battlefield—or off. And I like to keep my promises.”
“Funny, I recently got a letter from Amalie myself. She made no mention of you!” That was the truth. But Bridger remembered the innocent closeness his sister and his friend had enjoyed when Rogan visited Fairhaven during their long-ago school days.
Rogan ignored his remark. “Here’s the plan. First, you pretend to be a loyal member of Mr. Lincoln’s army,” he said. “I’ll get you a uniform, and papers, too. The cat’s already out of the bag with a select few where your accent is concerned, but if anyone challenges you on those grounds, we can say you were opposed to secession and were forced by your principles to help restore the Union.
“Anyhow, it shouldn’t be too difficult for you to stay out of people’s way,” Rogan continued. “You’re a convalescent, after all, so you won’t be expected to stand guard or tend the wounded. When our orders arrive, the men out there will strike the tents, load patients into ambulance wagons and move on. It’ll be mayhem, and that means you can get lost in the confusion easily enough. Until then, you’ll recuperate. Even after we leave, though, you’ll have to lie low for a while—there will be patrols on all the main roads, and no matter what uniform you’re wearing at the time, you’ll be stopped and questioned as to why you’re headed in the wrong direction.”
Bridger weighed all that. As highly as he regarded Rogan McBride, the thought of passing himself off as a damned blue-belly galled him. Despite his intense disapproval of slavery, he couldn’t help feeling a sense of disloyalty to his home and family, his state, his fellow soldiers...
On the other hand, though, he wanted to live. Wanted to get back to his own army, too, although the two eventualities might well be mutually exclusive.
Bridger began, “What about the widow you mentioned before? Harlan—Halland—?”
“Hammond,” Rogan clarified. “Caroline Hammond. Her husband fell at Chancellorsville, back in May.”
Bridger didn’t want to think about Chancellorsville. His cavalry commander, the great Stonewall Jackson, a man he’d admired, had fallen there, losing his arm and, only days later, his life.
“She’s loyal to the Union, of course. Did she hear me speak? Wouldn’t she resent my being on the other side, seeing as she’s a recent widow?” he ventured thoughtfully.
“Of course
she’s loyal,” Rogan confirmed. “But she also strikes me as a warm, kind woman. I met her briefly when she came to Washington City in search of her wounded husband.” His tone was somewhat guarded.
“Even so, won’t she be inclined to turn me in to the first Yankee officer she sees?” He grinned. “Aside from you, I mean.”
Rogan was quiet for a long time. He laid his knife and fork on his plate, crisscross fashion, pushed it away, and averted his eyes.
Some minutes later, he met Bridger’s gaze again and replied, “I don’t know Caroline—Mrs. Hammond—very well, but I somehow think she’s more complicated than that. In any event, we’ll have to chance it. From what I gathered when I was here the first time to drop off supplies, she’d just buried her husband. She and her grandmother seem knowledgeable about medicine and helped look after both of us yesterday. She might be driven more by humanitarian concerns than ideology.”
Rogan seemed to be playing his cards close to his vest when it came to the lady, Bridger thought. That was unlike him, in the context of their friendship, anyway.
He decided to find out. “Sounds as if you’re taken with this angel of mercy,” he said.
Rogan swallowed visibly, and his eyes narrowed, but he didn’t offer a reply.
Bridger sighed. “God Almighty,” he muttered. “I thought you had better sense.”
Rogan’s hands, resting on the table, knotted into fists, relaxed again. “Caroline is a fine woman,” he said, his voice grating. “A decent woman. If you’re implying otherwise, I might have to do some damage to that aristocratic face of yours.”
“Aristocratic?” Bridger tried to laugh. He rubbed his beard-stubbled chin with one hand. He was wearing someone else’s clothes, and a Yankee had carved out a tunnel that ran clear through his shoulder. He did not feel at all like gentry.
“I’m not implying a damn thing,” he said presently. “Mrs. Hammond is a total stranger to me, after all. I’m sure she’s everything you say she is, and more. All of which is beside the point.”
The Yankee Widow Page 18