Transfixed, Ginnie’s senses were overwhelmed by this endless stream of suffering. Soldiers threw away their guns and ran, others sat on the sidewalk gazing blankly at the road; one man was vomiting between his legs. Everywhere there was blood. A man limped along, his right arm around the neck of a comrade, his left arm only a shattered stump, his head thrown back and his mouth agape in silent agony. When she came to her senses, she found herself gazing blankly across at a soldier who stood urinating into the street without apparent self-consciousness.
She was snapped out of her trance by a soldier who shouted at her as he ran by, “Get out of here, Miss! The rebels are coming.” Suddenly jolted to awareness, she gathered herself and ran back into the house, where she collapsed on the kitchen floor and broke into hysterical sobbing. Her mother knelt alongside her, trying to calm her. After a moment, Mary led her into the parlor and had her lie down on a lounge under the north window.
Ten minutes later, about four-thirty, the sound of gunfire was heard in the street north of the house. Mary rushed to the window over Ginnie’s bed and Ginnie sat up to see what was going on. They were horrified to discover that the road out front was literally choked with men, thousands of them, so many that they completely filled the street, a struggling torrent of humanity flowing south, running, yelling, shoving each other out of the way, desperate to escape whatever was bearing down on them from the north.
As they looked up the street, the women could see the blue mass thin out, giving way to a relatively open space filled with individual stragglers. Then, to their horror, they could see more men, men in butternut and gray, running down the street toward the retreating mob. The Confederates were hiding behind houses and fences and trees, shooting into the backs of the fleeing Federals. Some of the escaping bluecoats tried to fire back but most ran desperately to escape the gunfire behind them.
Ginnie and her mother looked at each other in mute shock. Their soldiers were giving way to the rebels and it looked as though in a minute their house would be surrounded by the Confederate army. They stared transfixed out the window, praying for the tide of battle to turn, horrified by what they saw but unable to look away.
They saw a Union soldier limping down the street, hobbling as fast as he could with a badly injured leg, his musket serving him as a crutch. They felt his terror as he hurried along, his back exposed to the rebel sharpshooters. A moment later, the women saw a puff of smoke appear from his chest and watched as he pitched forward on his face and lay perfectly still. They both cried out in anguish and turned from the window.
Georgia was whimpering with fright, and the other two women went to the bed and lay down with her, huddling close for comfort and reassurance. But they could not block out the sound of gunfire which went on for another half hour.
Suddenly they heard the smack of a bullet against the side of the house. Georgia cried out in alarm, aware that bullets might come in through the window. Lying on the bed, they were in the direct line of fire from the rebel soldiers up Baltimore Street.
Ginnie jumped up and shouted, “We have to move the bed.” Mary came to help her, and together they tried to slide the bed. But with Georgia’s weight, it was difficult to move. Since the head of the bed was to the south wall alongside the fireplace, the women grabbed the foot of the bed and swung it into the inside corner of the room, next to the kitchen and away from the window. Then they rearranged Georgia and the baby so that they were lying with their heads to the foot of the bed, nearest the kitchen. Finally, they lay down with her, feeling a little safer, although the gunfire and shouting continued for some time.
A little after five o’clock, the noise outside subsided and there was a relative lull. When Ginnie investigated by cautiously peering out the front window, she saw Union soldiers alongside the house and across the street surrounding the hotel. In great relief, she said to the rest, “It’s all right. They stopped them. We’re inside the Union lines; the rebels didn’t get down this far.” There was a noticeable decrease of tension in the room.
Mary went into the kitchen to prepare a little supper for them, even though no one was hungry. They sat together in the growing darkness, talking quietly and praying for night to come so that the fighting would end. Every so often there was a resumption of shooting, and several times they heard the unmistakable sound of someone being shot nearby. In the lulls between shooting, they could hear the moans of the wounded.
A cry near the house made it clear that someone had been hit by musket fire. Ginnie looked out the front window. There on the sidewalk directly in front of the house was a Union soldier, lying on his right side, holding his left leg and frantically trying to drag himself closer to the house for shelter. She muttered sympathetic sounds as he struggled toward her, trying to get away from the exposed position in which some rebel sharpshooter had found him. Just as he was about to reach the front wall of their house, he was struck again in the left shoulder. Ginnie saw his shoulder explode as the bullet hit him, spraying his shirt and the sidewalk with blood. She screamed in shock at the same moment he did, and watched him roll over on his back in the partial protection of the house. Before she thought about it, she was opening the front door to go to his aid. But her mother stopped her. Quietly she said, “You’ll have to wait until dark. You know they’ll shoot at you if you go out now.”
As darkness fell, Ginnie attempted to light one of the gas lamps in the kitchen. To her consternation, there was no gas pressure when she turned the handle. “The gas isn’t working,” she said, perplexed.
“The rebels have probably turned it off,” Mary responded. “We’ll have to get along with candles.”
Finally, after gathering some bandages, biscuits and what few medicines they had in the house, Mary and Ginnie judged that it was safe to take a chance. The firing had almost completely stopped because of the growing dark. Mary tied a large white scarf to a broom handle and handed it to Ginnie as a possible protection against snipers. Ginnie opened the door, held the white flag out the door for a moment, then slipped out the door and ran in a crouched position to the man lying against the front wall. At first she was afraid he was dead but, as she touched his shoulder with the bandage, he moaned. She bound up his shoulder, then attempted to rip his trouser material to get at his leg wound. The bullet hole in his leg appeared to be clean and she merely bound it to stop the bleeding. He never regained consciousness and did not appear to know she was there.
She rose, holding the white flag over her head, and looked around for other wounded men. She noticed in the vacant lot to the north of the house – the direction from which the rebels were firing – two men lying close together. She walked quickly to them, holding the flag in plain sight, and knelt by the first man. He looked up at her in gratitude and asked, “Do you have any water, Miss?”
Ginnie dropped her supplies in a little pile, and ran to the house. In a moment she was back with a pitcher of water and two cups. She poured water into one of the cups and gave it to the soldier. “Where are you hurt?” she asked.
“My back,” he said. “Something hit me in the back. I can’t walk.” He tried to sit up but grimaced in pain.
As he drank the water she asked, “What’s your name?”
“Kahlar,” he told her. “Will Kahlar, 94th New York. Is that your house?”
She helped him drink the water, since the effort obviously caused him great pain. “No, my sister lives here. She just had a baby and we’re helping her.”
He glanced at the house. “That’s not a very good place to be. You’re right between the lines.” He handed back the cup. “You should get back inside, Miss. The rebs are shooting anything that moves.”
She took two biscuits out of her bag and gave them to him before moving to the other soldier. “I’ll be all right,” she assured the first soldier. “I have my flag of truce.” She waved her banner and smiled nervously.
The second soldier appeared to be unconscious. She could see a massive wound on his left leg. She checked
his breathing and then shook him gently. He opened his eyes, focused on her, and smiled. “Do you want some water?” she asked quietly.
“Yes, please,” was his only reply. She held his head as he drank. “More,” he said when he had drained it. She poured a second cup, asking as she did, “What’s your name?”
Kahlar answered for him. “He’s our orderly sergeant, Al Brewer.”
“Well, Sergeant Brewer, I’ll leave this cup here and come get it later. You can both share it.”
She got to her feet and walked along the side of the road in the fading light, checking the soldiers who sat or lay there. Giving out biscuits until they were gone, she applied several more bandages and returned to the house two or three times for water. On her final trip to the well, she stumbled over a soldier on the southeast side of the house, lying up against a fence. Kneeling to examine him, she rolled him onto his back. A cold shock ripped through her body as she saw that he had no face; what remained was only a mass of torn flesh and bone, eerie in the twilight, unrecognizable as a human being. This final fright pushed her past the limit of her endurance. Shivering in terror and exhaustion, she dropped her supplies and ran back into the house. She had done all she could that night.
Lying on her lounge under the window, with the groans of the wounded echoing through the room, she stared into the dark, appalled by the unbelievable events she had seen, trying to relax and sleep but unable to shut from her memory the ghastly images of wounded and dying men.
Each time she closed her eyes, she saw once again the apparition of the faceless man. Her mind pictured Jack lying alongside the mutilated corpse, sometimes becoming the corpse. Eventually, the waking nightmare of the day blended into a series of frightening dreams that continued to haunt Ginnie’s troubled sleep.
Chapter 20
THE CONQUERING HERO
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
July 1-2, 1863
The weeks since Wes’ meeting with Skelly had passed in a blur. The army continued its march northward, moving without opposition through quiet towns where eyes peeped from behind windows to watch the invaders pass. Moving past Gettysburg many miles to the west and north, they had eventually turned south, drawn ever closer to Wes’ birthplace by some mysterious plan from on high. It seemed that God and the generals had all conspired to return him to Ginnie.
The heat of summer had set in, drying the roads along which they marched. Dust trailed high into the air, covering men and animals with a buff-colored film, working its way into noses, throats and eyes. But this march, a repetition of a hundred weary movements in past years, did not feel nearly as tiring to Wes. All around him, men talked of the strangeness of this enemy place, of how lush it was, untouched by the ravages of war. They were amazed by the amount of food stored in the barns they passed. Wes, however, looked out upon the familiarity of everything he saw, and it calmed his soul.
A few weeks back, his life had seemed empty and hopeless; now, everything he had once prayed for seemed to be happening. There was little chance that the North would be able to stop them now. With General Lee leading them, they had won all of the significant battles. Their confidence was high, food and water were plentiful, and they effectively controlled much of south-central Pennsylvania. Who knew how much farther they might go? Newspapers were calling for a cessation of hostilities, and many thought the war would soon end with a negotiated settlement. That would mean the rebels had won. They didn’t want to conquer northern territory; they just wanted to be left alone in their new southern country.
But most of all, in Wes’ breast pocket was a secret that outweighed all the victories of war. Jack’s letter was certain to bring Ginnie back to him.
As the march dragged on, there was word of a battle in progress, but no one seemed to know where it was taking place. They had already marched twenty miles since dawn, and Gettysburg was still several miles ahead. As he strained to see familiar landmarks, he noticed a great pall of dust and smoke floating over the hills in the direction of home. This could mean only one thing: the battle was there. A cold fear gripped him. His sisters were there...and Ginnie was there. They knew little about the mindless savagery of war. What was happening to them? Perhaps, he thought, they had fled the town.
They arrived southwest of Gettysburg after the sun had set, and were ordered to bivouac within sight of the rocky hill that Wes knew well. He studied it in the dark, unable to believe how close he was to his childhood haunts. They had heard the sounds of fighting, smelled the acrid scent of gunpowder. Now, as they made camp, the guns were quiet. But the men were restless, voicing their concerns in the darkness around Wes.
“Why are we tenting here? We should have pushed on up that hill before them Yankees can dig in.”
“Yeah. Old Jack wouldn’t have let us lay about in front of them bluecoats.”
“That hill’s going to give us a heap of trouble. What’s the name of this place, anyway?”
“Gettysburg.” Wes spoke without thinking. They turned to him in the darkness.
“Who’s that? Culp? That’s right, boy, these are your stomping grounds, ain’t they. Where abouts did you grow up?”
Wes, staring at the dark hill, did not turn to face them. “Here,” he said. “This is my family’s land. That there is called Culp’s Hill.” His voice was low, but it carried in the warm night air. They quieted thoughtfully, understanding the implications of Wes’ words.
“You been up that hill before? What’s it like?” someone asked, after a time.
Wes looked up the hill, sobered by his recollections. “Oh, it’s just a hill,” he said, finally. “Lots of rocks on it. Have to cross a creek to get to the top.” There was more he could have said, but he decided against it.
He wondered to himself: what were the odds against something like this happening? He had planned to stay in the South, but the tides of war had washed him up on these shores once again. A year ago, when he had tried to get here by himself, he had been stopped. Now, it was as if the colossal events of this war had been designed for one purpose: to allow him to fulfill his personal destiny.
When Skelly had said to him, “If you ever get to Gettysburg, give Ginnie a message for me,” he had enjoyed playing with the idea of returning in triumph; but he realized that that was a fantasy. Yet, here he was, home again, not as a prisoner, but as a conqueror.
Ginnie was probably no more than a few hundred yards from him at this moment. He wondered how he could get to see her before the battle ended. He was close, but that final distance seemed farther than all the other miles combined. Frustrated, he bedded down well after midnight.
The thunder woke him long before the sun rose. He drowsed on the damp ground a moment, his first waking thought the same as his final thought the night before – how could he get to see Ginnie? He dreamed of her face, excited by what he had to tell her. The explosion of a shell nearby interrupted his reveries and shook him instantly awake.
The early morning was clear and warm, belying the thunder from the top of the hill to his front. The Federals had begun their bombardment early. Wes watched for a moment as the big guns spit their fire into the darkness. He heard the rumbling roll lazily down the hill, heard the high pitched wail of the projectiles which followed, saw the explosions which turned night into day for an instant. One of the shells impacted only a hundred feet away, causing Wes to duck reflexively, shielding himself against the hot metal rain that riddled the area.
The company was formed up and moved out to a point behind a slight ridge. Without having to be told, the men lay down, heads forward, and listened to the rhythmic explosions. Wes wasn’t afraid in the usual sense; it was merely an aggravation to have to face such danger when there were so many things he wanted to do. Let him see Ginnie, give him time to get this most important task accomplished, and then he would be ready to face anything.
It had been a long time since he had really feared death. The anticipation of battle was different than the fear of death. When he returne
d from prison, he had had nothing to live for and had approached the dangers of the battlefield indifferently. Now, however, with everything to live for, the thought of death here, at this moment, frightened him in a way it never had before.
After several minutes, the captain formed up the men and marched them to the southeast, away from the cannons. Wes was relieved, but felt the urge to move as fast as possible, fearing that at any moment a shell might explode overhead.
They reached the Hanover Road and marched eastward toward the Deardorf house. Wes had known one of the Deardorf boys in school and had worked on their farm a few times to earn extra cash. Before they reached the house, however, they were ordered off the road into position along a ridge that ran north and south across the road. He looked down on the fields below. In the first rays of sunlight, he could see a few houses dotting the landscape, like islands set down in a sea of wheat. Every place carried a memory. He remembered hiding in the woods with Will down to the left and throwing rotten apples at Storrick’s mule. He recalled how the old farmer had stormed up the hill after them, a stick in hand, his face red from the exertion. They had run away, easily eluding their pursuer, peppering him with a volley of youthful laughter.
As he looked down past the houses, there in the distance he saw a troop of cavalry, their blue coats just visible in the feeble morning light. The men around Wes questioned the sergeant as to why they had been brought here. They were told that they formed the extreme right flank of the Confederate line. As such, they were responsible for any Federal attempt to outmaneuver them. Such a movement could seriously jeopardize the entire Confederate position. The opening cannon fire had coincided with a Federal move to the east, and General Johnson had ordered that a regiment be sent to investigate. Since the 2nd was closest, Wes and the others had been pulled out of the frying pan and thrown into the fire.
The Calm and the Strife Page 26