Appomattox Saga Omnibus 2: Three Books In One (Appomatox Saga)

by Gilbert, Morris

  “I heard you, Grace.” He wiped his hand on the top rail, then turned to her. “And then when you came to the hospital, still sick, I was about as low as a man can get.” Shaking his head, he said slowly, “If you hadn’t come when you did…”

  When he didn’t finish, Grace said gently, “I think God knew we needed each other, John.”

  They stood there watching the colt, laughing at his antics. John gave Grace some sugar, and she enticed the foal to come to her, enjoying the rough texture of his tongue on her palm.

  Finally he said, “Better not do too much. I still want to go on that sleigh ride.”

  “So do I!”

  After supper that night, John went to hitch the team to the sled, and Prudence, still thinking of what Clyde had said, tried to talk with her sister. “Thee doesn’t know much about him, does thee, Grace?”

  “He doesn’t know much about himself.”

  “Fellow like that, why, he might be anything,” Clyde spoke up. “No telling what kind of man he is. Could be a bank robber.”

  “No, he’s not that,” Grace said instantly; then, seeing the two glance at her, she defended her statement. “He’s not that sort at all.”

  Prudence remarked innocently, “I’ve wondered about his wife and children.”

  Grace was startled. “How does thee know he’s married?”

  “A fine-looking man like that?” Prudence snorted. “Of course he’s married!”

  “Even if he isn’t,” Clyde added, “he could never marry any woman as he is. He could never be sure—nor the woman, either—that he wasn’t committing bigamy.” He was watching Grace’s face and saw that his remark had troubled her. He said, “I saw Jacob Wirt today, Grace. He wants to see you.”

  “I’ve missed him,” Grace said, glad to have the subject changed. “I’ll go see him this week.” She heard the sound of the horses outside and got up to put on her coat. “There’s John with the sleigh.”

  “Don’t stay out too long, Grace,” Prudence called as Grace left the room. “It’s too cold out there for you.”

  But Grace only waved and left the house. She climbed into the leather seat, and John said, “Better pull that blanket over your feet. It’s sharp out tonight.”

  When he had seen to wrapping her carefully in the blanket, he spoke to the horses, and they stepped out at once. As they left the yard and turned toward the open country that lay east of the farm, he said, “You were right, Grace. This is much different than a buggy ride!”

  A huge silver moon shed its beams over the snow, which gave back a glistening reflection. The sleigh traveled easily over the hard-packed crystals, making a sibilant sound. There was no rocking, and John said, “It’s almost like flying, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’ve always loved it. My father took us all for rides like this, almost every night. He loved it, too.”

  They spoke quietly as John drove the horses at a slow trot, and finally they reached the small lake that glittered under the pale moonlight. Stopping the horses, he tied the reins and leaned back to admire the view. “So quiet! I didn’t know a place could be so quiet!”

  Grace swept her eyes over the view. “I’ve missed this.”

  They sat quietly, letting the stillness sink into their spirits. Perhaps it was this silence that finally prompted John to say, “I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure, but things are coming to me, to my mind.”

  “You’re beginning to remember your past?” she asked at once.

  “Well, not exactly—”

  She saw his hesitancy, then asked, “Can thee tell me what it’s like?”

  He pushed his hat back, then said slowly, “It’s like being in a large room with all sorts of objects. I see them and know what they’re for, but I don’t know what they have to do with me.” He frowned, for he felt he was doing a bad job of explaining. He shook his head and remained silent.

  “Does thee remember anything for certain?”

  “Faces.” He nodded. “All kinds of faces. People I don’t know but who seem to know me. And sometimes it’s…well, like scenes in a play. I seem to be in the play, and I’m doing things. Simple things, usually, like eating a meal with someone. Sometimes doing something that I don’t understand, but with people I ought to know—and don’t.”

  A great sympathy welled up in Grace. She turned to him and put her hands on his, unconscious that she’d done so. “It’ll come back, John,” she whispered. “God will help thee!”

  He sat there, and it was a few moments before he began to respond to her. They talked quietly, watching the moonlight on the snow and the lake. The air was still but cold, and when Grace began to shiver, he said, “You’re getting cold! I should have brought another blanket!”

  “When we came here when I was a child, we all huddled under the blankets together,” she recalled with a smile.

  “Well, I guess we can do that.” John pulled the blanket over them, then put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. It gave Grace a peculiar feeling, being held close this way, but John had done it so naturally that she moved against him without restraint.

  “That better?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  They sat there huddled together under the blanket, sharing their warmth. Suddenly he said, “I just remembered something—a line of poetry, I think.”

  “What is it?”

  “‘Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labour,’” he quoted. “Don’t know what that is.”

  “It’s from the Bible, John, from the fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes.” She could feel the warmth of his arm on her shoulder, and she whispered, “I’m glad thee told me that!”

  He turned to face her, blinking with surprise. “I remember more of it,” he said and spoke again. “‘For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.’”

  “That’s such a beautiful verse!” Grace whispered, gazing out at the lake. “I’ve always loved it so.”

  John smiled and went on. “‘Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?’”

  Grace smiled and looked up at him. They were very close, closer than either of them had realized. He could feel the firmness of her shoulders under his arm, and the curves of her body pressed against his side. Her eyes were enormous under the light of the moon, and the rich curve of her lips made her suddenly very lovely.

  She was looking up at him, and without intending to do so, he lowered his head, letting his lips fall on hers. She didn’t move, and the softness of her lips was sweet under his. He had no thought; all was impulse, and he let his lips linger on hers, savoring the moment.

  Grace was shocked, but there was something in her that had longed for such gentleness. John was not demanding, and the caress brought her some sort of fulfillment deep within, a fulfillment she had not even been aware she needed.

  She had always been a lonely child—and an even lonelier young woman. Now as John held her firmly, she was only conscious that somehow this was something she had longed for—and it was sweeter than she ever could have imagined.

  Then she pulled back, and when John saw tears glistening in her eyes, he was stricken. “Grace—!” he whispered. “I’m sorry!”

  She put her hand on his lips. “No, thee must not be sorry,” she said. “It was my fault.”

  “I—I’ve just been so lonely, Grace,” he said after a long silence. He moved away from her. “I wouldn’t hurt you for anything in the world.” And then he tried to smile as he gave his only excuse. “You looked so beautiful, so lovely, I…I just couldn’t help it!”

  His words were like ointment to her spirit. Grace had heard so many other young women telling what their lovers had said, yet she had been forced to remain silent—for there were no lovers speaking to her. Now she had felt the caress of a man’s lips and heard his tender words—and she was happy.

  “We’re both lonely, John
,” she said quietly. “I think we’re entitled to one mistake.”

  Mistake. The word stung, though he did his best not to show it. He knew he and Grace could never be more than friends, not while he had no memory of his life before the hospital. Yet as he gazed down at her in the moonlight, he suddenly realized that his feelings for this strong, devout, beautiful woman went much deeper than mere friendship. But if she considered their kiss a mistake, then it would be best for him to keep his feelings to himself. She had done so much for him, he didn’t want to impose on her tender heart with protestations of a love she did not want.

  He nodded, then took the reins and spoke to the horses. They rode back and soon were talking easily. But when he lifted her out of the sleigh, they both knew that something was different. They could never be the same again, for the kiss and the moment had stirred things deep within both of them—things that would not easily be forgotten.

  CHAPTER 14

  AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

  At the same time that Grace Swenson was engaged in her own private battle to redeem the soldier she knew as John Smith from his bondage, the war rolled on. After Lee and Jackson had wrecked John Pope at Second Manassas, President Lincoln was in despair, thanks to the military genius of Robert E. Lee.

  Four classic victories—the Seven Days’, Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville—all confirmed Lee as the most gifted general of the American Civil War. He was the greatest living war asset of the Confederacy. No other general in that conflict, and few others in military history, ever displayed such a wide-ranging talent for making bricks without straw. When it came to turning retreat into advance, vulnerability into sudden dazzling promise, Robert E. Lee stood alone.

  Under Lee’s hand, the Army of Northern Virginia became a master weapon, one that marched into military legend with its commander. Never in the darkest days of the war did Lee even once lose the personal devotion of his army’s rank and file.

  This, then, was the adversary whom Lincoln faced, and the president was hard put to find a general to stand against Lee. After the debacle of Second Manassas, he put McClellan in charge again, for though the small commander had no killer instinct, he was the best general alive at putting heart into defeated men and getting them whipped into shape for another campaign. He met the defeated troops of General Pope and molded the broken Army of the Potomac into a fine striking force.

  Unfortunately, Lincoln did not replace McClellan with a fighting general. He had one, though he did not realize it: one Ulysses S. Grant, who in the end would be the hammer that would bring down the Confederacy. But Grant was fighting at Vicksburg right then, and Lincoln thought he had no choice but to let McClellan lead the Army of the Potomac. Even if he had tried to replace McClellan, it would have caused a rebellion, for the troops admired Little Mac to a fault.

  So it was that when Lee led the tattered Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland, it was McClellan he faced at Antietam. McClellan outnumbered his adversary by something like two to one and should have steamrollered Lee’s thin ranks. But Little Mac once again failed to send his men into the fury of battle. Instead of ordering an overall assault, he sent men in by small units, thus giving Lee time to shift his divisions from spot to spot on that bloody field, stemming the Union tide.

  Nothing reveals Lee’s superiority over McClellan more than the fact that the Union commander had in his hand that which should have guaranteed Lee’s destruction. For on September 13, two Federal soldiers from Indiana found some cigars wrapped in paper on the site of Lee’s encampment—a paper that proved to be a missing copy of Special Order 191, which gave Lee’s exact movements!

  And even with this advantage, McClellan could not achieve a decisive win!

  When the battle took place on Wednesday, September 17, McClellan failed miserably. The battle was bitter, and it cost the lives of more men than any other day of the war—12,500 Union soldiers and 13,000 Confederates killed or wounded.

  Amazingly, after the battle, McClellan still had a chance to destroy the Confederate forces, for Lee’s battered army was helpless. But Little Mac was so dominated by fear of Robert E. Lee that he let the Army of Northern Virginia slip away, taking its wounded. As a result, although the North won the battle at Antietam, it lost an invaluable opportunity for possibly speeding the end of the entire conflict.

  Still, Antietam was enough of a success to accomplish one thing. Lincoln had been waiting for a Union victory to take a far-reaching step: to proclaim all slaves in the country free men. This he did by means of the Emancipation Proclamation.

  Even so, Lincoln was through with McClellan. The absolute final straw for the exasperated president came the day after the battle, when McClellan refused to obey a direct order from Lincoln to attack Lee. In early November 1862, McClellan was relieved of his command, and Major General Ambrose E. Burnside took over the Army of the Potomac.

  In one way this was a desperate move on the part of Abraham Lincoln, but the president had reason to be desperate. The North was ready to quit—at least many of its citizens were. Even after the battle of Antietam, the Confederacy had sound reasons for optimism. The South was united in its goal: to keep the unprincipled and wholly ruthless foe at bay. There was no such unifying emotion in the North, where feelings were split over the war. The Peace Party was booming its drums, and it seemed likely that England would declare its support of the Confederacy.

  Truthfully, the North was worn down with war-weariness. Twice in the eighteen months since Sumter, the Union had succumbed to the siren call “On to Richmond!” Both attempts had been defeated in battle. Now the road to Richmond was blocked again by Lee’s army, which, if not fought there, would invade the North again under its daring commander.

  So the president appointed Burnside, who would begin a new Union assault against the South—and the appointment sent echoes through the entire North, changing the destinies of countless thousands.

  Throw a stone into a quiet lake, and its ripples move in circles evenly out to the edges of the shore. But if you drop two stones, the ripples intersect into a more complicated pattern. Throw in a handful of sand, and all is confusion. The stone of Burnside’s appointment was merely one factor in a series of days that further complicated the war, but it was the factor that sent a ripple that carried all the way to a small farm in Pennsylvania where Burke Rocklin, known as John Smith, had just begun his painful climb out of the black pit of amnesia. Slowly he seemed to be gaining ground, so that he felt he could see faint glimmers of light and hope.

  Then came the ripple that threw all into confusion—and it came in the form of Colonel Harold Drecker. A man with a vision, Drecker was a moderately successful manufacturer of furniture who lived, not for his tables and chairs, but for a dream of military glory. At the age of forty-three, he had seen his chance for this glory and after Antietam had begun to raise a regiment. He had mortgaged his factory to the hilt, left his brother-in-law to run it, and started out to form the Merton Blue Devils. He had bought the flashiest uniform money could purchase, a sword with a golden handle, and a fine warhorse. Spending his money lavishly on bounties, he had managed to fill the ranks of his company to about 50 percent strength. When enlistments had dropped off, he had used every means at his command to get his men.

  One of these methods was to call back to active duty soldiers who had not served out their enlistments for one reason or another. Some of the soldiers Drecker sought out were those who had been mustered out before their time had expired—others were those who had been wounded but had since recovered.

  It was almost an accident that Colonel Drecker got one particular name—one of his lieutenants had the brilliant idea of going through the list of wounded men who had been released from the hospital. Among these was the name of one John Smith.

  “He’s able-bodied, Colonel,” the young lieutenant said as he went over the list with Drecker. “But I couldn’t find out his rank or his former outfit.”

  Drecker said instantly,
“We’ll have him, Lieutenant Little! Where is he?”

  “Apparently living on a farm not far from here, over by Rogers.”

  “Ah! I’ll be in Rogers next week for a rally.” Drecker beamed. “I’ll stop by and bring the fellow back with me.”

  Lieutenant Bob Little was dubious. He had never served in the army; his current rank he held by virtue of being the nephew of Colonel Drecker. He was a slight young man with a smooth face and a pair of mild blue eyes. “Don’t know about that, sir,” he protested. “Do you have the authority to bring men like that back into service?”

  “Yes, indeed, from Secretary Stanton himself! I’ll get him, Bob; don’t worry! You can have him in your company if he looks like a good one.”

  And so it was that chance and happenstance sent Colonel Harold Drecker to Grace Swenson’s small Pennsylvania farm. Of such small things life is constructed, and no man is able to know or explain why these things happen—or fail to happen!

  As December approached, it seemed it would reverse the biting cold blasts of November and bring relief to Pennsylvania. With each passing day, snow began to melt slowly under the sun’s rays, and by contrast the breeze seemed to grow almost warm and balmy.

  Though Grace was as strong as she’d ever been, she had requested—and received—permission from Miss Dix to extend her stay for another month. Miss Dix had not asked the reason, for she had read all she needed to know in Grace’s letter. Come back when you can give your full heart to the work, she had written, and Grace had been quick to tell John that she was not going back until spring.

  As for himself, John was happy. He was fully recovered physically and spent his days working on the farm and his evenings inside the snug house, reading or talking to Grace. He had become fascinated by the Bible and asked endless questions of her. Many of them she could not answer, so the two of them had gone three times for study with Jacob Wirt. The old scholar had welcomed them, and Grace knew that he was examining John Smith carefully. She trusted Wirt implicitly and waited impatiently for his judgment of the young man.