Swept into Destiny

by Catherine Ulrich Brakefield

  Ben looked around. The murmurings of the large crowd had drowned out most of the speaker’s words. Would they do the same to Lincoln? He hoped not; he’d waited over an hour just to hear him.

  A hush fell like a downy coverlet on a tired child. Ben could have heard an acorn drop from a nearby oak, it was that quiet.

  Abraham Lincoln rose, looking more like a Kentucky woodsman than a president. His tall, long-legged form dressed in black from the tip of his tall stately hat to the bottom of his leather boots. His eyes surveyed the mass huddled beneath him like a father his offspring, his brows worried, yet proud. His powerful voice spoke with the sing-song accent of a backwoodsman sitting on the hearth of his cabin and voicing his innermost thoughts.

  “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

  “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

  “But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

  Silence greeted his closing. Lincoln had managed in a few paragraphs to summarize the pain, suffering, and death of thousands of soldiers. No, the Irish Brigade didn’t matter; color, creed, race, or origin did not matter. What mattered was this nation under God should continue on until Jesus returned.

  As quietly as Lincoln had stood, humbly, he resumed his seat, as if he didn’t expect any more from the audience but to hear him.

  After the lengthy train ride to Cincinnati, Ben checked Caedmon over for any cuts and bruises. The stallion nuzzled his pockets, neighing softly. Ben stroked the wide forehead, then gave him the carrot he sought. “Well, Caedmon, my warrior, it’s time to get back to business.”

  Big Jim had collected his saddle and saddle bags. “I know our horses liked riding better than walking and they sure earned the rest.”

  Now they were in the saddle again, riding thirty-five miles a day. Across the back roads and streams without let up. Grant had a powerful need to get to Chattanooga. His short, but powerful build loping along with them, he’d often drop to the back to check on his troops, his uniform as worn as his smile. He never stopped encouraging or consoling, and his grin was like a tonic for the men. It helped erase the want, hunger, and loss of their comrades.

  “Looks like we could be spending Thanksgiving and Christmas at Chattanooga,” Grant said. “Say, does anyone know if the southerner likes turkey for their Thanksgiving meal?”

  “Na,” a large man with a shock of black hair replied. “They likely prefers possum and rabbit.” A chuckle went up among the ranks.

  “Irish would know,” someone yelled from behind. “Ask Ben.”

  He didn’t care, nor had he paid any attention to the man who had yelled out his name. They would be marching past Spirit Wind on their way to Chattanooga. The unopened letters in his pockets crinkled noisily. Why hadn’t he burned them in last night’s campfire? Why? Because for all his declaration, he couldn’t stop his heart from beating, nor he could he stop loving Maggie.

  Grant cantered up next to him and tilted his head like the old hoot owl Ben watched last night looking down at him before he drifted off into troubled dreams. “Irish, you know anything about southern hospitality?”

  “I know they have the best food, the best beds, and the best lookin’ ladies in these United States.”

  “I expect I’ll be asking for your knowledge about southern ways, seeing how you used to live here. We’ll see how Chattanooga goes, might have you keep a division down here, sort of hold down the fort so to speak while I take the rest of the troop back to Virginia. I’m not planning to turn up the same dirt again and I don’t trust Schofield or Thomas to not lose the ground we’ve taken. I’ll write you the necessary orders.” Grant leaned forward. “Keep this under your hat, Ben, but Lincoln has mentioned making me general-in-chief of the federal armies.

  “Only, I’m not sure I should appoint Sherman to succeed me as Commander in the West. He’s a bit of a hot head and doesn’t understand the southerners like you or me. Can you handle the Tennessee campaign and smooth the ruffled feathers of my generals? I know that might make Schofield and Thomas angry, but I need to win this war.”

  Memories as painful as reopened gun-shot wounds caused Ben’s vision to blur, recalling the Union soldiers looting the farms along their path. He stopped many from their needless pilfering—the blank stares of the southerners, not understanding why he, a Union officer, would care. He could read their thoughts, so like his own. They were wondering what they were going to eat with winter coming.

  One little cracker boy came to mind. “Please, Mr. Soldier,” his tiny voice pleaded, “don’t take my little red-topped boots. They’re all I got.”

  Ben had thrown that soldier out on his ear. He’d rolled down the steps and drawn his revolver. Ben, quick as a bob cat casing its next meal, stepped on the man’s hand and grabbed his gun. “You can pick up your pistol from Grant. Now move!”

  Grant upheld Ben’s every action. Boldly he spurted out the words that volleyed through his mind with every bend in the road displaying the burned barns, stripped garden patches, women and children huddled on porches throwing stones at them as they rode by. “What will be left of the southerner’s pride when we get through stripping them of their livelihood?”

  “We didn’t start this war, Ben, but I’m planning to finish it. I’m raising your rank to major. Take whatever men you’d like with you. I’ll not leave a trail of hatred in my wake. You have a way with these people. I need you down here to watch that my commanders don’t take any more than they need to.”

  Ben’s new rank already felt like twenty-pound weights on his shoulders. He didn’t mind taking chances with his own life, but when it came to the others, it gave him pause. Weighing lives he might lose like Cook weighed out the meat for each family in the slave quarters. The Rebs hated him and now the Union officers would distrust him.

  Humpf! would be Cook’s response. He concurred. Only, he knew better than to voice his opinion. Grant’s face was as dirt smeared as Ben’s. Grant’s stogie dipped at an angle in the corner of his mouth. His eyes, though, were as alert as the troop’s youngest recruit, a tow-haired boy of eighteen. Grant demanded respect and loyalty. Ben chuckled in spite of his loathing for his new orders.

  “Yes, sir. But I guess I’ll cross that bridge when the time comes, sir. That is if our good Lord decides to get me through this battle at Chattanooga.”

  Remembering the wagon ride to that tent revival and how Maggie prayed for his speedy recovery, Ben began singing. “I left my love, my love I left a sleeping in her bed…” He doubted she was praying for him or any Union officer now.

  Chapter 28

  May 1864

  T he dogs bayed like a hound on a fox, announcing the approach of what sounded like more than fifty horses trotting down the muddy red road toward the long winding lane to Spirit Wind. Maggie ran up the steps t
o the ballroom balcony. Blue or gray, she couldn’t tell, the men were too far away to see the color of their coats. What did it matter? The same want would litter their eyes, the same hungry mouths, the same dirty, bearded faces.

  Blades of grass heralding spring peeked out of the hoof-scarred lawn, a remnant of the Yanks trekking back from their victory in Chattanooga in late November, looting Spirit Wind on their way to Virginia.

  Ben’s face came uninvited into her thoughts. His eyes had been as cold as the frost that lay on their plants. He’d commandeered her horse, his stallion having been shot dead beneath him in Chattanooga. Then Grant and his men took some of their livestock, killed their turkeys, and made Cook prepare them the proper Thanksgiving Day meal. Father was so furious he struck Ben across the face. As immovable as the Smokies, Ben stood there, his eyes staring forward. He saluted her father and mounted her horse.

  They left singing at the top of their lungs something about a yellow ribbon. Well, there was no getting away from the gloating faces and smirks that swept their soot-covered faces.

  Afterwards, Maggie built coops and hid what was left of their chickens, turkeys, pigs, and milk and beef cows down in the low land, what once had been the swamp. She paused, remembering Ben back in those days with his tattered breeches and ragged shirt that had clung to his frame like a scarecrow. Now her people had become the ragged remnants of past wealth and plenty, their children barefoot, and their clothes threadbare. Christmas had come and gone, but the memories would haunt her for years to come.

  Ben and Jacob had ridden up around Christmastime, Ben looking tall and lean as a willow, his head bandaged, his arm in a sling. Her horse nickered when she saw her. Maggie ran and gave her an apple, not offering one to Ben. She glared up at him, as if daring him to complain as the juice spurted from her mare’s mouth.

  Ben chuckled deep in his throat. “Jacob needs your services. I’ll be leaving him.”

  Prudence helped her husband off his horse. He was thin like a bean pole, and he’d been shot in the leg. Tears rolled from Prudence’s brimming eye lids and dripped down her lean cheeks. “Thank ya for your kindness.”

  “Merry Christmas, Maggie. The troops and I will be filling our canteens at your brook over there and be moving on.”

  Maggie sawed on her bottom lip, refusing to glance up into Ben’s questioning eyes. If she did, that would be her undoing. She longed to re-dress his sodden bloodstained bandage. Instead, she kept her hands busy stroking her mare’s velvet coat.

  “You’re hurt, too. Looks like you need a new cloth. Yours is blood soaked,” she said.

  “Don’t you be worrying your head about me, Maggie.” He saluted her and galloped off. That was the last she had seen of him. But she had heard through the gossipers, there had been heavy words spoken between General Thomas and Ben that day.

  Now, hearing the clang of sabers and spurs, Maggie came back to reality with a jolt. Dirty gray wools complemented the budding apple and cherry trees dotting their lane. Out of breath from her hastened decent down the stairs, she yelled to her staff.

  “What is it, daughter?”

  “Father, Confederates coming.”

  Jacob had been sitting on the veranda. Quickly he got up, staring in the direction of the road and with the help of his crutches, made it into the house and into the hiding place they had prepared for just such an event.

  “I declare,” Hattie muttered. “We’ve got our troubles with both Yanks and Rebs.”

  Maggie put a hand to her mouth, stifling her cry, seeing the soldiers’ dirty, worn clothes, the sleeves tied up at the corners due to lost limbs, the bare feet of the soldiers slapping the dust and rocks as they marched behind the cavalry.

  “Why they’re just a remnant of the army that passed here in December.” They look half-starved. What are we going to feed them? Will they demand what’s left of our meager supplies of clothes and food?”

  Cook ran out, clutching her rabbit’s foot, rubbing the worn out white fur and praying. “Mother rabbit work your charm, keep us all away from harm, ain’t got me any time to kneel and pray.” Cook’s voice quivered with emotion. “Don’t you let us down today.”

  The lean, impeccably dressed man swept his hat from his head in one fluid motion. “Colonel Hood at your service, ma’am. By chance, can my men rest here for a spell beneath your magnolia trees? We’re travel worn and our surgeon needs time to doctor a few of our men.” Hood looked around, allowing the sun to bath his face with its rays. “My, what a beautiful May morning it is.”

  “I can offer you some tea on the veranda, or else we could go inside…”

  Father joined them on the veranda, his paper in hand. “Is it true? Or is this just propaganda? It says here that the Northern victories have just about ended the Southern resistance in the West. Is this true?”

  Hood rested back, undisturbed. “If Lee is worried—”

  “Sir!” Hood’s aide ran up the walkway, his spurs clanging like a cymbal on the bricks, with a courier running right behind him. They immediately stood at attention. “Enemy soldiers advancing toward Maryville, sir.”

  “What? Preposterous!” her father bellowed.

  Hood jumped to his feet, tipped his hat, then ran to his horse and sped off. A cloud of dust was the only remnant he had been there at all.

  The surgeon came trotting up the walkway. “May I set up a hospital in your home?”

  “Why, of course,” her father replied.

  Maggie grabbed all the blankets they had and cleaned off the dining room table to serve as the surgeon’s operating table. Doctor Jordon arrived with the first casualties. Gray coats or blue, it didn’t matter, they were all treated equally.

  Matron Burns, Miss Peabody, old men, and women with children were mass exiting from Maryville and came to the first house welcoming them.

  The children hovered in the corners of the parlor. Maggie had Ida take them upstairs, making a nursery and day care, while their mothers worked downstairs on the wounded and dying. Cannons rumbled in the distance, the repeated gunfire making everyone as jumpy as rabbits. Doctors and nurses worked into the night as more casualties arrived.

  Their India rugs took on a new design, splotched with deep red bloodstains. “No more pillows are available, and this man’s head needs to be elevated.” Matron Burns knelt beside one gray-whiskered man who was choking on his chewing tobacco. She reached her index finger inside and withdrew the mass.

  Maggie looked around. Seeing the books lining the study walls, she grabbed an armful and walked back into the parlor, handing Matron Burns a couple. The man with the gray whiskers smiled. “Softer than a rock and maybe some of that book stuff will rub off on me.”

  The door leading to the front of the house never stopped rocking from the litters of soldiers. Jacob stepped in, dressed in a pair of Eli’s worn breeches and shirt. Maggie smiled. No way was Jacob going to hide like a scared mouse in a closet when there was work to be done.

  “Jacob, have Eli help you move Father’s desk and ready the study for more patients.”

  Every bowl was filled with either water or blood. Every available cloth was used. Maggie ordered her petticoats to be torn up for bandages. There was hardly any room to step, what with the men strewn on couches, tables, desks, and floors. So they turned the covered veranda outside to be used for the less wounded soldiers.

  “Miss Maggie?” Hattie pulled on her sleeve as if just saying her name wouldn’t be enough to get her attention. “Come quick. Mr. Will, he’s bad hurt.”

  Maggie looked around at the groaning men lying on every available floor space of Spirit Wind. “Where is he?”

  Hattie led her into the dining room to where the surgeon and Doctor Jordon were.

  “Maggie, how’s your stomach?” Doctor Jordon asked.

  “You know that answer, Doc.” She looked down at Will groaning with pain, his left leg and arm a glob of blood that oozed down his side and onto the table.

  “We need a steady hand for our ins
truments, and to mop up some of this blood. We are going to amputate his arm, maybe his leg. But we are going try and save the leg, if we can. Can you do it?”

  Doctor Jordon’s face resembled one of her father’s crossword puzzles—a patchwork of pain and concern. She nodded.

  As they worked, only Will’s arm had to be removed. She thanked God. The other surgeries did not go as well. Because there was nothing to give the patients, many older soldiers’ hearts couldn’t take the shock of the amputations. They died on the operating table.

  No chloroform, only corn whisky was available. The screams of the men carried through the house, louder than the gun fire.

  Now awake, Will called for her. She rushed to his side, kneeling next to his thin, weak body. Only his eyes were the same—soft and blue, the color of a summer sky. The memory of 1861 and the Christmas Ball came floating into her thoughts. Those had been good days filled with hope and promise of a quick victory.

  “Maggie? Can you give me my left hand, it’s asleep and I want to hold it, it’s keeping me awake with its constant jerking.”

  Maggie bowed her head and kissed him on his forehead. She had nursed many a patient at Knoxville who suffered the same symptoms after an amputation. Rubbing her hand gently along his left shoulder, she held up the end of his empty sleeve. “Doctor Jordan had to amputate your arm. But he managed to save your leg.”

  Will took the empty sleeve from her and smiled. “I’ll just hold onto it so as to remind me that it’s just my imagination.”

  Maggie’s lip quivered. Big tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, Will, I’m so sorry.” He stroked her hair gently. Maggie felt every shudder of his body, his frazzled nerves complaining, and there was nothing left to give him for his discomfort. She buried her head into his chest and wept.