Freedom (Gone For Soldiers)

by Jeffry S. Hepple

  “Can he go ahead with the speech?” Nicolay asked.

  “If it was anyone else I’d say no, but Abraham Lincoln is the kind of man that can walk through fire when he’s determined, and he’s very determined to give this speech. He says he owes it to the Country and to all those dead boys.”

  “Then we’ll prop him up the best we can,” Anna said, looking from Hay to Nicolay.

  The two men nodded agreement.

  Anna looked out the window. “We’re almost there.”

  “I’d better get back inside,” Nicolay said, and he squeezed past Dr. Henry and into the vestibule.

  “I’d best gather my things,” Dr. Henry said, and he squeezed past Anna and Hay.

  “Are you going to need help with your baggage, Anna?” Hay asked.

  “No, thank you, John. I only brought one small valise and the dress that I’ll wear tomorrow in a dress bag.”

  “And a hatbox.”

  “Yes,” she smiled. “Doesn’t that go without saying?”

  “Where will you be staying?”

  “At the home of a Mrs. Walton. She’s a widow. Her house is on the town square, so I think I’ll be fairly close to the David Willis house where the President will be staying.”

  “Nicolay and I will be just up the road from you. Will you be dining with us tonight?”

  “No. Nor will I be joining in your drinking and reveling. Gettysburg is a small town and a single woman of my age out and about with two young men would be a scandal.”

  Hay grinned. “I’ll tell you all about it on the trip home.”

  November 18, 1863

  Waco, Texas

  Jane Van Buskirk turned away from the stove as the back door opened.

  “I’m home,” a dirty, ragged, bearded man said.

  “I’ll scream,” Jane warned, picking up a frying pan to use as a weapon.

  “Jane, my love. It’s me. Your husband. Tom.”

  She gawked at him and dropped the frying pan on the floor. “Tom? Thomas? Is that really you?” She rushed into his arms. “Oh thank God.”

  “Easy. I smell like a cattle car.” He gently pushed her away.

  Jane kissed him several times, then looked up at him. “Oh, your poor face.”

  He touched the new, still red scar on his cheek. “It’s nothing.”

  “Come in. Come in.” She backed away. “What can I get you? Would you like me to draw you a bath? Are you hungry? Oh dear. I’m going to cry.”

  “A bath first, then some food and no crying, please.”

  “We have hot and cold running water now,” Jane said, hurrying toward the bathroom. “And a flush toilet.”

  Tom looked around as he followed her. “I never thought I’d see this place again.”

  “I haven’t changed much of it.” Jane wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “The bathroom, of course. But… Are you home for good, or do you have to go back?” She choked, sobbed and blew her nose again.

  “I’m not sure,” Tom said, beginning to peel off his filthy clothes.

  She bent over the tub, inserted the rubber plug in the drain and turned on the taps.

  “Technically I’m a deserter,” Tom continued, “but if the Confederate government doesn’t catch me before the war’s over… Well, you get the idea.”

  “Not really.” She stood back and watched him undress. “Lord. You’re skin and bone. And the scars. How did you get all those awful scars?”

  “I was captured at Gettysburg by a regiment that was out of ammunition and armed only with bayonets. I wasn’t cooperative so they stuck me until I gave up.” Tom tested the water, then climbed into the tub.

  “Richmond told me that you were probably dead.”

  He sank down to his chin and sighed gratefully. “I know. I was in a Union prison camp and wouldn’t give them my name.”

  “And they let you out?”

  “No. Anna and Robert broke me out. But you must never tell that to anyone or they could be hanged for treason.”

  “Hanged?”

  “All this will go away when the war’s over. After the war nobody will care about Confederate deserters or the people that helped them desert.”

  “You can’t stay here, Tom. They’ll find you.”

  He nodded. “I know. But nobody here’s looking for me yet. We’ll figure something out before they do.”

  “There’s a telegraph office in town now.”

  “Oh. Well then, I guess we’ll have to do something sooner than later.”

  November 19, 1863

  Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

  Anna came out of Mrs. Walton’s house to watch the procession to the new Gettysburg cemetery. Lincoln was mounted on a small horse that made him seem even taller than he was. As he went past, the President smiled and doffed his hat to Anna. Inexplicably and completely out of character, she burst into tears.

  “Oh, there, there, whatever is the matter?” Mrs. Walton gushed.

  “It’s nothing.” Anna fumbled for the handkerchief that she had up her sleeve. “I just need a moment.”

  “It’s about your brothers, isn’t it? I know that you lost two in the battle. Come back inside and have a nice cuppa tea.”

  “I’ll be fine, thank you.” She found the handkerchief and blotted her eyes. “I must be there to hear the President’s speech.”

  “You have plenty of time. Edward Everett’s speeches are usually measured in hours, not minutes.”

  “Thank you, but I really must go.” Anna hurried down the steps and trotted after the procession.

  A colonel in new dress blues at the rear of the column looked back at Anna, then stopped and waited. “You look like you need a friend.”

  “I’m fine, thank you.” Anna’s eyes fell on his empty sleeve for a moment and she hoped that he hadn’t noticed. “For some reason the emotion of this place suddenly overwhelmed me. I never cry. Almost never.”

  “It must be grand to be that strong,” the man said. “I’m a weeper, myself. Always have been. I cry at the opera, at plays, and at concerts. They don’t even have to be sad. Beautiful is enough to set me off.”

  Anna giggled, then coughed. “Oh, dear. I may begin to hiccup.”

  “That might be interesting. I’m Charles Nelson, by the way.”

  “Anna Lagrange.”

  “I have a very special seat reserved for me,” he said. “I paid for it with my right arm. If you’d care to join me, I’m sure we can squeeze you in.”

  “That’s very kind but I have a seat in the VIP box with the Presidential party.” She saw the disappointment on his face. “I happen to know that several senators didn’t come, which means there are empty seats in the box. I’d be pleased if you could join me.”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “I’d like that, Mrs. Lagrange.”

  “Good.”

  “Is Mr. Lagrange here today?”

  “Mr. Lagrange has been dead for a very long time.”

  He smiled. “I was fishing.”

  “I know and I’m flattered. I’m also at least ten years older than you are.”

  “I doubt that, but we’ll leave that discussion for another day. Do you live in Washington?”

  “Yes.”

  “So do I. Small world, isn’t it?”

  Anna started to reply but the procession had now cleared the town square and the view of the countryside opened before her: Trees that had been ripped to shreds by shells, rifle pits, broken wagons, downed fences, caissons, abandoned equipment and scraps of uniforms were everywhere. “Dear God,” she gasped.

  “It looks better now than the last time I saw it, four and a half months ago,” Nelson remarked.

  “You’d think that after that much time…” Anna choked up again.

  “Oh, no. Was it something I said?”

  “Two of my brothers were here,” Anna said, blotting her eyes. “One on each side.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nelson said after a moment. “What were their names? Perhaps I knew them. Or of them.”
<
br />   “Van Buskirk. Jack and Tom.”

  Nelson smiled. “Ah, yes. You’re Pug’s mother. I should have recognized you. I saw you once at West Point, many years ago.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re one of Quincy’s classmates.”

  “No, no.” He chuckled. “I was an engineering instructor. I left the army soon after Pug graduated and I rejoined when the war started. It was quite a shock to find that most of my former students outranked me.”

  “If we’re to be friends you should know that I despise my son’s West Point nickname.”

  “If I was your son I’d find Pug far preferable to Quincy.”

  “I see that our friendship is not to be.”

  “What if I take it back?”

  “I might reconsider, if you tell me more about yourself.”

  “Very well. I resigned my commission when my wife died and then I very nearly drank myself to ruin,” Nelson said after a short silence. “I’m now fifty-two years old and I haven’t had a drink in five years. I have no idea what I’ll do to make a living now that I’m no longer a soldier.”

  “I’m fifty-seven. I drink occasionally, rarely to excess. I’ve been known to swear, I’m very rich and shamefully promiscuous.”

  “The woman of my dreams,” he chuckled.

  “Of your nightmares, is more likely. Men never like me after they get to know me.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “There’s never been a man in your life?”

  “There’ve been dozens, but only one that truly cared for me and he’s dead. I fear that I’m just not the loveable sort.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” he said.

  “You have a false impression because you’ve seen me vulnerable and crying. That’s not me. The real me is hard as nails. Ask anyone.”

  “I think I’d like to know the real you.”

  “I live at the Willard,” she replied with a smile. “I’ll tell the staff to add your name to my approved guest list.”

  “If that was supposed to scare me off, it didn’t work.”

  She shrugged. “We’ll see about that.”

  They fell silent as the procession reached the cemetery and wound its way through the curved rows of headstones. Anna found the VIP box and sat down without going through the motions of introducing Nelson to the other occupants.

  “Do you work for the President?” Nelson whispered.

  Anna nodded. “I write press releases and sometimes I help with speeches.”

  “Did you work on this one? The speech that he’s giving today?”

  “No. He wanted to write it himself. I’ve not seen it yet.”

  David Willis stepped up to the podium to introduce the key speaker, the famed orator Edward Everett.

  Dressed impeccably in an evening suit, Everett immediately captivated the audience with ringing words and extravagant gestures. However, as his speech went on and on and on, people began to lose interest and some drifted away to walk among the graves or onto the battlefield.

  Finally, Everett’s speech ended and Lincoln was introduced.

  The contrast between the two men couldn’t have been more striking. Everett was portly, handsome and crowned with luxurious snow-white hair. Lincoln was thin, homely, and his hair was a dark, unkempt tangle.

  Anna’s heart was pounding in her chest as the President moved to the podium. She desperately wished him to do well. Never in her life had she ever wished for anything harder. Then, as she listened for the first time to his words, she forgot everything but the moment.

  “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.”

  The crowd was now completely silent. Other than Lincoln’s homey voice, there was hardly a sound. Even the birds seemed to be listening.

  “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”

  Anna gulped, and choked back tears.

  Nelson turned to look at her.

  She shook her head. “I’m okay.”

  “…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.”

  No one clapped, no one cheered, no one made a sound – and for several very long seconds, the silence continued.

  Lincoln looked disappointed and began to turn away.

  Then someone began to clap.

  Then someone joined.

  Then another.

  A moment later, the mesmerized crowd awakened and the sound of applause echoed from Culp’s Hill to Little Round Top like the thunder of the guns that had cut so many young lives short.

  Anna began to breathe again. And then as Nelson held her tightly with his one whole arm, she wept.

  Map by Hal Jespersen, www.cwmaps.com

  November 20, 1863

  Knoxville, Tennessee

  Longstreet had planned an attack on Burnside’s fortifications for the morning of November 20th but the promised reinforcements of General Bushrod Johnson’s brigade and the cavalry brigade of General Grumble Jones never appeared.

  In the meantime, Burnside had every available man adding to his already formidable breastworks.

  November 23, 1863

  Chattanooga, Tennessee

  Generals Grant and Robert Van Buskirk were on the front porch of Grant’s headquarters as General Thomas rode up and dismounted. “Good morning,” Grant called.

  “Good morning, Gentlemen.” Thomas climbed the steps. “I just received a report that columns of Confederate troops are marching away from Missionary Ridge.”

  “Whose were the troops on Missionary Ridge?” Grant asked Robert.

  “Cleburne and Buckner’s,” Robert replied.

  “Before I came here,” Thomas said, “I questioned a Reb deserter that we captured last night. He claims that Bragg’s entire army’s falling back.”

  “I don’t believe that for even a minute,” Grant said.

  “Bragg could be planning to reinforce Longstreet,” Robert suggested.

  Grant lit a fresh cigar, then looked at Thomas. “Let’s see what a reconnaissance in force reveals.”

  Thomas nodded. “Very well, sir.”

  “To be sure that we’re clear - until we’re certain that Bragg isn’t reinforcing Longstreet, I don’t want to get drawn into a general engagement,” Grant said. “I just want to know who’s staying and who’s going.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand.” Thomas saluted, returned to his horse and rode out.

  Grant watched him until he was out of sight.

  “What’s bothering you, Sam?” Robert asked.

  “Burnside. I’m not sure what to do about him.”

  “The last we heard from him, he said that he didn’t need any help.”

  “That was some time ago. Longstreet’s cut the telegraph lines since then.”

  “If Burnside’s situation was really desperate I’m certain that he could get a message to us somehow.”

  Grant nodded. “I think you’re probably right, but every wire from Washington ends by urging me to send help to him.”

  “They know even less than we do.”

  “I know. But the decisions here would be much easier if I could only have some assurance that Burnside can hold out for another ten days.”

  “My advice is to wait to see what Bragg does in reaction to Thomas’s recon in force and to Sherman’s movements. If Bragg immediately recalls Cleburne and Buckner and then begins to entrench, we do nothing. If he withdraws other units, we interdict them and send reinforcements toward Knoxville.”

  Grant nodded. “Okay. But I wish Sherman would report.”

  “He can’t even be across the river ye
t, Sam. He’s got nothing to report until that’s accomplished except to say that he’s building bridges or crossing the river.”

  “Okay, okay. But… Never mind.”

  “You’ll have a battle to manage soon enough, Sam,” Robert said with a chuckle. “Just relax.”

  ~

  A little after noon, with orders to ascertain the strength of the Confederates and then withdraw, Thomas sent his division under General Thomas J. Wood forward from his entrenchments to Orchard Knob, which was about two thousand yards to his front. Thomas also deployed General Philip Sheridan’s division on Wood’s right and Howard’s XI Corps on the left.

  Stunned by the speed and precision of the Union forces, the Confederate defenders fired a single volley and surrendered. Grant, who had been observing from nearby, sent word to Thomas that, instead of withdrawing, he should hold and fortify the position.

  By late afternoon both Grant and Thomas had moved their headquarters to Orchard Knob.

  When Confederate General Braxton Bragg was informed of the sweeping Union victory, he immediately recalled all units that were within one day’s march of Chattanooga and began to redeploy. Walker’s division was withdrawn from the base of Lookout Mountain and placed at the far right end of Missionary Ridge. Hardee was moved to the right flank and Carter Stevenson to the left. General Breckenridge was ordered to fortify the crest of the ridge. Half of the divisions of Generals Bate and Anderson were moved to join Breckenridge while the other half manned the rifle pits at the base.

  Cleburne and Buckner’s divisions, which had not completed the task of boarding trains to Knoxville, returned after dark and moved into Breckenridge’s position the following day.

  November 24, 1863

  Orchard Knob, Tennessee

  Dawn broke behind a heavy cloud cover. Ground fog and drizzle limited visibility and obscured the heights and valleys from each other. An hour after sunrise, Hooker attacked Lookout Mountain, west of Lookout Creek, with three divisions.