The March

by E. L. Doctorow

  Arly waited till this Josiah Culp put his head into the black hood behind the camera, and then he waved.

  Don’t move! came the muffled shout, so Arly got to his feet and allowed Will’s trunk to drop sideways to the divan.

  Josiah Culp came out of his black shroud, his arms raised in despair. I had it, I had it! Why did you move? Sit back down there, if you please, it is perfect, it’s the image I’ve been looking for.

  How do you know what you been looking for if you only just seen it? Arly said.

  You know it when you see it. It leaps out at you. It speaks to you. Please, he said, pointing to the divan.

  He was a portly man in a regular suit and vest and topcoat thrown open over his belly. He was so fussed about his missed photograph that he only now noticed Will’s odd folded position on the divan, with his feet still on the ground. What is the matter with your comrade?

  Nothing he frets over, being dead.

  He’s dead? You hear that, Calvin? The other one is dead. Yes, I see the stains on his tunic. Of course. That’s even better. Sit back down there with your dead comrade, sir, and put your arm around him as before and look at the camera. The light this morning is not as good as I’d like it, but if you will hold still for a few moments I am going to make you famous.

  I don’t suppose you can keep a black man, mule, and equipage like this without you sell your wares, Arly said, walking out to the street.

  Here, what are you doing? Josiah Culp said. Arly was peering into the back of the wagon. It looked something like an army-hospital wagon in there, with its cabinets and boxes of supplies. Cooking utensils were hanging from a length of twine strung widthwise. And did he smell provisions? He climbed inside and lifted a tarpaulin and found a peck of sweet potatoes and bags of sugar and coffee and a dead chicken plucked of its feathers.

  Get down from there, sir!

  All sorts of things. He found a folded tent and a pick and shovel and a pile of uniform tunics, both blue and gray. He found rolled-up shades with backgrounds painted on them. He unrolled one: it showed a painted pond with ducks and painted trees such as had never been seen on the face of the earth.

  But what came to Arly as a revelation was a photo—the top one in a stack of glass photos in a crate. It was mounted on black cloth and framed in silver. It showed Union army officers posing in front of their headquarters tent. He took it to the light. The caption read: General Sherman and His Staff, Georgia 1864. Sherman had to be the one who was seated. He was staring straight ahead at the camera.

  Yes, Lord, Arly whispered. It has come to me now.

  He replaced the picture, rummaged around another minute, stuffed each of his pockets with a sweet potato, and jumped to the ground. He was encouraged to see Calvin, the young black man, smiling appreciatively.

  You a freed slave, Calvin? You sure got yourself a nice suit and hat.

  Yessuh. I am learning the photography trade from Mr. Culp.

  I suppose he profits handsome from the generals wanting photos of theirselves.

  Not just the officers, Culp said. I photograph enlisted men as well. Every man wants his picture taken. It ameliorates the pain of separation for the families, for the loved ones, when they have a portrait of their soldier.

  Well, you got a good thing going, all right, Arly said. ’Meliorating.

  A carte de visite is most reasonable. But profit is only the means to an end. I am a photographer licensed by the United States Army, Culp said. Why do you suppose that is? Because the government recognizes that for the first time in history war will be recorded for posterity. I am making a pictorial record of this terrible conflict, sir. That is why I am here. That is my contribution. I portray the great march of General Sherman for future generations.

  If the money don’t mean that much to you, why not pay me if a photo of me is what you want?

  Culp laughed, showing a mouth of chipped teeth. Now I’ve heard everything!

  Leastwise you won’t have to pay him, Arly said, gesturing to the divan.

  You are fortunate that I’m willing to make your picture without remuneration. I agree to give you a copy. I will agree to that, but the rights in the photo will be mine. Now, please, while the light holds sit yourself down as before, with your arm around the dead man.

  Arly withdrew from inside his tunic the loaded pistol he had found in the photographer’s wagon. He held it out at arm’s length, as if to feel its heft, and looked down the barrel at Josiah Culp. I am in mind of a different picture, he said.

  VIII

  SHERMAN SAT ON A LOG, WAITING FOR MEN FROM Howard’s Fifteenth Corps to lay a pontoon bridge across the Broad River. It was a clear cold bright morning, somewhat breezy. Not a mile to the north lay his prize, Columbia, the capital of the secessionist treason spread out on the plains like a plum cake ready to be eaten, a woman ready to be taken. Oh Lord, he did remember Columbia, where, as a young officer, he’d known several families. Some lovely ladies lived there. And one in particular, years younger, not much more than a child, a lithe little beanpole but with a glance that made his knees tremble. Would she be here still? Ellen, that was her name—the same as my dear Mrs. Sherman. Ellen Taylor. A married woman by now, a widow perhaps, no longer lithe and with a bevy of children pulling at her skirts.

  He could see the grand statehouse the city fathers had been intending, a handsome half-finished classical structure in granite. Very appropriate to a community that thought so well of itself. With what a sense of security they must have kept abreast of the war up North. To be the author of it and yet safe from it. He could see the ruins of the railroad depot from which the smoke still rose. The streets were abustle with a population only too aware of the blue army gathering in its immensity to the south. The streets were crawling.

  Taking up his his binoculars, he saw Confederate riders on the roads going north out of town. Negroes were clustered at the depot, plundering the cars of sacks of grain and God knows what else he could use. Calling over his adjutant, he ordered a section of Howard’s twenty-pounders to lob a few shells to disperse the looters. And a few over there for good measure, he said, looking again at the statehouse, which flew the Confederate flag.

  An hour later he was marching with his staff at the head of the corps on the road to the city. The wind had picked up and some of the mounts were skittish with it, losing their gait, lifting their nostrils to the air. And then, all at once, it seemed he was in the city’s market square, the elderly mayor coming out of the crowd on foot to greet him and assure him that there would be no acts of resistance from the citizens of Columbia. Sherman, seeing the quiet crowd of onlookers, raised his voice in answer. And for our part, Mr. Mayor, he said, looking out at them all, let me assure you that we intend no injury to your citizens or their property. We will linger here only to relieve you of those matériels and facilities of which you no longer have need.

  At that moment Sherman smelled smoke and, standing in his stirrups and looking out over the heads of the people, saw down a side street of commercial buildings that a stacked row of cotton bales was on fire. One of his generals quickly gave orders and a company of troops was dispatched to put out the flames. In an unexpected and touching amity, they were soon working side by side with members of the city’s fire brigade.

  Later, as Sherman had found a house to his liking several squares from the statehouse and set himself a headquarters there, he dictated orders for the destruction of the arsenal and all other military, railroad, and manufacturing facilities, as well as those public buildings not of municipal but Confederate government. He then readied himself graciously to receive the inevitable petitioners. But the first applicant at his door, a nun in a flowing black habit, aroused in him an uncharacteristic defensiveness. She was Sister Ann Marie, the abbess of a convent school for girls, and she wanted his authorization for a guard. You needn’t worry, he said. You’ll be quite all right. If that is so, the abbess said, then you can have no objection to putting it in writing. The Army of the Un
ited States does not war on convents, Sherman replied, and made to escort the Sister to the door. She did not move. In exasperation, Sherman dashed off a note of authorization and thrust it into her hands. With her departure he found himself once again in the state of unease that he had come to feel in cities. But he felt a misgiving now that was quite specific. What was it? Something in the room was whistling, and he realized it was the wind blowing in through the old, ill-fitting windows. It sounded to him something like the keenings of women. He stared at the sheer curtains curling upon themselves in their fluting, and twisting to and fro like a dance of dervishes.

  STEPHEN WALSH HAD seen the burning bales of cotton, stacks of them bound for shipment and extending the length of a block. His company, marching on an adjoining street, fell out to spell the troops on fire brigade, manning the hoses and the hand pumps under the direction of the local fire captain.

  After thirty minutes the fire was under control, and soon there was no sign of it but for the blackened humps of the ruined bales and spirals of smoke blowing away in the breeze. Fires die, like living things, Stephen thought. The animation is fervent and the death dramatic. I am done, defeated, you are looking at my death, the smoke seemed to say.

  The troops resumed their march, striding off to the applause of the townspeople.

  But it had smoldered in the heart of the bales, that fire, keeping to itself till the night came down and the wind came up. It had kept its own counsel, biding its time, and when the propitious moment came, out it flamed, spewing into the night sky and tossing its tufted torches into the pollinating wind.

  Who had first lit a match to those bales? Walsh thought most likely the retreating Rebs. If they could not have their cotton, neither would Sherman. So it had always been the cotton, the cotton to build the South and now, given the stupidity of these people, the cotton to burn it down.

  For Columbia was an inferno, whole streets aflame, home after home collapsing thunderously into itself, its wood sap hissing and cracking like rifle fire. The sky, too, seemed to have caught fire.

  Walsh, assigned to guard the gates of a convent school, realized the blaze was advancing. Flaming clods of cotton had lodged in the garden trees. It was no longer safe here. He threw open the doors. Hurry, Sister, he shouted. The girls were in chapel, kneeling at their rosary. Up up, Walsh said, we’ve got to get them out of here. The abbess’s name was Sister Ann Marie. She glared at him and, after what he thought was an unnecessary moment of deliberation, clapped her hands and got the students lined up in the front hall, each beside a satchel on the floor. So she had known, and had prepared.

  Come along, come along, Walsh shouted.

  Somehow, despite the infernal roar of the blazing city, the Sister’s unforced voice was clearly heard: We will not run but walk in place behind this good soldier. We will not cry. We will look only at the ground as we walk. And the Lord God will protect us.

  And so Walsh led them out of the convent, the attending nuns on either side of the column and Sister Ann Marie bringing up the rear. They were a procession of incongruous order, twenty-five or thirty children hemmed in by their teachers and seeming, in their silent humility, as if on an ordinary school excursion.

  WALSH WAS ANTICLERICAL and a resolute skeptic, but that was of no matter to his lieutenant. I want a couple of Papists, the Lieutenant had said when the order came down. Walsh, you and Brasil, step out.

  Brasil, a cheerful gawky fellow with a receding chin and a perpetual glint in his eyes, was delighted. They’ve called me a Papist since the day I joined the damned 102nd, so who in the name of sweet Jesus is deservin of a night on the town if not Bobby Brasil. And after five minutes at the gate he wished Walsh a good evening and was gone.

  The convent girls had been at their evensong, but outside only drifts of it could be heard for the wind blowing through the trees. It seemed to Stephen Walsh, too, that the wind was rushing the darkness along, so quickly was the light going. He had thought he smelled smoke, and looking up he saw a moment’s red flash in the sky. This will be a night, Walsh said to himself.

  But it had come on as he would not have dreamed, and as he led his charges through the streets he realized he held his rifle at the ready. The world was remade, everything become something else—the sky a shimmering bronze vault, billows of thick black smoke the clouds. He turned a corner and found the street blocked by flaming timbers. The Sister came to his side. Do you know where you are taking us? she said. I was told, if it came to that, to the buildings out there on the hill, Walsh said, pointing. Yes, the South Carolina College, she said. We will go around this way.

  And for a few moments all was composure again as they detoured along a clear street, until two of Walsh’s compatriots appeared out of a door, jugs of whiskey in their hands. Seeing the procession and finding it to their liking, they staggered alongside, loudly considering the possible merits of the taller girls. The Sister’s glare escaped them, and as the students quickened their pace so did they, laughing and suggesting their own merits. Wearers of his own uniform, they did not in the first moments appear as more than an embarrassment to Walsh. But some of the girls were crying and pushing up against one another in their haste to get away, and Walsh, turning, saw that one of the drunks had opened his trousers and exposed himself. Didn’t your Jesus have one of these? the drunk shouted. Walsh stood aside and urged the nuns to move along past him as he stepped into the path of the two men. Sister Ann Marie loomed up, her face an imperious demand for action. Do not watch this, Sister, Walsh muttered. Move on, move on. The two men were laughing and swaying in front of Walsh, one of them holding out a jug and swinging it, either as an offering or as a threat, Walsh didn’t take the time to consider. He kicked out at the man’s parts and, as the other came at him, managed a sideswiping bayonet slash to his hand. In a moment the two of them were on the ground, howling, and the jugs were smashed and the liquor splashing down a trough in the cobblestone had caught fire and ran like a fuse in the direction of the fleeing women.

  It was the trailing edge of Sister’s habit that Walsh saw alit. She was turning in circles, trying to see behind her. He ran to her, knelt, and clapped at the cloth and crumpled it in his hands. But it was difficult, she had panicked, not wanting to be touched. You’re making it worse, Walsh shouted. Finally she stood still and closed her eyes and held her crucifix tightly so as to endure a man’s hands on her person. He was allowed to smother the flames, which had gone up above her ankles. He rubbed the charred cloth between his hands till every spark was gone.

  Are you all right, Sister?

  I am, thank you, she said, not looking at him, and as the students arranged themselves in their column she placed herself amid them. Please, let us go on.

  Rounding a corner moments later, they all had to stop and cower on the sidewalk as cavalry rode by. But the troopers, their faces coppered in the light of the flames, were joyous. They controlled their panicked mounts with whoops and hollers. Some carried torches, the flames blown back by the wind, and as they rode down the street Walsh saw one torch fly up and crash through a window.

  At this moment Walsh realized he could not comfortably hold his rifle.

  THE MAGNITUDE OF the fire had caught General Sherman by surprise. He rushed half dressed out of his chosen headquarters, a manse on the suburban edge of the city, and several minutes later his aide, Colonel Teack, found him some blocks away, where he had joined a group of firefighters and was not giving orders but taking them like any enlisted man. Sir, this is not proper duty for the General of the Armies, Teack shouted, and actually touched Sherman’s arm. Sherman was breathing heavily, and there was clearly on his soot-covered face a moment in which he did not recognize Teack. Then he nodded and allowed himself to be led back from the fire. A canteen was brought to him, and he bent over and poured the water over his head. A towel was proffered by his man, Moses Brown, and after he dried his face and dropped the towel to the ground, but still hatless and in his shirtsleeves, he said, Teack, can you
tell me what in hell is going on? And he wandered off, Teack following.

  It was hazardous going. Flaming walls fell flat across the roadways. Unidentifiable, seemingly immaterial pieces of cotton fire floated in the heated air. His troops were everywhere drunk. Some stood in front of burning houses cheering, others lurched along, arms linked, looking to Sherman like a mockery of the soldierly bond. It was all in hideous accord, the urban inferno and the moral dismantlement of his army. These veterans of so many campaigns, who had marched with him hundreds of miles, fought stoutly with nothing less than honor, overcoming every conceivable obstacle that nature and the Rebs could put in their way—they were not soldiers now, they were demons laughing at the sight of entire families standing stunned in the street while their houses burned.

  In a park square under flaming trees, Sherman gazed on a grand dreamlike ball, soldiers and nigger women dancing to the music of a regimental band, or at least the members of it who were still capable of playing an instrument. Some old darkie was up in the band shell leading them. The General was speechless. He became aware of his own bedraggled costume and could think only of brushing himself off, tucking in his shirt, squaring his shoulders.

  Down another street he was for the moment relieved to see soldiers working to put out a fire, but turning the corner he found some troops using their bayonets to puncture the fire hoses and drive off the firemen. They were not besotted, either, these men.

  Nobody recognized Sherman, nor did he interfere with anything he saw, possibly understanding that, in this state of anarchy, challenges to his authority might arise. He looked at Teack and Teack nodded, knowing, as all officers did, that rank must not be invoked when it is not likely to be heeded.