by Tim Black
Men in butternut uniforms began appearing in the Diamond. Had the Confederates given up? Minerva wondered. Defeat was etched on their faces. There was no bragging of “whipping the damn Yankees” or “killing some Federals before dinner.” These men appeared beaten. Their silence spoke volumes, for Minerva knew that Pickett’s Charge had failed.
But she didn’t know if the battle was truly over, and she wished that Mr. Greene was present to sort it all out. Or even that poltergeist, Mr. Foote. She thought about the dead historian and suddenly he appeared, as if she had rubbed a genie’s magic lamp with her thought.
“Yes, Minerva? You have a question?” Shelby Foote said. “I heard your thought and came to answer your question.
“Is it over Mr. Foote?” Minerva asked, forgetting for a moment the presence of Julia Culp.
“What did you say, Minerva?” Julia asked.
Minerva blushed and then replied to Julia. “I asked if it was over.”
“But why did you say, ‘my foot’?” Julia asked.
“Ah…that means I’m not sure. It’s just a dumb expression I use when I don’t really believe something to be true, I say ‘my foot.’” She smiled, hoping that the addition of the gesture of lifting her foot might put credence to her mendacity.
“That’s rather odd, Minerva.” Julia commented.
Minerva thought quickly, realizing her lie needed a bit more detail. She replied, “My grandmother used to say that.”
“Used to?”
“Yes, she’s dead,” Minerva replied, truthfully, unable to tell the Civil War teenager that, actually, her grandmother hadn’t even been born yet. But then her grandmother hadn’t been born and was also dead. Time travel could be confusing sometimes, she thought.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Julia said.
“Nana was a wonderful lady,” Minerva answered honestly, and the thought of her beloved grandmother caused a tear to trickle down her face.
Julia gave Minerva a hug. Minerva felt guilty. She didn’t like to lie, but she couldn’t tell her new friend that she was a time traveler. Heck, H.G. Wells wouldn’t even write The Time Machine until 1895. And this was only 1863! She realized she had a strange habit of looking at copyright dates on books and committing them to memory just like Victor did with his silly baseball averages. She thought she remembered more important things than Victor Bridges ever did, and then she scowled as she envisioned Victor kissing the double-crossing Bette Kromer.
“Why are you frowning, Minerva?”
“I was thinking about a boy.”
“A boy? Really? Do tell,” Julia said, but just as Julia was about to interrogate Minerva about her nonexistent love life, a surgeon walked out of the courthouse and called the girls back to duty. More wounded were arriving.
“I heard they are using the Seminary as a hospital,” Julia said as they walked into the courthouses. “Churches, too. The wounded are everywhere. Must be hundreds,” Julia said.
“I think there may be thousands,” Minerva ventured, knowing that the count would exceed twenty thousand casualties. Then she remembered that Sarah Broadhead became a volunteer nurse at the Seminary, and Minerva decided that she would report to the Seminary the next day. She really wanted to meet the lady who kept the day-by-day diary.
For the next few hours Minerva worked alongside Julia, rolling bandages and dispensing cool water to the wounded men. She became numb to the shrieking sounds from the patients undergoing amputations, and despondent at all the suffering that she witnessed. As dusk approached, kerosene lamps were lit and the surgeons continued to ply their gruesome trade, reminding Minerva why doctors earned the sobriquet “sawbones.”
As she and Julia took a break from the horror and stood outside in the twilight, two women approached.
“Hello, Anna, Aunt Polly,” Julia called to them. “What are you doing here at the courthouse?”
Minerva stood silent as Julia’s older sister and aunt approached. She saw their sad faces, their forlorn gazes. The younger of the two women, Anna Culp, said to her sister, sorrowfully, “Wesley is gone, Julia.”
As if hit in her solar plexus by a sledgehammer by the news of her brother’s fate, Julia crumpled to the ground like a rag doll, hitting the earth before Minerva could react. Anna bent down and lifted her limp sister to an upright position, holding her to prevent a repeat of her little sister’s fainting. Julia began to sob.
“Wesley! Wesley, darling Wesley!” she cried and buried her head into her older sister’s bosom.
“Shhh, Julia, baby, I am here,” Anna said, trying to sooth her sister. Instead, she began to cry as well.
But it wasn’t like any crying that Minerva had ever heard. The sound was something primeval. It was a wailing, hopeless, anguished cry to the heavens. Minerva had never heard such a pitiful sound, not even from the wounded and dying men in the courthouse. Feeling an overwhelming empathy for Julia, Minerva began to cry as well. “Oh, Julia, I am so sorry,” she sobbed.
Anna smiled at Minerva. “You must be Julia’s friend, Minerva,” she sniffed. “I am sorry we have to meet like this.”
Julia asked Anna meekly, “Was he killed by the cannons?”
“No, darling,” The dry-eyed Aunt Polly said. “He was killed this morning on Uncle Henry’s hill.”
Culp’s Hill, Minerva realized. Of course the Culp’s would refer to it as Uncle Henry’s hill, not Culp’s Hill.
“That is too awful, does Uncle Henry know?” Julia asked.
“No, darling, Uncle Henry left town before the Rebels arrived,” Aunt Polly replied.
“We must retrieve his body, Aunt Polly. We must.”
“Not tonight, dear,” Aunt Polly said. “It is much too dangerous. You come on along with us now, hear? Say goodnight to your friend.”
Julia turned to Minerva and Minerva thrust out her arms to give her friend a comforting hug. No words were exchanged, just glances of understanding, and a comforting embrace. Minerva felt Julia’s pain.
She watched in silence as Anna Culp and Aunt Polly walked the younger girl back to their home on York Street. Minerva turned to return to the courthouse and then stopped. She decided she had seen enough of war for one day. Instead of entering the courthouse, she walked on to the Gettysburg Hotel, thankful to find the kerosene lamp lit in her hotel room.
She pulled her pamphlet from her dress pocket and began to read the entry for July 4th, remembering as Scarlett O’Hara used to say, “Tomorrow is another day.”
Diary of Sarah Broadhead
July 4, 1863
This morning, about 6 o’clock, I heard a great noise in the street, and going to the door I saw a Rebel officer on horseback hallooing to some soldiers on foot, to “Hurry up, the Yankees have possession of the town and all would be captured.” I looked up the street and saw our men in the public square, and it was a joyful sight, for I knew we were now safe. Soon after, the Rebels sent in a flag of truce, but what was communicated we did not know, and, in consequence, the people were more scared than ever, the report spreading that it was to give notice to remove the women and children before shelling the town. As soon as the flag of truce had gone, our sharpshooters were pushed out to this side of town, and were all around us. We were between two fires, and were kept close prisoners all day, not daring to either go out, or even look out the windows, on account of the bullets fired at every moving object. The people of other parts of town could go where they pleased. It has been a dreadfully long day. We know, however, that the Rebels are retreating, and that our army has been victorious. I was anxious to help care for the wounded, but the day is ended and all is quiet, and for the first time in a week I shall go to bed, feeling safe.
Chapter 12
Isaac Weikert shook the sleeping Victor hard enough to wake him. He announced the joyful news, “The Rebels have gone! Get up, Victor! The Rebels have gone! The Rebels left Gettysburg. The town is ours again! Get up!”
Groggily, Victor turned over and put a pillow over his head to bl
ock the noise, irritated at the younger boy for interrupting an interesting dream in progress in which he was courting both Bette Kromer and Minerva Messinger and was so befuddled that he couldn’t make his mind up on which girl was right for him. In his dream, he had just kissed Bette and was puckering up to smooch with Minerva when Isaac intervened.
“C’mon, Victor. Mom said breakfast is ready,” the Weikert teen persisted.
Victor mumbled an epithet under his breath at Isaac, but grumpily arose and dressed for the day. After he descended the stairs from the second floor, Victor cautiously made his way to the kitchen, gingerly stepping over an array of wounded men scattered about the floor. He swore to himself that there were even more men than he had counted the previous evening.
The ever-cheery Mrs. Weikert welcomed her tardy house guest. Victor admired her countenance. Her pleasant home had been invaded by the Union army, the serenity of the house overturned, and yet she willingly assisted one and all, like some 19th century Mother Teresa, he thought.
“I saved you two eggs from the coop, Victor,” Mrs. Weikert said by way of greeting. “Sit yourself down and have a slice of bread or two while I fry your eggs. Over easy?”
“Yes, ma’am. Where is Bette?”
“She and Tillie are helping out with the wounded in the barn, boy. You can join them after I feed you, “Mrs. Weikert said as she peered out a kitchen window. “Looks like rain. Feels like it, too,” she said. “My old joints are aching.”
Victor remembered Professor Jacob’s weather journal. The Pennsylvania College instructor recorded rain on the 4th of July. The rain, Victor realized, would slow the Confederate retreat over South Mountain. That was another reason that Meade’s reluctance to attack the wounded Confederate army confused Victor. Could a more aggressive Meade have forced Lee to surrender or would an attack and possible defeat reverse the tide of Gettysburg? He wondered if the Civil War might have been over sooner if Meade had had access to the Weather Channel.
The ghost of Bruce Catton sat down beside Victor and answered his thought. “There was no Doppler radar during the Civil War, Victor,” he said. “Meade will chase Lee to the Potomac River, the Federals will destroy Lee’s pontoon bridge across the Potomac at Falling Waters, but Lee’s engineers will hastily erect another bridge for the Confederates and they will escape into Virginia and continue the war. Meade’s men will follow, but when they arrive at Lee’s location Meade realizes that the old gray fox has dug an impregnable defensive position, inviting the Federals to duplicate the folly of Pickett’s Charge. Lincoln will be angry at his commander and will write Meade a letter, but the president will never send the epistle, preferring to place it in his desk at the White House instead. U.S. Grant will eventually defeat Lee after a battle of attrition in Virginia.”
“That’s interesting,” Victor said to the ghost.
“What is interesting, Victor?” Mrs. Weikert asked. “That it is going to rain today?”
Oops, Victor thought, annoyed at himself for his lapse of tongue which led his words to the dead historian to leave his mouth. “Ah yeah, Mrs. Weikert. It is interesting that it is going to rain,” he lied, feeling rather guilty for having to lie to a sweet soul like Mrs. Weikert.
Mrs. Weikert laughed. “You are an odd boy, Victor Bridges,” she said. “You should be a farmer if you find rain so interesting.”
Victor shrugged and took a bite of bread slathered in apple butter. He had come to love apple butter. Satisfied at seeing a boy gobbling away at her table, a smiling Mrs. Weikert said no more and quietly scooped the fried eggs from her skillet with her metal spatula and placed them on Victor’s plate.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Victor said, remembering his manners. He was delighted when the farmer’s wife added a slab of ham to his plate. One thing about the 19th century, Victor thought, the food was all organic. And it was tasty. But then, he soberly thought, there wasn’t much else that the 19th century could brag about. It smelled for one thing, even to a boy who was accustomed to stinky boys’ locker rooms, and the smell was only going to get worse as the dead bodies on the battlefield decomposed under the stifling summer sun. The smell around the farm was changing as well, although Victor’s nose had adjusted to the usual barnyard odors. But the coppery stench of blood and death about the grounds lingered in the air, and as he walked outside after his late breakfast, dark clouds were gathering and surgeons were erecting makeshift canvass lean-tos to cover their amputating benches so that the doctors could remain dry as they separated the mangled and gangrenous limbs from their chloroformed clients. The rain began to fall and the drops pelted the wounded men out in the open. As the drizzle advanced to a downpour, Victor ran for cover in the barn and witnessed a scene that might have been out of Dante: tortured souls crying out in agony. Bette and Tillie were going from wounded man to wounded man dispensing water to the patients. He marveled how his classmate stoically kept her eyes from watering. The nurses stressed that they wanted no crying girls making things worse for the men. Girls had to smile and be sweet, the nurses ordered. They had to be cheerful. If they had to cry they were to leave the barn to do it.
Victor stayed just inside the entrance to the barn, out of the rain. He felt sorry for the poor men with no cover, but at the same time he wondered if somehow God wasn’t crying for all the dead and wounded. Were God’s tears washing away the blood? He found a teardrop crawling down his own cheek and wiped it away, taking a deep breath to regain control of his emotions. It was one thing to read about the Battle of Gettysburg in a book, Victor thought, but to actually witness it was quite another. Once again he concluded that events he had witnessed were vignettes he would remember for the rest of his life. Just like Tillie Pierce and Daniel Skelly recorded in their reminiscences.
As he stood there thinking and absently looking at the falling rain, Bette came up and pulled on his shirt sleeve.
“Hey, are you alright, Victor?”
He turned to his classmate and his saddened face was his answer.
Bette embraced him in a hug. He hugged her back and then broke the embrace, his masculine pride asserting itself.
“Let’s go back to town, Victor,” Bette suggested. “We should check on Minerva and Mr. Greene. As soon as the rain lets up a bit.”
“Is that what you think we should do?” Victor asked.
“Yes, we have General Meade’s passes, we can safely return to the hotel. I’m worried about them.”
Victor wasn’t. He assumed that Minerva had spent the last three days holed up in her cushy, by comparison, hotel room. But he wondered if Mr. Greene had been able to see Pickett’s Charge. Perhaps he had watched it unfold from the roof of the Fahnestock Building.
As the rain finally subsided, Bette and Victor returned to the farmhouse and prepared to leave to return to the Gettysburg Hotel. Then they went into the kitchen to say their goodbyes and their thanks to Mrs. Weikert.
As usual Mrs. Weikert attempted to dissuade them from their impetuousness, but to no avail.
Bette attempted to explain their predicament to their gracious host. “Mrs. Weikert, our uncle and our cousin remained in Gettysburg and I know they must be worried about us, having been gone for three days as we have.”
The old lady smiled at Bette. “Well, now child, you never told me about your uncle being in town. Why ever did you leave in the first place?”
Victor intervened. “It’s my fault, Mrs. Weikert. I talked Bette into going with me. Our uncle was furious at us, of course.”
Bette picked up on Victor’s lie and added some mendacious embellishment. “Yes, Mrs. Weikert. I just hope he will forgive us,” she said.
Mrs. Weikert smiled, knowingly. “I do declare, I don’t know when I have met such little rascals as you two who bend the truth as easily as I can bend a willow switch, and I’ve had more than my share of children. Have either of you told the truth even once during the time you have been here?”
Both Victor and Bette blushed in response.
“
I thought so,” Mrs. Weikert said. But her smile got even bigger. “Rascals, ha. But it doesn’t matter. All children lie. It gets them ready to be adults,” she laughed. “The only difference is that lies get bigger when we are adults. Now you both give me a hug and go on your way, but be careful. There may still be some Rebels out there somewhere.”
As a last gesture, Mrs. Weikert gave them one of her numerous umbrellas, a red bandana and a blue bandana, and a bottle of peppermint oil, with an admonition and an explanation: “You put a dab of that oil above your top lip and cover your face with a bandana if the smell gets too bad. There are bound to be some rotting bodies between here and town. The stink may be something awful.”
After their hugs, Bette and Victor started off down Taneytown Road in the direction of the Baltimore Pike and town. But suddenly, Victor stopped and turned around.
“Hey, Bette, let’s go by way of the Round Tops. I want to see what the battlefield looks like today.”
“Alright,” Bette agreed.
“Mrs. Weikert is really a smart old woman, isn’t she?”
“She is very perceptive, Victor,” Bette replied. “She saw through my ruse in dressing as a boy easily enough, but we didn’t fool her about anything. She had us pegged for liars from the get go, but it didn’t matter. She’s a mother. We weren’t the first kids to lie to her. She knew all along that we were full of it, but she didn’t let on. She’s a wise old bird.”
“My grandmother is like that,” Victor said. “When I was little and told lies I think it really amused her. Little kids lie.”
“So do adults,” Bette said.
“And teenagers, too, Miss Kardashian,” Victor added and they both laughed.
They walked through the gap that separated Big Round Top from Little Round Top.
“Oh, Victor! Look at them all!”
Victor was speechless. The Valley of Death earned its nickname at the Battle of Gettysburg. The ground between Little Round Top and Devil’s Den was littered with decomposing bodies. Victor detected an odor, but the smell was not as overwhelming as he had feared. Perhaps the rain had slowed the corpses’ decomposition. While vultures flew over the area, one buzzard was already at work, feasting on a body in a butternut uniform while a runaway pig was nibbling on a dead boy in blue. Victor ran at the swine to scare it away, shouting at the animal while Bette shooed the buzzard away from the dead Confederate.