Into the Long Dark Night

by Michael Phillips

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  He nodded his head and tried to lift his hand to point. “Down there . . . my leg,” he whispered.

  I looked and could see instantly by the shape of his twisted leg that the bone was broken. No wonder he was so white! It was probably even more painful than the boy’s saber wound, though not life-threatening.

  “I see,” said Sister Janette, stopping to think for a moment. “It will need a splint to set properly.” She glanced around the room. “Hmm . . . I’ll go find out what provisions we have. But first,” she added, turning her attention back to the man, “we’ll do what we can. Corrie,” she said, speaking to me, “you get up by his head and hold on to his shoulders. You know what we have to do?” she said down to the man.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered. “I’m afraid I do.”

  “It may hurt for a moment.”

  “Has to be done, Sister.”

  Sister Janette took a deep breath, then took hold of the dirty boot of the broken leg. “Now, Corrie, you hang on hard while I pull this leg straight and get the bone back into position.”

  I stretched my hands under the man’s arms and held on tightly to his shoulders. Sister Janette gave a hard tug at the other end. I could feel the man crying out in pain, though hardly a sound escaped his lips. It only lasted a second or two. I felt Sister Janette’s pressure at the other end relax, so I eased my hold, too. The poor man breathed out a sigh of relief. If anything his face was even whiter than before and beads of sweat were on his forehead. But one look at his leg showed that she had been successful and that it was straight again.

  “There,” she said, “I hope that eases the pain after a while. As long as you lie still, it will be fine until we can get it splinted.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, Sister Janette remained close by me, though occasionally giving me something to do alone or leaving me for a while and then returning to see how I was doing.

  I can’t say that I became comfortable with any of it, but I gradually got more used to it, and even ventured out on my own now and then to see where I might be able to help someone. I dressed a lot of wounds, helped attach several splints to broken arms and legs, and just talked to a lot of soldiers—most of them younger than I was, and nearly all from the South. Some were crude and angry and used foul language; others were nice and spoke gently. Some said they were from Hill’s Corps and others had come back from Ewell’s charge against Slocum at Culp’s Hill, and others had been with Early striking up Cemetery Hill. I didn’t know what any of them were talking about.

  All the ones who could speak were anxious to keep talking about the various battles they’d been in, but from the sound of it, none of them had been victorious. It sounded as if nothing had yet been decided and that the battle was going to continue for some time. All during the afternoon, as we were tending to the constant flow of wounded, in the distance we could hear the sounds of guns and cannons, though after a while you quit hearing it altogether. Whenever I’d go outside the church to help unload new men from a wagon and help carry them in by stretcher, I could see smoke and fire in the distance.

  People from the town were helping too, and all the churches had been set up as makeshift hospitals just like St. Xavier’s. After we’d done what we could, the men who could be moved were transferred to neighboring houses where the people of Gettysburg were taking them in, or to small hospital tents that had been set up for them.

  The day passed so quickly, it seemed as though we’d only just arrived when the darkness of night closed in. The fighting slowed and finally ceased, with only a few scattered spats of rifle fire now and then. We got the hundreds of wounded, in the church and outside and in nearby tents, as comfortable as possible. And then in the priests’ and nuns’ private quarters of the church, we took turns getting something to eat and then finding a corner to lie down in with a blanket to get some sleep. It was hot, and the floors were hard. Sleep was difficult. But I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until suddenly I found myself opening my eyes to the light of morning.

  Chapter 17

  The Fateful Day—July 3, 1863

  When I woke up, there were still no sounds from the battlefields. Others were already moving about. I could smell food being prepared in the kitchen, but most of the sisters had already gone to the church or were moving through the rows of tents outside in the field next to the church, checking on the men, reapplying bandages, bringing them bread and tea and milk and whatever other provisions there were. From the relative calm, I thought perhaps the fighting was over for good.

  “Good morning, Corrie,” Sister May greeted me.

  I turned to see her approaching me from the kitchen.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Famished,” I answered.

  “Some of the local women are baking bread as fast as they are able,” she went on, “both for us and for the men. I have some tea in the kitchen, if you’d like. And Janette’s next door at the Wade home. Jennie’s one of the parishioners here, and she and her sister and mother are mixing and baking us a good supply.”

  “Are all the citizens helping like that?” I asked.

  “A good many—although when the bullets fly too close by, most stay in their cellars. But from what the sisters here tell me, Jennie’s never been one to be afraid of anything, and when there’s a job to do or someone in need of help, she’s always there with her sleeves rolled up.”

  “What should I do?” I asked.

  “You could go over to the Wade home and see if they need any help. There was talk a little while ago, too, of sending a few wagons out into the countryside to bring wounded into town.”

  “Is that safe?” I asked. “Is the fighting over?”

  “We hope so. It’s been quiet.”

  Even before the words were out of her mouth, a sudden eruption of gunfire rang out, very close by. Sister May and I looked at each other apprehensively, but neither of us said anything, hoping it would quickly die down.

  It didn’t. Gradually the sounds of ongoing fighting made it clear that the battle of Gettysburg wasn’t over at all, but was now going into its third day. Within an hour, more wounded began arriving again, and the work of patching and bandaging and cleaning and nursing the casualties once more occupied every available hand.

  The first few men to come in that morning with fresh wounds were talking about the reason for the renewed fighting. The Confederate troops under Ewell were making one last attempt to take Culp’s Hill from Slocum’s and Newton’s Union troops. If they could, the men said, Ewell would be able to overrun Hancock’s position on Cemetery Ridge. They could break through the Union line from the rear, while Pickett attacked frontally. Even the wounded were speaking of the brilliance of Lee’s strategy, their eyes aglow, as if they fully expected to rout the Union army by the end of the day.

  As I listened, I was unable to keep a great fear from rising up inside me. What if they did, indeed, smash through the Union line and continue their march to the coast and the eastern cities? I was on my way to Washington, D.C.—and so was the Rebel army of Robert E. Lee!

  Maybe this would be a good time to become a nun, join the Convent of John Seventeen, and hide myself away from all this until the war was over!

  I walked across the grass to the house next door, a two-story brick home, where Sister Janette introduced me to Jennie Wade, her mother and sister, and her sister’s little three-day-old baby. I learned that this was Jennie’s sister’s house. Jennie and her mother had come to stay with her after the birth of the baby.

  “You’re baking bread besides tending to your sister?” I asked.

  “My sister takes no care,” laughed Jennie. “It’s the baby! But idle hands are the devil’s workshop, you know, Corrie. And when you and the sisters arrived yesterday, I went straight over to Sister May and told her that I would do my best to keep bread baked so you would all have plenty to eat.”

  “It is very kind of you,” said Sister Janette.
r />   “And delicious too, if that was your bread I ate last evening,” I added.

  Jennie laughed again. “It probably was. Thank you both, but really—it’s the least someone like me can do. Not as important as what you and the nurses and medics do.”

  “If nuns and nurses and medics and helpers like Corrie don’t eat,” said Sister Janette, “they won’t do the wounded much good. Everyone’s part is just as important as the next person’s.”

  “Thank you, Sister,” Jennie replied with a smile, attacking again the large mass of dough she had been kneading.

  I liked Jennie immediately. She was several years younger than I was, but so outgoing and friendly that I knew if we had the chance, we could become good friends in no time. I’d never had a close friend—a girl—my own age before, and even as Sister Janette and I walked back to St. Xavier’s, I found myself thinking what it would be like to know Jennie better. A few days earlier I had been thinking about remaining at the convent and becoming a nun. Now I was thinking about wanting to stay in Gettysburg after the battle because of a new friendship with a young girl I’d only just met. I laughed at myself. I was becoming so unsettled, I didn’t know where my future home was! Every place I went, I wanted to stay and live there. Every person I met I wanted to remain with forever. Where was my home supposed to be, anyway?

  The sound of gunfire was increasing as we walked through the field. “Does it seem as if it’s coming closer?” I said, half to myself.

  Sister Janette must have been thinking the same thing, because she looked around with a concerned expression in her eyes, then nodded and said, “It does seem to be, doesn’t it, Corrie? Yes, I think it is.”

  We quickened our pace, and in a couple of minutes were back inside the church building.

  Within a short time, the wounded began arriving even more rapidly, and soon we were busier than we had been the day before. Steadily the sounds of the battle seemed to get louder and louder.

  An hour later, I heard the rumble of perhaps a dozen horses galloping through town. Then more activity—wagons, men dragging cannons, infantrymen walking, some running . . . all Confederate soldiers. There was a lot of talk among the wounded. And from those coming in fresh from the lines, we managed to piece together the information that Ewell’s Corps had failed at Culp’s Hill. They had been repulsed by the Union troops and were now rapidly falling back toward the town. That accounted for all the Confederate activity. It wasn’t what you’d exactly call a full retreat, and the Union army wasn’t chasing them. There was no danger of Gettysburg being overrun. But the fire from Howard’s Corps was following the Rebels as they fell back, and as it did the battle encroached upon the outskirts of the town itself.

  I was working next to the southern wall of the church, just inside the door, when I heard a sound that sent my stomach into my throat. A dull thud sounded in the wall beside me, accompanied by the splintering of wood. A bullet had struck the church!

  Suddenly a barrage of tiny whacks sounded all against the southern wall, peppering the whole church with lead slugs. A second or two later a great explosive outburst of gunfire sounded, much closer than we had heard before.

  Then came the sound of breaking glass from one of the windows, and the delayed sound of gunfire echoed as the glass tinkled onto the floor below. Father Adams yelled above the din, “Everybody onto the floor!”

  I dropped the gauze pads that were in my hands and in an instant was lying on my stomach, just as another window exploded into tiny pieces. The bullet ricocheted off a bell on the opposite side of the church, then thudded into a wall. Suddenly the battle had come too close for comfort!

  More shots sounded, and all around the church slugs could be heard pecking the walls of wood. Then came a calm and silence.

  Father Adams stood, went to the door and peered out. I don’t know what he saw, but he didn’t say anything. Some of the wounded men were talking, the rest of us breathing sighs of relief and rising again to our feet.

  But the silence didn’t last long. Suddenly gunfire erupted again. We all fell to the floor once more, but this time there were no sounds of bullets against the church. The direction of the shots had shifted. I got to my knees, listening.

  Between the deafening explosions, I could hear a sound I couldn’t identify at first. Then I realized it was the sound of bullets striking against a wall. But they were no longer hitting the church. It was the sound of bullets against brick—hundreds of them in rapid-fire succession. The fire had shifted and was blasting against the house next door—the home of Jennie’s sister!

  I had risen to my feet and unconsciously moved toward the window that looked out over the little field up in the direction of Baltimore Street. I could see dust and tiny bits of brick flying about the walls.

  Sister Janette had apparently noticed the change, too, because I saw her standing at the back door of the church, a look of fear on her face as she made the sign of the cross on her chest. I had never seen her look that way before. The fearlessness she possessed with regard to herself was one thing. But now she was clearly afraid for the home of these friends of the parish. Her lips were moving in silent prayer.

  Suddenly there was a scream. I glanced back out the window. It had come from the house!

  I looked back toward Sister Janette. She was no longer standing at the door but was already running out across the field.

  Father Adams called after her. She continued on, heedless of the danger or her own safety. Before I knew it, I was flying through the back door of the church after her.

  I heard voices calling, and think I faintly heard my name. I felt a hand tugging against my arm, trying to restrain me, but I pulled away and continued outside, following Sister Janette.

  My mind was a blur. I was running, though I scarcely knew why, thinking in some vague way, I suppose, of helping my new friend. There was still gunfire sounding in the distance, though it had shifted and was no longer concentrating its deathly fury in our direction. I did not know that at the time, nor care. Impulse guided my steps, not thought or reason. Neither did I hear the shouts behind me urging me to come back, nor the cries ahead from the brick home.

  On I ran, following Sister Janette by ten or fifteen seconds into the house. Suddenly as I burst through the door, I stopped. My mind seemed to come once more into focus.

  The room was empty. All was quiet and still. Even the gunfire had abated momentarily.

  Only a second or two passed while I stood there, suddenly aware of myself. The first sensation to come to me was the smell of warm bread baking in the oven. It was such a homey smell, so deliciously fragrant, so in contrast to the horrible battle going on all around us. For an instant the smell of bread which filled the house seemed to say, It is not so bad as it seems. Good will triumph in the end. Peace will come, and we will all enjoy life’s goodness together again.

  But the feeling of tranquility was illusory. Even as I was drawing in a deep breath of the fresh aroma, I heard crying coming from the rear of the house. I headed toward the sound.

  But I did not get far. Sister Janette met me, her face white and her expression somber.

  Sensing the truth, I struggled to get by.

  “Corrie, please—” she said.

  “Let me go!” I cried. “I want to go to Jennie.”

  But Sister Janette restrained me. “No, come with me,” she said, trying to turn me in the opposite direction and lead me back the way we both had come.

  I wrestled against her, more vigorously now. “I want to see Jennie!”

  “Corrie . . . Corrie, please!” she implored. “You don’t want to go in there. Now, come with me.”

  Her voice was tender yet commanding. I continued to struggle and finally pushed my way past her.

  “Corrie!” she yelled after me. “Corrie, don’t go in there! Corrie, please . . . Jennie is dead.”

  Chapter 18

  Pickett’s Charge up Cemetery Ridge

  The rest of that morning is lost in a blur in
my memory.

  When I sat down to try to reconstruct the events to write them down in my journal, I could remember nothing for a long time after falling into Sister Janette’s arms and sobbing. It was several hours before the day began to fit into a pattern that made sense to my mind again.

  The gunfire ended shortly after the volley that had hit the brick house and ended poor Jennie Wade’s life. Within fifteen minutes there was silence throughout the town. The fight for Culp’s Hill and the retreat of Ewell’s troops was over, and no more significant fighting took place for several hours. All there was for us to do was try to find room for the new wounded that kept being brought to us, even after the sharp explosions of gunfire had died away.

  When my mind finally began to refocus, I was in the church, walking among the wounded, a towel draped over one arm, and a container of water in my hand. I think I had been helping Father Adams wash and clean some of the fresh wounds, because there was blood on the towel. But as I came to myself I was standing alone.

  Suddenly my eyes took in the scene around me. I remembered where I was, I remembered about Jennie, and pangs of new grief shot through me. I stood there in the middle of the room—probably not for more than five or ten seconds, but it seemed like an hour—while thought after thought flooded through me like a dream.

  As I glanced about at the wounded, I couldn’t help but wonder why we had to be in a war at all. So much blood . . . too much fighting . . . and altogether too much dying! What was it all about . . . what was the purpose . . . why did it have to be?

  I thought of Jennie, tears again rising to my eyes. I found myself wondering what it was like to die. What did Jennie feel at the exact moment the bullet crashed into her and she felt life slipping away? Or did she even know? Maybe she just fell asleep, and the next instant her soul was in heaven.

  I continued to look around the room, wondering what was going to happen to all these poor young men lying here. I wondered if they were afraid of dying, or if they were brave like soldiers are supposed to be and had no such fears. Did any of them have a faith in God that gave hope and courage to face whatever came? I found myself thinking of their families and friends in far off places. They wouldn’t even know that their sons and brothers and husbands had been wounded.