House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  But that was not his province. Strategy, tactics, combat; these were not for him. His province was to keep the wagons moving, to provide somehow rations and supplies for these weary, stumbling men.

  Somewhere ahead, said the distant guns, men like these men were fighting: Longstreet’s men, the men Trav knew. They fought to hold back the enemy while these others escaped. The General had said dawn would see the division on the road again; but the cannons’ voices gave the lie to that hope. Somehow they had been compelled to stand in battle—while their fellows marched away.

  Trav remembered with a slow satisfaction that Vesta’s Tommy, and young Julian, were not engaged in that ever nearer battle. They were to resume their march this morning while Longstreet’s division brought up the rear. Before long now he should meet Hill’s men, following General Smith’s division. He began to watch as he pushed on along the slowly crawling columns. The road now was incredibly deep with mud. Once Trav saw a horse so badly mired that a two-horse team had to be unhitched to drag the frantic creature, plunging body-deep in bottomless muck, to solid footing; and once he saw a pair of mules surging through soupy mud so deep that when they fell with a great splash the thin muddy water actually closed over them, so that they disappeared from view for an instant before they scrambled to their feet again. The road and the ditches and the sedge fields on either side were alive with myriads of small green frogs. Nig’s hard hooves crushed them to nothingness.

  Trav watched for Tommy or Rollin or Julian; and now and then, seeing the face of an acquaintance among the passing troops, he asked a question. The Fifth North Carolina regiment? Hill’s division? Heads shook. No one knew.

  After a while the road became almost deserted. Where then was Hill’s division? It should have been close upon the heels of these regiments he had passed. A rising anxiousness beset him. The battle rumble yonder was a persisting irritation, irksome as a buzzing fly. From among the riders he met he picked out another familiar countenance, once more put his question, this time had his answer.

  “Hill? Oh, he went back. The Yankees hit us at the crack of dawn. The Fifth North Carolina countermarched into town again. They were resting on the college campus waiting for orders, when we passed there.”

  Trav thanked him and pressed on; and Nig fretted at the bit, and to ease him Trav loosed the reins and went at a canter. Short of town he met more wagons, of Hill’s division; but though his mind automatically took note of this, his thoughts still cast ahead.

  When he came into town, the thunder of the guns was loud and near; but there was no regiment resting on the campus of the college. Trav’s lip tightened as he rode more slowly on. At the edge of town he saw a throng of men gathered, and heard wretched, groaning cries; and over the heads of the crowd he saw that here were Federal wounded laid on the grass beside the road to await attention. One man, rolling back and forth, screamed some agonized appeal; and a tall Confederate in the uniform of a Louisiana Tiger stepped forward and raised his musket butt over the head of the tormented man.

  “Out o’ yore mis’ry?” he cried. “Why sartain!” The gun butt crashed splinteringly down. In the sudden silence the killer challenged the other wounded. “Any more o’ you damned Yanks want to be accommodated?” Then at the universal murmur of anger from his own comrades he backed hastily into the crowd.

  Trav, riding on, thought he understood the impulse which had prompted that brutality; the age-old impulse of the pack to kill a crippled member. Animals were pitiless to the hurt, and war made men into animals, and this was war. Ahead of him the sound of firing dwindled, and the great guns presently fell silent. There was only the spatter of musketry as dusk came down. He wished for news of Tommy and Julian, but he must find the General, get his orders for the night and the morrow. Inquiries led him to a house beyond the town where he saw riderless horses held by orderlies, and a considerable group of men. He dismounted, looping Nig’s reins over his arm, and found Captain Goree and put his questions.

  “The General? He’s inside with General Johnston and General Hill.” Trav heard in the other’s voice that quick excitement, that semi-intoxication which he had heard in other voices after the skirmish at Big Bethel and after Manassas. “Captain, we taught them a lesson today.”

  “Fighting all day?”

  “All morning!” Captain Goree’s voice rang. “Longstreet’s a great man, Currain. I was beside him all through it. As calm as a checker player. You’d have thought he was born on a battlefield.” And he explained: “They came at us hard, but we stopped them, and when they backed off he threw us at them, led the men himself. We chased them back on their reserves, and he sent Stuart to keep them running as long as they would run—like a dog chasing a cat.” He laughed. “That gave them all they wanted.”

  “I heard guns till an hour ago,” Trav suggested.

  “Oh yes,” Captain Goree agreed. “That was Hill’s division. We’d used up most of our ammunition, and your wagons were on beyond town; so the General called on General Hill to stand by and be ready to help us if we needed help. All we wanted was to hold for the day. General Johnston was here, but he said he couldn’t improve on what Longstreet was doing. But General Hill wasn’t satisfied to let well enough alone. He wanted a taste of glory too—so he tried an attack north of the Fort and bungled it, got the Fifth North Carolina shot to pieces.”

  Trav felt a cold hand on his heart. “Where is that regiment now?”

  But before the other could reply, there was a stir on the veranda of the house in front of which they stood. The door opened; the generals emerged. It was full dark, but in silhouette against the light from the hall Trav recognized General Johnston, the burly form of Longstreet, the stooped figure of General Hill.

  After a last word to the others, Johnston mounted; the men of his staff followed him as he rode away. General Longstreet came toward where Trav and the others of his staff now gathered. “We resume the withdrawal,” he told them quietly. “The honors of the day go with us. The Yankees will not be in a hurry to tread on our heels again. We move first. General Hill’s division will take the rear.” He sent men to transmit his orders to the brigade commanders.

  Trav spoke to him. “General, our trains are on the road, so there’s no work for me just now. But my nephew and the husband of my niece were in the Fifth North Carolina. I hear that regiment was hurt. May I take time to inquire for them?”

  Longstreet’s voice softened. “Certainly, Captain. I should not have given permission for that move on our left. I blame myself for yielding to persuasion. General Hill yonder can tell you where to find the regiment.” He hesitated. “Perhaps you can helo them move their wounded to shelter in the town.”

  Trav thanked him. General Hill was giving directions to the men of his staff, standing at the foot of the veranda steps; the house door was still open and Trav saw the haggard lines in his old friend’s countenance. When the other was free, Trav spoke to him.

  General Hill echoed Trav’s word. “The Fifth North Carolina? Mr. Currain, the slaughter of that regiment was the most terrible thing I ever saw—and their valor was beyond praise.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I’ll ride with you,” the General decided. So they mounted and turned back toward the enemy, toward Fort Magruder. The road was full of ambulances, lurching through the mud, floundering in the darkness. From each one came the groans, the sudden cries of suffering men. Just before they reached Fort Magruder the General turned aside, pointed to men grouped about bright fires ahead. “There they are, what’s left of them. I dread facing Colonel McRae.”

  Yet he rode forward; and Colonel McRae, with a heavy beard and level frowning brows, faced them across the fire by which he was standing. Trav saw that the Colonel’s eyes were wet, tear stains upon his cheeks. The man saluted, and General Hill looked beyond him at the small groups silent by the fires. Trav thought they were no more than a company.

  General Hill said gently: “Colonel, General Longstreet’s division will
lead the withdrawal. As soon as his last brigades have passed, put your regiment upon the road. You will lead my division.”

  Colonel McRae swung to look around. “My regiment?” he echoed; said with half a sob: “General, I took four hundred and fifteen men into the action. There are not a hundred of us left able to walk without help ”

  “The wounded will be cared for by the townspeople,” General Hill told him. Colonel McRae did not speak; and after a moment Hill turned his horse away.

  Trav dismounted, introduced himself. “I came to inquire after two of your men, Colonel,” he explained. “Kinfolk of mine. Lieutenant Cloyd, Lieutenant Dewain.”

  Colonel McRae shook his head, spoke in sober sorrow. “We have not called the roll, Captain.”

  But from the shadows beyond the fire a young man stepped forward, spoke to Trav. “Captain Currain, I’m Rollin Lyle. Lieutenant Cloyd was my friend.”

  Trav recognized the youngster. “I remember you, sir.” Yet he noted the past tense, and his heart slowed its beat.

  Rollin looked to Colonel McRae as though for permission to speak. The Colonel nodded, and Rollin said: “Tommy—Lieutenant Cloyd—led us across the plowed field. He carried no weapon, not even a pistol.” His voice caught. “He never wanted to kill anyone. But he led us, calling back to us to come on. We had to wheel and double-time in order to take our place in the advance. At first we were beyond musket range, but then the fire of the Yankee battery reached us.” The young man’s voice was steady now, steady as ice. “Lieutenant Cloyd was all right till the battery fired their last round, just before they drew back into the redoubt. That was close range. That last round of grape riddled him.” The low tone suddenly was bitter. “Tore half his side away.”

  Trav swallowed dryness. “Killed him?”

  Rollin almost laughed. “Killed him? God, yes! His insides spilled out in the mud.”

  Trav remembered Vesta, so full of happiness, something within her rich and sweet and warm; Vesta whom he had left asleep in that humble cabin hours ago. His throat burned with a swelling rage, at war, at death.

  But Tommy was dead, no help for him. What of Julian? “You knew Julian Dewain too?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is he—alive?”

  “He was alive at the fence, sir. Then we got orders to withdraw. I haven’t seen him since. They were firing at us as we went back across the plowed ground.”

  Trav nodded. “Have you seen Julian’s boy? Elegant was his name.”

  “He was with us at the fence, sir. He’d been shot in the face, but he followed Julian all the way. I saw them there. But they didn’t come back.”

  Half to himself, Trav muttered: “I must find them.”

  Young Rollin Lyle said proudly: “Tommy is here. I carried him in my arms when we were ordered to withdraw.”

  That was something; but—Julian might be lying wounded in the night, wounded and dying. Tommy was past help, but there might be help for Julian. Colonel McRae spoke in heavy tones. “We’ve parties out collecting the wounded, Captain.”

  “May I borrow Mr. Lyle long enough to show me the field, Colonel?”

  Colonel McRae looked toward the road, where in darkness marching men trudged through the mud. “We’ll not move for a while, an hour or more,” he assented. “But don’t get him killed. I’ve lost men enough today.”

  Trav turned to Rollin; but the young man hesitated. “Tommy’s body’s under the trees over here, sir. Can’t he be taken somewhere?”

  “When we come back,” Trav agreed. “Time enough then. Will you show me the way?”

  So Rollin led him floundering through a thicket and across a ravine, stumbling in the darkness till they reached a fence which served to guide them and thus came out into an open field. Ahead and to their left, smoking torches moved here and there; the night silence was broken by gasps and groans and sudden screams of unbearable pain as wounded men were lifted and moved. Trav hesitated; but Rollin strode diagonally to their left across the open, and they came to plowed ground where their feet sank ankle-deep in sticky mud; and they passed two men helping between them a third, whose leg dangled, who whimpered like a fretful child, from whose leg as it swung came the faint sound of grating bones. The men paused, panting; Trav drew close to peer into the hurt man’s face. This was not Julian.

  “I wish we had a torch,” he said.

  One of the men laughed. “Be glad you can’t see all there is to see,” he retorted.

  Trav and Rollin stumbled on. “This was the way we came.” Rollin spoke in dull tones, heavy with weariness. “Out of the woods back there, and out into the field here, and then to the left. The fence is ahead, against the woods.”

  From somewhere off that way a musket shot sounded; then a shouted command. “Stop that shooting! Let them pick up their wounded!” That was a Yankee voice, the accent and the intonation strange. So the enemy was there, watching from the wood.

  They met other men, laboriously carrying groaning human burdens back across the field. Ahead of them someone threw a torch aside to have both hands free for the duty they must do; and Trav picked up the still blazing splinter and thereafter they could see their way. Dead men lay here and there. Any one of them might be Julian, so at each one Trav held the torch near to see and to make sure. In the sudden light, black beetles came tumbling awkwardly out of open wounds to scuttle into darkness and wait till the light was gone to resume their gluttony. Trav looked upon them in a cold stillness, feeling none of that physical weakness which had beset him at Big Bethel, full rather of a black and terrible wrath.

  But he did not find Julian among them, and Rollin led him steadily forward.

  So they came to the rail fence. A shallow ditch ran along its face. “I saw Julian here,” Rollin said. “The guns were close, yonder by the redoubt, lined up across the road. Tommy was killed just this side of the road.” His voice was remote and calm. “The Twenty-Fourth Virginia was on our left. We lay down along the fence here; and when we got orders to retire they ran along the fence into the woods, into cover. But we had to go back across the open field. I picked up Tommy and carried him.”

  Trav moved along the fence, stepping over and around the bodies scattered here. When it was necessary he turned one till the face could be seen. The faces were curiously alike in their blankness, with open mouths, half-open eyes. There were faces bearded and beardless, faces of boys and of men, faces sometimes shattered by the impact of a heavy ball. Trav searched painstakingly. If Julian were here he must be found.

  Once he thought his search had ended. They came to a Negro sitting with his shoulders against the fence and with a white man cradled in his arms. But the Negro was not Elegant, and the young man in his arms had a thin beard, and both were dead.

  “That’s Bob Crawford,” Rollin said mildly. “He was in our company.”

  They went the length of the fence and back again; but Julian was not here. Perhaps earlier searchers had found him, helped him away. That chance remained; but certainly he was not here. Trav turned uncertainly to look at Rollin.

  “We might as well go back.”

  So they retraced their course, yet still Trav turned aside to look at every dark form they passed, holding the torch to every countenance, making sure and sure. There were men whose arms or whose legs had been shot away, men whose faces were smashed to pulp, men who lay in dark pools of blood that had spilled out of them, men who showed to the casual glance no wounds at all. They came to one man who was still alive, whose eyes were open, who looked up at them with the eyes of a trapped animal, his teeth bared in a snarl, a thin blood-trickle from his mouth.

  “We can carry him,” said Trav.

  But when they raised him to a sitting posture, the man coughed, and out of his mouth came a huge gush of blood; and when they laid him down again he twitched and twitched, his head jerking up, falling limply back, jerking up off the ground again. His feet began to kick and jerk harder and harder, then more and more weakly. Then head and feet were
still. So he died.

  So he was dead, as Tommy was dead. Perhaps Julian, too. They had been so much alive, so short a time ago.

  In a convulsion like that of the man who had just died, Trav threw his head far back. He looked up. The clouds were breaking. He saw a calm and distant star, watching with no pity.

  His teeth grated.

  This war. This blood-spilling, this bowel-spilling war! This war made by a man named Lincoln.

  By a man named Lincoln, in whom ran Currain blood.

  Trav’s jaws clamped shut. Blindly, stumbling across the muddy field, he strode away. He forgot Rollin on his heels, forgot all else in deadly rage and blinding pain.

  2

  May, 1862

  TILDA thought that interminable journey to Richmond would never be done. The heavy carriage lurched and swayed and jolted till her bones ached. Cinda and Mrs. Currain seemed to relax, but Tilda could not do this. She sat tensely braced, and each shock was like a blow. The others were silent as though they slept; but when sometimes a torch, or the light from a blazing fire beside the road illumined their faces, she saw their eyes were open, fixed and shining glassily.

  She herself was full of words she did not speak, of thoughts that were all ejaculations. The revelation in those letters laid on her no burden of grief or guilt. It woke instead a sort of triumph. She delighted in the consternation of these others, her mother, Cinda, her brothers; but that their distress and shame were also hers she easily ignored. True, she was as much a Currain as any of them; but since she married Redford Streean they had forgotten this, had let her live in mean and tawdry semi-poverty, had left her no part in their lives except to envy and to covet. They had never accepted Redford as one of them; he was always “Mister Streean” to them all. Oh, they had held their heads so high!