“I don’t know yet, but not this.”
Amos stepped out from the kitchen doorway. We didn’t know he was listening. “I hope thee are not thinking of going to war.”
“I can’t say, Papa.”
“Can’t say? What does thee mean, thee can’t say? No son of mine will take up arms! I won’t have it!”
“Ben and Elias could take over our land,” Nate continued, ignoring Papa’s wrath. “They need it for oats and pasture. Keep it from lying fallow.”
“Would you join their operation, then?” I pressed.
“Maybe. Or I could take my legacy and join Jesse in Indiana. He could probably use my help.”
My heart sank. Not another one to go west! “Why don’t you open a business in Bedford? You have a talent for numbers and the like.”
“I’ve thought about that. Maybe a mercantile. I don’t know what I’ll do. But I lack Jesse’s patience. I can’t keep myself at a task I hate, and right now, I hate this.”
I never gave liking or hating a task much thought. If it had to be done, it had to be done. If I didn’t do it, who would? The idea that one had to like one’s work was foreign to me and, I was sure, to Amos. But it certainly mattered to Nate.
In those tense times, I relied more on Rebecca’s friendship and confidence. She invited me over to help can tomatoes for both households, and I welcomed the distraction, even if it was for talk of war. Rebecca and I and her three girls worked through the day in the summer kitchen, the heat and the smell of tomatoes heavy in the air.
I confided my fears about Nathaniel to Rebecca. “I’m afraid he might be thinking of going to war,”
“Nate? Has he said anything?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking of it. I wish he’d just find him a wife.”
Rebecca smiled. “That’d be a relief for you. Now what’s got you worried, anyway?”
“I don’t know. He’s restless. Ever since the war began.”
“He has his hands full. But so do Ben and Elias. This war is making a labor shortage, I’ll tell you that.” Rebecca ladled hot tomatoes into the waiting jars.
“Nathaniel will do what he will,” she reminded me. “You and Amos can only watch. But, surely Nate, of all people, won’t choose war. Slow to decide, even slower to act. I can’t conceive of him volunteering.”
But the nagging fear would not go away. It was Nate’s to decide, but I held my breath and prayed.
One August afternoon, Pru Hartley’s oldest boy, Thomas, wandered down from the woods, a dead squirrel dangling from his belt. “Wanna buy a squirrel?” he asked, holding up the limp body. Out of pity for the scrawny, dirty-faced child, I offered him two bits, even though Nate could get me a squirrel anytime.
“How’s your mother?” I asked.
He lay his gun on the ground while he untied the squirrel. “Down with the grippe.”
“Oh? Does she need me to make a call?” I was locked in a dance of wariness with Pru. To embrace her was frightening. To ignore her was worse.
“She’ll be all right, but it’s hard now Uncle Cooper’s gone.”
“Gone where?” I hadn’t seen Cooper Hartley in months, but that counted as good.
“Gone for a soldier. Joined the Rebs. Says he has to fight for slavery.” The child’s face showed no expression. Neither approval nor disapproval. “Been huntin’ runaways all these years. Can’t get his mind around the idea they might free ’em. Wish I was old enough.”
I shuddered to think that a man could love slavery enough to go to war for it—and gain a boy’s admiration to boot. I put a coin in Thomas’s hand and took the squirrel. “Tell your mother to stop by when she’s feeling better.” The boy went his barefoot way down over the hill to the hovel by the creek, shotgun slung over his bony shoulder.
Nathaniel didn’t wait for the harvest. He enlisted in September, in Company F, 37th Regiment, Pennsylvania Reserves. They formed up at Camp Wilkins, near Pittsburgh. He joined for three months, but the government went back on their promise, and the 37th was mustered in for three years. He bragged in his early letters about how they’d thrash the rebels and be home by Christmas. I winced at his brashness. Later, he put me in charge of his financial ventures, which, I soon learned, were extensive. “If I don’t come back,” he wrote, “it’s yours to do with as you see fit.” ‘Don’t talk nonsense’ would have been my response had he been within reach. But he was decidedly out of reach now and maybe forever.
One more empty chair. Papa and I looked at each other from opposite ends of a table as wide as all creation, remembering when there were nine. Two was such a sad number.
I tried to talk about family matters to ease the emptiness. “Mary writes that her Martha is opening her own Quaker school this fall.” Amos nodded, barely acknowledging me.
“They’re keeping a close eye on Adam. Fifteen years old and full of romantic notions of war. Mary’s afraid he’ll run off and join up one of these days.”
Amos sat silent at the other end of the table. His face clouded. “You’d think he’d been raised better.” He took a drink of coffee, made a face, and wiped his mouth.
“I’m sure Mary and Noah have done their best. She’s always going on about how hard it is to raise good Quakers with the world intruding all the time.”
“The world will always intrude. That’s why we have to be strong. Not give in to impulse. Think things through.”
I knew he was talking about Nathaniel. He was beside himself with impotent rage. I watched his shoulders droop as he struggled with tasks he’d once done with ease. Getting old.
I was so lonely in those days after Nate left that it felt almost good to see Pru Hartley drop by. She did so fairly regularly now that Cooper was gone and she had to fend for herself. I watched her climb up the path from the creek, bent over a walking stick, carrying an empty basket for handouts, and I steeled myself for her approach.
“Pru! You look spry today. How about some apples? I’ve got some good ones for sauce.”
“Takes too long. I’ll take some, but the boys’ll just eat ’em afore I git around to sauce.”
I led the way to the root cellar, pulling my shawl around my shoulders against the October wind. “What do you hear from Cooper?”
“Naught. He can’t write, and I don’t read much better. ’Spect I’ll see him comin’ up the road when this’s over.”
I nodded. Pru picked up apples and dropped them into her basket, without a care for bruising. She helped herself to more than I would have given, but I reminded myself that we had plenty for two. Pru evidently thought so, too, for she poked around the root cellar in the dim light and helped herself to whatever she wanted. Potatoes, squash, onions, carrots, beets. I truly wondered how she expected to carry it home.
“Let’s get in out of this cold and have a cup of tea,” I invited. The warm kitchen smelled of fresh baked apple turnovers.
“Think I’ll have one of ’em with my tea,” Pru ordered, pulling a chair up close to the stove. “What do you hear from your brother?”
“Jesse? Or Nate?”
“Jesse. Nate’s gone? Where to?”
“Nate’s gone to the war. Left in September. Jesse’s well. They’re expecting a baby in December.”
“I never did know what he seen in that scrawny, pasty-faced girl. Bet she won’t give him any strong babies!”
I struggled to ignore this attempt to bait me. Remember who you’re talking to, Ann. Don’t let her get your goat.
“He still messin’ around tryin’ to save niggers out there wherever he is?”
“Indiana. He’s in Indiana. Has an orchard. Apple, cherry, and peach trees. You do hold fast to the idea that we have something to do with helping fugitives. With the war on, I doubt that there are many any more.”
Pru scoffed. “If’n I know Jesse Redfield, he’s still in it. Out there savin’ the world for the Quakers.” She picked up the biggest apple turnover as I poured her tea. “Bet if he hadn’t messed up hi
s arm he’d be carryin’ a gun with the rest of them. Well, best he ain’t. If my brother Cooper ever run up against him, he’d get a receipt for all the niggers he saved. Cooper’s right glad to be shootin’ blue bellies.”
I sighed. “Pru, don’t you ever get tired of it?”
“Tired of what?”
“Of raging. Constant, incessant raging.”
She looked away, sat back on her chair, eating her turnover and drinking her tea. After a while, she replied, “No,” picked up her basket and walking stick, and clumped out, leaving the door open behind her.
Amos and I waited for the mail, impatient for every bit of news of the war and the 37th Pennsylvania. Nathaniel wrote few letters and those he did write were brief. The luster of war faded quickly, and he complained of boredom, camp conditions, the food or lack of it, and inaction.
Let him complain, I thought. At least he’s alive.
One morning in December, I trudged through six inches of snow to visit Rebecca and found her in a snit over her brother.
“That Elias! Be glad you never married him, Ann. He’s so thick-headed, sometimes I wonder where he came from.”
“What’s he done now?”
“He’s talking about joining the Army.”
“Why? He’s thirty-five years old.”
“Don’t ask me. Deborah’s beside herself over it, and Ben is about as bad, but there’s no talking to him. I vow it’s just for the adventure. Some men never grow up.”
I sat in Rebecca’s rocking chair, knitting a pair of stockings for Amos for Christmas. “When does he plan to go?”
“As soon as he can find a company organizing.” Rebecca kneaded bread dough in a wooden trough. “What’s Deborah supposed to do, sitting alone here with Lucy and one of her own and another one on the way?”
“Wait, I guess. And pray he comes home at all.”
“How does he think Ben’s going to handle all the work? First Nathaniel goes off without a thought for Ben, and now Elias does the same thing. I tell you, Ann, I’m getting bitter over these men and their damned war!”
Elias enlisted in Captain Dick’s Company, the 107th Pennsylvania Volunteers, in January of 1862 and departed first for Harrisburg, then Virginia. He rode away grinning like a boy off to the county fair.
Nathaniel’s letters of complaint stopped abruptly that July, just after a battle called the Seven Days. Not knowing where he was, nor if he was alive or dead made us all frantic. The days dragged on; we waited for the mail. When it came, and there was nothing, we grumbled and went back to waiting. Then, in early September, a letter came.
Dear Ann and Papa,
You haven’t heard from me in a while. I and 50
or so others from F company were captured in the
Seven Days. They marched us to Richmond. Spent
all of July and most of August in a Reb prison.
Got exchanged last week. Good to be back in the
thick of it again.
Nate
Rebecca and I groaned as I read her the letter. “I’ll never understand men. Daughter of one, sister of four, wife of one, and mother of five. You’d think I’d get it, but I don’t.” We both laughed. If Rebecca didn’t get it, who would?
I folded the letter and put it away. “Ever since the war began and before, I’ve counted myself thankful to be a woman. Men seem to have an intense desire—even an obligation—to fight. It puzzles me how some seem to welcome war, even to lust after it.”
Rebecca nodded. “Some even form stronger bonds with their fighting comrades than with their wives. And to what end? To be injured, maimed, killed, or to carry horrible memories with them to their graves. She paused for a long, deep breath.
“And women—their mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts—wait and never understand, can’t begin to know the closeness their men share only with their fellow soldiers. I don’t have to see war to know I hate it.”
But see it she would. Elias Finley died at the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 30, 1862. He never saw his third child, a son born in May and named for his absent father. I grieved for the loss of a friend. Emptiness seemed to close in. The old world was passing away and the new held no promise for me.
Chapter 31
1862 – September
Something was in the air in mid-September. Fall, yes, but that wasn’t it. A feeling of foreboding haunted my days. Something terrible was happening. I could almost hear it sometimes—the roar of guns and the agonized moans and cries of wounded and dying men. I visited Rebecca to clear my mind, but that only helped until I started for home, alone, through the orchard.
At night I lay awake, tearful, filled with a nameless fear. I distracted myself with getting up, lighting my lamp, and writing letters, but nothing gave me comfort.
Around the 20th, Ben’s Jeremiah rode in astride a big workhorse and slid down to tell me news. “There’s fightin’ down to Maryland,” he said, his face flushed. “Somethin’ awful. Down by Sharpsburg. Pa heard about it at the mill.”
I drew in my breath. So that was what had dogged me for the past week. The war was closing in.
“Pa says the fight was along Antietam Creek. A terrible battle, they said. Thousands of men killed in one day! Worst battle of the war so far!”
My apprehension now burst into full blown terror. Something was wrong with Nathaniel. He’d been wounded there. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I did. Death was hovering over him, waiting to bear him away. I had to find him and bring him home. I had to save my brother.
Persuading anyone else of my intuition was beyond me. Amos stared blankly when I told him, unwilling or unable to believe my nightmarish ranting. I left him standing in the kitchen and rushed through the orchard to Ben’s house. Ben and Rebecca stood mute as I tried to enlist their support. “I need a buggy and a team. Nate is hurt. He was in that battle. That Antietam Creek battle.”
Ben stared like he thought I was mad. “Where are you going?”
“East and south. South and east. Somewhere in Maryland. I’ll know when I get there.”
Now Ben scoffed. “How would you find Nathaniel, even if your instincts are right?”
“God will guide me to him.”
“This is nonsense,” Ben scolded. “You can’t just drive off on a fool hope. Wait until you at least know something.” Rebecca nodded, siding with Ben.
“It’ll be too late. I have to go now. Today.”
Ben shook his head. “I’ve never heard such a fool notion in my life. You’re usually so sensible, Ann. What’s got into you?”
“I can’t explain it. It’s just a feeling, but I can’t shake it, Ben. It won’t let me go. Please.”
He shook his head and began walking toward the barn. “Then take someone with you. Don’t go alone.”
“Who can I take?”
“Take Adam. He’s hungry for war. Maybe he can help you find it.”
Mary’s boy, Adam Poole, had come to help Ben in Elias’ absence. At sixteen, he was a big, strong, open-faced innocent.
“What if he takes it in his head to run off and join the Army? I can’t stop him, Ben.”
“If you get close enough for him to see real war, maybe it’ll cure him of wanting to.”
Ben hitched up the buggy amid much grumbling, while I went home to gather what I’d need for the trip. I knew of Quaker families in McConnellsburg and Hagerstown, where I hoped we could stay overnight and get directions and news of where the wounded could be found.
Ben and Rebecca watched me stow my belongings in the buggy. “Sometimes I think you’re mad,” Ben muttered. “There’s no use talking. You’ll do what you will, with or without my approval.”
Rebecca was skeptical, too, but more gentle. “I worry for you, Ann. We’ll look after Amos. God bless you and keep you.”
Ben instructed Adam. “Take care of her. Do as she says, but try to keep her out of trouble.”
Adam Poole nodded, swung easily up beside me, and took the reins, his face flushed w
ith excitement. It would take two days hard traveling to get to Hagerstown. Sharpsburg was a few miles farther south. We could be gone a week or more. I didn’t wonder that Ben and Rebecca thought I was mad.
We pushed hard that first day and made it to Saluvia, a tiny village outside McConnellsburg. We were welcomed by a Quaker couple whose name I knew by association with the Underground Railroad. The next morning, they packed us a lunch and sent us on to Hagerstown, where we sought out Adam’s uncle, Matthew Poole, whose farm was situated to the west of town.
The farther south and east we went, the more intense was my certainty that this was no fool’s errand. An unshakable gloom hung in the air. A sense of death and foreboding, side-by-side with beautiful autumn weather and the early turning of the leaves. Adam was good company, always willing to do my bidding, no matter how strange it seemed. He never argued or criticized but simply did as he was told. I think it was his first experience with a woman on a mission, but I suspected it wouldn’t be his last.
At Hagerstown, we saw houses and tents transformed into makeshift hospitals, the first evidence of tragedy. Wagons transporting dead and wounded men clogged the streets.
I stopped a man walking by to try to make sense of the situation. “Do you know if there is anyone keeping track of the wounded? Where they’ve been taken?”
He shook his head. “They’re scattered helter-skelter as far north as Chambersburg, west to Hancock, east to Frederick.”
“Is there a headquarters where I can ask?”
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