Andersonville

by MacKinlay Kantor

  Sentries clucked at their stations. By God, Holley, I’m damned if them Yanks don’t just beat the devil.

  Sure enough. Like a pack of wolves.

  Holley, I hain’t never seen a pack of wolves; but if’n they’re as mean-tempered and all gone filthy as these Yankees I sure as hell don’t want to!

  ...Ah, Delaney, and it’s over to my own headquarters you must come immediately; and wait till you see what I’ve got to treat you with. Pine-top, man? Never! It’s a bottle of the finest brandy I’ve tasted since first I joined up. Devil knows where the guard at Station Thirty got it. A fine pocketknife I gave him for it, with four blades and a bone handle. It’s from a fresh Marylander I took it— Ah, you would have split a gut! Nickey snatch the lot of us if he didn’t make to jab me with it when I asked him for the knife politely. Sure, and there he lies yonder; hark you to the noise he’s making still; his jaw went to pieces like a teacup when I tapped him.

  Hymns receded from the hearing of a bowlegged Rhode Islander named Edward Blamey; he could not hear his father reading aloud: Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air—

  So regularly that it became a commonplace, a frightened-looking young officer in a shabby dun-colored jacket appeared within the stockade on muleback; he rode from point to point, rattling off his memorized screed whenever he thought there was an audience sufficient, and receiving invariably the same vociferous response.

  ...Your Government has cruelly abandoned you, as you can now see, for it makes no attempt to release you and refuses all our offers of a fair exchange of prisoners, North and South. Since your capture you must have become increasingly aware that the Southern Confederacy will soon succeed in achieving its complete and undisputed independence. The Southern Confederacy now offers you an opportunity to enter its service. You will be taken out of this uncomfortable spot, you will receive bounteous rations and adequate apparel; you will be given an attractive bounty, and, at the conclusion of hostilities, you will receive a land warrant establishing your right to—

  Aw, go fuck a duck.

  Got any of those bounteous rations along with you now?

  Why, your adequate apparel hain’t much better’n my own.

  Where’s my farm going to be, with that land warrant and all? I don’t want no farm in Texas. Got a nice farm in hell?

  Who the devil told you I wanted to be galvanized?

  Now and then a lone man—sometimes two or three at a time (comrades who had talked it over and decided that they would dishonor themselves before they would die; but they were few)—slipped to the gate in dark. They asked to speak to an officer, they mumbled the words, the guards had no respect for them and they knew it, they felt a fierce hot breath of living Unionists down their spines, they felt a fierce cold breath of Unionists who were dead.

  Some men wondered why, above all, the professional bounty jumpers and roughs did not take advantage of an opportunity to crawl out of this obnoxious slough. But the more discerning might understand easily; within these precincts there was prosperity for the rapacious. Unless driven frantic by the need for women, few of them cared to enlist as Confederates; they saw the Rebel sentries ill-housed, ill-fed, ill-equipped; where was the profit? As galvanized Rebels they would be suspect for a long time, and might not enjoy the freedom awarded to ordinary enlistees. They would have no eminence, they would be regarded suspiciously, accepted by their mates with a grudge. As ordinary Outsiders who had given their parole, even though they did not take the oath as Secessionists, they might not leave the region of the stockade under penalty of being shot. Women? . . . Sometimes you overheard officers joking about an obliging widow who lived nearby. Where were women, what were women when one considered food and drink and other comfort to be secured through bestiality and—later—barter? The more articulate thugs muttered about frying pans and fires; the less articulate thugs said nothing, but proceeded with their program of theft and murder in sullen dedication.

  Edward Blamey recognized that Number One was doing poorly by himself. His grandmother used to make the best beach plum preserves anyone had ever tasted; Ed Blamey dreamed nightly about beach plum preserves; he saw himself ladling out the winy richness into a saucer, he felt himself spooning up the preserves and swallowing with love . . . his grandmother fried a chicken the day he went to visit her. With his three-tined black-handled fork and with his sharp black-handled knife he worked steaming white meat free from the little bones, and ate chicken with beach plum treasure spread thereon; there were sage and onion dressing, boiled potatoes, chicken gravy . . . he said, Grandmother, guess I’m feeding like a hog, but I do want to ask you for another saucerful. He heard his grandmother chuckle, complimented to the point of endearment; and then he awoke and knew that he dwelt in steadily increasing filth, that he owned a small amount of rough corn-meal-cob-meal in which black bugs were crawling; that was all he owned, he had no salt; he had a raw place on his right shin which pained and worried him; the shebang leaked badly, and water came around you with awful freshness, awful chill until the faint heat of even one’s own weak body warmed it, but the bodily heat could not warm it enough. The gums of Ed Blamey’s mouth were touchy, his teeth loosened in their sockets. . . . Eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body. . . . The Wrath To Come was less effectual, it moved shapeless beyond this horizon of up-ended logs, it moved far past the sentries, the sentries were more of a plague than The Wrath To Come. Suppose he was jostled in a crowd, as some prisoners had been jostled when clawing for rations, and so was jostled against the deadline until some half-brained guard thought that he was trying to escape, and shot him through the head? His father wouldn’t want him to die . . . Edward, you got to look out for Number One; if you don’t, who will? His elder brother wouldn’t wish him to die of bleeding toothless gums with which fabrications of coarse cornmeal could not be chewed. There was a rumor that some day, somehow, bread would be baked Outside and issued to the prisoners instead of meal. But Ed would not be able to chew corn bread if his teeth were gone.

  The Baptist Church would never demand that he die. Oh, certainly—die in battle, die in a charge, have a bullet rip his rags, have a hot bulb of grapeshot take the top from his skull. But not to decay by inches and parts of inches . . . folks at home, all of Rhode Island; nobody demanding that he die as men now died near him; no idols or human patterns of the past exacting an assurance that he must spoil here while some people were stout and gay and able, living in plenty.

  No one had said a word about this smelly eventuality when he joined the cavalry. At least, he couldn’t remember that they had. With the garlands of victory around her, when so proudly she bore her brave crew . . . the shrine of each patriot’s devotion, a world offers homage to thee. Good enough for singing on the Fourth of July when everybody crowded on the green, and Judge J. T. Day stood up on the bandstand and talked about hosannahs of filial devotion arising even unto the blue Empyrean; and the Daughters of the King Sunday School class had decided to serve a public dinner for the appalling sum of twenty cents per person in order to raise money for the new Baptistry (the old Baptistry leaked down into the cellar), and that meant more chicken and dressing and other sorts of preserves besides beach plum, and apple butter and coconut cakes; and Edward Blamey and some of his friends had stuffed a toy cannon with powder and wadded newspapers, and they touched it off right in the middle of Judge J. T. Day’s speech, and then they ran like whiteheads when they saw the constable coming . . . ran long and lightly and youthfully with their pockets filled with torpedoes and Chinese crackers and squibs . . . three cheers for the Red, White and Blue!

  No. Scarcely. You didn’t feel like cheering for the Red, White and Blue when your teeth were coming out, or threatening to come out, and when your shebang leaked dolefully (By Mighty,
said the scarecrow Sergeant Colony, we got more rain than roof) and when Si Wingate whined with fever for three days and nights and was then carried to join a row of fat-eyed motionless people near the gate, and when Tup Wingate squatted in agony with his ragged pants pulled down and bloody stool dripping from his haunches.

  Got to look after Number One. Well—

  Weavers, malleable iron workers, machinists, railroad men, printers, tanners, shoemakers—oh, above all shoemakers in this nearly shoeless domain!—Rebel emissaries appeared, guarded, every day or two. Any millers, saw or grist? Oh, shoemakers. . . . Who’d like to work in Macon? All you got to do, Yank, is sign this here little old piece of paper; make your mark if you can’t sign. Yes, sir, Yank, I got a golden opportunity for you: any man who knows the cobbler’s trade! Nice boarding place, good bed to sleep in, that old lady sets a fine table, and wages on top of it. You boys are tight run here, sure enough. But I reckon you can see which way the cat’s jumping now. Just chew on it, Yank; don’t need to make up your mind today; I’ll be back a Friday, and I’ll tell that old lady to put on a mess of pork and turnips against your coming. . . .

  Aw, dry up.

  That old lady got any young ladies with her, Mister?

  Any young ladies in that good bed you was talking about?

  I hate turnips! Tell her to cook some nice green peas instead.

  Can’t read nor cipher, so you make my mark for me—great big mark.

  Hey. Go stick a weasel up your ass. Right beside the cobbler’s bench, Mister Monkey!

  The bulk of the men knew that in cutting shoe-leather or in reaming bolts or in tanning hides or in mixing mortar or in baking bricks for anyone in this bleak hated region, they would be fighting for the Bonnie Blue Flag (where was it? They had never seen the enemy with a Bonnie Blue Flag; they had seen him with the diagonal cross and stars on his red battle flag) as surely as if they rode with Forrest or marched in Hood’s columns. The bulk of the men resisted these commercial missionaries as they resisted the gangling lieutenant with his claptrap chatter about Adequate Apparel and Conclusion of Hostilities.

  The bulk of the men, again. . . . There was the silent haggard louse-ridden harness-maker from Indiana; people in his mess referred to him as Fort Wayne; he disappeared one day, and folks said that they had seen him near the South Gate; and other folks said later that they had heard Fort Wayne was gone to Albany to fashion the tug-straps which were his specialty. His mess argued about it.

  A parole is just a parole, after all. What difference whether you’re paroled to work Outside, taking care of mules, or whether you’re paroled to work in Albany?

  Plenty difference!

  Bet your life. One way you’re just here at the stockade, same as if you were on the Inside. Other way, you’re helping the Reb artillery to shoot your own God damn brother.

  Well, Fort Wayne had three kids to home.

  Do tell. I got four.

  A Pittsburgh printer vanished, so did a stationary engineman from Schenectady: one was said to be working in Macon, the other in Savannah. . . . No one knew. The men were gone; not many of them went; perhaps seven or eight went in March out of the whole stockade. More than seven thousand others stayed and drank the water or didn’t drink it, and popped the lice like popcorn from their frayed jacket seams when they held the jackets over blazing pine scraps. The pine scraps were fewer now, you couldn’t just pick them up, you had to bargain for them. A lean Scandinavian corporal called Nellie Bly because his name was Nels—he cut his wrist deliberately with a piece of tin and died quietly at sunrise, saying nothing. Adoniram Kempley insisted on taking off what remained of his clothes and sitting naked on the edge of the marsh, day and night; he said that he was waiting for somebody, he would not utter the name of the person he was waiting for; he perished within the week. An artilleryman they called Indian Giver was throttled in broad daylight by one of Curtis’s Raiders because he refused to part with his pocket comb. Paul Hexley tore his heel on a crumpled cooking pan, and soon he had no heel, nor any foot to have a heel on; soon he had no life. An undersized sixteen-year-old musician called Wabash huddled around, unable to play the fife with which he had entertained his fellows earlier. His gums looked like spongy rotten plums, they thrust oozing far out of his mouth, his lips spread back to let the gums protrude, it looked as if he were holding a bit or a gag in his mouth, a bit or a gag heavy and purplish and artificial.

  That’s scurvy, said Edward Blamey, and I got a touch of it. He lay alternately perspiring and shivering until the eastern sky grew murky instead of Stygian above obtruding sentry stations. Then he took silent terrified leave of companions who did not even sniff, who thought that he might have gone to the sinks. He crossed Stockade Creek and crouched down within a pole’s length of the unearthly root-and-oilcloth-and-log-and-blanket structure known as Collins’s Castle on the South Side. Later he was challenged by hangers-on; he stood with docility while they ripped out his pockets and found nothing except an uneven set of small flat grayish stones which he used to play checkers with, with Sergeant Colony. The roughs threw the stones away, biffed Edward Blamey until his ear rang and seemed deafened; they swaggered off toward the gate. After nine o’clock in the morning Willie Collins emerged from his castle, a furry half-naked trunk, the walking trunk of a ginger-colored tree, yelling for someone named Donner: where the hell was that meat he was after frying? Edward Blamey went to the ruffian’s side at once. He could not feel his feet touching the ground in their broken-soled shoes. But still The Wrath To Come was a long way off, he could not hear its roaring.

  Member me, Willie?

  Agh. . . . The giant rolled his red-rimmed eyes, yawned, snorted. What want ye with Willie Collins?

  I got a sharp pair of eyes. You called them ogles . . . made me a kind of proposition. Member?

  That I do. Inside with you, Rubber Legs. He took Edward Blamey into the wide cave above ground, the cave half in the ground, and it was warm inside, whatever uncertain springtime chill and wetness ruled elsewhere, and it smelled of fried food and vomit and dirty males and liquor, and oh Heavenly Father it smelled of food, and oh Heavenly Father there was a fire beaming on the baked mud hearth, and oh Heavenly Father don’t send The Wrath To Come.

  Look you. There’s a shebang yonder, name of Parker House. Artillerymen, so tis said.

  Nigh the North Gate, Willie? I think I know it.

  That you must. Striped blankets on the roof? Twould be the one. Watch you well this day, and run to me the first minute there’s not more than two—mark you, kiddie, I said two—of the Sams inside. We’ve tried them before; they’re hell on wheels; but they’ve greenbacks buried there. Mark well, or I’ll tear the velvet from your head! Not more than two.

  Willie . . . what’s velvet?

  Your red tongue, you addle cove! I’ll rip it out of your throat with these fingers if there’s more than two men in that shebang when we hit the place.

  He gave Edward Blamey some fried potatoes and onions, gave him half a cup of pine-top on which the Rhode Islander choked, but which coursed like fury through him. Ed Blamey wandered idly afield, selected a vantage point, watched with care. The Boston men might never dream that he was observing them. He counted carefully: there were six about the place. Two went away, another left later . . . he couldn’t be certain . . . by noon there were but two about? Suddenly he saw three men standing in front, talking; then one picked his way toward the North Gate; the other two went back inside the Parker House. Blamey shot himself into the presence of Willie Collins like a misshapen bowlegged projectile. Five minutes later the yells had gone aloft. Raiders! had been cried to no effect, for the other partners in the Parker House could not reach the scene in time. A thatch was torn aside, a tin can of currency was gathered up, blankets were pulled from the roof. One of the two defenders lay gulping spasmodically, holding his abdomen where kicks had smashed his bowels; the other defender lay unconscio
us, his head cracked, bystanders had heard the bone crack when he was clubbed.

  Edward Blamey drank deeply of pine-top that night, trying to forget the thing that had happened, the thing which he had brought about. Och, what a pair of ogles! cried Willie Collins. And there was a hundred and twenty-nine dollars in that wad! Cookie, break open another box of biscuit for our friend Delaney, and where’s that cheese, and what came of that tin of mushroom pickles? Sure and I feel a song coming on.

  In Athol there lived a man named Jerry Lanagan—

  Is it a song you can sing me, Delaney? A good melody to tickle the heart—

  No, said Edward Blamey, I can’t. Can’t sing a note.

  XIX

  One bright morning at the end of April late sleepers awoke to find both South Street and Main Street tenanted by recumbent bodies on which fresh sun shone brightly blue, from which fresh sun tore spasms of gilt where buttons spangled or where patent-leather chevrons reflected. Hundreds of new prisoners had been herded in through both gates during the night, and they bedded in those streets because they had nowhere else to sleep and feared to go wallowing in the dark.