Andersonville

by MacKinlay Kantor

  Well, by God, these are the freshest fish that ever got hooked.

  Fresh fish, hell! Looks like the Rebs gobbled up a brigade of major-generals.

  Looky. Silk chevrons on some.

  Patent-leather. . . .

  Looky that gang. Got feathers in their hats, I swear.

  Hey, there, Yank! If you be a Yank. What you from?

  A man roused slowly as if he had drunk himself to sleep on liquor, as if his head puffed and rang, as if he saw rats gnawing close. He gazed at the blackened hairy skeletons a-crowding. Huh?

  I said, What you from?

  Hundred and Third Pennsylvania.

  Where you get grabbed?

  Huh?

  Whereabouts were you captured?

  Oh. Plymouth, North Carolina.

  Plymouth? You must be Pilgrim Fathers for certain. Hey, Pee-leg, come take a look at these Pilgrim Fathers!

  The term Plymouth Pilgrims would cling to them throughout their captivity; it would be a short captivity for many. They awakened in the pit squarely beneath a privy used by devils, the shock numbed and dumbed them, the devils’ evacuations poured over them, they were mired, they were suffocated, they drowned, they died.

  For most their war had been a light and easy war until the seventeenth of April. These regiments dwelt at quiet if important forts along the coast all the way from Fortress Monroe to Beaufort, and good food came in on supply ships, and the quarters of such garrisons were dry and clean. On a Sunday you might attend services at Grace Church. . . . Off duty, a man could lie along old pilings and whip a line around his wrist, and toss the plummet and baited hook out into shifting water, and prepare for a striped fish to flap and lunge and delight him. . . . The Eighty-fifth New York, the One Hundred and First Pennsylvania, the One Hundred and Third Pennsylvania: every man waited contentedly for boats to bear the regiments northward. It would be a lark, sailing for home on a veteran’s furlough. Instead came a powerful ram called the Albemarle, and three brigades of troops attacking by land. Cannon thudded from the forts, the Albemarle ripped past unscathed and sent the Southfield rolling into the sea and pounded the Miami into flight. Federal troops on land held out for two more days, then they surrendered to what seemed like a million polite North Carolinians who did not even search their knapsacks.

  Looky, Charley, at them bureaus.

  I swan. Member when I was a new recruit, I packed one of them big bureaus off to the front. How it like to gauled the shoulders off of me. Hey, Yank, what you got in your bureau? Got any spare crackers to swap?

  I’ll warrant you he’s got everything but the kitchen stove.

  He’ll have that under that big feathered hat of his.

  You actually tried to fight a battle in rigging like that? No wonder you got grabbed.

  The newcomers explained haltingly that since they stood in momentary expectancy of sailing north from Plymouth, they were wearing their best new uniforms at the time the Confederate onslaught began; after that they had no chance to change, they never even thought of changing their clothes. They fought from the seventeenth until the twentieth of April and then were captured in finery. Along with the veterans’ brigade were the Sixteenth Connecticut Infantry, the Twenty-fourth New York Independent Battery, a company of the Twelfth New York Cavalry, and two batteries of Massachusetts heavy artillery. Two-thirds of these captives arrived on this day; the rest reached Andersonville on May third. Not a man of them had ever envisioned a place like Andersonville in his ugliest imaginings. The immensity of smell, the shrunken limbs, the pot bellies of the dropsical, the oozing mouths of the scurvy-ridden— Blackened masses of faces which pressed close with hungry eyes staring— The bundles of lousy hair bristling out, wads of lousy beards a-stringing—

  There they sat with freighted knapsacks, the heavy oblongs with good rolled blankets atop, and stuffed with every civilized comfort known to the easy regime of garrison troops—troops who’d never marched a thousand miles or (many of them) even a hundred miles— There they sat, with sun glittering on their niceness. They could not arise from the ground.

  How in tarnation did they ever get in here with all that truck? It’s a sight for sore eyes.

  You know the answer to that one. Guarded by Regular troops instead of these chicken-shit Home Guards!

  Hey, Corp. You with the fancy mustache. Swap you two good blanket poles for that canteen? You got to have blanket poles or else you got no shebang to dwell in. Come along, old top, I’ll show you what I mean—

  They moved in stricken daze, their eyes saw things, the brains behind them would not believe. Raiders began swooping down, the moment individuals were separated from the mass which might have given protection—and did, for wiser ones, for a time.

  Wiser and more resilient than many of his fellows loomed a broad-shouldered young man of twenty-three with a well-trimmed mane of black hair and ears wide and outstanding. His mouth was full-lipped, his brown eyes brooding and thick-lidded, and he had the Semitic nose fancied by cruel cartoonists and seldom seen in fact. His name was Nathan Dreyfoos. He was well at home in the world although never had he thought to find himself domiciled in a roost such as this. Born in Boston, he had spent most of his life abroad, traveling from country to country with his father and mother, taught by English tutors the while. His father was a purchasing agent for merchants in eastern American cities, buying everything from tweeds to olive oil, and back again to watches and Parisian perfumery and Bavarian china and Flemish glass. Nathan was tri-lingual as to English, French and Spanish, speaking also subordinate dialects of the latter language. He spoke a good deal of Yiddish and some German, Italian and Swedish. He owned no ambition in life except to worship the better elements of the past and (in some vague manner as yet undecided) to acquaint people with lessons and glories of the past, to the eventual comfort and enrichment of humanity.

  Abroad when the war began, Nathan Dreyfoos felt no upsurge of nationalism. His parents were barely removed by one generation from their separate European backgrounds, and thus had returned easily to Continental attitude and thought. The young man heard about the burst of civil warfare with disquietude and regret, because wars inflicted miseries, and he was benevolent of heart and did not wish to have miseries inflicted. He liked Boston, New York, Philadelphia; he grew momentarily and remotely saddened at thinking of Bostonians, New Yorkers, Philadelphians being slain in battle. He liked Charleston and New Orleans; was it not a horrid thing that people from South Carolina and Louisiana must now die or be mutilated? He would have felt a personal concern of infinitely greater depth if he had learned that in Madrid they were raising an army to invade France, or that the Dutch were assembling a navy to sail against England.

  When again he walked an American street he strolled in citizen’s clothing tailored by Desborough. One evening he stood sipping wine in the public room of the Astor House when two young officers of the Eighty-fifth New York moved close to him and, having absorbed more drink than their heads could carry, felt it incumbent upon them to discuss in clear ringing tones the worthlessness of well-dressed stay-at-homes who permitted braver men to go out and do their fighting for them.

  Present company excepted, said Lieutenant Corley elaborately.

  Oh, yes, indeed, said Lieutenant Stevenson. As a matter of fact, my dear Tom, I’ve heard that our Hebrew brethren are disinclined to violence of any kind. A fellow couldn’t hold them responsible. . . .

  I beg your pardon, said Nathan Dreyfoos, but they pretended not to hear him, although most men in the place were turning to watch. Nathan paid for his wine, and stepped into the street. He had not long to wait in the reflected glare of gas. Soon the lieutenants appeared, flushed and talkative, bound for another bar-room. Politely Nathan invited them to step back inside and apologize to the company there—not so much for the insults directed at him personally as for the remarks about Hebrews. Corley, the broadest and longest, sa
id that he would see Nathan in hell first. Very well, said Nathan Dreyfoos, let us go. By way of this alley.

  In the alley he flattened Corley with his first blow, and Stevenson rushed upon him. Stevenson struck the cobblestones while Corley was rising and thus it went for a time, amid yells of servants and guests pouring from the Astor House. The two officers were alternately smashed and toppled, while Nathan received no damage except to his attire. Mr. Halliburton, his favorite tutor, was a Cantabrian athlete with not-too-thwarted ambitions as a pugilist. Once Mr. Halliburton cracked Nathan’s jawbone; then the guilty pair had to connive to keep this dark secret from the senior Dreyfooses. Nathan was a seasoned expert at boxing as well as a seasoned expert at fencing, and felt regret at what he was doing now. Yet, in some disquieting manner, this performance seemed called for. A policeman put a cautious hand on the young man’s shoulder while he was bending over the bleeding and amazed Lieutenant Corley, and told him that he was under arrest for brawling in public. Nonsense, said Nathan, and gave the policeman a five-dollar bill. With his arm around Corley and with Stevenson stumbling sore-faced against his right side, Nathan led the way to his own quarters upstairs, and of course they were handsome quarters. A doctor came with plasters, a mumbling Negro carried off the officers’ clothing to be repaired; more wine appeared, together with cold beef and chicken. The gentleman talked long. Corley and Stevenson spent the balance of the night in Nathan’s big bed and Nathan slept on the sofa. In this way the Eighty-fifth New York gained a somewhat poetic linguist who insisted on enlisting as a private soldier because he feared the responsibility of command.

  ...But, damn it, my dear boy! Your father must know heaps of men with influence, and you just heard what Tom said about his father and the senator. There’s bound to be a vacancy soon and—

  Now, listen, old chap. I’m acquainted with Colonel Fardella personally, not just as a subordinate company officer. When once he hears that you can speak Italian—

  In France, said Nathan, my best friend was my father’s coachman.

  But a fellow of culture and—

  In Spain, Nathan told them, Olmedo the gardener was my best friend. I knew poor people, I knew a charcoal burner in the hills, I knew bandits. I am very much at ease with such people.

  Oh, damn it, Dreyfoos! We’ve got no charcoal burners, and not too many gardeners or coachmen, I’ll wager that. Our men are mostly young chaps, boys from good Christian homes— Beg pardon—

  Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you. . . . Nathan smiled at Lieutenant Stevenson and put a hand on his throbbing arm. In Málaga I was accustomed to playing my violin for the monks. And I know the Beatitudes of your Faith. And I do come from a good home. I could be harmonious with the men in your command.

  He served under First Lieutenant Corley and Second Lieutenant Stevenson and was promoted by rapid degrees to the rank of sergeant, with the approval of those surrounding him. In the attack on Plymouth both Corley and Stevenson were killed—the former by a shell from the Albemarle, the latter by a stray musket ball half an hour before the Unionists surrendered. During the days which followed his capture, Nathan walked with a heavy heart. He was disconsolate at losing his friends, yet he thought they had died for a sound purpose. That long ago night, in the Astor House, the ebullient youths grew articulate in stress of emotion following their thrashing. They had persuaded Nathan that since he turned out to be historically minded, he must look at the present conflict in the historical sense. The Nation had been founded in bitter conflict, and had achieved to world importance through further conflict and through its own crowding growth to the West. Broken in half, the impact of America on the world and on the future would be lessened; the United States and the Confederate States would resolve into puny second-rate powers. It was so throughout history . . . look at the federations which made strength; look at Grecian history, Roman, western European.

  The Union must survive! cried the blond young Corley, with his bruised mouth full of chicken.

  And, as a born American, it is your strict duty to aid in that survival!

  But I love the South of this country as well as the North.

  Do you suppose that General George H. Thomas, for example, does not love Virginia? He was born in Virginia, Virginia is his mother State! Why is General Thomas fighting for the Union? Because he recognizes the necessity of resistance against armed rebellion! The Nation is bigger than any one State or group of States, Friend Nathan. It is historically demanded that this Nation survive as a single entity. If you go to the army, as you are obliged to go to the army, you will be fighting—not as a renegade American returned to these shores, not as a native Bostonian, not for the State of Massachusetts. You will be fighting for the greatest, noblest commonwealth which ever gave a benefit to mankind: the single, Federal commonwealth of sister States, the United States of America!

  Cracky, Tom, cried Salem Stevenson. I can’t wait for this war to be over, so’s you can hang out your shingle and strike for the Albany assembly!

  Corley was duly modest. Well, I used to twist a mean verb, as they say, when I was on the debating panel at the Academy.

  Stevenson mounted stiffly to a gilt-tasseled chair and, champagne glass in hand, demanded to know of Nathan whether he had ever seen Daniel Webster in the flesh. He, Stevenson, had.

  When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once-glorious Nation . . . on a land rent with civil feuds and drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood—

  Toby the floor-waiter knocked softly at the door. If the gentlemen could kindly be a mite more quiet. Lady in Number Twelve she feeling poorly. And it’s nigh to four o’clock.

  They talked more softly, but still they talked earnestly. Nathan was forced to admit that his grandparents on both sides had been immigrants because they sought the opportunity and safety which America afforded. He was forced to admit that his father had advanced in a fashion impossible in most other countries . . . was this not, then, a debt which he owed to the Federal Union and which he must pay by offering his own body and spirit? Stirred to intimacy, Nathan now told how his grandfather Margolis’s father and mother had been beaten to death and hurled into the flames of their own house, while the baby which was Grandfather Margolis lay covered by straw nearby and thus escaped extermination in that pogrom. His new friends (the heedless Jew-baiters of a few hours before) paled at the description and clucked in sympathy.

  These memories returned with blinding force during the heartbreak of defeat and surrender, during the pain of being transported as a chattel of war. Because he was accustomed to travel and acutely sensitive to each impression, Nathan did not dwell, however, in a stricken doze. Automatically his mind said, This is new. This I have not seen before. This I will remember. . . . The enemy’s reserve pickets marching us forth. They say this village is Jamesville. The last was Foster’s Mills. . . . Why this desolation, why the white and fire-marked chimneys of houses no longer standing? The damage must have been done by our Union troops when they raided to Whitehall. . . . Our guards say they are from the Thirty-fifth North Carolina. A very decent set of fellows; and civil war becomes increasingly dreadful when I realize that it was they or their brothers-in-arms who killed my friends the two lieutenants, without whose instigation I would not have come to fight in the first place. . . . Suppose my father and I had sailed to New Orleans (and we might have done so, but for the blockade) instead of to New York? Then I might have met some Southerners and been insulted by them, and might have whipped them in the same way; and then, over wine and meat, might have been persuaded that their Cause was the Cause truly just, and so might have found myself wearing their uniform. . . . No, no, impossible! Because a civil war proves in its very waging that it is the nastiest business afoot; and it is to prevent for all time the recurrence of such strife that we thinking Union troops are willing to
endure. Corley and Stevenson are now wiped off the slate, along with so many thousands of others. Perhaps the damp sponge of Fate is waiting to rub out my own name. If so, I am willing to let it be rubbed, because I came earnestly into this situation. I am confident that the North will prevail; I am assured that, eventually, the forces of dissolution will crumble; I know in my heart and soul that one day both sections of this Country will again be forged together, never more to be split.

  The great lamentation of the future will be concerned only with the fact that, by and large, the most energetic and high-minded youths of all these States involved were the ones who perished; and most of them were too young to leave their seed behind them. It will be a long weakness for the united Nation of the future. The soul which might have written the compelling opera went winging at Manassas Junction. The hand which might have sculptured a shape fairer than Moses was shot off on the Chickahominy. The brain which could have managed the richest agronomy of all time was drilled by a conoidal bullet at Stone’s River. The hearts which might have beat with the rhythm of philanthropist and priest and educator . . . O wicked Gettysburg, O doleful Vicksburg, O thrice lewd Fredericksburg!

  Lang wull his lady look

  Frae the castle doon,

  E’er she see the Earl o’ Murray

  Come soonding through the toon.

  ...Good old Halliburton, and the ballads he sang before the fireplace; and Mother chording on that ancient gilt spinet in the corner, and candle flames bowing in obeisance to the legendry, and the warm sea touched with stars at the foot of our lawn. Will ever I see them again? Will ever I know the future?

  O sad maimed Future! Where is your prime inventor? The ocean covered him with barnacles when the Monitor went down. Where is the saint whose scalpel or microscope was intended to still the scream of cancer? We Federals spattered his skull at Missionary Ridge. O long discordant Future drowned in tears, as now my soul is drowning! Where is the President whose power and nobility might have led a healed Nation to world-enfolding glory? The fever took him at Rock Island, in Arkansas, in Libby Prison, at Fort Delaware. He wore blue, he wore butternut. He drew a lanyard, he tore the paper of a cartridge with his teeth, he galloped behind John Morgan, he rode to meet the lead on that last charge of Farnsworth’s in a Pennsylvania glen. Minister and explorer, balloonist and poet, botanist and judge, geologist and astronomer and man with songs to sing . . . they are clavicles under leaves at Perryville, ribs and phalanges in the soil of Iuka, they are a bone at Seven Pines, a bone at Antietam, bones in battles yet to be sweated, they are in the soil instead of walking, the moss has them.