He wrote for nearly another hour, summing his recommendations and suggesting prisons in two additional localities which had been mentioned to him by General Winder before his exchange with Winder became acid. In conclusion I beg leave to recommend that no more prisoners be sent to this already overcrowded prison. . . . Since my inspection was made, over 1,300 prisoners have been added to the number specified in the reports herewith.
He felt his mind straying, it could not sustain him. He wanted to tell all, he had not told all. He began to worry about the uncertainty of his sources, especially with regard to hospital and surgeons. He must walk in the night and speak with someone—perhaps even have a glass of comfort, perform some selfish act in order to soothe the grating of his nerves. He thought of his assistant who had followed him to Andersonville, Major Hall; the mere fact that Hall was a direct subordinate ruled him out. There was another man whom he felt he could trust, this man he should seek.
Colonel Chandler did not wish to leave his report and the attendant papers lying about. He did not yet wish to lock his field desk, he might have a use for it later tonight. He folded the sheets carefully and put them into the pocket of his threadbare linen shirt. He took hat and sidearms and walked toward the Claffey place. Three times he was challenged, three times he identified himself and went past pickets. He was in no way confident that Harrell Elkins would be at the Claffey house or that he would be awake. But Elkins had gone on duty at four o’clock that morning, had slaved for twelve hours, had enjoyed whatever broken naps his frayed weariness permitted. Now he sat upon the gallery with Lucy.
Elkins said something about their not being gods, but they would offer the guest nectar in any event.
I should be glad to taste nectar. Colonel Chandler saw a white pitcher in the gloom. Elkins had gone promptly to fetch another tumbler; Chandler did not know what they meant by nectar, he was too strained to speculate.
Lucy explained, Tis from the Toccoa apples. A relative brought us slips from Habersham County long ago; but Poppy declares they don’t flourish here as in those hills yonder.
I should think not. Colonel Chandler thought of ravines where the Chattahoochee rose.
But my father has a green thumb, so they do bear. The apples are just past ripe, and I direct Naomi to stew them with honey when honey can be had. We press out all the juice and express a kind of sauce, sir, and we’ve always called it nectar. I hope you’ll think it’s just the best. Tis mixed with cold spring water, so please to drink deeply and healthily. She added, when Harry came with the glass, I had some difficulty with Surgeon Elkins. She gave a little laugh which suggested a depth of other emotion.
Has the surgeon been ungallant, Ma’am? Has he been annoying you?
Truly he has. He refused to drink apple nectar at first; said he didn’t thirst for it.
Frankly, Miss Lucy, he has no good taste.
The girl’s voice shook. He would not drink it because the Yankee prisoners had none.
Elkins shifted his heavy feet and uttered a bleat of remonstrance.
Colonel Chandler lifted the glass in his hand and held it to vague light which came from inside the front room. My own victuals have choked me since I came here. Nevertheless I forced myself to eat them, and— To Elkins— Nevertheless you should force yourself to drink nectar.
Lucy thought that the visitor must have appeared for a purpose. If you gentlemen will excuse me, please. They arose, Lucy went rustling away.
So it stuck in your craw? Chandler felt an angry tendency to coarseness. The men seated themselves again.
You know how women are, Harry told him—Elkins, the man who knew so little about how women were. Perhaps I might mind the hospital less if it didn’t accompany me perforce when I’d left it. Can I be of service, sir?
I have intruded upon you and the young lady.
Scarcely the place or season for romantic chit-chat, Colonel. The surroundings are not conducive to romance.
Mr. Claffey has retired?
He is abed and with either Shakespeare or the Apostle Paul. He asserts that he finds a refuge of almost equal character in the historic plays or in the admonitions to the people of Corinth. Mr. Claffey goes so far as to say that this is damaging to his religious stability.
Since we are alone, Surgeon, may we have a candle?
The candle was brought and stood leaning under its flame, attacked by tiger moths. By this light Chandler examined his papers. If you will be so kind as to confirm certain details I’ll be in your debt. Let me see— I took my ratio of deaths directly from the report of the chief surgeon, Dr. White. We’ll not bother with that.
To be frank, said Harry, I assisted Surgeon White in the report’s preparation.
I’d guessed as much. Is it correct that such original hospital arrangements as were suggested were intended only for the accommodation of the supposed ratio of sick to a total population of ten thousand men?
That is correct.
Do you know how many prisoners were on hand, in camp and hospital, on the first of July?
Elkins’s voice scratched. I was not present at that time, as you know, but I recall seeing a return recently. Something over twenty-six thousand on hand on the first of July.
And how many new prisoners were received during the month?
Something over seven thousand.
Making a total above thirty-three thousand, then. How many died during July?
Above seventeen hundred.
Would you guess as to how many are sick within the stockade, untended?
Impossible to state.
Now then, of the medical officers: how many hold commissions?
But ten hold commissions, sir. Most of the others are detailed from the militia. As for myself, I sought this duty because I was driven by the need.
Elkins stood up nervously and struck his hands together. I might admit also to more personal and selfish reasons for wishing Andersonville duty, but let that pass. Since I am ticketed as unfit for service in the field, I felt justified in trying to manipulate myself into a sphere where my conscience would assure me that I was needed. As a former officer I should be reluctant to state that many of our surgeons have accepted positions here to avoid service in the ranks. But, by God, sir, I do say it!
I know the type, said Chandler. They’ll relinquish their contracts as soon as the present emergency exists no more and the militia is disbanded. Pray sit down, Elkins. You’ve been working long and hard—too long and too hard, I fear.
Harrell sank back into his chair. He said dryly, But little injury would result when those contracts are relinquished. The men who hold them are generally very inefficient. Many of them only visit the post once a day, at Sick Call. They bestow but little attention on those under their care.
What is your opinion as to the management and police of the general hospital grounds?
As good as the limited means will allow.
What are the facilities?
There is a necessity for at least three times the number of tents and amount of bedding on hand at this time.
What of medicines?
The supply is wholly inadequate. Frequently there is no supply of medicines. Great delays are experienced in the filling of requisitions.
Chandler folded his papers, put them away, pinched out the candle in order to discourage insects. Both he and Elkins had become oblivious to the hurt of mosquitoes. Hordes droned day and night, sometimes in visible clouds, again they were blown away by a wind. The two men sat in silence for so long that Harrell Elkins fell asleep and was roused by his own head snapping forward. He came awake to see the colonel’s dark shape poised on the edge of the gallery, his back to Elkins. The young surgeon had a vague sleepy thought about some seeker for self-destruction teetering on the edge of an abyss.
Chandler was speaking of the past, something about his youthful days at We
st Point, and Elkins tried to send his attention hounding on the heels of Chandler’s conversation, so that the visitor would not be aware of this lapse into slumber.
Walked the same paths in his time that I did in mine, said Colonel Chandler. And so, of course, did Grant and Sherman and most of the leading Yankees. They’re enemies now, but I do not hold them to be arch-fiends. This old wretch seems to fit the description. I could not speak in this fashion to a subordinate or a superior; but you, sir, are a doctor—however young—and doctors must be father confessors to all.
Elkins managed to say, A portion of the responsibility which we must assume with the Hippocratic Oath.
Gad, sir, that man is completely indifferent to the welfare of the prisoners! He’s undisposed to do anything to alleviate their sufferings. When I remonstrated with him I received only foul language in reply; when I spoke of the great mortality existing among the prisoners, and pointed out to him that the sickly season was coming on, and that sickness must necessarily increase unless something was done for the prisoners’ relief—the swamp, for instance, drained; proper food furnished them, and in better quantity; and other sanitary suggestions which I made to him— He replied that he thought it was better to let half of them die than to take care of the men.
Elkins said, I have encountered the son, never encountered the father.
Major Hall had spoken to him previously. I’d suggested that he present some recommendations to the general whilst I was otherwise engaged. The major returned to me white of face; when he reported the fury and the obscenity employed, I could not well believe him, though I do trust Major Hall. I thought it incredible, thought that he must be mistaken! No, says Hall, he not only used those words once, but twice. Well, my friend, as I have just stated, subsequently General Winder made use of the same expressions to me.
Chandler took up the belt and sword and pistol which he had put aside when he sat down. I trust that you will forgive me, Surgeon. I’m better for the gift of Miss Claffey’s nectar, and for your patience. My work here is concluded—if there can be any conclusion to such an effort—and I shall be proceeding to the headquarters of the Army of Tennessee.
Their hands squeezed, the colonel wished Elkins success in his labors and cautioned him about wearing himself to the bone. He sent respects and sympathy to the Claffeys, then walked away across the black lane. Harrell Elkins was fast asleep in his chair before Chandler had reached the first picket.
It was almost lewd, thought the colonel, that he should now be entertaining memories of long-ago days at the Academy. Yet he presumed that it was because an illusion of idealistic service had been projected to youths there. At present, in observing the ideal trampled so cruelly and the service debased, he turned for comfort to thought of surroundings where this dream, now mutilated, had been born. Had John Winder been human when younger? Had he stolen bread-and-butter and hidden it in his leather bell cap, as Chandler had done when he was a cadet? Had he joined in a bread-and-butter feast after Taps in the old South Barracks? Had he gone illicitly to Benny Havens’ and plunged his hot face into a mug of beer bought on credit?
When you and I and Benny, and all the others, too,
Are called before the Final Board, our course in life to view.
May we never ’fess on any point; but straight be told to go,
And join the army of the blest, at Benny Havens’, oh!
In his tent Chandler relighted his lantern and stepped upon the path he had longed and yet feared to tread. He wrote a supplemental report to Colonel Chilton. In a small way he thought he would have been harming his own conception of the military ideal to which he was sworn if he did not do so. It was as if the flag had been befouled by Winder. He, Chandler, might not be able to scrub the colored folds clean again; but he wanted to own his soul, even if he were shorn of rank in the process.
My duty requires me respectfully to recommend a change in the officer in command of the post, Brigadier-General J. H. Winder, and the substitution in his place of some one who unites both energy and good judgment with some feeling of humanity and consideration for the welfare and comfort (so far as is consistent with their safekeeping) of the vast number of unfortunates placed under his control; some one who at least will not advocate deliberately and in cold blood the propriety of leaving them in their present condition until their number has been sufficiently reduced by death to make the present arrangement suffice for their accommodation; who will not consider it a matter of self-laudation and boasting that he has never been inside of the stockade, a place the horrors of which it is difficult to describe, and which is a disgrace to civilization. . . .
XXXVIII
The young old friends from West Dummerston, Vermont—Adam Garrett and John Appleby—had taken up tenancy together on a portion of the crowded terrain commonly designated as the Island. Their green past was fled. Nowadays the fact that they had a halfway decent shebang (even though the Island lay surrounded by putrid bogs, and thus its inhabitants were named the Leper Colony) was more important than a remembrance that once, side by side, they’d walked to the covered bridge across the West River, and extended their fishing poles, also side by side. It was more important to Adam Garrett that he had been able to barter for a handful of dried beans, than that he had been wounded at Gettysburg when he served previously with the Sixteenth. It was more important to John Appleby that he brought home a fair mess of roots to repay laborious hours of digging, than that he had served under the admired Colonel James M. Warner, an actual graduate of the United States Military Academy . . . few of the Volunteer Regiments could claim such a commander! Camp Bradley at Brattleboro, with Hallie Small and Hephzibah Clark fetching loaded baskets on visitors’ day: that was forgotten. So were forgotten old Austrian muskets put into the excited hands of awkward country boys. John forgot the filth of Cliffburne barracks since now he dwelt in an ocean of filth which would have made Cliffburne spotless in comparison.
The youths remembered only that they were both captured at the abortive Weldon Road battle southwest of Petersburg, in the early evening of June twenty-third.
Their principal friends on the Island, since so many of the Eleventh Vermont boys lay dead, were two artillerymen from Battery E of the Fifth Maine. One was sick, one was in comparatively good health. The Maine boys lived in a dugout adjoining. Sometimes in early days of captivity the four New Englanders argued vociferously as they cited the advantages of their respective States. Sometimes they came close to blows; then in the end, being good Christian village boys with a bounce of humor, they shook hands and said that it was a pity there weren’t some New Hampshiremen in between to act as a buffer.
Through blinding heat, with mosquitoes keening thicker each night, they neglected rivalries and ignored the remembrance of Maine and Vermont. Might there be parents and clear-eyed tawny-haired girls who mourned them as Departed, or who had heard the truth of their capture and prayed for prison doors to be swung? Appleby had raked hay on his father’s three mowings terraced above the gentle valley of the West River, Garrett had unpacked boots and weighed out sugar and sacked salt in his father’s store. Portland Hyde had ridden logs in a river: he was a lumberman and proud of it; and the man Caldwell boasted earlier of how many cows he’d milked night and morning since he was knee-high to a cow. At last it mattered not what they had been, where they came from, what orderly dreams they’d once held. Congregationalism mattered not, nor did the fact that Hyde’s mother had been a Quaker and his father was not a Quaker, but still his mother insisted on talking Plain in their home. . . . Andersonville reduced them to a single pattern: they were stamped out of that pattern by the enormous heavy die of confinement, like a row of four toy tin wretches holding hands.
Late one day the lumberman Hyde died of dropsy as the sun was draining down behind the fence. Adam Garrett and John Appleby tossed a penny to see which should go with Caldwell, carrying Hyde down to the dead row. Appleby lost—or won, depend
ing upon how you looked at it: Caldwell had agreed to give Hyde’s shirt to the man who helped him. It was not so much the weight of the body as the awkward task of handling a tall object like Portland Hyde, who weighed perhaps ninety pounds at death (exclusive of the fluid in him) but was still six feet and three inches in length. His flannel shirt was not good for much—tatters, mainly—but it had three large buttons on it. John Appleby planned to wash the shirt in a broth of ashes and get rid of most of the lice for a time at least.
Caldwell came over and said, He’s gone. He ain’t got a breath in him, and they all crept back to take a look at Hyde. The lumberman lay flat on his back with brown eyes protruding, and late flies settling stubbornly around the eyes, and moving in and out of the open mouth.
If there was some way to prick him and get rid of all that there dropsy water, he’d be simpler to carry. This was Appleby’s idea.
I could use my penknife, Adam Garrett suggested.
Not on Porty, Caldwell cried, bristling. He may be gone to meet his Maker, but no one’s to put a blade in him.
Hellfire. I was jesting.
I calculate we should hold a service. Porty was a good church man.
Garrett told John, Fetch your Scriptures.
John’s Scriptures consisted only of Matthew with part of Mark and the last two pages of Malachi. He had them rolled around a bit of stick and tied with yarn, and covered with a piece of stained linen. Handling the flimsy leaves with care, he thumbed until he found the verses he sought.
...He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall you see him: lo, I have told you.
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