Fire by Night

by Lynn Austin

  “I’m afraid so. There’s been a battle …another terrible disaster for the Union. Robert is missing.”

  The news of her cousin’s disappearance stunned Julia. She sank down on the arm of her mother’s chair as she tried to comprehend her father’s words. She’d grown up with Robert, lived on the same street with him, and had been conscious of his annoying presence for as long as she could remember. She’d made fun of him for his clumsiness and for his silly preoccupation with soldiers and battles. But even when he’d donned a uniform and marched off to war she’d taken it for granted that he’d always be hanging around in the background of her life somewhere, making a nuisance of himself. But now he wouldn’t be. He was missing.

  “Oh, Daddy …not Robert. … ” she pleaded.

  Her mother gave a little cry. “But …they’ll find him, won’t they? He’ll be all right.”

  “We don’t know for sure, we can only hope. They believe he’s been taken prisoner, and if so, we should hear in a few days. In the meantime, his parents are quite distraught.”

  “I can well imagine!”

  “Robert’s mother fell into a swoon when we told her the news, and we had to use smelling salts to revive her. They’ve sent for the doctor, but if you could go to her, Martha …In fact, I think we should all go over there.”

  “Of course,” Julia’s mother said. “Right away. Just give me a moment to collect myself.”

  Julia knew that her mother was more than capable of handling a situation such as this. Once her initial shock passed, she would become the pillar they would all lean on in the next few days. Julia saw the relief on her father’s face, his calm returning now that his wife was home, and it surprised her to see how much her father depended on her. Maybe her mother was more than just an ornament on his arm.

  “What a day this has been,” he said with a sigh. “Joseph received the telegram around noon, and I’ve been trying to get more information about the battle ever since.”

  “What happened, Daddy?” Julia asked. “You said it was a Union disaster?”

  “This isn’t the time, Julia,” her mother said.

  “No, it’s all right,” her father said. “I think I can talk about it now …I think maybe I should.” He closed his eyes for a long moment, then drew a breath. “I have a friend in the news office at the Enquirer. He found out some of the details for me. It was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission. A small Union force crossed the Potomac at a place called Ball’s Bluff to check out the Confederate defenses. There was a skirmish. The Rebels sent for reinforcements, but we didn’t have enough boats to get our own reinforcements across the river in time. Our only choice was to retreat—but there weren’t enough boats for that, either. The men were trapped on the riverbank beneath the bluff, with nowhere to go for cover. It was a shooting gallery. When some of the men tried to swim, the Rebels shot them all to pieces in the water. A couple of boatloads of men who’d been wounded in the earlier skirmish got swamped as desperate soldiers tried to climb aboard …and they all sank.”

  He paused for a long moment, then drew another deep breath. “The officers, including Robert, waited to cross the river last, allowing their men to get to safety first. They evidently fought valiantly, but there were too many Rebels and no cover …they had their backs to the water. So, rather than see all of their remaining men slaughtered, they surrendered. More than five hundred were taken prisoner, hundreds more were killed in action or drowned, and nearly two hundred were wounded. Altogether, we lost nearly half of the force we started out with.”

  Having seen Bull Run, Julia could easily imagine the scene— the panicked retreat beneath a hail of gunfire, the blinding cloud of sulfur and smoke, the screams of dying men and flying shells. The earth beneath Robert’s feet would have been peppered with enemy bullets as he’d waited for the boats, but he’d stood his ground in the midst of chaos and death to let his men cross the river first. His courage had gotten him captured. Julia’s cowardice as she’d panicked and run had cost her Nathaniel’s respect—and her own.

  “Poor Robert,” her mother murmured as she stood, ready now to go console Robert’s parents. Julia stood, too. Her father rested a comforting hand on her shoulder as she wiped her tears.

  “He’ll pull through, Julia. The boy is strong. He has what it takes.”

  But Julia’s tears were more for herself than for Robert. He had always known what he’d wanted—to be an army officer. Now he was following his dream. She’d had no dream except to marry Nathaniel Greene, and he’d made it clear that he could never love her the way she was. This afternoon Julia had recognized herself in the other young girls, interested only in fashion and flirting—and she’d hated what she’d seen. She longed to be different, to be brave and self-sacrificing like her cousin, to be the kind of woman Nathaniel would love and respect. But as she hurried down the street to her cousin’s house that cool October evening, she had no idea how to change.

  Chapter Four

  Western Pennsylvania

  October 1861

  One week after leaving the Haggertys’ store in Bone Hollow, Phoebe Bigelow stood in line at a U.S. Army enlistment office in western Pennsylvania. She’d wrangled rides in several farmers’ wagons, a couple of nights’ sleep in their haylofts, and even a few free meals at their tables after she’d told them she was fixing to enlist. They’d sent her off with their blessings, stuffing her pockets with apples and buttermilk biscuits. But now she thought she just might faint from the heat as she waited in line in the overcrowded storefront office with dozens of young men eager to enlist.

  Phoebe was so tall she could see clear over the head of the man in line in front of her. And she couldn’t help overhearing the enlisting officer as he bellowed at him. “I have to write you up as ‘4-F’! That means you’re missing your four front teeth!

  “What’s that you say?” the man shouted in return. Seemed the poor fellow was not only toothless but deaf to boot.

  “You can’t fight. I can’t enlist you.”

  “I can’t fight?”

  “No.”

  “Hang it all—why not?”

  “No teeth,” the officer shouted, pointing to his own. “You need teeth.”

  “Since when does a fella need teeth to fight Rebels? I ain’t gonna bite into them, am I? Just give me a gun and let me shoot them.”

  “You can’t tear open the gunpowder cartridges if you don’t have your teeth.”

  “What?”

  “I said you need your teeth to open …Oh, what’s the use. Corporal, get him out of here.”

  He signaled to a uniformed man standing nearby, and before Phoebe could blink, the corporal whisked the toothless man away and she stood before the officer’s table. The wide strip of muslin she’d wrapped around her bosom was drenched with sweat. She wondered what would happen to her if the U.S. Army discovered she was a girl. Would they throw her in jail for lying? She decided she’d better play her part well so they wouldn’t find out.

  “Come on, come on. Who’s next? Step forward and tell me your name, son.”

  “Um …Ike Bigelow.” Phoebe had spent the past few days rehearsing her lies so she wouldn’t get tangled up in them. But she was broiling hot, her nerves were buzzing like flies, and her voice came out higher pitched than she’d intended. She repeated her name in a deeper voice. “Ike Bigelow.”

  The man stopped writing and looked up, his brow wrinkling as he studied her. “How old are you, boy?”

  “I turned nineteen last June.” At least that much was the truth.

  His frown deepened. “Then how come all you got is peach fuzz on your cheeks?”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but ain’t none of my brothers or me ever been able to grow a beard worth a hoot. Our pa, neither. Ma says it’s the Injun blood in us.”

  “Indian blood? With all that yellow hair?”

  “The yellow’s on Ma’s side. Pa’s family—”

  “Where’re you from?”

  “K
entucky, sir. Across the river from Cincinnati.” She hadn’t dared say Virginia for fear she’d be taken for a Rebel spy. What little geography Phoebe knew had come from her few years of schooling in Bone Hollow and from listening to her brothers plan their own trip. She’d deliberately traveled in the opposite direction from them for the last week and ended up in Pennsylvania.

  “Why’d you come all the way over here to enlist?”

  “Well, sir. There’s four of us brothers in the family, and Ma made us all sign up in different states so’s we wouldn’t end up all getting kilt in the same battle. I picked Pennsylvania ’cause Jack and Willard already picked Ohio and Indiana. Junior joined up back home in Kentucky.”

  “Are you sure it’s not because you’re underage?”

  “Oh no, sir. You bring me a Bible and I’ll swear on it that I just turned nineteen on the eleventh of June.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said with a sigh. “Let’s see your teeth. You got all your front ones?”

  “Yes, sir.” Phoebe grinned widely, displaying them. “And I can shoot like nobody’s business. Better than any of my brothers. Go on and set an empty bottle on that barrel out front, and I’ll bet I can knock it clear off from across the street in a single shot.”

  “Empty bottles don’t shoot back,” the officer said sternly. “And they don’t come running at you screaming like banshees, either, like the Confederates do. You ready for that?”

  “Yes, sir, I’m ready to do my part.”

  “All right, then. These are your enlistment papers. Once you sign them you’re obligated to serve in the United States Army for a period of three years. Your pay will be thirteen dollars a month. Can you read and write, son?”

  Phoebe nodded.

  “Read this carefully, then, and sign right here.”

  She quickly scanned the words, too excited to make sense of them. Her sweaty hand made the ink run as she signed her name, Ike Bigelow, in neat letters.

  “Good. Who’s next?” the officer asked. Phoebe didn’t move.

  “Wait a minute. Ain’t you forgetting to give me a rifle?”

  “You’ll get one when you get to Washington. Next?”

  “Washington! Ain’t no Rebels in Washington. I signed on to fight—not visit Abe Lincoln.”

  “First you have to learn to march. After that you’ll get your rifle—and your fair share of fighting, believe me.”

  “But any old fool knows how to put one foot in front of the other. Pa says I been marching all around the farm since I was a year old. And I know how to shoot, too. Give me a rifle and I’ll prove it to you.”

  “There will be plenty of time to show what you can do, son. Go on in the back now, and get yourself a uniform from the quartermaster.” He pointed with his thumb to a doorway behind him.

  “Thought sure they’d at least give me a gun,” Phoebe muttered as she ducked through the door. She found herself in a large, crowded storeroom that was even hotter than the storefront had been. It smelled of leather and warm bodies and kerosene from the lanterns that lit the windowless room. A soldier stood near the door doling out Yankee uniform jackets, shirts, and pants from the large piles beside him. About a dozen other men milled around inside the room, laughing and joking as they stripped off their overalls and work shirts and put on their new blue uniforms.

  Phoebe hesitated, wondering what she had gotten herself into. Then she remembered that her only other choice was to wear a dress and work for the Haggertys, and her doubts faded. Seeing men in their underwear was nothing new. Neither was a lack of privacy. After all, she’d grown up in a one-room cabin with three brothers. She took the heap of scratchy wool clothing the quartermaster handed her at the door and found a space for herself in a dim back corner.

  The trousers stopped two inches above her ankles—but then, Phoebe was taller than most of the other soldiers by four or five inches. The shirt was too short to tuck into the pants, but she could have fit two heads through the neck hole. “Guess they figure I might grow another head,” she said to herself. The material was coarse and itchy, and if she didn’t get out of this stifling room pretty soon she would die of the heat. She slid her arms into the dark blue uniform jacket and tried to button the long row of shiny brass buttons, but it fit so snugly across her shoulders and chest that she felt like a snake about to burst out of its skin. The only thing that fit halfway decent was the forage cap.

  “Hey, there,” a voice beside her said. “Want to trade jackets?”

  Phoebe looked down, then smiled. The little fellow standing alongside her wore a coat that was so huge he looked like a tiny little pea in a big blue pod.

  “Sure,” she said. “Guess it can’t hurt to try.” Phoebe unfastened the long row of buttons and traded jackets. The other fellow’s coat fit her a little better, but not by much. “Must have been a sale on all these brass buttons,” she said as she fastened them again. “Can’t see why else we’d need so many.”

  “We have to keep them all shiny-looking, too,” the little fellow said. “My uncle joined up a few months back, and he says we have to polish the brass with emery paper every night or we’ll get into trouble.”

  “Seems like a waste of time, don’t it?” Phoebe said. “I joined up to fight a war, not polish buttons.”

  “Hey, you aren’t from around here, are you?” the little stranger asked. He had an eager, friendly voice that dipped from highpitched to low and back again when he talked, like a wagon wheel sliding in and out of a rut.

  “No, I crossed over from Kentucky to enlist,” Phoebe replied.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ike …Ike Bigelow.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ike,” he said, extending his hand. It was soft, with no calluses, a city boy’s hand. “I’m Theodore Wilson. Folks call me Ted.”

  The top of Ted’s curly brown head barely reached Phoebe’s chin. He had a wiry build that made him look as though he’d be quick as a deer if he decided to run. His smooth, tanned skin and wide brown eyes gave him the innocent, trusting look of a child. Then he smiled, revealing a pair of oversized front teeth, and he reminded Phoebe for all the world of a squirrel.

  “I don’t mean to insult you,” she said, “but you hardly look old enough to enlist.”

  “I’m nineteen,” Ted told her. “I live around here, so folks know I’m old enough. Hey, did you get all your other gear yet?”

  Phoebe shook her head. “They only give me this uniform. The man said I wouldn’t get me a gun until I get to Washington. If I’d a known that, I’d have brought a gun from home.”

  “You have your own gun? You know how to shoot already?” Ted was practically dancing.

  “Sure. I been shooting since I could walk and talk. I hardly ever miss, either.”

  “Will you teach me how?” His voice squeaked with excitement.

  “I reckon so,” she said, hiding a smile.

  “Great. Thanks. Hey, we get our knapsacks and stuff in that line over there. Come on.”

  Phoebe followed her new friend to the supply line, enjoying the fact that Ted already looked up to her in more ways than one. As the youngest and smallest sibling back home, Phoebe had always been picked on by her brothers and had to fight for the right to do all the things they did. Her brother Jack, especially, took great delight in reminding her that she was a girl.

  “You got a girl, Ike?” Ted flung out the word girl so suddenly that it threw Phoebe off balance. It took her a moment to realize that he wasn’t accusing her of being one but was asking her if she had one.

  “Huh? No …no, I never had a gal or nothing.”

  “Me, either, but I sure would like one, wouldn’t you? Some of the other fellows carry pictures of their girlfriends. They were showing them all around a while ago and bragging about which one was the prettiest. Sure wish I had a pretty girl’s picture to carry with me. … But, hey, I kissed a girl once.”

  “You did?” Phoebe looked at Ted’s lips—soft and full, like a baby’s—and
tried to imagine them pressed against her own. She couldn’t recall ever being kissed, not even by her ma or pa, much less a beau.

  “Yeah, I kissed Maggie Fisk in the schoolyard one day. Just on the cheek, though. Gosh, she smelled good. Like something you’d eat for dessert.”

  They finally reached the front of the line. The supply sergeant began piling items into Phoebe’s outstretched arms: a haversack for her provisions, a woolen blanket and waterproof sheet, a cartridge box and belt, a bayonet, a tin drinking cup, a canteen, and a knapsack to carry all her personal belongings. The supply sergeant glanced down at her feet, then set a pair of square-toed brogans on top of the pile. Phoebe had never owned a brand-new pair of shoes in her life; she’d either worn her brothers’ hand-me-downs or gone barefoot, which she preferred.

  “How do you know them are gonna fit me?” she asked the soldier doling out the shoes.

  His look told her that asking questions was the wrong thing to do. “We only have three sizes left,” he finally said. “Since your feet are the biggest ones I’ve seen all morning, I gave you the biggest pair I got. Move along now. Gotta keep this line moving.”

  Phoebe sighed in resignation and followed her new friend through the back door and into a vacant lot behind the building where the other recruits were gathering. The fresh autumn air felt good. Ted flopped down in a small patch of shade to try on his new shoes; Phoebe did the same. The leather was very stiff, and they made her feet feel squished, even before she laced them up. She decided she’d better keep her old, worn-out shoes for now and stuffed them into her new knapsack along with her blanket, rubber sheet, and the possessions from her burlap bag. The knapsack was crammed full to the top, and she was still left with a tangle of straps, sacks, and all the other contraptions they’d just given her.

  “What’re we supposed to do with all of this?” she wondered aloud.

  “My uncle showed me how to carry everything,” Ted told her. “Watch.” Following his lead, she soon had her cartridge box, belt, bayonet, and haversack fastened properly, her canteen and tin cup hung where they’d be handy, and her bedding rolled up and fastened to her knapsack, ready to carry. She hefted the pack onto her shoulders with a grunt.