When Johnny Came Marching Home

by William Heffernan

  "Cold and calloused, even to its own men who have given so much?"

  "Especially to its own men, and especially to those who are no longer useful." He tapped the side of his nose. "Why else would we take fine young boys and throw them into battles where we know many will be slaughtered? And all on the whim of politicians and generals."

  "You're speaking treason, sir." I smiled at him, letting him know it had become my brand of treason as well.

  "Come take a walk with me, Foster."

  I followed Lieutenant Nettles outside. He was not a big man, and I towered over him, but he had a presence about him that commanded respect. His beard was fuller than the last time I'd seen him, his brown eyes a bit wearier. But he still walked with his shoulders squared and his back ramrod straight, almost as though he was defying anyone to think him a cripple. But, of course, there always would be those who would.

  We stopped next to a large mound of dirt. "Do you know what this is?" he asked.

  "It was a pit where they buried amputated limbs," I said.

  Nettles nodded his head somewhat like a schoolmaster. "They filled this one up last May. It probably has your arm down there. They've dug two others since and filled them as well."

  "Where is your arm, sir?" There was a touch of resentment in my voice. I didn't need to be reminded where my arm was.

  "Vicksburg," Nettles said. "Our commander in chief, Mr. Lincoln, through the good offices of General Grant, allowed me to donate my arm to the greater good in beautiful Mississippi, a place best suited to alligators and cottonmouths." He turned away from the closed-over pit and faced me. "General Sherman's great success in Georgia has brought freedom to most of the men held at Andersonville Prison. A list of those freed was sent to Washington, which in turn informed the various units from which the men were captured. I learned last week that Johnny Harris and Bobby Suggs were among those freed. They were not in good shape. Conditions at Andersonville can only be described as horrendous. There was very little food and even less medical care, the Confederacy preferring to reserve its limited resources of each for their own men. I was informed that the men capable of travel were being sent home. Harris and Suggs were among them."

  "What about the charges I filed against them?" I could feel the sudden anger radiating from my face.

  "I asked that exact question. I had forwarded those charges to my superiors, urging they be acted upon." He drew a long breath, an angry one, I thought. "This morning I received a reply. There are to be no charges filed, no court martials, nothing. Our superiors feel that accusing federal troops of atrocities against civilians would only inflame hatreds at a time when we will be seeking to mollify a conquered people. They also feel that a trial that suggests Union troops deliberately caused the death of a fellow soldier and the serious wounding of a noncommissioned officer would only taint the great victory we are about to achieve." He placed a hand on my shoulder. "So nothing will be done. And nothing can be done on our part to change that fact. Of course, that doesn't stop you from seeking justice yourself," he said as he walked away from me. "Private Suggs hails from a small Pennsylvania town called Solebury, and I believe you know where Private Harris can be found."

  * * *

  General Lee abandoned Richmond on April 2, and the Confederate government followed his example and fled to Lynchburg. Lee led his army west, hoping to eventually join forces with Confederate troops in North Carolina where he could continue the fight. He got only as far as Appomattox Court House, where Grant and the Army of the Potomac cut off his retreat. Lee attempted to break through the Union lines, believing it was made up entirely of cavalry. When he realized that the cavalry was backed by two corps of Union infantry, he had no choice but to lead his army into a massacre or suffer the indignity of surrender.

  Lee's surrender took place on April 9, and three days later Lieutenant Nettles came to my tent and handed me my discharge papers.

  "Go home, Sergeant Foster," he said. "The war is over, or will be shortly, and all those who were seriously wounded are being discharged with the sincere thanks of a grateful nation." He clearly enjoyed the irony of his statement.

  "Are you being discharged, sir?" I asked.

  "The nation is not that grateful, Sergeant Foster. I have been reassigned to Washington where I shall be in command of a magnificent desk . . . undoubtedly in some delightful basement room of the War Department."

  * * *

  The next day I packed my few things, collected my separation pay, and arranged a ride to Washington where I could catch a train north. Before leaving, I borrowed a horse and rode to the cemetery where Abel was buried.

  His grave was on a hillside that overlooked rolling Virginia hills. The countryside was still scarred by battles, spread out like a fallen man with deep wounds. But those wounds would heal—heal or be covered over and callused by time. There was a simple white wooden cross on Abel's grave, and I laid some wildflowers I had gathered at its base, then knelt and prayed for the boyhood friend I had loved more than I knew. Tears ran down my cheeks, but I ignored them, let them flow freely, knowing that Abel deserved tears at his gravesite, tears from someone who had loved him in life, something that his death so far away from home had denied him.

  "I'm sorry I'm not taking you home with me," I said out loud. "Just as I'm sorry we won't become old men together, sitting in front of the store and telling tall tales of deer hunts and days spent fishing for trout. It's how it should have been." I lowered my head and closed my eyes. "I'll always keep you in my thoughts and my heart, Abel. And I promise you that I'll help Josiah look after little Alva." I reached down and ran my hand along the new grass that covered the grave, stroking it softly. "You were the best of us," I whispered. "You were always the best."

  * * *

  I took the train north to Philadelphia. It was April 14, Good Friday, and the station in Washington was crowded with holiday travelers and discharged soldiers like myself who were finally heading home.

  I left the train in Philadelphia and rented a horse and rode north for Solebury. But it proved a wasted journey. When I arrived I was told that Bobby Suggs had left town nearly a month before and headed to parts unknown to look for work. I don't know what I would have done if I had found Suggs. But I knew I wanted to confront him and let him know that his villainy had not been forgotten. Perhaps I would have smashed him into the ground and beaten him until my strength was gone, and settled for that. Perhaps I would have killed him. I suppose it would have depended on what he said. I only knew that there was a deep and simmering rage inside me for both Bobby Suggs and Johnny Harris.

  I returned to Philadelphia on Easter Sunday and found everyone I encountered in a state of shock and mourning. I learned that President Lincoln had been shot on Friday evening, only hours after I left Philadelphia for Solebury. A massive manhunt was now underway for Lincoln's assassin, an actor named John Wilkes Booth, and it made me consider that I, too, might well be the subject of another manhunt if I had found Suggs and made him pay for Abel's murder.

  I sent a telegram to my father, telling him I was on my way home and when my train would arrive in Richmond. I also asked that he tell no one else about my return, explaining that I wanted time alone with him, time to adjust to being home again.

  My train followed the Hudson River, passing through peaceful valleys that had seen nothing of the war, moving by the rising hills of the Catskill Mountains. Throughout the journey I thought of President Lincoln, of the brief encounter I'd had with the man at the field hospital outside Sharpsburg, the tears that had glistened in his eyes as he stroked the cheek of the wounded boy Abel and I were carrying. It was another sad waste in a war that, to me, had been nothing but waste.

  We made stops in Poughkeepsie and Albany, and at each place discharged soldiers—many on crutches, many missing arms or legs—were greeted by waiting family and friends. Day became night and I changed trains the next morning at Saratoga and took a spur line across the Hudson and into southern Vermont. It
was mid-April and the trees were just blossoming with new growth, giving the Vermont hillsides a renewed hint of pale green. As the train moved north we passed rivers and streams swollen by the snowmelt, and the roads that ran beside the tracks were thick with mud.

  We stopped in Rutland and Brandon and Middlebury before moving north again, and suddenly Lake Champlain was just west of the tracks, a wide, shimmering expanse of blue water, beyond which rose the Adirondack Mountains in New York. I moved to the other side of the train and as the forests turned into fields I watched our own mountains appear: Mount Mansfield and Bolton and finally Camel's Hump, the foothills of which I and the people of Jerusalem's Landing called home.

  The train stopped in Burlington and then turned east, passing through Winooski and Essex Junction, before finally arriving at the small red building of the railroad station in Richmond. I was exhausted from my journey, and my heart pounded in my chest as if I'd just run a great distance. I took a deep breath to calm myself while my mind raced through memories of all the days and nights I had laid in blood-soaked fields and forests, wondering if I'd ever see my home again.

  I climbed down from the train carrying the one bag I'd brought with me and saw my father hurrying toward me, his smile so wide it seemed to cover his entire face.

  "Oh God, oh God," he said as he pulled me to him. He stepped back, measured me from head to foot, looked at my missing arm, and then pulled me to him again. "Thank God you're home, son. Thank God Almighty you're home."

  Jezebel was saddled and waiting for me outside the station. "I woulda brought the buggy," my father said. "But we never woulda made it with the mud. Kin ya ride okay?"

  "Yes sir. I'm still a little clumsy with the arm missing and all. I have to get used to a new sense of balance. But I can ride."

  "Does yer arm still hurt ya?"

  "There's something the doctors call phantom pain," I explained. "Sometimes I'll feel pain in my hand or wrist or lower arm, where there is no hand or wrist or lower arm. Sometimes the stump hurts or tingles or itches like hell. But the wound is physically healed."

  We rode on quietly, my father still smiling, his eyes lively and bright and pleased with the day. "What are ya goin' ta do with yerself, Jubal? Other than take a good, long rest, I mean. Have ya thought 'bout it at all? I mean such as goin' back ta college, somethin' like that?"

  "I don't know. I suppose I'll need to find some work I can do for a start."

  "Well, I been thinkin' on that. Doc Pierce has been after me ta ease up a bit. Says a galoot my age needs ta cut back iffen he expects ta reach a ripe ol' age. So I been thinkin' it might be good if ya became my deputy an' helped me with bein' constable. I gotta right ta hire a deputy under the town charter, an' it would sure be good ta work alongside each other, at least till ya decided whatcha wanted ta do."

  I glanced across at him, wondering if this was some act of charity for his one-armed son, but decided to let it go for now. "I'd be pleased to help you," I said. "After I sleep for a few days . . . or weeks."

  He laughed at that, knowing me better. "What about Rebecca? She talks ta me all the time 'bout when ya might be comin' home, 'bout any news I got from ya. Ever' time I see her she's got a question."

  "I'll see her. I'll see Mr. and Mrs. Johnson too, to tell them about Abel."

  "There's some bad news there," my father said. "A few months back Mrs. Johnson passed on. Fell inna river an' drowned." He hesitated several moments. "Fell, or jumped. Folks have different views 'bout that. Anyways, she never got over Abel dyin'. It hurt her deep down. Awhile back Walter Johnson took hisself a new wife. Lady from up here in Richmond. Lost her first husband in the war, she did. She's a bit younger'n Walter, a lot younger, really. He tol' folks he needed someone ta help with the store an' all. Got tongues a waggin'."

  I felt as though I'd been hit in the belly. I had truly liked Mrs. Johnson. In many ways she'd been a mother to me. "I didn't know," I said.

  "I guess the letters me an' Rebecca wrote ya never got ta ya afore ya left fer home."

  "The mail was always weeks and weeks late, sometimes months. Then they'd all come in a rush." I peered off into the passing forest, thinking of the pain everyone I loved must have felt. "Poor Rebecca. First Abel, then her mother, and now her father finding a new wife."

  "It's been hard," my father said. "Be soft with her when ya see her."

  * * *

  It was late evening when we rode through town. We passed by the darkened Johnson store, the only lights coming from their living quarters above it. The church and parsonage were also dark. We rode on the short distance to our home, dismounting outside the barn at the rear of our house. My father took the reigns of both horses and led them inside the barn.

  "Go on inta the house, son," he said. "Won't take me but a minute ta tend ta the horses."

  "Let me help you," I said. "If I remember right, old Jezebel likes to be combed down a bit while she's getting her water and oats."

  We tended to the horses, and after a time my father brought up a question I could tell he'd been waiting to ask.

  "Ya din' say anythin' 'bout wantin' ta see Johnny Harris. He never says much 'bout you, neither. There some bad blood goin' on there?"

  "About as bad as it gets," I said.

  He came around the side of my horse so he could see my face. "How so?"

  "It's not something I'm ready to talk about. It will only bring hurt to people who don't deserve to be hurt more than they have been already." I studied my boots, hoping I had not already upset my father. "It's not that I don't trust you. It's just better this way. I hope you can understand."

  "Course I do, son. Sometimes a man's gotta keep things inside fer a time. Jus' know that if ya ever feel a need ta talk 'bout it, ya jus' come an' let me know."

  * * *

  The next morning I changed into civilian clothes for the first time in four years. My father helped me pin up the sleeve of my shirt and coat, and dusted off my old Stetson hat and boots. He handed me a constable's badge that matched his own, told me to consider myself sworn in as his deputy.

  "There's gonna be a service at church tonight fer President Lincoln," he said. "I reckon folks are gonna be mighty surprised ta see ya."

  It was late morning when I gathered the courage to walk down to the Johnsons' store. Walter Johnson and a woman I assumed was his new wife were standing behind the counter. Walter was reading a newspaper and did not look up. The woman smiled at me. "Can I help you?" she asked.

  "I'm here to see Mr. Johnson," I said.

  At the sound of my voice, Walter Johnson's head snapped up and his eyes looked at me in wide disbelief. Then he hurried around the counter and put his arms around me, almost as fiercely as my father had the previous day. "Jubal, Jubal. Thank God you're home." He choked up momentarily and then turned to the woman behind the counter. "Mary, this is Jubal Foster. He was my boy's best friend. He was with Abel when he . . . when he died. Jubal, this is my wife. I guess you heard about Abel's mother."

  "My father told me last night," I said. "I'm very sorry. She was a wonderful woman."

  Walter nodded his head, his face suddenly filled with sorrow. "Abel's death was too much for her to bear," he said.

  It was an awkward moment, broken when Rebecca rushed into the store. She stopped in her tracks when she saw me, her eyes wide and tearful. "I heard my father call out your name, and I couldn't believe it. And now you're here, standing right in front of me, and I still can't believe it."

  "I came home late last night."

  She rushed toward me and I stepped back awkwardly, moving the left side of my body away from her. The movement stopped her and she looked at me, confused and hurt. Walter didn't seem to notice and he turned to his new wife.

  "Mary, could you watch the store alone fer a spell. I wanna take Jubal upstairs so we kin talk 'bout Abel."

  * * *

  The Johnson living quarters were just as I remembered them. I must have been smiling slightly, because Rebecca asked me what I
was thinking about.

  "All the time we all spent here when we were children," I said.

  "It seems impossible that yer all not here," Walter said. "Have ya seen Johnny yet?"

  "No, I haven't." I could hear the cold tone in my voice, and Rebecca appeared to have noticed it as well. Her father had not.

  "Kin ya tell us 'bout Abel? he asked. "The army letter didn't say much, 'cept that he died durin' the Battle of the Wilderness in Spotsylvania County in Virginia."

  "We were together," I said. "And Josiah Flood was with us. We were crossing a field when we were hit by an artillery barrage. Abel died next to me. His last words were that he wanted to go home to you"—I looked at Walter Johnson—"to his mother"—I turned to Rebecca—"and to you. Your name was the last name he spoke, Rebecca."

  I gave them both time to weep and then Walter asked a choking, halting, sobbing question. "Where . . . where is . . . Abel buried?"

  "In a military cemetery outside Chancellorsville, Virginia," I said. "I visited his grave before I headed home. It's very beautiful there, overlooking rolling green hills. Now that the war has ended it will become a very peaceful and restful place. I'll draw you a map so you can go and visit him."

  "Is that where you were wounded, in the same field where Abel died?" Rebecca asked.

  "Yes. The war ended for me there too. Josiah Flood carried me to the hospital. It was too late for Abel. He died in that field."

  "Johnny said he was with ya," Walter said.

  "Johnny was in a farmhouse about a hundred yards away. He and the men he was with were captured by Rebel troops." I paused, fighting to control my anger. "I'm sure he saw the artillery shells hit our position." I kept my voice cold and flat and emotionless.

  Rebecca stared at me, as if she understood there was more that could be said. "Did you get the letter I wrote you about my mother's death?" she asked.