by Murray Pura
“Stran-lar.” She quickly picked up on the pronunciation. “That’s quite pretty. And strong at the same time.”
“Well, she’s your horse now, Corporal. Treat her well.”
“I shall, Major.”
Clarissa rubbed dirt back onto her face and mouth until Iain admitted she was repelling. Then she hung the bayonet on her belt, slung the pack off the side of the horse, and placed her musket astride the saddle as she rode. She and the mare adjusted to each other readily enough, and the ride was easy. Clarissa was sure there was no more unkempt adjutant riding the ridgeline than her that morning. But the filth and grime and dried blood, and the baggy uniform, served to utterly obscure her femininity, and that was what mattered. Her appearance could be chalked up to fighting with the 124th New York the evening before. It was an excuse no one would argue with. Especially since the Sixty-Ninth had seen hard fighting at the stone wall on Thursday. Her disheveled appearance was not out of line with that of many in Iain’s regiment.
The pair embedded themselves with the Seventy-First Pennsylvania and waited for the dawn. When it came, it was an extraordinary display. Too good and too wonderful, she thought, for a battlefield, even though it was really her beautiful valley, with its fruit trees and crops of grain and the greenest green grass, which the July sun was pouring its rich golden light over. She had never watched sunrise from Cemetery Ridge. She had never even watched it from the seminary. But now she saw the sun move higher and higher into a sky that was a perfect azure, as bright and flawless as a sapphire she’d once held, and she was at the stone wall and on horseback with the man she loved only a few feet away. What an amazing thing that her first sunrise on the high ridge over Gettysburg should be like that. Yet it was also disturbing that it was the only morning, ever, that the bodies of horses and men had been strewn lifeless at the foot of the green ridge, the only morning that the landscape the sun touched was thick with the blood of hundreds of souls. It made her shiver.
Iain glanced at her. “Are you chilled?”
She didn’t answer his question. “You’re positive Lee will fight for a third day?”
“It’s his nature. He will not withdraw without trying to finish the battle.”
“He withdrew at Antietam.”
Iain nodded. “But now he’s had his successes at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Now he’s been fighting in Gettysburg for two days. He won’t withdraw.”
“My valley has already been despoiled. Must it be the site of even more death and disaster?”
Iain had been wearing his slouch hat. Now he removed it. “Lee and Longstreet will come at us on the flanks or up the middle. If they can win, after half a week of battle, they can alter the course of the war. Even if General Grant takes Vicksburg and the Mississippi from them, they can crush the Army of the Potomac and put their sword to Washington’s throat. Any truce will be on their terms. And their terms will be complete and unfettered independence for the Confederate States of America.”
“Unfettered for white men.”
Squinting from the cut of the sunlight, Iain put his hat back on and tugged down the brim. “Growing up in Mississippi and going downriver to New Orleans and Louisiana so often, I found out early on that there were freedmen who owned slaves and who used them to work their plantations. Those men were rich in cotton and sugarcane. Those same men have joined other freedmen in the South to fight for the Confederacy.”
She stared at him. “You never told me this before.”
“I’m telling you now so that you realize how much we are up against here today. We aren’t just battling rich white slave owners. Or white men who never want the Southern way of life to change. We’re wrestling with a whole part of the human race, one color or another, who see nothing wrong with oppression if it works to their advantage. And they do not call it tyranny.”
“I know that terrible spirit is not just in the South.”
“No, it isn’t a white thing or a Southern thing. It’s a human thing. But if we don’t block it in the South, the enslavement of others will spread as far as the Confederate nation spreads and become pervasive on this continent. The Rebels are not demons. This is just the way they think and believe. And they will fight for their beliefs with fire and steel. So we fight back with fire and steel to give this country the chance to be a haven of freedom for all people for all time. That’s the hope. Every generation will have to fight to gain or maintain their liberties, believe me. But this is our fight. Here. Today. It’s the South’s day to fight too. But if you and I want to see slavery end, that can only begin to happen if we win this war.” He paused. “And we’ll lose this war if we don’t win today.”
She sat silently on her mare for a few minutes. Gunfire continued to erupt on their right as the sun made the world around them ignite with acres of light. “The grass was always so green and untrampled here. The wheat always so tall. All you ever heard were honeybees and meadowlarks.”
“It will be that way again.”
“I pray to God you and I will live to see it. I pray to God we’ll live to see it in a free country.”
“Amen.” He looked to his left. “I need to get back to my men. Are you ready to be Corporal Rutgers again?”
“I never stopped being him.” She struck at several tears before anyone would notice. “Or Clarissa Ross Kilgarlin.”
As they walked their horses back down the line to the Sixty-Ninth and the cluster of chestnut oaks, Iain asked, “Do you have any more of that tobacco?”
“Why? Do you want a chaw?”
“Not me. But you need a plug to help your voice along. And make those lips of yours look more revolting than they already are.”
“Why, thank you very much for those kind words, sir. There’s another twist in my pack.”
“Start working on it, Corporal.”
He had managed to tug a smile out of her. “Yes, sir, Major, sir. Anything to help the Union.”
The men didn’t have much to say about the return of Corporal Rutgers. Except Pat O’Shea, who spat near her mare’s front hooves. She pretended not to notice but spewed a thick stream that just missed his head. It went exactly where she wanted it to and had the desired effect of riling O’Shea mightily, so she was quite proud of herself.
“You’re getting good at that,” Iain said.
“So I am too, and no mistake,” she replied, imitating Irish jargon with a voice as thick as mud. “I am, however, a spittoon again, I’m afraid.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’ll be no more romance until it’s all over.”
“That’s disappointing, sir.”
“Once the sun sets, Corporal.”
“Sure, I’ll be counting the hours, Major.”
“Keep up with that Irish blather and I’ll call you Killarney for the rest of your life.”
Clarissa marveled that she and Iain could be talking about the future of the Republic and about fighting tooth and nail to preserve it, as well as to bring an end to slavery, in one breath, and in the next breath, banter with one another, spit tobacco juice, and look forward to being wrapped in each other’s arms again that night. How did they know they’d even survive to see the night? What if they lost the battle and were in full retreat? What if they were prisoners of a victorious Rebel army? What if Vicksburg didn’t fall to General Grant after all and, with the Gettysburg win under its belt, Richmond telegrammed Washington to accept its peace terms and the Confederacy’s independence?
The shooting at Culp’s Hill petered out just after eleven. At noon she and Iain dismounted and stood under the trees several minutes while he spoke with the regimental commander, Colonel O’Kane, as well as with officers he briefly introduced as Lieutenant Colonel Tschudy and Major Dufiy. She barely listened. Their concern was that Lee might come straight at them and ignore the flanks, hurling all available men and resources at the center of the line. She swatted away flies and looked at the other adjutants, all of them officers and in much better condition than her, and t
hey looked back, impassive.
“Are you hungry?” Iain asked her once the others had ridden away.
“I’m always hungry,” she said. “I mean, usually I would be hungry. But is Lee going to attack? Is he not going to attack? If he does attack, is he going to attack us right here at the trees? Or what is he going to do? I confess it makes me a bit jumpy. And when I’m a bit jumpy, I don’t eat much.”
“Good. Because there isn’t much to be had. Meade’s concern was getting cannons and ammunition to Gettysburg. Not vittles. Are there any biscuits in your pack … Corporal Rutgers?”
“I guess there are some. But they’re hard as rock.”
“Mm. Let’s fetch some coffee. You can dip the hardtack in that to soften them up.”
“That’s probably all I can handle right now.”
“Don’t worry. Once the shooting starts, any butterflies you have in your stomach will fly away.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“I am.” He nodded. “But you won’t be on that horse. You’ll be flat on the ground and far back from the wall.”
“And I suppose you’ll stay on Plum Run even with bullets whizzing around you?”
“Of course. I’m an officer.”
“And I’m the officer’s adjutant. Where you go, I go. Where you are, I am.”
Iain frowned. “Huh. We’ll see about that.”
“We will indeed. Why do you think I went to all the trouble of slipping away from town and disguising myself and hooking up with your regiment, sir? Just so I could watch you get yourself shot? If I’m going to do anything up here, I’ll be making every effort to keep you alive. So don’t try and put me five miles behind the battle line, sir. It won’t work. Even a cage wouldn’t hold me.”
His hands were on his hips. “Are you finished?”
“I’m giving you your orders, Major. That’s all.”
He rolled his eyes. “My orders?”
She smiled. “I outrank Colonel O’ Kane. I even outrank General Meade.”
“What about Lincoln?”
“I outrank him too. You have no choice but to obey me. Sir.”
She was going to add something else when a cannon boomed from Seminary Ridge. They both looked. Another cannon fired. Then there was silence.
“What was that?” she asked Iain.
Confederate artillery erupted in smoke and flame all along the heights. The sound came moments later. A huge roar of cannon fire. Shells began screaming over the ridge and exploding in the rear, pulverizing wagons and killing horses. Iain shoved her to the ground.
“Stay here!” he ordered. “Don’t move!”
“Where are you going?”
“I need to ride the line.”
“Then I need to ride with you.”
“No!” barked Iain. “That’s an order!”
“Yes!” she barked back, the crash of artillery rounds blotting out their voices to others. “That’s my order! Sir!”
July 3
Afternoon
Cemetery Ridge and the Angle
Gettysburg
For two hours she raced along beside Iain, the cannon fire never relenting, explosions hurling mud and stone into the blue sky. The only reason she felt both of them survived the bombardment was because the Rebel cannons were not on target. She supposed they had meant to blast apart the Union defenses along the stone wall, but it was men and horses and wagons and limbers, far back from the wall and ridgeline, that took the brunt of the punishment.
Iain kept shouting at her to take cover, and she kept shouting back she was taking cover—right next to him. He was furious, but there was nothing he could do. The fight was on and he was stuck with her. He eventually realized he did need an adjutant and began sending her off at full gallop with messages to Colonel O’Kane, or Lieutenant Colonel Tschudy, or Major Duffy, and once to Major General Hancock, the commander of the Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac. It seemed to her that Hancock liked to sit high on his horse, with deadly shell fragments cutting the air, as much as her husband did. She could not resist urging him to get out of the saddle: “Will the general take cover, sir? We’ll require your leadership once the Rebel infantry commence their attack.”
He had shaken his head at her, as if he were getting rid of wasps or bluebottle flies. “The men need to see me during artillery fire as fierce as this. It keeps the blood in ’em.” Then he’d grinned a savage grin at her. “You like your tobacco, Corporal?”
“I do, sir. Calms the nerves.”
“I find that action calms mine.” He scribbled a note on the back of Iain’s message. “My compliments to Major Kilgarlin of the Sixty-Ninth. If the Rebel infantry come straight on—and I believe they must do, for that is where their artillery is concentrating its fire—he and his men will be in the thick of it. I’m certain the Reb gunners are using that copse of trees to sight their fieldpieces. And if the artillery is using those trees to send their shots where they want ’em, the infantry brigades will use those trees to send their men where they want ’em too.”
“Major Kilgarlin won’t break, sir. And neither will the Sixty-Ninth.” She snapped him a salute. “Good luck, sir. God bless you.”
Hancock returned the salute as another shell whistled over their heads. “Stick it to ’em, Corporal.”
She realized that riding was the best thing for her to do as artillery fire rained down on the ridge. It was something she knew and something she could concentrate her thoughts on. Fear was not able to dominate her while she bent over her mare’s neck. Shells were howling through the sky and ripping apart the ground. Men and horses were crying out. Rebel cannons were blazing and Union cannons were blazing back…. She rode through a hurricane of shrapnel and steel, yet she was as calm inside as a forest pond, as solid in her mind as a mountain. All around her was a storm that shattered the rocks to pieces, but it did not faze or intimidate her. She was at full gallop, the sorrel’s mane whipping her face, and she was grinning a grin that didn’t fit the circumstances—it was as if she’d been asked to dance by the handsomest officer at the ball. In a way she had, and being his courier on a battlefield was the dance he’d offered, and she’d taken his hand, and the reins of the horse he gave her, and accepted.
It was on her gallop back to Iain, who told her she would find him by the regiment’s colors, that a final shell exploded off her shoulder, spraying her with stones and slicing open her hand and cheek. After that, the firing stopped. She could suddenly hear the loud thumping of her heart and the harsh gasping of her breath. Her pace did not slacken, and once she spotted the green flag with its cloud and sun and harp, she kicked in her heels and arrived at Iain’s side in a clatter of hooves and rocks. A captain was with him.
“You ride like a demon,” the captain said to her. “I wish we had time for horse races. I’d bet money on you.”
She saluted. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Her mouth was full of tobacco juice, but she wasn’t going to spit with him there.
“Do you fight like a demon too, Corporal?”
She grinned, knowing full well the effect was gruesome, for in addition to a muddy, lacerated face and her matted hair, stiff with dried blood, she was confident half her teeth were black with tobacco stains. The way the captain practically winced when she bared her teeth confirmed this opinion. He shook his head as if he might shake off a bad dream when waking up.
“You are a sight to behold, Corporal,” he managed to get out.
“Thank you, sir.” She kept grinning.
“I don’t know how the enemy will feel. But you frighten the dickens out of me.” He turned in his saddle to face Iain and snapped a salute. “All the best, sir.”
Iain returned the salute. “Give it to them, Captain.”
Iain looked at Corporal Sam Rutgers, also known as Clarissa, as the captain rode off. “You do look scary.”
“Do I scare you?”
“You’ve never scared me, Corporal.”
“Not even when I look li
ke this? Like some sort of hag from the pit?”
“I rather like the look of my hag from the pit.” He glanced at Seminary Ridge. There was no more cannon smoke. “What did Hancock say?”
She handed him the piece of paper. “He believes the infantry are going to sight on the chestnut oaks here, sir. That the Rebs are going to come straight at our position on the wall.”
“Huh.” Iain unfolded the note and scanned it. “Well, we’re ready for them. I have cannons and muskets and a hag from the pit to stonewall those graycoats with.”
“I suppose you could probably use a few more of me, sir.”
He laughed, eyes still on the note. “One’s enough for me, Corporal Beautiful. And if it’s enough for me, it’s enough for Lee.”
“Beautiful?” She latched on to his use of the word. “You can’t be such a romantic as to find me beautiful right now.”
“I can see your soul, Corporal. They can’t.”
She was sure she blushed under all the grime and filth on her face. “How can you see my soul, sir?”
“It’s in your eyes, Corporal. I don’t care what else you or good Pennsylvania dirt or war does to your face. It’s in your eyes—your dancing green eyes.”
Always so quick with a comeback, Clarissa had no words. She opened her mouth but nothing came out because she could not form any sentences in her mind. Finally, she stammered, “I think … I’m sure … I mean, I know, sir, that …”
“HERE THEY COME!”
The shout rose from a hundred places up and down the line.
Clarissa looked and saw red flags with crosses of stars, sunlight shining on thousands of bayonets, men in gray and butternut marching out of the woods on the other side of the valley. She estimated the Rebel infantry to be spread out, shoulder to shoulder, for over a mile. The image excited her and frightened her at the same time. She watched them come over her perfect valley with its perfect green grass and approach the Emmitsburg Road. It would not take them long to reach the ridge. Perhaps twenty or thirty minutes. No more. She glanced down and saw that her knuckles had whitened as she gripped her reins more tightly. When she glanced up again, Union artillery was firing, and the marching men had begun to disappear in clouds of dust and red mist. As she watched, dozens of men … no, hundreds … vanished in smoke and fire, to be replaced by hundreds more who stepped into the gaps torn in their battle lines. The cannon fire increased and more men fell. And more. Still, the Rebels marched on toward the ridge where Clarissa and Iain sat astride their mounts. Then they reached the first high fence that barred them from Emmitsburg Road. They began to climb over in gray swarms. Hidden cannons erupted and threshed them, she thought, like human wheat. She shuddered. But the Rebels would not stop.
