The Last, Long Night

by Ginny Dye

  It would take about an hour for the wagons to jolt their way down rutted roads to the front. Snow was still deep on the roads and piled high on the sides. Unable to comprehend being out in this frigid weather without warm clothing, Carrie rode in the lead wagon and shivered into her coat. Her mind raced through everything they had in the back of the wagons. How would it get to the men who needed it the most? Suddenly, she knew what needed to be done.

  She leaned forward and tapped the driver on his shoulder. “I want all of these items to be taken into Captain Robert Borden’s battalion,” she said firmly. The soldier opened his mouth to protest and then closed it again, his eyes betraying his belief that it would indeed be the best way to distribute everything.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Are many of your friends without shoes?” Carrie asked.

  “Too many.” The soldier looked over at her. “What you did yesterday has gotten around. It was a wonderful thing.”

  Carrie shook her head sadly. “It’s too late and much too small, but it’s something.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I wish we could help you all.”

  “The ones who don’t have freezing feet tonight will be real grateful to you,” the soldier said. “I had one of my buddies go off in the hospital wagon two days ago. I already know he won’t be back.” His eyes sparked with anger and grief.

  “No,” Carrie agreed softly. “He won’t be back.”

  They said no more as the horses fought to pull the wagons through the snow. She could be nothing but grateful that Granite was snug in the stall behind their house. He was thinner because of inadequate food, but at least she didn’t have to worry about his being shot or maimed by a shell, and what he was eating was certainly more than these emaciated animals had. This one time, Carrie had refused to let Granite go. He wasn’t needed for battle in the trenches, and she saw no reason for him to stand in the cold as a target. When Robert had returned from the Shenandoah Valley, Granite was retired as an army horse.

  As they rode along, she dreamed of the day Granite would once again run freely through the fields of Cromwell Plantation - not sure whether it was a dream or a ridiculous fantasy. For all she knew, Cromwell had been destroyed. The odds said it had met the same fate as many of its neighboring plantations. Carrie shook her head and pushed the vision from her mind. There was no sense in trying to answer questions that couldn’t be answered.

  She waited quietly while the wagon driver approached the lines and then leaned over to speak to several of the soldiers. One disappeared, conferred with two men in a tent, then came back out, and pointed. The driver nodded, picked up the reins, and started moving south.

  Carrie gripped the sides of the wagon and stared in horror at the hollow-eyed, emaciated men staring back at them as they made their way through the camp. For every decently clothed man, far more wandered around in tatters or huddled as closely to a feeble fire as they could. Bile rose in her throat. Carrie wanted to scream out her protest, but knew it would do no good; all she could do was what she had come to do – ease the suffering of as many as possible.

  She jumped when a shell landed about a hundred feet from one of their wagons, but she gripped the wagon sides harder and scanned the faces for the one she cared about the most.

  Finally the driver pulled the wagon to a halt. The remaining three wagons pulled up behind it. Several men looked up numbly from their positions on the ground. Carrie knew most of them were hunkered down in the trenches while waiting for an attack from the Federals.

  “Where is Captain Borden?” the driver called out.

  A nearby soldier shrugged wearily. The rest stared up at them.

  Carrie scanned the area and looked for Robert. Finally she stood up in the wagon and faced the men. “My name is Carrie Borden. I’m looking for my husband. We have something for all of you.”

  The soldiers came to life immediately. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place, ma’am?” a young boy asked. His hands and feet were bare, his face gaunt beneath filthy black hair, but his bearing was proud. “The captain has told us about you, and Hobbs makes you sound like an angel.”

  Carrie blushed as she smiled at him warmly. “I’m hardly an angel, but you’ll be happy we showed up today if you’ll help me find my husband.”

  “I’ll get him for you,” the same soldier offered. “He’s over in the trenches with some of the fellas. Most officers let us do all the hard work. Captain Borden suffers right with us.”

  Carrie shuddered to think of what Robert was going through, but recognized the loyalty his actions inspired. Her heart warmed with pride. She waited quietly while the soldier hobbled off, aware she had become the center of attention for every one of Robert’s men.

  A sudden commotion had her eyes turning toward the trenches. She wanted to weep when she saw Robert’s filthy, tired face, already thin after five weeks in the trenches, but she kept her smile steady as her heart sang with joy that he was still alive.

  Robert rushed up to the wagon and swung her down to the ground, his eyes bright with delight, his faced creased with worry. He crushed her to him and then held her back. “What are you doing here?” he asked sharply. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “We came to bring you something,” Carrie said calmly, pressing a kiss to his lips that brought cheers from his men.

  “We?” Robert asked, confusion filling his face as he looked around.

  Thomas, Jeremy, Janie, and Clifford waved from their wagon seats.

  “What…?”

  “I know many men are suffering,” Carrie explained. “We did what we could about it.” She motioned to her driver, who stepped forward with a box of shoes and socks. She watched Robert’s jaw drop in shock. “We thought these would help.” Then she waved her hands toward the wagons. “They’re full,” she said.

  Robert stared at the wagons, and then stared back at her as his face exploded in a huge smile. “You’re amazing,” he whispered as he enfolded her in a hug.

  Carrie laughed and pulled away. She quickly explained what had happened. “The citizens of Richmond care about what’s happening out here,” she finished.

  “I made them bring me to your camp for two reasons,” Carrie continued. “I want every one of your men to be warm. Secondly, I want you to pick the ones you know you can trust to distribute these items to the men most in need. We can’t help everyone, but we have quite a lot.”

  Robert stared at the mounds of crates and barrels in the wagon. “There’s enough for more than a thousand men - more if they share.” He made no attempt to wipe away his tears as he turned to his men. “Remember that miracle some of you have been praying for? It rolled up.”

  Within minutes he had his men organized. There was quiet jubilation as his barefooted men found shoes, and shivering men found coats. Frozen hands slipped gratefully into gloves, but the looks of humble gratitude warmed Carrie’s heart the most. These men needed to know people cared about them and appreciated their sacrifice.

  Barely a dent was made in the mountain of supplies in the wagons. Robert called fifty of his men and quietly gave them orders. “I’m entrusting these supplies to you because I believe in your integrity,” he said, gazing around at their intense faces. The soldiers stared back at him without wavering. “You are to go through the camps and find the men who truly need what we have. Pull them to the side, and give it to them. It may take a day or two to distribute all these supplies, but I want to be sure they only go to the men who need it.” He let silence fill the air for a moment. “Can I trust you?”

  “Yes, sir!” those selected soldiers responded immediately, their eyes bright with pride.

  Carrie felt a catch in her throat when she saw the obvious respect and love they had for Robert. When he turned back to her, she gave him a warm kiss.

  Another shell exploding nearby had Robert muttering under his breath as he released her. “You have to get out of here, Carrie!”

  “I know,” she agreed calmly. “We promised we would leave
as soon as we made our delivery. Another driver is waiting to take us back to Richmond.” But before she went, she had to ask. “George? Have you seen him?” She would say nothing to betray Georgia’s secret.

  Robert smiled tenderly. “I found him two weeks ago and had him transferred to my unit. He’s in the trenches now. George is miserable like the rest of us, but he’s okay. The clothes you provided for him have made that possible.”

  Carrie breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Robert turned and wrapped each of them in a strong embrace. “You may never know how much this means,” he said, stopping when emotion choked his voice.

  Thomas grabbed his hand and then pulled him into another hug. “Thank you for what you’re doing,” he said hoarsely. “I pray this war will end soon so the suffering will stop.”

  Carrie gazed at her father and knew his brief time in the camp had given him a different perspective of the war that nothing else could have. She wished that every Confederate official, as well as every Union official, had to spend a day in camps and in field hospitals. Surely they would work harder to come up with a way to end the war if they truly understood what it meant.

  Robert pulled Carrie to him for another deep kiss before he released her. “I hope I’m cleaner the next time you see me,” he joked.

  “Just stay alive,” Carrie whispered. “Just stay alive.”

  Unable to free her mind of images of frozen men with barely any clothes huddling next to an inadequate fire shared by twenty or more men, Carrie burrowed under her thick mound of quilts that night and couldn’t sleep.

  Robert’s men had cheered her and her group when they left the front with their army driver, but Carrie couldn’t help feeling they had done too little. As full as the wagons had been, she knew it hadn’t been enough to take care of every soldier who needed warm clothes.

  You did all you can do.

  The whisper floated into her mind as she listened to sleet pelt the windows once more. She wished it brought her comfort, but frustration wouldn’t release its hold on her soul. The hollow-eyed gaunt faces of the men protecting Richmond haunted her every time she closed her eyes.

  Wanting to close out the memories of the day, she squeezed her eyes shut once again and began to pray. Instead of suffering men, a glowing rainbow appeared. Carrie gasped, and held in her mind the vibrant colors radiating warmth. Memories of the rainbow she and Janie had seen when they walked down the hill the past summer swallowed the frustration and fear.

  The night always ends. God always shines light into the darkness. Always.

  Her hope took wing and soared as she remembered those words that had sustained her during the last year.

  This year will be an awful last, long night, but it will end. We have to hold on to that!

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Robert shifted to find a comfortable position in the muddy trench but knew it was impossible. Grateful for the break in the weather that had freed the soldiers from frostbite and freezing nights, he knew the relentless rain had created almost as much misery.

  Thoughts raced through his mind as he stared into the night sky, finally shimmering with stars since rain clouds had parted. The whistling wind didn’t touch him or his men in the trenches.

  “Somethin’s about to happen, ain’t it, Captain?” Hobbs asked.

  Glad that Hobbs was with him again, Robert looked over at the young soldier. If it had seemed odd early in the war to count on someone so much younger, it no longer did; years of war had erased age barriers. Hobbs was his friend.

  “Yes,” he replied quietly.

  “Can you tell me about it?”

  Robert looked around to make sure no one else was listening and realized the wind would cover his voice. “Things look worse than they ever have,” he said grimly.

  “They been pretty bad for a long time,” Hobbs replied blandly.

  Robert nodded. “You’re right, but I met with some officers last night and got caught up on everything.” He took a deep breath. “Wilmington has fallen. Sherman marched out of Savannah and went up through South Carolina. He took Columbia a little over a month ago. The city almost completely burned, though no one seems sure who started the fires. Sherman is marching through North Carolina now.”

  Hobbs gasped and clenched his fists.

  “It gets worse,” Robert said heavily. “Charleston has fallen, and Sherman has left much of South Carolina in the same devastated condition his troops left Georgia in last year.” He took a deep breath. “We’re outnumbered more than two to one, but that will get worse when Sherman arrives, and Sheridan is on his way down from the Shenandoah, which will stack the odds even more in their favor.”

  “We won’t be able to stop them,” Hobbs said bluntly.

  “No,” Robert agreed. “We won’t be able to stop them. Even if we were healthy and had plenty of supplies, those odds are almost impossible to beat; add in the fact that hardly one man in Lee’s fifty-thousand-man army is well, and we simply aren’t left with a good scenario.” Robert smothered a cough as he spoke, glad Carrie couldn’t see how gaunt he had gotten in the six weeks since she’d been to the front.

  “You’re not sounding so good, Captain,” Hobbs said in a worried voice.

  “So says the man stomping around in this despicable mud with an elevated shoe and crutches,” Robert said, forcing a smile to his lips as he fought to control his cough. He’d thought Hobbs was crazy to come back to fight but had to admire his spirit and loyalty.

  Hobbs shrugged. “At least I don’t sound like I’ll hack up my lungs.”

  “No, you don’t. Obviously they make men tougher in western Virginia than they do down in the lowlands.”

  “You just figuring that out?” Hobbs asked, his eyes glistening with laughter. “I’ve been knowing that for a right long time.”

  Robert grinned and then sobered. “You’ll have to be tough for what will happen tomorrow.”

  Hobbs stiffened to attention. “What’s that, Captain?”

  “Lee has decided to launch an attack.” Robert saw Hobbs jerk his head around, but he stayed silent, waiting for details. “I don’t know everything. I do know Lee is not going to sit here and wait for more than one hundred thousand more men to join Grant. Lee’s plan is to launch an attack that will force Grant to shorten or weaken his lines so we can get out of here. Part of the plan is to capture a Union supply depot about a mile from here.”

  “Where we going?” Hobbs asked, his eyes dancing with excitement.

  “That’s a good question,” Robert replied. “One I don’t know the answer to. Perhaps we’ll join up with our forces in North Carolina. I don’t know.”

  When Robert saw Hobbs suddenly frown, he knew he had seen the bigger picture.

  “What about Richmond?” Hobbs asked hesitantly.

  Robert remained silent, not willing to give voice to his thoughts. Both of them knew if Lee abandoned the trenches, Grant would send enough of his army in to take Richmond. Robert couldn’t bear the images of Carrie and Thomas in Richmond surrounded by burning buildings.

  “We going to be in on the action?” Hobbs finally asked, his somber voice revealing similar thoughts.

  “Yes,” Robert replied, relieved to add, “but you will not be in on it. Sitting in the trenches and firing a gun with a bad leg is one thing. Tromping through this mud in an attack is another. Speed and surprise will be the key to success.” He saw disappointment flash through Hobbs’ eyes, followed almost immediately by a spark of relief he could totally understand. “If we break through, you’ll have transportation to come with us.”

  “I reckon I wouldn’t be able to help very much,” Hobbs agreed gravely, “but I’ll be back here waiting. When will the attack happen?”

  “Four o’clock tomorrow morning,” Robert replied grimly. “We have six hours. I’m going to try and get some rest.” He knew when he said the words he would have no sleep that night; his thoughts back in Richmond with his beautiful wife.
How could he break through the Union lines and run – leaving her behind?

  Silence fell on the trench as both men lapsed into their own private thoughts.

  Moses glanced over at Simon hard at work on a letter to June. Moses had finished one to Rose and had already sent it on its way. Three months had passed since he had surprised her at the Christmas dance. Memories still flooded his mind, but they weren’t enough to ease the ache of missing her that battered his heart daily.

  “Got something on your mind, Moses?” Simon asked, looking up from the paper he carefully wrote on.

  “Captain Jones called me to his tent today.”

  “Yep. I saw that. I figured you would tell me about it when you was ready.”

  “He doesn’t think Grant will wait much longer to attack. Sheridan is almost here with his men from the Shenandoah, and Sherman is almost here, too.”

  Simon nodded. “I’d say we have a pretty good chance of breaking through those lines and taking Richmond with that kind of strength,” he said confidently.

  Moses nodded. “Grant is about ready to make his move. Captain Jones says he thinks it will happen in five days.”

  Simon gazed at him. “How do you feel about taking Richmond?”

  Moses swallowed hard. “I have mixed feelings. I know we have to take it for the war to end, but I’m scared of what will happen to Carrie.”

  “From what you tell me, she’ll probably be up in the hospital away from the fighting.”

  “Yes,” Moses agreed, “but I’ve heard too many stories of what happened in Atlanta and Columbia to feel very relaxed about it.”

  Simon frowned. “I hear tell that Sherman says he didn’t start that fire in Columbia.”

  “It did the same kind of damage no matter who started it,” Moses said flatly. “The only thing that gives me any kind of peace is knowing I’ll be there. My goal is to find Carrie and make sure she stays safe.”