by Ann Rinaldi
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WE RODE OUR horses as far as Evergreen Cemetery, and there we tethered them under a tree near the archway. David gave a guard a two-dollar bill to guard them, and we started to walk to Culp's Hill.
First we had to walk past McKnight's Hill. It was really just a knoll, but it was there that we saw our first corpse, lying facedown near a small spring. His hands were reaching out, clutching small tufts of grass. His haversack and canteen lay beside him.
David knelt down and turned him over. "Maine," he said. "He'd been trying to fill up his canteen. His musket is gone."
We looked around. Within a short distance were a lot of other Rebs and Yankees. David stood up. "Let's go," he said.
We went on. A short distance, still on McKnight's Hill, we saw a Confederate body cut in half, lying there in grass, which was red with blood for about two yards all around it. I wanted to stop, but David grabbed my arm and pulled me forward.
Then we climbed the wooded sections around Culp's Hill and the bright sun overhead dimmed, as if we were walking into a fairy story. Only this was instead like walking into the part of it that was owned by the wicked witch who was preparing poisons to kill the prince and princess.
First we came upon body parts.
Legs and arms, as if to introduce us to what was coming. As if to prepare us for the rest.
David walked in front of me, bade me follow directly behind and halt when he did. He stopped once, just to look up.
"Look at the trees," he told me. He spoke in a whisper, and I gazed up.
All around us the trees were still standing, mute evidence of what had happened here. They were standing, yes, but you could see where the minié balls had shot away the bark and made holes in the trunks.
Some had no bark left. They were, most of them, as mangled and torn as the bodies that lay on the ground all around them. Only it was their destiny to live on if they could and remember the hell that had gone on here. And if not, if they could not bear it, then they must die.
The trees had given of themselves, too.
"Oh, it's terrible, David," I moaned.
"Yes." That was all he said. Then he went over to one particularly beautiful oak into which an iron ramrod was fastened, jammed in far. He set down his things and tried to pull it out. But it would not come out. So he cursed and tried some more, but it would not budge. So he bit his bottom lip and gave up. He picked up his things and we went on.
We headed for the place Pa had told us about, the breastworks built by the Twelfth Corps, but we became disoriented and couldn't find it. Then we smelled coffee and the aroma drew us in the direction of some soldiers from the Third Wisconsin, who were already burying some dead. There were six of them and they waved at us.
We went over to them and David shook hands and introduced his "little sister" and told them what we were about and how we were here to continue Pa's work, how Pa was a doctor with the Union army, and they directed us to the breastworks.
They offered us some coffee, which they'd been brewing on a small fire. We took out our cups. I offered them some sugar cookies Josie had sent along. She'd sent more than enough. We visited about ten minutes, then went on our way to find the breastworks.
Once there we found the graves that Pa had dug and marked and recorded in his book. We opened and read the book together, figured out Pa's system and where I should write the names of those we buried that afternoon.
In the next three hours or so, we had to decide which of the many bodies that lay about to bury.
The one that was legless, with the flies buzzing about what was left of it? And if so, mustn't David first find the legs and bury them with it? He made me step back, then searched the pockets of the man's jacket, where he found what he was looking for. A letter with his name on it.
"Write this down in Pa's book," he directed. Then from the ground where he was kneeling next to the body, he looked up at me. "Are you all right?"
I said yes, that I was, though truth to tell I was a little dazed. I did not know a body had so much blood in it. And I had never seen a man with no legs before. It did not seem to bother David, and I would certainly never let him know that it disturbed me.
He gave me the man's name and I wrote carefully: Corporal Albert Sydney Sawyer of the 20th Connecticut. I also wrote where he was buried: On Culp's Hill, by the 12th Corps breastworks.
"There are some legs over yonder," I told my brother.
"Got to dig the grave first." He took up his shovel and commenced to dig, thanking the Lord for the rain and the soft ground and remembering how Pa had told him it had to be deep. In no time at all he had a respectable grave, had retrieved the legs and had them placed in the hole with the soldier. Having covered it all over, he took out of a sack some light wood he'd brought along to make grave markers. While he was going for the next body I was the one who wrote, with a lead pencil, the name and regiment of the dead man on the marker.
"They'll designate someone to come and carve it on later," he told me. "No time to do it now."
The next soldier was Private William Sensebaugh, also from the Twentieth Connecticut. He'd been shot in the chest and his right arm was in tatters. Just as quickly, David dug the grave and buried him, made the grave marker, and while I went about my business writing his name on it, and again in Pa's book, David went to choose another body.
Only before he did this, he ran his hand across his forehead and planted the end of his shovel in the ground. "We haven't eaten anything yet," he reminded me. "You hungry?"
I nodded yes.
"Why didn't you say something? Come on—let's go over to this clump of trees, away from the dead."
I followed him to the trees, where there were some rocks, and we took out our food and ate. If you faced away from the battlefield, looked out over the hills toward town, you could pretend you were on a picnic and not on a gory mission. You could make believe there were no dead around you.
We sat in silence. "It's really beautiful up here," David said. "Gotta bring Josie up here someday when all this mess is over."
He grinned at me and I gave a small smile back. "Sorry you came?" he asked.
I shook my head no.
He finished the rest of his food and wiped his mouth. "Damned war," he murmured. "Ruined everything for everybody. And now I hear that Meade didn't pursue Lee, but let him get away across the river. So it'll go on for a couple of more years. Lincoln's gotta get himself a better general than that. Well"—he stood up and stretched—"let's get back to work. The afternoon is almost gone."
We went back to work.
All in all we buried three more bodies. Then the man came.
I didn't know what time it was. The sun was low in the west, though, so it must have been about six o'clock already. I was worn down, and if somebody hadn't come I think David would have gone on working until dark. He's like that, David is. Once he's involved in something he just keeps right on going, never wants to quit.
We didn't hear the man coming, and he was on a horse, too. We didn't hear the horse's footfalls.
All of a sudden he was just there. I looked up and saw him first. A dumpy-looking man wearing a canvas coat. I recollect wondering why he was wearing a canvas coat in the July heat. And he was carrying a gun, too. A rifle.
First thing that came to me was that David did not have a gun. He hadn't thought it necessary to take it along to a cemetery. He'd had so much else to carry.
I worried about that for half a second. David always carried a gun.
"David," I said.
He was busy digging a grave and didn't hear me at first, so I said it again. "David."
"What?" He was annoyed at the interruption.
"Somebody's here."
He stopped digging. He took off his hat, shoved his hair back, and looked up at the man. "Can I help you?" he asked. "You lost?"
"Don't think so," the man said. He was from the North, didn't have a Southern accent. He slipped off his horse but kept his r
ifle. He offered his hand to David. "Name's Daniel Sensebaugh, down from Connecticut earlier this day."
David took off his glove and shook hands.
Sensebaugh. I must be overtired, I thought, but why does that name ring a bell?
"Is this the site of the breastworks of the Twelfth Corps?" he asked.
"You've got it," David told him.
"Well," Mr. Sensebaugh announced, "like I said, I come down earlier today by rail with my mother to get the body of my brother who was killed the other day on this here hill."
Oh. Sensebaugh. We had just buried him.
"I'm sorry about that," David said.
"Yeah, well so am I. And my mother. I've put her up at the Globe Inn. I've got a coffin all ready to take my brother home in. Tomorrow. Guess I'll have to look around and find him." He gazed around the hill at all the bodies. "God Awmighty, what a slaughter. Well, there's a couple of hours of light left yet for me to look." He started to walk away.
David did not look at me. He bit his lower lip and looked down at his boots for a minute. But just for a minute. Then he turned and called out. "Mr. Sensebaugh!"
The man turned. "Yes?"
"Don't bother looking. Your brother's here."
"Where?"
David pointed with the shovel. "Here. We just buried him. That's what we're doing here. Burying the dead and marking their graves and keeping an account of where they're buried for future reference. My sister and I. We've been working at it for hours. Others are doing it also. At different places."
The man walked back to us. On his face was a look of pleasant surprise. "Well then, you've saved me a lot of trouble, son. Now you can just help dig him up and put him on my horse and I can take him back down the hill into town."
David stood there, straight and tall and firm. "No sir," he said quietly. "I'm afraid I can't do that."
"Well, why in hell not, boy?"
"Why, you see, sir," David said softly, "it would be against the law. The provost marshal gave orders that no bodies are to be exhumed. By anybody. Not even family members who come from afar. No sir, I'm sorry. I can't do it. And I can't allow you to do it, either."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE MAN JUST stared at David for a moment as if my brother was speaking a foreign language. Then, when Mr. Sensebaugh spoke again, he spoke as if he were addressing a five-year-old child.
"Now, look here, son, let me say it again. All's I came for is my brother's body. It'd take just a minute to dig it up. Dig it up, son. Not exhume it. I'm not one for fancy language. Up in Connecticut we don't use fancy language. You just buried him. When? How long ago now?"
"Within the last couple hours," David said.
The man nodded gravely. "Couple hours," he repeated. "So now we just push the dirt away. It isn't even settled yet. And we take him out. A simple matter. No need to attach a legal term to it. Or cite any provost marshal's order. Just let me have him and I'll be on my way."
"Can't do it," David said again.
"For God's sake, son, the provost marshal doesn't even know my brother's been buried!"
"My name's David. David Stryker. And I know he's been buried."
Mr. Sensebaugh was quickly getting aggravated. He took a deep breath, reached into an inside coat pocket, and drew out some paper money. "Good Yankee dollars." He held them out to David. "It's been my experience in life that almost everybody can be bought off. Now come on. You people in Gettysburg have taken a beating, I hear. Suffered a lot of damages. This ought to help some." He held out the money.
David stood rigid. "I can't be bought," he said quietly.
Sensebaugh frowned. "You're a damned fool," he said.
David just shrugged.
"Now I'm through fooling around, Stryker. Enough's enough. It's getting late. I've come a long way and I'm tired. My ma's waiting. She's all torn apart. I can't let her down. Now if you don't want to dig him up, step aside, give me the shovel, and I will. Or you'll suffer the consequences."
With that, he shifted the rifle in his arm.
Still, David did not move. "You'd best get on your way, Mr. Sensebaugh. I've made up my mind about this."
"And so have I," Sensebaugh said. He drew up his rifle, aiming it at David. "I'm not wasting any more time."
But I knew my brother David. He had made up his mind, too. It was like before, like the decision he'd made when he'd ripped up the note Mr. Cameron's son had left for his father in our basement. I knew that note was just as important a decision to him as the digging up of this body here and now.
And the decision just as crucial. And instant. No wavering. Just black and white, right and wrong. And no gun would put him off.
I heard the click of Mr. Sensebaugh's rifle and I screamed, "David, no, give him what he wants."
"See? Your little sister has more brains. Give me what I want."
David waved me back. "Be quiet, Tacy. And stay away." He turned and gave me a small smile. Behind him in the west, the sun was setting, and he was backlit against it. I could see in just half a second a sort of peace in his eyes, a sense that he knew at long last, what he was about. "It's all right, Tacy, it's all right," he said.
"One last chance," Sensebaugh was saying at the same time.
Then David's "No, I said. I can't. I won't."
And then the shot. So loud in the quiet woods, echoing over the dead, the last shot of the war on Culp's Hill, the shot that welcomed my brother David to their ranks, where he had always wanted to be with them, alive, and hadn't been allowed to. But was allowed now. Because he had come to them late, but he was here now, doing his part and darned if he wasn't going to do that part to the last of his ability. Darned if he wasn't going to give, as they had, to his last full measure.
I screamed. Mr. Sensebaugh's horse neighed wildly and reared, turned, and started to run. And he after it.
I ran to David, who had collapsed on the ground.
The sun disappeared behind the mountains, leaving only a winking glow and some red. But its red was as nothing to the red of David's blood.
CHAPTER TWENTY
HE WAS LYING still when I got to him, his eyes looking up at me, and he was bleeding from his chest. All kinds of thoughts whirled around in my head.
Has he been shot in the heart? If so he'll die instantly.
Maybe not, there is blood all over his shirt. He could be shot elsewhere.
What can I do? Stanch the blood. Or try to. I know that much. I'm a doctor's daughter, after all. But with what? And then what? Suppose I can't stop the flow? And how can I get him out of here? There is no one about.
All this went through my mind in the half a second before I knelt down beside him.
And then I did not what I knew as a doctor's daughter, but what I knew as the reader of romance novels. I lifted up my skirt and tore at my petticoat. I ripped it savagely, tearing it until I had a sufficient amount of cloth to apply to David's wound and absorb the blood. I held it there firmly.
"Good girl," David said weakly.
"I'm wearing more than one petticoat," I told him. "Do you hurt a lot?"
"I'll be all right," he lied, "but I could use some water."
"Well, you hold your hands over the cloth for a minute and I'll fetch the water."
He did so and I got the canteens, two of them, and lifted his head and held one to his lips.
"I wish someone was about," I said.
"Someone will come soon," he assured me.
He sounded like Mama now, calm and hopeful. It worried me. And it was dusk, which worried me more. "Do we have a lantern?" I asked.
"I brought one, yes."
"God, David, you're wonderful."
"Don't flatter me. It'll make me believe you think I'm dying."
"You're not dying, David. I won't let you die."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"Just you shut up about it, is all."
"You going to mouth me now? Is that what you're going to do?"
Tears ca
me to my eyes. "Yes. You can't do anything about it, so I'm going to mouth you."
I saw tears come into his eyes, but all he said was "It'll be coming on to dark soon, won't it?"
"I suppose."
"Go over there and get the lantern. And some matches out of my haversack. Go on. Can't sit around here in the dark."
I fetched the lantern and lighted it. The glow of it was comforting. David was still bleeding and growing weaker. Sometimes he closed his eyes for a few moments, "just to rest," he told me.
I was growing more frightened, and then I saw the moon rising and the first star in the heavens.
"What will happen," he said quietly, without opening his eyes, "is that Ma will be frantic with worry by now. And if Pa is sleeping, she'll wake him, if she hasn't already. He'll send someone up here to look for us. When they come, don't forget to tell them we have horses down there. Pa knows just where we are, Tacy. You don't have to be frightened. They'll find you."
I stared hard down at him. "Me? What are you talking about?"
He took my hand. His own hand was cold. "I'll be gone soon, Tacy—you might as well accept that. I haven't long now."
"David."
"Hush, please." His voice was weaker now. "I've things to say. A person knows when he is dying. Now listen to me, please. What I did with that man who shot me I'm not sorry for. I did the right thing. You tell the authorities all about him, hear?"
"Yes, David."
"What I am sorry for is the way I've treated you."
He started to cough. Half coughing and half choking. I lifted his head. Some blood was coming out of his mouth. I grabbed a piece of my petticoat that I'd set aside and wiped the blood away. I gave him some water.
"Don't talk, David."
"No mouth," he said, and went on. "I've been mean to you, Tacy."
"It's all right."
"Isn't!" The word was forceful. "Not right! I'm sorry! Wanted you to know!"
He fell silent, breathing heavily.
Then he spoke again. "I love you, Tacy. Always did. You're my—" More coughing, more blood from his mouth.
Again I wiped it away.
