Men pulled our cannon back. Others ran.
“Stand and prepare to fire!”
Who gave the order? Who could think? I wanted to run.
Merrick was on his feet, tearing a cartridge, jamming a ball. I got to my knees. Canister shrieked over us. I couldn’t get a ball in my barrel.
“Fire!”
Rebs came. A wall of smoke lit by red flashes. I was on my feet. Noise behind us—horses, gun carriages.
Good God! Who’s behind us? Rebs? Are we surrounded?
A black-haired officer jumped off a horse. He yelled, pointed, directed. Wheels rumbled. Horses neighed, snorted. Cannon was unlimbered, fired. It was the Wisconsins. How’d they set up their guns so quick?
I saw Confederate butternut a hundred paces away. Shells burst in their line! The white cloud streaked red. Black holes cut in it. The Reb line stopped, wavered. A Reb battery was blown to pieces. Rebs were tossed like dolls. Others dragged cannon back. The line broke. Rebs ran into the woods.
John Gibbon and the Wisconsins blew the Reb guns to splinters.
Delivered! My God, delivered! I kneeled, got a ball in the barrel, fired. I never thanked God or man the way I thanked those black-hatted westerners.
We knelt behind cover. The lines fired sporadically. After dark, we stayed down and the Rebs stayed down. No one went to the wounded left on the field. They cried for water, mother, God. My gratitude shriveled to a small knot in my chest. The wounded cried for hours. They cried into the dusk when the whip-poor-wills started their thin, clear call and an owl hooted like a solitary sentinel. Moans and bird-calls made strange music.
I smelled shit. Wounded men shit themselves. Men blown apart stink.
23
We marched out of Gainesville at eleven that night, heading for Manassas. I thanked God. The wounded still cried out as we headed toward Bull Run Creek. I knew some day I might lie between armies, groaning, crying, a soul in hell. We’d heard about men left for days, stripped by soldiers, then locals who came like jackals. Pockets turned inside out, boots taken, bloody photographs tossed on the ground. David Hamer heard a wounded man ate grass for five days for want of anything else, and died after being found by the Union Army. Lyman Houghton and Merrick wanted to die outright and not face the surgeons. Every man knew about field hospitals, tents at best, sometimes just planks on barrels, with piles of arms and legs in a pit if someone had time to dig one, or just piles. We’d heard about exhausted surgeons in smocks encrusted with blood and pus, wielding knives and saws. We knew about wounded men waiting for chloroform, screaming, whimpering, held down. Left in barns or outside on straw. Praying for someone to clean their stumps or give them water.
I’d been on the line now. I’d been shot at, and not by skirmishers, not foraying, not pissing on a tree. I’d heard Minié balls and grape and canister—the iron hail that makes red mist. Shells had gone over my head. At Gainesville, the Rebs had fired high. Gibbon and the Black Hats had arrived in time. How they had unlimbered their guns and fired was a miracle. How often do miracles come? I knew that nothing—nothing—I did affected whether I lived or died. It was chance. Pure chance. If the Rebs had fired lower, if Gibbon hadn’t arrived, if his gunners weren’t superhuman…
What did I prefer? Quick death, or agony in the surgeon’s tent? I’d probably die in a storm of iron. I pinned my name inside my shirt after Gainesville.
We marched by a sliver of moon toward Bull Run Creek. My elbow touched Cousin in the dark. I asked myself whether God cared how you died. Did He care who you left behind? A mother, a father? A child you never saw? I got no more answer tramping in Virginia than on my knees in Cazenovia.
I started to shake. Cousin took my arm. We didn’t talk until we paused to wash in a stream.
“I pissed myself,” said Merrick.
“You?”
“I was scared,” he said.
“But you stood and fired,” I said.
“I can fight and be scared, Ro. So can you.”
“That’s called bravery, Merrick.”
“Don’t matter what you call it,” he said. “It’s what you gotta do.”
“We not gonna get out of this alive,” I said.
“No matter.”
We marched for three days and the third was the hottest I remembered. We were south of the Warrenton Pike, near Groveton Junction, heading towards Bull Run Creek, a half-day away. I looked at oaks and chestnuts as if each tree, each leaf, was the most gorgeous thing. Solitary, intricate, beautiful. I wanted to stop, count points, feel ridges, touch branches. I wanted this forever.
We marched, drenched in sweat. I figured God had made trees and lost interest in men. Why weren’t men like trees? Why didn’t men take what they needed from rain and soil instead of stealing and fighting? Why didn’t men stand for centuries, as trees did?
The oaks and chestnuts didn’t move at all in the heavy August heat. I remembered the popples by Lake Ontario, how their leaves turned over silver when storms rolled in off the water, how their green and silver turned gold and danced in the autumn wind, and dropped, swirled, joined the earth. Trees—God’s perfect creation.
We came to the edge of a field near Groveton. I wondered if I should write Helen and tell her to forget me. Would I live? The war was march, march, march all over Virginia, get whipped, go back to Washington, then find another place where men stand and fire at each other. It would get worse. We hadn’t been in a charge. We hadn’t been feet, inches, from bayonet wielding, Rebel-yell-yelling madmen. Should I tell Helen to forget me? If I wanted Helen to forget me, I wanted to die. Should I write Betsey and ask about the child? What was the use of that? If I lived, I lived for Helen. The child? I didn’t even know if the child was alive. I wanted to stop, rest, fill my canteen, examine a leaf, take off my wet kepi. Feel if God was here.
If the child lived, it was a son. I don’t how I knew, but I was sure.
At two o’clock, the day couldn’t get any hotter. We came to a hill covered with trees that overlooked a road and a small creek. Captain Ferguson’s map showed we were close to Stone Hospital. Not too close, thank God. I didn’t want to hear moaning or weeping, or see men trying to comprehend life without arm or leg. We’d heard the casualties yesterday at Brawners’ Farm were fearful. The 24th had been in the rear. The Wisconsins hadn’t been so lucky. They’d got caught by artillery, then had scaled a hill topped by Rebs, waiting for them. Twice the Black Hats went up. I don’t know how many men were lost, men who’d saved our lives.
Shots rang out deep in the woods.
“Lay down!” yelled Major Barney.
“Make yourself comfortable,” said Cousin, which I did, at least as comfortable as a man on his stomach, hoping he doesn’t get killed, can be comfortable. It felt good to rest.
We lay there three hours. I drank from my canteen, fired at will, listened to the roar of artillery beyond the trees. Our guns answered. The batteries couldn’t reach each other, but made a steady rumble. If only war were limited to this alone. Lie on your stomach, watch trees, load, fire at will. Artillery dueling far away. If we could just lie in the woods the rest of the war. God, I hated open space. You marched or died in it. I lay and listened to the trees.
At five, a hot red sun hung over the afternoon and we got orders to march again. I picked up my pack. Back to the dance of armies probing, skirmishing, flirting, until they finally meet. And meet they would, by accident, design, or because someone with gold on his shoulder made a decision or mistake. We left our wooded hill and marched towards a creek. We were going to wash and drink our fill. We came over a rise.
Suddenly, nightmare.
A Reb line. They fired. Again. Men fell. I stood, unhurt.
Rebs behind a rail fence.
“Rally to the colors! The colors!” yelled Major Barney.
Merrick and I ran for the flag held by Albert Beeman. I went to one knee, pulled a cartridge—rip, ram, load. Tear packet, pour powder, drop bullet. Ram. Hammer at half-cock. Percussion cap
on nipple. Full-cock. Fire.
Load. Fire. Load. Mind blank. Hands under control.
A ball ripped across Albert Beeman’s face. Eyelids gone. Blood. Hands to eyes, no scream. The colors falling. Grabbed by Sergeant Bell. I stood, fired. Tear, bite, ram, fire. Three shots a minute, four if you don’t ram, bang rifle on ground.
Men formed up by the colors. Sergeant Bell stood full-front. Hit. Corporal Martin grabbed the colors. “Come on men! Rally!” Hit. Corporal Cook took the colors. Hit.
I loaded and fired. We made two ragged lines. Some ran. Some couldn’t either run or shoot. Merrick cussed. Sweat stung my eyes.
“Bass! Private Bass!” Captain Ferguson waved his sword. Shouted. End of the line, Philo Bass, dark hair, black eyes. Dead shot.
“Shoot that damn flag!” Ferguson pointed his sword at the fence. A Reb color bearer waved the blood red Seceesh flag.
Philo leveled, sighted, fired.
Flag-holder down.
Another Reb took the flag. Hit before Philo got a loaded rifle.
The flag didn’t touch ground. New Reb. Men writhed on the ground. Our men. Doubled-up, screaming. The right side of our line rose. Captain Ferguson pointed his sword. “Charge! Flank them!” A cheer went up. Three Reb color bearers shot! Seize the fight!
Merrick, me, Hamer and Crocker ran for the Reb colors. My hands wet. Uniform sticky. Touched tintype. Socks drenched. I stumbled. Pain. Ankle. Not shot.
Men came at us. Blue. Running. Rout! Rout!
We ran. We ran back to the wooded hill we’d just lain on. Balls whizzed. I’d have run to Sandy Creek if I could.
I stumbled. Someone pulled my arm. Up.
“Stop! Stop!”
“Hell with it!” I yelled. “Hell with it!”
I fell. My rifle clattered against a tree.
“The guns!” yelled Merrick. “Come on!”
I picked up my rifle. Followed.
“Rebs gettin’ our artillery!”
Merrick, me, Hamer, Crocker, and Lyman Houghton ran toward a knoll where three Union guns stood. A fourth was dragged by Rebs up a neighbor hill. We ran uphill. Slipped on loose stones. Grabbed roots, a small tree. Rebs were on the other side of the knoll. Muzzle flashes dotted the woods. Balls whizzed.
Yanks and Rebs ran for the guns. The Rebs grabbed a twelve-pounder. A hundred more poured down a neighbor hill. We grabbed the wheels of a twelve-pounder. Tried to pull it from its plant. Horses dead. Gunners dead.
I was hurled to the ground. Merrick thrown the other way!
The cannon fired. An artilleryman had pulled the lanyard. Half the Rebs on the hill went down in red mist. Another gun fired. Rebs staggered. Ran. They were twenty yards away when the guns fired. The hill was strewn with bodies and parts of bodies. I saw.
Three hours later, seventy 24th men pushed our cannon over rough ground in the dark. We were flushed with pride. I was exhausted, ankle aching, groin hurting, filthy, sore, friends dead, but Merrick and Lyman and Hamer and Crocker were okay. Darkness covered the arms and legs and heads on the hill. For the first time, I felt part of an army. I remembered the President. The President who came when we weren’t an army, but a beaten, chigger-bitten mob. I wished he could see us now. Hoped he’d hear the 24th had saved its guns. Seventy Yorkers pulled and dragged, soon to wash in Bull Run Creek. Clean our faces of powder, sweat, fear. Wipe away death.
Victory.
We walked in the dark to find fires, brothers, sleep. I thought of Gib and Helen and father. This was their moment too. This was what the colors meant. How many died never knowing it? We walked parallel to Bull Run Creek. A dark line of men was by the water. Wisconsins bathing wounds? Men who ran rejoining the brave?
The Reb line opened fire. Half the 24th went down. It was like a firing squad. Men screamed, “I surrender! I surrender!” I ran. Merrick ran. Men ran in all directions.
Another volley. Some fell, others collided. The color bearer gave up the colors.
I didn’t care.
I ran.
24
That night what was left of the 24th collected itself. I sat and cried. Cousin put a blanket over my head. No matter. Others cried. The war was like God, never satisfied.
I opened my shirt and put my hand on the tintype. I squeezed it to my heart, my love, my guilt. Cousin smoked his short-stemmed pipe with short, rapid puffs. He took his worry out on that pipe. Lyman Houghton bent over a crinkled letter from his girl. He never talked about her, but I once heard him said, “Blue, blue eyes.” Philo Bass prayed. His hands were folded and his left eye twitched. Philo’s eye twitched when he wasn’t sighting a rifle. His brother Allen slept and groaned in his sleep. David Hamer arranged bullets. He put them in rows, then a circle. David Crocker massaged one hand, then the other. When he stopped, they shook. Dan Buck slept with both hands on his rifle. Martin Denison stared at nothing.
The next morning a roll of drums summoned us to fall out and march. The regiment was smaller. We closed ranks and marched. No one talked. No one looked at the man next to him. We looked ahead or at our feet. No one joked. I felt numb and wanted to feel numb. I didn’t want to think. I wanted Cousin at my side. That’s all I thought about. The next minute, next hour, next day would have to take care of itself.
The armies weren’t courting now. Men found men. Nothing coy about it. Nobody leaves the dance.
Later we heard Pope thought he’d catch Jackson at Bull Run where McDowell failed in ‘61. He planned to catch and destroy Bobby Lee’s army. Pope would fight the way Little Mac hadn’t on the Peninsula. He wouldn’t fail for lack of nerve. The army would attack and attack and attack.
I marched all morning with Cousin, David Hamer, Crocker, Lyman, Philo and Allen Bass. They had luck and luck kept men alive. We marched, left, right, left, right; the cadence to canister and grape and Rebs who were all goddamn sharpshooters. Left, right. Left, right.
At midday we heard rifle fire in the woods to the right. On the left, cannon, more rifles. Somewhere ahead was the unfinished Manassas Gap Railroad bed. It would be a trench, maybe six feet deep and wide enough for railroad tracks. Yesterday General Reno’s men had failed to drive the Rebs out of the position. When Rebs get a place, they fortify it. They’d had this one for two days.
I had no hardness. I looked at my feet and walked.
We came out of the woods. I saw clear ground and a snake fence where skirmishers fired at the occasional Reb, who fired over the lip of the railroad bed, then ducked under it for cover. I knew we’d be ordered over the fence to attack the sunken railroad. I tried not to think.
A cannon ball struck the ground, threw dirt, bounced, hissed furiously, cut a shallow trench, and rolled into the woods. Another spewed dirt, ploughed a trench, bounced like a bowling ball and rolled into the woods, crashing through the undergrowth. Two more. Ploughed. Bounced. I was fascinated. Bowling? Thank God they used solid shot.
A black dog jumped out of the woods and chased the balls. The dog had gone mad.
“Form up!” yelled Captain Ferguson. “Over the fence!”
We made a line in front of the woods. It was like a dream. I tried to blot out everything.
“We can do it,” said Cousin. “If we stand together.”
“That’s Stonewall’s men!” shouted Captain Ferguson.
“They ain’t got no stone wall!” Sergeant Hollis joined the line.
“Remember the fallen!” shouted Lieutenant Corse.
“To the fence!” Lieutenant Balch raised his sword and advanced over clear ground.
The line followed. Shoulder to shoulder, bayonets flashing in the sun. Twenty yards to the sunken railroad. Rebs held fire. The fence wouldn’t go down. “Damn Virginia snake!” yelled Merrick. The line bulged, wavered, men helped each other. We got over and reassembled.
“Charge!”
A cheer went up.
Attack. On line. Ground uneven. Earth dry. Day clear and hot. Uniform drenched. Didn’t feel heat. Didn’t feel sweat. Didn’t feel anything. Jus
t go! Go! Go! Heat exploding!
We cheered.
We got twenty feet.
The Reb line fired. Whizzing of Minié balls. Men went down all along our line. I stopped. Lieutenant Hollis, sword high, mouth open, got hit in the chest. Went down. Lieutenant Corse, saber high, hit in the forehead. His head jerked. Red, gray spray. He twitched like a headless chicken.
No line.
Men down, men screaming.
“Form up! Goddamn it! Form up!” Balch yelled. He waved his sword. The point gleamed.
“Attack before they reload!”
Cousin stood. Sighted. Fired. Cousin put his rifle down, picked up another by a body. He pulled a detached finger from the trigger guard. He aimed. Fired. Put the rifle down. Picked up another.
“Charge!”
We pulled together. New line. Easy targets.
Rebs rose behind a kneeling line. Fired.
Men fell. Crawled. Doubled over, jerked, slithered, rolled. Ground all wriggling bodies. Blue snakes. Some went mad. Jumped, howled, flung their arms in the air. One barked. Another ran on all fours.
My left shoulder exploded in pain. On the ground. Pulled up. Pulled back. Rebs fired at crawling men. Uniforms puckered. Fish in a barrel.
“Let me go, damn you!”Cousin held my good shoulder.
“Move! Move! They’re killing us!”
Groups of two, three went forward. They walked to the sunken railroad. How such courage?
Lieutenant Balch reached the lip of the sunken railroad. His sword was over his head. A Reb jumped up and put a ball through the lieutenant’s hip. Balch sat, dumbfounded, on the edge of the railroad bed. He pulled his pistol and fired at the Rebs who popped up. Philo Bass found a tree, a white tree, and fired at any Reb near the lieutenant. Philo loaded, aimed, fired. A ball ripped through his cartridge box. He reached for it. A ball shattered his arm at the shoulder. Private Damon, youngest in Company G, reached the bank. He fired, loaded, fired. A Reb jumped up. Damon bayoneted him. He bayoneted another. Red blade in butternut. Damon sat. Reloaded. A Reb jumped up. Shot Damon in the head.
No Common War Page 9
