by Jim Murphy
A few minutes later she came to the entrance and stood there, checking all around and listening. Then she looked right to where I was and waved that I should come in.
When I got there, a little stew was just beginning to bubble and the smell was wonderful — and my stomach said so! — but that was not what was on my mind just then. “Where is Davie?” I asked. “Will he be here soon? I have to leave, Sally. Tonight.”
Sally put a potato she was peeling — the one that held the candle — into the kettle and said something to calm me down. But I just kept asking her about Davie and saying I had to leave and such til she said something sharp and pointed to the table. I may be the one wearing a sgt.’s chevrons, but Sally is the one with an officer’s command!
So I sat down and waited while the stew cooked up, and then we ate it and not many words was passed between us. I was beginning to think I would finish my stew and just leave, when Sally got up and began putting what little food she had in a sack. So I was leaving after all.
I decided to write in the journal til Davie appeared and I was at this work when — without sound or announcement — a man stepped into the shack — followed by four other people — a woman and three children!
The man and the woman glanced at me, then commenced talking with Sally — and I could not figure out any of it — and all the while the three children looked me up and down suspiciously. At one point the man — who I took to be Davie — began studying me especially hard. He is an impressive man — I guess he might be thirty or thirty-five years old and over six feet tall and very strong looking, even fierce. But it is his eyes that speak loudest — they are dark, almost black, intelligent, and move so quickly that I am sure there is nothing that escapes his attention.
The woman was younger than the man while the children looked to range in age from five or six all the way up to ten. Suddenly everyone fell silent. “Am I going with him now?” I asked Sally, pointing to the man and then to myself. I assumed no one spoke American because the man said something to Sally in French and she said something back. He then turned to me and announced, “I am Davie, Sally’s nephew. This is my wife, Martha, and these are our children.” He spoke American with a southern accent, with some French there, too, but not so thick as to make understanding hard. “Sally says we will all be leaving just as soon as she speaks with the children.” “We all will be leaving?” I asked. “All of us,” Davie said gravely, pointing to the children, his wife, Sally, and himself. “We are all that is left of our family. Now come here, please, young sir. We have to prepare for the journey.”
May 10, near dawn
It is hard to tell about last night, so many things happened. While Sally talked with Martha and the children, Davie got me ready by mixing up a fine batch of mud right there in Sally’s floor and rubbing it all over my face and hands and even the brass buttons of my uniform. “Won’t it be hard to get thru with all of them?” I asked Davie at one point. “Sally is telling them now what they must do,” he said. “They will listen to her. And the rain will help.”
That was true, about the rain. It was a cold, steady shower now — the kind of weather that drives most soldiers to find shelter. Still, trying to slip seven people past the Rebs would be pretty hard to do. And then there was Sally. “Will Sally be okay?” I asked. “Will she be able to make the journey? Those woods are fierce and —” Davie waved the questions away. “If any of us make it out, it will be Sally. Don’t you go worrying about her, Sgt. Worry about yourself.”
Sally finished talking with Martha and the children, then she turned to us and let out a soft laugh when she saw me. She said something to Davie, who also laughed. “She says the mud makes you look like her husband, who is gone ten years now. But she thinks you might be even scrawnier.”
We left right after this, with Davie leading. The oldest child — who was a girl — was right behind her father. Behind the girl came Martha, who was holding the hand of a boy, while Sally followed them with the other child — a girl — in tow. I came last in our little parade.
“Come along,” Davie said as he entered the woods by way of a tiny trail. I thought we would be in for a bad trip when the little girl became afraid and started whining and struggling to avoid entering the dark woods. That kind of action was okay here near the empty clearing, but if we was close to Reb soldiers, it could cost us dearly. Fortunately Sally gave the little girl’s arm a hard tug and said something in her ear, and then we went on without a peep from either child.
Davie had moved ahead of us — about thirty or forty feet — so we could barely see him. He told us before leaving that we was to watch him carefully and to move when he moved, stop when he stopped.
He seemed to have a purpose for every step he took — at least I hoped so. The woods all looked the same to me, and without a moon or stars I had no idea what direction we was headed. Sally was right to make me wait — without a guide I would have been lost in no time or been scooped up by the Rebs.
If I had any doubts about this, they disappeared when we was about a half mile from the clearing. Davie suddenly stopped and did not move for a very long time. I could see him leaning forward, listening, and searching the woods. He heard or saw something, I was sure. But what?
Time dragged along while we waited, and the two littlest began pulling this way and that. Both Sally and Martha knelt beside the children, holding them tight and whispering to them.
At last Davie came back to us and whispered first to Sally and then to me that there was a small fire in the woods off to the right about 200 feet. Guards for the pasture where a sizable number of Rebs was camped, Davie guessed. If that was true, I told Davie, it meant that there was other guards positioned all around the field at regular intervals. “Is there another way?” I asked. Davie shook his head no and said this was the best route — there was another Reb camp to the left and the land to the right was too rough. We needed to get beyond the pasture ahead but he did not seem to know what to do next and commenced whispering with Sally and his wife.
“They will likely have little fires,” I said, interrupting their talk. “On a rainy night, the officers will let them have fires to drive off the cold. And they will give a signal to say everything is O.K. Probably every fifteen minutes. That is how our guards work, any-way.”
Davie told this to the others, then said we would wait for the next signal and if he felt it safe we would move ahead. Otherwise, we would have to go back and try another night. I was to carry the little girl, while he would carry the small boy — that way, there would be fewer feet to cause noise. I also told Davie that once we was past the ring of guards, we should angle to the left and then stop to listen again. There might be a second line of guards posted and they would signal at a different time than the first. “Sally was right,” Davie whispered as he shouldered one of his children. “She said a sgt. in the army would know things that would help us. Even so young a sgt. She knew that the moment she saw you.”
I must have looked startled by his words — I mean I don’t believe I present a very military appearance just now — but Davie added, “It was in your eyes, Sgt. Sally can tell a lot by the eyes.”
I picked up the girl and she immediately began reaching toward Sally, whimpering to be in her arms. My shoulder and arm hurt some where I’d landed on them, but that wasn’t what bothered me most. I was thinking: This could be very bad for us, especially if the girl got loud. Fortunately Sally was right there, soothing and hushing her gently, so the girl did not struggle hard to get free of my arms.
What Sally said, I do not know. But I did hear the name Harriet several times, so I commenced whispering in Harriet’s other ear and saying her name often, til she turned her big eyes on me and even reached out to touch my face and whisper something back to me. It was while we was whispering back and forth that I realized how light she was — a good gust could have sent her sailing like a leaf — and how thin her arms and legs really was.
Pretty soon, Harriet grabbed hol
d of my uniform and held tight. Around then, I heard a distant shout, and immediately it was repeated and repeated and repeated down the line of guards. The voices got louder and clearer as they approached, til we could hear the guards singing out, “All is quiet!” one after another. The call was sounded just to our right, where Davie had seen the fire, and then — not more than 100 feet away! — it came again on our left. Then the call continued its journey, fading away to nothing as it went around the rest of the pasture.
Davie did not hesitate, but moved forward very slowly. Now was a time to be thankful for a rainy, moonless night, as we was as silent and as invisible as tiny night creatures trying to avoid the eyes of the owl. After we passed the first line of guards and went to the left, we halted again to listen. Not long after this, the same shouted signal could be heard sweeping around the pasture. Fortunately, the inside line was not spaced so tightly together, so it was easy to slip between the nearest guards.
We was now between the guards and the main camp, circling around the pasture in a bit of woods I would guess was 300 feet from the camp — enough that I could see where the woods gave way to open pasture, but could not see any tents or other army equipment. During all of the waiting Harriet fell fast asleep on my shoulder, her breath coming regular and warm, as if nothing in the world was wrong — and I was happy to have it so.
We traveled like this all the way around the pasture — a half a mile at least — and eventually we came to the spot where Davie wanted to cut off into the woods again. Which meant we had to go back thru the lines of guards once more.
This time we was aided not only by the regular call, but by the fact that a guard change took place just then. There was all sorts of commands being issued, men talking — mostly complaining that the change of guards was late, as usual! — and a general stomping and crashing thru the underbrush with some cussing. So we hunched down low and was past all of them in just a few minutes.
Davie picked up the pace a mite then and I assumed that meant there was no Rebs camped over here. So on we went — over fallen-down trees, around rocks, across little streams. In some sections the walking was easy, but just when I relaxed a little, some sticker bush would jab at me to remind me I wasn’t safe yet. The sleeping Harriet had pulled her legs up and made her body into a ball, so carrying her even in the rough terrain was easy.
The land was thickly wooded and generally flat for nearly an hour, but then we came on a series of steep hills with lots of slippery rocks to climb. At one point Davie decided to walk up the middle of a cold, fast-moving stream, and we followed.
All of this was beginning to wear me down, my leg and arm being banged up as they was, and Harriet suddenly seeming to grow heavier. I started to breathe hard. How was Sally holding up? I wondered. How was Martha and the oldest girl doing? But they all seemed fine. Fortunately for me, Davie stopped often to listen and to peer ahead into the darkness, which gave me time to rest. He seemed to be choosing particularly rough terrain for our travel, to avoid Reb patrols, I guessed. There was hardly any other life in here, for that matter. Even the animals stayed clear of these places.
We came to a narrow road and stopped to rest and taste some of Sally’s food. Harriet and her brother slept on, while Sally, Martha, and the older girl looked as exhausted as I felt. “Are we far?” I asked. I did not want to walk another step if I did not have to, and besides, we had used up just about all of the night already.
Davie was working on some corn bread and looking up the road. “Far?” he said. “Not very far, I think.” But he did not seem very sure of this. “Do you know where this road leads?” I asked. “North,” Davie said, “I think it leads North.” “You think?” I asked, and I am certain my voice sounded alarmed. “You mean you’re not sure if this road goes North?”
Sally must have heard my upset because she and Davie and Martha began talking back and forth among themselves, pointing this way and that, sometimes up the road, sometimes into the woods behind us. Then Davie said, “Sally says the road goes North to a bigger road. She says if we follow the big road a few miles it will take us to a place where we can cross the river.”
I thought about this a moment. The road was temptingly flat and I know my feet would welcome a few miles that did not include tree roots, large rocks, and streams. Then I thought better. “If the Rebs control the land above here,” I said, “they will have guards posted in places. We should stick to the woods.”
A heartbeat later — as if to prove me correct — we heard a rumbling that was already mighty close on us. I rolled over and partly covered the sleeping children. “Get down and stay still,” I hissed, and soon we was all no more than lumps on the ground. And good thing, too. The rumbling — the sound of hooves, I now realized — was accompanied by the clink of metal on metal. Then the cavalry — Reb, I could just see — began going past our position, one after another after another, on and on, without end. 100. Maybe 200. Maybe more. After a while, I gave up looking at them and closed my eyes.
We was not more than fifteen feet from them, but Davie had selected a spot deep in shadow and the riders swept past us. If any glanced our way, they probably thought we was rocks or logs. Even after the line of horses ended and everything grew quiet again, we stayed on the ground without moving.
“That was close,” I said when I finally got up and had Harriet in my arms again. “Come along,” was all Davie said. “No time to waste.”
We was across the road — and we ran very quickly to the cover of the other side — and plunged into the woods. A little beyond the road we came to an empty field. “I think this is good,” I said. I was remembering Caesar’s finger moving over the map in Lt. Toms’s tent and how he said there was more farmland along the Rapidan. We skirted this field and soon came to another and another. Then there was another section of woods and not long after this we came to a wide body of water — the Rapidan.
Davie took us up along the river several miles to where the ford was. Which army controls this area? I wondered. Fortunately, I heard a series of orders issued — all in a very comforting Northern accent.
At the ford, the guard challenged me just as soon as he heard us, telling me to halt and say the password. I answered by telling him who I was and what company I was a part of. “I have been lost in the woods since the 6th,” I told him. “Come forward slowly with your hands raised,” he ordered, and I did as ordered. “I would raise my hands,” I said as I stepped from the woods, “but I have a child in my arms. And there are more with me. Five more.”
He had his musket pointed at me as we approached, and his eyes opened wide when he took in my appearance and then saw Sally and the others. “Damn if you don’t look just like one of these niggers here,” the guard said. I moved a few steps closer and turned to the side so he could see my sgt.’s chevrons. “These are my friends, Pte., and they saved my life. You will treat them with respect, do you hear?” “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, Sgt.,” he sputtered. “It’s just that you look . . . well, you look —” “Never mind how I look, Pte. Take me to the officer in charge and be quick about it.”
We was brought into camp then and left at the guard’s tent with warm blankets to wrap ourselves in. I handed Harriet over to Sally — tho Harriet actually clung to me so it took some doing to pry her fingers loose. Next some tins of Army coffee appeared. Just as thick and old as any I have ever had — and just as delicious!
A bucket of water was produced and I washed as much of the mud from my face and hands as I could. The others was now huddled on a cot, wrapped tight in their blankets and sinking fast into needed sleep. Except Sally, that is. Harriet had gotten fretful, and Sally had her on her lap and was stroking her hair and humming.
After this an officer came to question me and I was happy to tell him about the Reb troops I’d seen near Sally’s and the cavalry headed along the road. I tried to find out about the 122nd and my Company, but this officer was sour at being called out so late, and any-way he did not have much inform
ation about them. He did say that the fight in the woods had gone back and forth — first they looked to take the day and then us. He couldn’t have meant where we was, since it was clear they had beat us badly there! The fighting swung to our favor after their Gen. Longstreet was wounded and had to leave the battle, but then Gen. Lee managed to get his army over to Spotsylvania before we did and was still there and still fighting. He didn’t know exactly where our regiment was. They could be any-where between the Old Wilderness and Spotsylvania, or they could have even been pulled from the fight and put in reserve.
“You should get some rest, Sgt. And report to the adjutant’s tent for duty in the afternoon.” Report for what? I wondered. But that wasn’t the most important thing on my mind just then. “What about these people, sir?” I asked. “They helped me escape.” “We’ll see about them tomorrow, Sgt. There are some empty tents over by the sutler’s shanty you can use. The sgt. of the guard will show you where they are.”
I thanked him, and then the sgt. came in and took us to our tents for the night. I was so tired, I do not even remember saying good night or thank you to Davie or Sally or any of her family. But there will be tomorrow for that. Tonight I am to sleep on a soft cot under a warm blanket — but first I will reread Sarah’s letters one more time and pray for peaceful dreams.
May 11
Spoke with a Capt. Riskind around noon. He told me there was no way to know where G Company was at present and that til this was known I would be assigned to help unload ambulances. In the past this would have been just fine with me, being a safe occupation, but I protested this time — only the Capt. did not want to hear any of it.
