A Soldier's Secret

by Marissa Moss

  I’ve barely closed my eyes when I hear the drum banging the wake-up call. It’s time to prepare for a battle that seems impossible to win. Today of all days, I’ll be wearing a new, fancy uniform, with frills and fringes that don’t fit the mood of the army at all.

  I’m a general’s orderly now, not a colonel’s, hence the finer clothes. I’ll be taking the same risks, though, riding back and forth along the front lines, delivering messages and orders. I miss Flag’s steady company, but I have Lucky. He’s young and raw, but bighearted, and maybe his name will keep me safe in the battle to come.

  Burnside chooses to make a double-pronged attack. There are two points along Lee’s defensive line that he considers vulnerable, though to me Lee’s positions seem impregnable. One is Prospect Hill, south of town. The other is directly behind the town’s center, Marye’s Heights. Both enjoy high vantage points. To reach them, we have to cross open fields that offer little cover from enemy fire. Even worse, a fifteen-foot-wide drainage canal divides the terrain, meaning we have to slog through waist-deep, icy water or slow down into a single-file line to cross the three narrow bridges that span the gap. If any manage to make it across the ditch, there is still the base of the hill, where a stone wall stands. We have to clamber over the wall and climb the hill, all while open to enemy fire.

  Burnside admits it will be difficult yet insists it’s achievable. He orders General William Franklin to attack Prospect Hill and General Edwin Sumner to take Marye’s Heights. Franklin can’t believe that the general is ordering an all-out attack. He assumes he’s only meant to lead a diversionary group to distract the Rebels from the main fighting, wherever that is to be. He sends one division out but, when they’re driven back, makes no more moves, waiting instead for further orders, orders that never come.

  Thinking that Franklin has set all his men against the Confederates at Prospect Hill, engaging at least half of Lee’s force, Sumner now leads the charge against Marye’s Heights. Three brigades lead the first assault, running in an icy rain across the fields. As soon as they’re within range of the Rebel guns, the massacre begins. The men fall in waves. The few survivors who make it all the way across the field are killed by lines of Georgia marksmen, hiding on the other side of the stone wall. And still our soldiers keep coming, line after line of them, the living stepping over the dead in a futile, desperate bid to make it to the wall. Soldiers run forward, knowing full well they rush to their own deaths. They watch their comrades die in front of them, but still they follow orders. In the first hour, there are three thousand casualties. By early afternoon, the number has reached nearly six thousand. The ground is strewn with corpses and the wounded, making the passage even more difficult. And still the senseless carnage continues.

  The Second Michigan is lucky. They’re posted to guard the lower pontoon bridge in case of a possible retreat. As Poe’s orderly, I’m not in such a safe position. Riding up and down the front lines, relaying orders and messages, I have no choice but to rush where the fighting is the worst. Being on horseback, however, I move more quickly and am less of a target. I don’t feel as vulnerable as the men who try to advance only to be mowed down in rows. Despite the hail of minié balls, the thud of the cannon all around me, I’m too busy to panic as I feared I would. Instead, I find myself shutting off all thoughts and feelings and just reacting, going where I’m sent, weaving among the dead and wounded, dodging debris kicked up by falling cannonballs. I’m in the saddle for twelve hours, constantly racing around the battlefield.

  All around me men fall, hit by cannon or rifle fire. I have to force myself not to act as a nurse. Today I have other duties. I’ve never before been in such a slaughter, never seen so many fallen men around me, with no one to help them, no one who dares face enemy fire to carry the wounded to safety.

  I’ve never seen a man shoot himself to avoid facing the enemy, either, but that day I watch in horror as an officer is ordered into the line of battle. Instead of advancing, he takes out his pistol and fires a ball into his side, carefully aiming so that the bullet grazes his hip enough to make him unfit for further duty. Watching the waves of blue soldiers fall under the Rebel fire, I can’t fault him as a coward. I might have done the same or simply left the field, as so many others have.

  I write to Mr. Hurlburt about what happens next, trying to capture the chaos of battle with some semblance of order. By early afternoon it’s clear to Burnside’s officers that their objections were sound and the general is fatally mistaken. General Darius Couch peers through field glasses, watching in horror from a church steeple in Falmouth. The terrain across the river is covered with men, falling and fallen. He writes that the waves of men dropping before the stone wall at the end of the field are like “snow coming down on a warm ground.” Fearing a complete slaughter, he sends a message to Burnside, begging him to call a retreat. “It’s only murder now,” he insists. Sumner joins his plea, riding over to face Burnside in person. Burnside refuses, demanding that more regiments be sent out. When Sumner tells him there are no more brigades, no more reserves, Burnside still doesn’t change his mind. Instead, he sends an order to Franklin to use all his reserves in a final charge up Prospect Hill.

  Franklin, supported by General Poe, recognizes the hopelessness of such an action. Like Couch, he considers it murder to send his men on this mission. He refuses, instead holding a defensive position. The decision will cost Franklin his command, but it saves the rest of the Army of the Potomac, including the Second Michigan and me.

  Poe no longer trusts Burnside and chooses to follow Franklin’s commands instead. As night darkens the bloody field, he and I ride the short distance from our camp to Franklin’s headquarters to get orders for the next morning. It’s only three miles, but it’s as if we were crossing the depths of hell. The agonized moans of the wounded rise up all around us. The bitter cold kills as many men that night as the Confederates have during the day. In the night sky, the northern lights, rarely seen so far south, shimmer. To the Rebels the silvery curtains of light must seem like a sign of the Almighty celebrating their victory. To us they shine over the dead like streamers of fire from heaven, leading the souls of the fallen upward. I don’t know yet how many have died, but the numbers must be high—and all for nothing. Not an inch of land has been taken, nor have the Rebels suffered greatly in the battle. My mouth sours with disgust. I try to spit out the acrid taste, to wash it away with water, but all I can taste is blood, all I can smell around me is blood and singed flesh.

  Burnside remains intent on renewing the charge the next day, this time with himself personally leading the men, but his generals convince him to at least allow a day’s truce to collect the dead and wounded. I’ve slept very little for the past three nights, but I spend the truce day delivering messages and carrying the wounded to the hospital set up in a Southern mansion, Lacy House. Once an elegant home, the house is now a gory setting, the floors thick with blood, legs and arms stacked on the veranda like winter firewood.

  Burial of Union dead, Fredericksburg, Va.

  The extra day gives the generals the time they need to convince Burnside to retreat at last. The full horror of what has happened and his responsibility for it finally sinks in. Antietam has been considered the bloodiest day of the war so far, but there are more casualties for the Union during the Battle of Fredericksburg—fifteen thousand men dead, with only six thousand Confederate losses, and most of those are deserters heading home for Christmas.

  The stupidity of the sacrifice galls me. I write in my journal: “When it was clear that it was impossible to take those heights, whose fault was it that the attempt was made time after time until the field was literally piled with dead and ran red with blood?” I blame Burnside. Now not only do I not respect him, a simmering flame of hatred smolders inside me. How can I stay in an army led by such an arrogant, ignorant, pompous ass? What is my true duty? Is it to him or to the Union cause? I’m certainly not serving the Union by obeying Burnside. What is a loyal soldier supposed
to do when obeying a superior officer means betraying the army he serves in? How can I follow orders that are obviously suicidal? Does a time always come when the boundaries blur, when what’s right, what’s practical, and what’s demanded don’t agree? What is a mere soldier to do at such times? What am I supposed to do?

  I wish I had Jerome to talk to, to ask for guidance. I wish he were here to hold and comfort me. My mind is full of ugly images. The moans of the dying echo in my ears. The stench of rotting flesh lingers in my nose. I hug my knees to my chest, curl up in my bedroll, and try to imagine another place and time, the future when I’d share my life with Jerome and everyone would be safe and well. But that’s just a dream and I know it.

  URNS OUT THAT on December 15, the same night when I curled up in the tent dreaming of him, Jerome and the others were freed from Camp Parole and headed toward Falmouth to rejoin their regiments. Later, Jerome tells me how they knew nothing of the disastrous battle, but as they walked south, they passed troops heading north, toward Washington, and got an inkling that something was wrong.

  “I had a bad feeling,” Jerome says. “I asked the soldiers if they knew where you were, what had happened to the Second Michigan. I remember one fellow said there’d been a disaster. No, the word he used was catastrophe. ‘It’s a catastrophe,’ he said, ‘so many dead, so many.’ I didn’t know what he meant, so I asked another soldier. He just looked at me with big, blank eyes.”

  That’s how Jerome heard about the slaughter at Fredericksburg. First he saw the hollowed eyes of the men who survived. Then he heard some of the details—how Lee held the high position and we never had a chance. But when he asked about me, about the Second Michigan, no one could tell him anything except that a lot of men died that day.

  Which, of course, only made him frantic to learn more. He describes how he asked each new regiment they passed for news, but no one could tell him anything specific. Instead, he heard the same horrible description of a senseless massacre over and over again.

  As the sun set, he could see the church steeples of Falmouth in the distance. This time, when he asked northbound troops about the Second Michigan, they pointed toward the Sixteenth Michigan, which in turn indicated the general area where the Second had settled. Jerome recognized some of the soldiers huddled around the campfire from the Third Michigan.

  He stepped into the circle and greeted his old comrades. “Sam, Jed, Marshall.” He nodded toward the weary men who looked beaten down with sorrow. “We’re looking for the Second Michigan.”

  “Down that ways, toward the river.” Jed pointed.

  “You fellows all well?” Jerome asked. “I heard what happened.”

  “We’re alive,” said Sam. “Nothing else to say about it. Thought for sure we’d be dead, but here we are.”

  The men walked the short distance to the camp in silence, weighed down by the despair that hung in the air around them.

  Once they were among their old friends of the Second Michigan, the mood lifted. There were hugs all around, backs clapped, hands firmly shaken, a warm sense of being home again, among brothers. Someone handed Jerome a mug of steaming tea, and at last he heard a detailed description of the previous five days. He tells me how his tea turned cold as he listened in horror to the story of fourteen different charges led against Marye’s Heights, fourteen regiments plowed into the earth.

  “And no one from here was killed?” he asked. “No one’s in the hospital?”

  “Just one fellow, George Southworth, but he’s down with dysentery,” a soldier answered. “We’re lucky. General Poe took care of us, he did.”

  “And where’s Frank? I don’t see him. Is he in his tent?” Jerome asked.

  “He’s probably with the general. He’s his orderly now, you know. We had a defensive position, but he was on the front lines, riding right into the thick of the fight. You know how he is—nothing scares him. He’s got more spine than I don’t know what.”

  I write down this conversation word for word when Jerome repeats it to me, and now I’ll always have it, always know what the men thought of me. It gave Jerome hope that I was all right, but he was still worried, wondering if I would be like the other hollow-eyed soldiers he’d met on the road.

  He has his answer the next afternoon. I ride into camp on Lucky, my saddlebags full of mail. I’m handing letters out to the soldiers gathered by regimental headquarters when I recognize a familiar silhouette at the back of the crowd, a tall, dark-haired soldier.

  I quickly give out the remaining envelopes, then push through the circle of men.

  “Jerome!” I yell, running toward him. I throw my arms around him, then catch myself and pull away, but I can’t stop grinning. “You’re here! And not a day too soon, I must say.”

  “It’s good to see you, Frank,” he murmurs. “Your letters brightened my days at Camp Parole. It would have been much harder to bear without them. And thank you for all the money you sent.”

  “It was a pleasure—as close as I could come to having a real conversation.” I’m happy and relieved to have my best friend back. My fingers fumble in my pocket, drawing out the locket. “I’ve been waiting to give this back to you. It’s had quite an adventure—I almost lost it in an ambush.”

  Jerome takes the locket, fingering it thoughtfully. “I never thought I’d see this again. I never thought I’d see anything again.” He pauses. “I guess that was about as close as I’ve come to dying in this war. But being taken prisoner was nothing compared to what you’ve been through. It sounds like even this locket’s been in more danger than I have.” He slips the necklace into his pocket. “You’ll have to tell me the story.”

  “I’ve had my fair share of scrapes,” I admit, and launch into the story of the ambush and Flag’s death. I can describe the chaos and my fear, but I can’t tell him what Flag meant to me, how much I miss him. It would seem foolish to care about a horse when men are dying.

  We spend the rest of the day together, falling back into our easy intimacy, though I notice that Jerome is careful not to touch me. And I have to remind myself constantly not to touch him. I find myself reaching for him, aching to be near him, but I stop myself. Once again I have to wear my careful mask, hold myself as the young, brave soldier, Frank Thompson. But my skin is thinner now, and it’s harder than ever to pretend. I want to sink into a warm embrace, to be held by loving arms, I want to cry for Flag and the dead cavalrymen and be comforted in my grief. I want something I can have only in dreams.

  When suppertime comes, I introduce Jerome to my tentmate, James.

  Jerome shakes the Scot’s hand coldly. “You’re with the Seventy-ninth New York, the Highlanders? Isn’t that the regiment that mutinied in August of 1861? The ones who were sent to the Dry Tortugas as punishment?” He stares at James as if he were one of the guilty soldiers.

  “Aye, that’s my regiment,” James admits.

  “James wasn’t there then,” I explain. “He was taken prisoner at the first Battle of Bull Run and was in a prisoner-of-war camp outside Richmond for six months.”

  “I hear you were captured yourself,” James says snidely. “Been in Camp Parole all this time. Much more pleasant than a Rebel prison camp, to be sure.”

  Jerome grunts. “I was lucky.”

  “And so was I.” James smiles. “I didn’t die of dysentery. I didn’t waste away from cholera. I wasn’t even badly wounded in Fredericksburg, just a scratch really. And Frank here took care of me.”

  James is talking, but Jerome is studying me as if, for the first time, he can see the woman behind the uniform. What is it about James that prods Jerome to look at me so differently? Could he be jealous? Whatever is going through his head, Jerome clearly dislikes the Scotsman. He glares at him all through supper. Here I finally have two good friends, but it seems neither one can stomach the other.

  The next few days, the army prepares for a somber Christmas with Lee’s troops still dug in on the other side of the river, watching our every move. Jerome works in t
he hospital and shares a tent with Dr. Evers but snatches as much time as he can with me. It isn’t much. There are no more long evenings, walking and talking, no more afternoons helping patients together. I’m too busy as an orderly and postmaster to also serve as a nurse now. When I’m done for the day, Jerome often finds me sitting by the river with James. I can tell that having James around puts him off, but I don’t want to sacrifice one friend for the other. When I’m alone with Jerome, I have to fight the temptation to throw my arms around him. James provides a good buffer, ensuring we all act like comrades. Except that around James, Jerome is petulant, like he’s miffed at me for having another friend. James doesn’t make things better. He treats Jerome with suspicion and a strange competitive edge. The way they behave, I can’t blame them for detesting each other.

  Christmas dinner is hardtack, beef soup, and coffee, and every bit as cheerless as it sounds. Rumors race through camp that Burnside will be kicked out of his post and McClellan reinstated. Then we get the depressing news that General Franklin will be removed from duty for disobeying Burnside’s orders to attack Prospect Hill.

  “He should get a medal for that!” I complain to Jerome. “It took real courage, real guts to defy his commanding officer. He never would have done it if it hadn’t been obvious how useless such a tactic would be. It wouldn’t have been sending men into battle—it would have been sending them to certain death, like lambs to the slaughter.”