High Hearts

by Rita Mae Brown

  The First Virginia hit the Federal infantry with a shock. If the Yankees formed a square, they might have withstood the charge, but they were green. Artillery crashed around everyone.

  The Yankees could not reload their rifles in the melee. They jabbed and parried with their bayonets. Geneva saw one large blond man plow his bayonet under David Poist’s rib cage and throw him onto the earth.

  Nash brought the end of his saber down on a man’s head, knocking him unconscious. Banjo, cool and steady, rode down one Yankee after another, slicing them like bacon.

  A Yankee tried to grab Gallant’s reins, but Gallant suddenly swerved to the right, knocking him over. Geneva thought she might jump the man, but he was smart and rough. He rolled under the belly of Gallant and grabbed her boot from the other side. He was powerful, but she was as crazed with battle lust as he was. She drew her pistol and without a second’s hesitation blew a hole in him as big as a silver dollar. Her left leg was black with powder burns. He held on to her boot, his fingers locking like steel.

  “Die, you son of a bitch, die!” This time she fired straight into his skull. Although clearly dead, his fingers did not release their grip for another few seconds.

  She jammed her gun back into its holster and drew her saber. Two men ran up to her on foot, their bayonets filthy with blood. She knew she could save herself, but she wasn’t sure she could save Gallant.

  She pressed with her left leg, and he spun right, flinging the dead body out. She slashed at the advancing man as Gallant jumped over a dead soldier’s body. The Yankee fell with a scream.

  Suddenly a steel saber burst through the chest of her remaining attacker. “Banjo!” Banjo put his foot on the man’s shoulder and pushed him off his blade.

  Geneva looked about and saw her regiment thundering back into the woods. Banjo and Geneva wheeled their horses and headed after them at a full gallop.

  Sweating and euphoric, Geneva found Nash unharmed.

  “We broke ’em!” She grabbed her cap and swung it over her head.

  Nash glumly asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, thanks to Banjo.”

  Mars looked back on the field from where they had just come. A man was walking among the dying Yankees.

  Mars grabbed the field glasses from Sam Wells, whose left forearm was bleeding badly from a vicious bayonet slash. “It’s a priest!”

  Mars cantered back into the field toward the priest. He had to be careful because the dead cluttered the earth and his mount, like all horses, hated to step on bodies.

  Cannonballs flew over Mars’s head. The Zouaves and the Fourteenth New Yorkers were regrouping, but there were enough occasional shots to make the place still murderous. There was no way to tell if they would come back across the field.

  Mars pulled up beside the priest, whose bald head shone cherry in the blistering sun. “Father, leave this place.”

  “I’m giving these men their last rites, Major.” He spoke with a flat Northern accent.

  “There’s nothing here but crushed intelligence. Your place is with the living. Allow me to conduct you back to our lines.”

  A cannonball suddenly chewed up the earth and part of a dead Confederate not ten feet away.

  “I belong to the Fourteenth New York, sir.”

  “I can’t very well take you there now, can I?” Mars leaned down from his horse to help the older man up. “You’ll be quite safe, Father. We are Christian men.”

  As they rode toward the woods, Mars’s men cheered. Mars delivered his human package to a makeshift medical unit. The good man immediately made himself useful by giving what aid he could to the bayonet cuts and bullet wounds.

  Meanwhile, Stuart sent off couriers ordering his commanders to regroup their men.

  The artillery sounded like God’s trombones.

  Thousands of men marched—Geneva could see the telltale clouds of dust—but whose men and to where? She didn’t much care as long as she could get back into the fight again.

  Mars rode up to Geneva. “You’re bright as a cigar band. Come with me, let’s take another look.”

  Happily Geneva fell in beside him. They trotted through the woods to emerge near Henry Hill. The house on the hill looked like a piece of Swiss cheese.

  Mars skirted the area, for the fire remained heavy.

  “Are we winning, Major?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Do you think we will?”

  “We could.”

  “Was it like this in Europe?”

  “I was in some skirmishes from time to time, but nothing like this. I suppose I could have gone to the Crimea if I’d begged the British, but I felt I had more to learn from the Prussians.”

  “So this is your first big battle.”

  “Jimmy, this is every American’s first big battle. Well, except for the fellows who fought in the Mexican War, and I was too young for that.”

  A cannonball whirled overhead. A spent bullet suddenly severed Mars’s left rein and grazed his horse. The animal reared, but Mars brought him down quickly by pulling the right rein straight down. “There, there, fellow. You’re in better shape than most.” He looked at the battlefield and saw disemboweled horses, decapitated horses, and horses screaming with pain. The artillery horses suffered more injuries than the cavalry.

  “Let me see if I can knot the two ends together.”

  “I can ride without my left rein. We’d better keep moving.”

  “Banjo says it takes a man’s weight in lead to kill him, so we’ve got time.”

  “The guns are hot. They’re too goddamned hot. I need water if you want me to keep firing,” an artillery captain shouted to a courier. They were perhaps seventy yards away, but a momentary lull let the captain’s voice carry.

  A column was seen in the far distance, but the flag was limp. Mars said, “By God, I hope they’re ours. If we’ve been flanked, we’ll crack like walnuts.”

  They rode toward the column, and the shelling resumed. They dipped down behind the hill and enjoyed a moment free from immediate danger. Mars slowed. “Can you see the flag now?”

  Geneva stood in her stirrups. “I think it’s ours, Major.”

  “Damn, if we just had a bit of breeze.”

  “You thinking it’s Patterson?”

  “I’m praying it isn’t.”

  They stayed there for what seemed like an eternity. Geneva hated the sounds she heard all around her. Crying men called for their mothers, or they called for some water. Then their bodies would go into convulsions, a grand tremor, and that would be the end of it for those lucky enough to die quickly. Others lay sprawled in the cursed sun while the flies laid eggs in their wounds. Men prayed for deliverance, if they could pray at all. The medical staff couldn’t get soldiers off the fields fast enough. Around Widow Henry’s house, the fire was so intense that no one dared retrieve the wounded. Their comrades, who were unaccustomed to battle, had abandoned them when they were told to fall back.

  A slight flutter gave Mars what he wanted. “Ours! Let’s go.”

  While Mars and Geneva were riding back to the battlefield, Nash, so as not to think about what might come next, assisted the priest.

  “Are you a Catholic?” asked Father Quinsberry.

  “No, I’m an Episcopalian,” Nash replied while holding an unconscious man’s leg straight.

  The priest was busy picking out cannister. “That’s a Catholic without the incense.”

  Nash smiled. “Yes, I guess it is.”

  “There’s a nasty sliver in here.” Father Quinsberry pointed to a deeply imbedded piece of steel. Nash worked on it with his boot knife until he could pull it out.

  “I killed today.” Nash bent over his task.

  The priest replied, “You’re a soldier.”

  “I ask for forgiveness, nonetheless. Doesn’t the Bible tell us ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’?” Nash yanked out another hunk of steel. The man moaned. “I know if I hadn’t killed those fellas, one of them would have killed me. Di
d you ever kill a man, Father?”

  “No.”

  “Would you?” Nash asked.

  “I’m a man who has given my entire life to the word of Jesus Christ. If God wills that you or any of these men shall kill me, then so shall I die. But I shall not kill.”

  As Mars and Geneva rejoined the regiment, Nash walked over.

  “Nash,” Geneva said, “we saw a column approaching us. Ours!”

  “You’re a born soldier, aren’t you?” Nash said with great sadness.

  Mars wheeled on Nash. “That’s right, Piggy. He is.”

  Nash said nothing more. Geneva, hurt, dismounted and walked Gallant to a water bucket, then drank herself from Nash’s offered canteen.

  By two o’clock Dr. Jeffrey Windsor had run out of anesthesia. His quinine was also low. Desperate, he sent a message to his Northern counterpart. The courier, carrying a white flag, rode behind the right flank of the Federals. He stopped one of Heintzelmen’s men who directed him to the hospital. Either the Northerners did not care that he was a Confederate or because some Northern troops wore gray and some Southern troops wore blue, they were confused. Or maybe they saw the white pennant and decently agreed to it. In any case, the courier rode back to Jeffrey an hour and a half later.

  He handed Colonel Windsor a note.

  Dear Jeffrey,

  I too have exhausted my supplies of nearly everything except human misery. When we were in medical school together, did you ever dream of anything like this? I believe we are living in a branch of hell.

  I wish you well,

  Colonel Elmer E. Larson

  Jeffrey folded up the note and placed it in his leather bag. If he’d put it into his wet, bloody pocket, the ink would have run. He returned to his branch of hell.

  A battery under Lieutenant Robert F. Beckham joined Stuart. Convinced the enemy could be beaten here, Stuart sent a message to Colonel Jubal Early, whose column, the Sixth Brigade, Geneva and Mars saw. Stuart told Early they could rout the Federals. While Early came up, Stuart joined his battery to Beckham’s, and they pounded at the mauled Northerners.

  Geneva, Nash, and Banjo watched the fireworks as did the others.

  All of a sudden, the Federals broke. They turned and ran. Mars was immediately in the saddle.

  “They’ll head back on Sudley Road. Pursue them, boys. Drive every last mother’s son of them out of Virginia.”

  The men cheered, and even Nash gave an old-fashioned war whoop.

  The batteries continued shelling until the cavalry came in range. They then stopped briefly. Geneva felt as though she were sweeping under an invisible victory ribbon. The Federal guns were smashed. A detachment of Confederate cavalry was already on its way to appropriate the guns for the Confederacy. Geneva felt the earth tremble underneath her as hundreds, maybe thousands, of horsemen thundered forward.

  The Federals did not retreat in good order. They had no reserve troops to cover for them. As she pressed Gallant forward, she saw men throwing down their rifles as if they were burning hot. She waited to see what Mars would do. Would he cut down these stragglers? He didn’t.

  One Federal did take aim as the cavalry swept by him. Banjo, his eye like an eagle’s, dropped him with his pistol.

  Even at a distance, the panic was confusing to Geneva. When her regiment had charged the Fourteenth New York, she had a clear objective. She knew to go in, take the shock, cut them down, frighten them if possible, and then retire in good order to the woods. But this was different. She saw a twenty-pounder pulled by six horses. There were no riders on the team, and the cannon rolled this way and that, crushing everybody and everything in its way. She saw one man shoot another in the back because he wasn’t crossing a ford quickly enough.

  As her regiment, sowing even more panic in its wake, headed toward Sudley Springs, the task of pursuing became impossible. The regiment itself was engulfed in the Yankee panic. Federals actually clung to Geneva’s boot, begging to be taken prisoner. They were terrified that the cavalry would cut them down from behind.

  Disgusted, Mars and Stuart rounded up hundreds of prisoners. Banjo took a detachment of fifty men to secure supplies left behind by the panicked men. One well-born aide managed in all the confusion to lodge a complaint to Stuart that Banjo Cracker was only a private and a man of low station at that. Enraged, Stuart promoted Banjo to a first lieutenant, as one rank above that of the complainer.

  Geneva worked until darkness. By now the smell of rotting flesh, gunpowder, and fear was nauseating. In the twilight she passed a dead Yankee whose twisted body looked so gruesome and silly like a tumbler playing for the delight of children. On his cap a neatly printed logo read “Richmond or Hell.” He got hell.

  Geneva and her regiment finally reached camp under a full moon, although the light was sometimes obscured by the still burning fires and smoke. Mars posted a guard around the prisoners, who fell asleep in their tracks.

  After tending to Gallant, Geneva sat down and drank the cold dregs of the morning’s coffee. She’d eaten nothing since breakfast and was now too exhausted to even look for food.

  Nash unsaddled his horse; he moved very slowly, as if he were under water. The clouds spiraling into the moonlight looked to him like dust thickened with blood and souls. He knew he would never feel the same after today. He’d never have the same warm hope for people. Even animals behave better than humans; animals only kill when they’re hungry.

  Geneva touched his cheek. “I’m glad you’re not hurt.”

  He looked at his wife. When they married she was perhaps two inches taller. She seemed even taller tonight. “Geneva, we have written sorrow on the bosom of the earth.”

  Geneva saw the sadness in his eyes. She knew Nash did not feel the glory she felt. She was born to this. When she heard the great cannon tear the skies this morning at six, it was as if a new Geneva was born. Nash was born for other things. Could she accept that in him? And could he accept this in her?

  He touched her cheek in return and silently walked away with his blanket draped over his shoulder.

  Mars clapped his hand on Geneva’s shoulder.

  She jumped.

  “I’m promoting you to sergeant. You’re in charge of these men now.”

  “Thank you, Major.”

  “You can fight, Jimmy.”

  “If you lead, Major, I’ll fight anybody, anywhere, anytime.”

  A mighty cloud of blackbirds swirled through the sky and blotted out the moon, an eclipse of death. As blackbirds rarely fly at night, the beating of their massed wings and their cawing was eerie. Knowing their destination, Geneva shuddered.

  Banjo also had his head to the sky. “I’ve seen things on this day I’ll never forget.”

  Geneva nodded. As though pushed by a giant hand, she found herself sitting on the ground by Banjo’s boot. He wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. “Jimmy,” he said, “Yankees are like potatoes, better underground.”

  JULY 22, 1861

  At 3:12 A.M., Lutie was jolted out of bed by a frantic knocking at her door. Because she slept alone in the big house at night, there was no one downstairs to get the door.

  “Miz Lutie! Miz Lutie!”

  “I’ll be right there.” Fearing the worst, but hoping for the best, Lutie wrapped her ancient bathrobe around her. Although it was dark, she hurried down the grand, curving stairway in her bare feet. She opened the fan door. Jenkins, a ten-year-old black boy owned by the Taliaferro family, stood there.

  “Come in, Jenkins.”

  “I can’t, ma’am. I got more messages to run.”

  “Come into the kitchen for a moment. At least let me give you some bread.”

  Jenkins followed her into the great kitchen. Lutie lit a straw from the warm ashes of Ernie’s cooking fire and touched it to the wick of a huge tallow candle. The greasy smell filled the room. She gave Jenkins an entire loaf of Ernie’s raisin bread and nervously opened the telegram.

  Dear Mrs. Chatfield:

  Please bring your
nursing ladies to the train station in Charlottesville as well as any physicians that still might be in your area. Bring all available supplies. I will arrive with what wounded can be moved. Hopefully I will arrive in the early morning.

  Respectfully yours,

  Colonel Jeffrey Windsor,

  Surgeon, C.S.A.

  “Thank God!” Lutie sighed deeply. “I was afraid it might be bad news about Sumner. Do you know who won?”

  “Yes, Miz Lutie, we kicked their ass bad up at Manassas Junction. Come over the wire. Whole Yankee army running like dogs for Washington!”

  Impulsively she hugged the child. “Praise be to God! Perhaps they’ll give up on invading us, and we can make peace.”

  Lutie, holding the tallow candle, escorted the child to the door. “Here, sugar, take this.” She reached into a satinwood basket where she kept her pin money. She handed Jenkins an entire dollar bill.

  As the boy rode down the long driveway, Lutie raced through the moonlight to Sin-Sin’s house. She burst through the bright red door and found Sin-Sin sound asleep in her feather bed. That feather bed was a bone of contention with Ernie June who slept on a straw pallet. If Sin-Sin could sleep in such luxury, then Ernie June certainly had a feather bed coming, too.

  “Get up! We’ve won a great victory at Manassas.”

  “Can’t we celebrate in the mornin’?” Groggy, Sin-Sin stayed under the covers.

  “We must get to the train station. Dr. Windsor is bringing in the wounded.”

  Sin-Sin shot out of bed. “Why din’ you say so?” Sin-Sin threw a shawl around her nightdress and hurried outside in the moonlight with Lutie on her heels. Sin-Sin pulled the rope on the large bronze bell by the kitchen. On a clear, sharp night like tonight, it would be heard for miles around. One by one the cabin doors opened, and servants, some stumbling, some running, others wailing in bewilderment, made their way to the back porch. An owl hooted in disgust and flew over the top of the big house.

  Di-Peachy, curled in Geneva’s bed, heard the bass command. In an instant she opened the door and nearly fell over Big Muler, who was struggling to his feet.