“I reckon you’d find a provost guard by headin’ toward the river,” Robert said at length. “C’mon, Hube, let’s leave him alone with his pard.”
“I know what it like to lose friend,” Huebner said with a last look at Stephen before he turned away.
Robert led Huebner away from the camp and along the road.
“We go look for Piper?” Huebner asked.
“Go look for more wounded,” Robert replied. “That Reb’s regiment was the one that attacked us yesterday morning.”
“But he bury Hammel,” said Huebner, confused.
“He did. Peculiar.”
“We go to that pond?” Huebner asked.
“No, not someplace I want to go to if the Reb’s description is correct.”
“Then where we go?”
“To that hill, I guess. You won’t leave it be until you’ve found Piper, huh?”
“No, I want find Piper. I want find all meine Freundin.”
Robert had no answer and kept moving forward. His face was grim.
Organization was returning to the armies as marching columns, accompanied by music, moved down the Corinth–Shiloh Road. With that reorganization came the return to military discipline and a cessation of errands, such as the one Robert and Huebner were on. But order had not yet visited the 25th Missouri, and Robert felt obliged to take advantage. Nearby camps returned to life with the sounds of men talking and wood chopping. But for the acrid smoke hanging in the air, the scene looked entirely ordinary.
Robert worried about Huebner. His other pards were now gone, leaving only himself as Huebner’s sole mess mate and friend. Though he’d been less than friendly with the waif, the battle and the sudden maturity evinced in the man was heartening. Yet he was still an innocent youth whose approach to life was childlike. What would he do now that everyone he trusted and liked was gone?
“You think they still alive?” Huebner asked.
“I’d like to think so.”
“I’ll be sad if they gone.”
“Me, too,” Robert said, running his hands through his hair under his cap. “Did you grab any of that hardtack back at camp?”
“No. I’m hungern.”
“Lucky for you I grabbed some extra,” Robert said and winked. Huebner’s normal youthful expression was absent, as it had been for most of the battle. “Here, have a few. The rest are for anyone we find wounded.”
“Ja, danke.” Huebner took the handful of crackers offered him. “No Kaffe?”
“Nope. That’s back at camp,” Robert replied, wishing he had stopped to fill his cup when he had smelled the brew.
“Went to tent, full of wounded. All knapsacks are gone.”
“Oh? We skedaddled quick like, so that doesn’t surprise me.”
“My prayer book was with knapsack,” Huebner said and pursed his lips.
“Sorry about that. I suppose I’ll not be seeing my nice shirt again, either, the one my wife made.”
“Belong mein Vater. It belonged to his Vater.” His expression was distracted and distant. Most personal items were easily replaced, but not all.
Robert had personally discarded more than one keepsake item sent with him on his trip to St. Louis when the regiment was mustered into service. He was loaded down with useless minutia before he was further encumbered with the thirty pounds of uniform issue. All of the things that would not fit into his knapsack were sent home, save for the few trinkets squirreled away into its crevices: a pocket image of his wife that broke not too soon after their first march, a pistol sold to someone else in the regiment who sold it to a sutler soon after, and a Testament that was far too large to be carried about in the field.
“The whole camp was stripped clean,” Robert blurted out for no reason but to break the silence.
“Ja.”
Robert stopped a moment and looked at the rise looming over them. “I think that’s the other side of the hill we charged earlier.”
Upon the crest, highlighted by the skyline, were the discernible forms of men and horses lying about. The litter of equipment ran all the way up the slope where the Confederates were forced to retreat. A few wounded enemies lay across the path.
“Water,” whispered one man whose chest sucked in and out in sickening, slurping exhalations. He lay listless with hands cupped across his chest as if laid out upon his death bed for all to view. His hands were bloodied, and his face was pale.
Robert leaned down and let the man drink from his canteen. His mouth was reddened with blood, and he smacked his lips repeatedly as if something distasteful lit upon his tongue.
“Thank you,” the man said and resumed his labored breathing.
“I’d move you to an aid station, but I don’t think you’d make the trip,” Robert said.
“Not without a litter,” the man rasped.
“Who knows? Maybe someone will happen by with an ambulance,” Robert said, knowing the chances to be slim.
“I thought ambulances were for generals to sleep in,” the man said with a thin smile.
“Lucky for us they ain’t that many generals around,” Robert grinned before moving on with Huebner in tow.
“Them Rebs not bad when not tryin’ to kill you,” Huebner said.
“Not much different than you or me,” Robert replied.
“They stand for wrong.”
“Well, they stand for it pretty good.”
The two reached the crest, and, after a few steps, started down the other side. In the distance was a patchwork of blue and butternut homespun.
“Aid station,” Huebner said and pointed.
“Right.” Robert scanned the area for a moment. “There. I think that was where we stood.” Robert pointed to a spot amid a row of torn forms.
“Ja.”
The whole regiment had stood and traded blows with the Confederates on the crest long enough to mark the line at their furthest point of penetration. They surveyed faces familiar and not, cold stares, and eyes clenched shut as they walked along the old firing line. Many of the Indiana men from their adopted company had fallen on the slope. Robert looked at one particular lad who was boasting not hours before how he’d survived his first fire fight the night before and how the fear was over. A minié ball had torn through his temple and lodged in his forehead, now visible as a huge lump between the dead man’s open eyes.
“They no here,” Huebner said.
“No, I think they might be farther down there.” Robert motioned toward another clump of dead to the rear of where they stood.
Huebner looked at Robert with sad, questioning eyes. Robert nodded. Huebner walked down the slope to the pile of remains. Robert knew who was there and how many were among the fallen. Robert headed down and immediately ran across Adolf Goedeler with a hole where his Adam’s apple used to be. A few more paces and he was beside Huebner, who stood above Piper, or what was left of him. The solid shot had bowled through his chest, dissecting him messily. His shoulders and head were separated from his waist and legs, which were mingled with the remains of three others. Georg Primble was nearby, having been hit by the same shot, taking his arm off, along with a nasty gash into his neck.
Huebner stood for a while looking down into the faces and seemed to be transfixed by something that Robert failed to grasp.
“Getötet, ganz getötet,” Huebner spoke finally.
“Yes, all killed,” Robert repeated.
“Gustavon, Hildebrande, Piper, Goedeler, Primble—ganz getötet,” Huebner said and wiped away a tear.
“They will be missed.” The words seemed so shallow. Robert felt foolish even as he spoke them.
“Ja, missed.”
Huebner dropped to his knees by the bodies. His shoulders sank low to match the expression upon his face. A soldier approached looking weary and carrying a book. Robert watched him walk up the hill and stop suddenly as he realized he was being watched. Hesitating, the man continued on toward them.
“Hube, someone’s coming,” Robert said softly.
Huebner didn’t stir but stared into the pile of corpses. The blood in places was still fresh but was mostly matted on the grass and drying upon the rent uniforms of the lifeless.
“You men don’t happen to have some food on you? The wounded down there are pretty hungry, and I’m collecting canteens and hard tack for a communion of sorts,” the man said as he approached.
“We have a little of both,” Robert replied.
“Pards of yours?” They saw he was ashamed to ask.
“Were,” Robert replied.
“Communion?” Huebner asked.
“Yes, some of the mortally wounded insisted I give them something of a last hope,” the man replied.
“I’m Robert Mitchell, 25th Missouri, and this is my pard, Josef Huebner. We came looking for some of our missing.” Robert extended his hand, and the man took it.
“Philip Pearson, 24th Ohio,” the man replied. “I don’t mean to be ghoulish, but those men down there are dying for water. Can I have those canteens?” Philip motioned to the deceased. The expression on his face combined pain and expectation.
“I don’t think anything is still useable from them after that solid shot did its work. But you can have mine,” Robert said as he un-slung his canteen and handed it to Philip.
“You give last rites?” Huebner asked.
“No, I’m not a minister any longer. Nothing I can say is any more meaningful than what you yourself can say to the Almighty.”
“So you won’t do it?” Huebner pressed.
“I . . . I can’t.”
Huebner looked from Robert to Philip and then back to the bodies. His downcast face said what he refused to.
“All right, I’ll do my best, but I’m going to do the Protestant version as I don’t know the Catholic,” Philip stated. He knelt down beside the torn bodies. “What are their names?”
“Georg Primble und Johan Piper,” Huebner replied. “They Lutheran.”
“Oh,” Philip started. “Well, they are dead anyhow, so I suppose it don’t matter much.”
“We don’t know these other men from the Indiana regiment,” Robert added.
“Indiana, you say?” Philip asked.
“Ja, 36th Indiana. We join them yesterday,” Huebner answered.
Philip muddled through an unconvincing prayer for the dead and their families. He apologized sheepishly for his unprepared delivery, but Huebner seemed relieved.
“It’s over. They rest now.”
“Yes, Hube. They rest now,” Robert agreed.
“Over for this life,” Philip added.
“Ja, this life.”
“What other life is there?” Robert asked, knowing full well the reply he could expect from the former preacher.
“Would that it was only that,” Philip replied, “to live and then to die and fade into nothing. No, it is not that easy.”
“Heaven or Hell, do they really exist, or is it just something we came up with because we want the one to avoid the other?” Robert sighed. “I’m no blasphemer, but this day brings me to question that there is anything good or waiting for me should I draw my last breath.”
“If it were not so,” Philip explained, “then many of us are deceived and to be pitied.” Philip pursed his lips and shook his head. “We all believe in something and know something else exists beyond the corporeal existence we know now. Every society encountered around the world believes in something of the afterlife. Either they are all deceived, or there is something of the truth in it. I believe there is the truth in it and a God who communicates with us about it.”
“It’s what to live for,” Huebner said. “No life after, no life now.”
“Did Piper and Primble believe in Heaven? Who’s to say they are there now?” Robert said.
Questions of life and death always disturbed him. It meant admitting that he did not really believe in what he’d grown up hearing from the pulpits of the Lutheran church. It all sounded like convenient, wishful thinking. The hope that something was there that one could neither see nor know for certain always challenged his beliefs. It was always good to hope for the good and avoid the bad, but who was to say who was to go where and why?
“Don’t matter,” Philip said. “We see the Moon in the sky, but we don’t know that it is not made of cheese. We believe that it is not by intuition and fact. We believe there is a Heaven and a Hell out of intuition and fact from the Good Book itself. One day, someone might journey to the Moon to discover what it is exactly and why. No one will venture back from Heaven or Hell to confirm them, but we believe that they are there and earnestly hope for the one while despising the other.”
“So, in the long run, no one knows where they will end up, do they?” Robert asked and looked hard at his companion.
“No, not true, Robert!” Huebner protested. “I know.”
“Hube, how can you know? What rules did you break or how many confessions did you give before you broke some more rules? To know is impossible, for sure.” He was feeling uncomfortable, given the ghastly tumble of bodies in front of them.
“Not true!”
Philip cleared his throat. “There is a way, but I think you are inferring that it is impossible to know empirically, in which you would be correct. Faith must know when the mind cannot. It is faith that saves us from Hell and faith that instructs us to know where we go when we depart this earth. Huebner here believes where he is bound and, if I may be so bold, you do not.”
“No, I guess right now, I don’t know for sure what is going to happen to me, or them, or you, for that matter,” Robert said, chaffing and uncomfortable at the turn of the conversation.
“Well,” Philip said, standing, “I got men of my regiment dying for this water. I thank you for allowing me to take it. Enjoy the life you have right now, for days like this one show us how short life can be.”
Philip walked slowly down the hill to the throng of wounded. Robert brooded to himself and tried not to provoke Huebner into more needling over issues of faith and the afterlife. He believed what he believed and wanted to keep it that way.
At last Huebner whispered, “Not know if Piper und Primble mit Gott, only hope they are.”
“Sorry, Hube. I didn’t mean to put that all in doubt, just wondering as to the reality of it all,” Robert replied stiffly.
“Du believe what want. I believe Primble mit Gott. Piper only hope,” Huebner said and stood up.
“Why Primble?” Robert asked and stood as well, dusting the grass off of his Kerseys.
“Because Primble believed in Gott und Jesus,” Huebner replied with an air of fact and conviction.
“How did he know? How do you know?” Robert asked.
“Because Jesus mit inside,” Huebner said and motioned to his chest. “Primble, too.”
“We heard the same stories and sermons from the same ministers growing up, Hube, yet I do not believe, nor am I any more convinced now. I suppose it is not my time yet.”
“Suppose,” Huebner said sadly.
“We’d better get back before dark,” Robert said and stepped away from the corpses of their friends.
“Ja, get back.”
It was getting dark, and the sun was dipping in the western skyline behind the trees beyond the river. All was at peace, and the birds returned to their evening song. But for the distant booming of cannon, all seemed right with the world. Burial parties moved about and started a grisly work that would take many days to complete with clumps of earth and crude head boards growing out of the reddened soil like weeds. It was not work Robert relished.
Huebner was quiet the rest of the walk back to their camp. Fires danced in company fire pits, and something of the normality of army life crept back into the Union tents. Coffee boiled. Cook fires heated evening meals of scrounged hard tack and greasy salt pork that had not been hauled away by a jubilant enemy.
More of their pards had found their way back to the regimental camp with tales similar to Robert’s. Some stood quietly, trying to h
ide their shame in cowering under the bluffs of the landing all day and night. Robert was surprised that so many made their way back, even some who had been prisoners until they managed to escape. It was still a pitiful few, but Robert felt good about seeing so many familiar faces rejoin the company. The dead had to be moved out of the tents, and the parade ground quickly turned into a grave yard as the work to inter the corpses went into the night. Those who had died from Robert’s company joined ranks next to the grave of First Sergeant Hammel. The others, Confederates and a mingling of union men no one recognized, were buried in mass graves. It was pitch dark by the time the last grave was dug.
By the firelight, Robert sat as he always did before taps, watching the flames dance. Huebner sat nearby with the others who had survived the day, and no one spoke. Nothing needed to be said. Huebner hadn’t stumbled, bumbled, or caused his usual mayhem. No one teased or joked, and Robert felt queer about the change. He’d lost his simpleton friend. Had it not been a victory? Robert wondered. But he was to weary too give the question much thought.
CHAPTER 20
Confederate POWs
Pittsburg Landing April 8th, 1862
Stephen Murdoch sat among a sullen group of his compatriots under the watchful eye of several Federal soldiers. The silence was more from exhaustion than from defeat, but both weighed heavily upon each man. No longer soldiers but prisoners of war, they felt naked without their weapons and traps. Only the uniform and the guards reminded them of their former avocation. They were all enlisted men, with a smattering of non-commissioned officers, but no one felt compelled to take charge. They just sat and brooded.
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