“I’ve not been given much in the way of directive. But having a weapon couldn’t hurt. A chaplain is to follow his regiment in the field,” Philip said. “Oh, and a horse; I would like to requisition a mount.”
“There’s an armorer in Columbus who can show you some sidearms for private purchase. I can’t give you any arms from my stores, only allow you to select some equipment. But we have a good tailor who can get you with uniforms. We have mounts that we can part with, yes.”
Moody stood and came around the desk, motioning for Philip to stand and follow. “I trust you are anxious to draw what you need and get to your regiment.”
“Yes, I am traveling with two other officers who’ve come to Columbus to get their commissions from the governor, so I’ll be starting out in the morning,” Philip said.
“I envy your returning to the theaters of the war, but I have my own bureaucratic battles to fight and prisoners to get rid of.” Moody looked at the pile of papers on his desk and grimaced. “But my problems will soon be someone else’s!” he ended with a chuckle.
“My many thanks for seeing me, Colonel and for your words of wisdom. As someone who has seen the worst of this war, I would say enjoy this assignment while you can—life will get rougher when you join your regiment.” Philip held out his hand.
“God’s speed, Chaplain Pearson. Lieutenant Pierce, see the chaplain to the quartermaster and then take him to the tailor.” Moody shook Philip’s hand with a hearty grip.
“Thank you, Colonel.” Philip was led out into the warm afternoon sun. The high walls of the prison camp towered over the barracks buildings and the offices. Behind them were the vanquished, those whom he did not need to worry about seeing anytime soon.
Chapter 13
Camp Chase, Ohio, August 10, 1862
Camp Chase was not large. Though it covered tens of acres, the high walls and long barracks, sinks, and support buildings inside the compound made things feel small. Place a thousand men inside, and it felt really small. Life in the army was not meant for great privacy, but the enclosure with its sentinels and tight quarters meant no one had any.
Will Hunter took his mess with several other officers, all captured at Shiloh. Inside their barracks was a long, crude table laid with tin plates, tin cups, and tinny coffee. Breakfast was the same as dinner was the same as supper: bread and boiled beef, fruit, and vegetables. They actually ate better here than out in the field, where fresh fruit and vegetables rarely found their way into the quartermaster stores. It wasn’t the food or the company that made capture so bad; it was the confinement.
The food was served from a common kitchen in each barracks, and the messes took turns in preparation, the weekly delivery of food coming in from the main gate by wagon. There was little to talk about most days. News from outside was scarce. Letters were delivered regularly, but little came in the way of real news. Papers cost money, and money was needed for more basic needs.
Letters from Sarah Ann informed him on life in Montgomery, discussing what items were hard to come by and the Yankee occupation of Huntsville. The Yankees had moved into Alabama after Corinth was taken. The Kearns plantation had been occupied for a time, a fact that caused Jackson Kearns some disquiet. After a month in the Camp Chase hospital, he’d been returned to the camp population and occupied a bunk in Will’s barracks. He was still weak from the wound, but it was healing. Sarah and their daughter were comfortable, but it was not to Will’s liking to read what it cost for a sack of flour or rice. His money still went home, paid by the government, but it was frustrating that the money was so quickly eaten away, just as it was that he wasn’t earning that pay fighting Yanks.
The morning was already hot and the barracks stuffy. Other prisoners lounged on their bunks or at the long tables writing letters or playing cards. It had been months since his capture and arrival through the heavy gates of Camp Chase. Camp Number One, separated from the other camps by an additional wall, was full of officers. He was moved about irregularly, with no design but to inconvenience the prisoners. Artillery, cavalry, infantry—all had their representatives up to major. The other camps held enlisted men, men on parole waiting to be exchanged, and exchanged men waiting to depart.
The barracks smelled of unwashed bodies and dirty wool, and the hard wood bunks were uncomfortable to sleep on—though no worse than bedding down on uneven ground with a root or rock poking in the back. Will associated with several other lieutenants and a captain, but he mostly kept his distance, as did most who thought they would soon be exchanged or were working some private angle. The officers were permitted to have a barber come and provide shaves and haircuts, and a laundress washed clothes for a price. Most preferred to wait it out until they grew desperate, at which time a shaggy, dirty man would turn up neatly coiffed and laundered, new again for the outlay of a dollar and a half in federal scrip.
The artillery lieutenant at the table was grousing about the delay in his exchange. The man did this every day. He had the Tennessee twang that amused Will, who disregarded his own Alabama drawl that more often than not told others of his humble upbringing.
“I done writ to my uncle to writ to General Fremont to secure my exchange, but I haven’t heard nothing in two weeks. I done writ to him twice.”
“Means you’ll have to take the oath, ya know,” said the captain of infantry nearby. He was a broad-shouldered man with kind eyes but a cruel mouth. His mustachios flowed down his cheeks in a cascade of light brown whiskers.
“I seen enough of this war and am willing to do it to get home,” said the man without a hint of shame.
“I ain’t ready to do that quite yet,” another lieutenant added. He was from Arkansas and felt a long way from home.
“You take the oath, you can’t in good conscience take up arms again, and probably not show yourself back home either,” the captain said. “Better to wait to be exchanged or be sent home and discharged for illness than take the oath.”
“I won’t go home a traitor,” Kearns called out defiantly, straining to sit up on his bunk.
“If’n Ineed to take the oath to get out of here instead of listenin’ to you, I’m mighty tempted,” Will said, a semi-serious look in his eyes.
“You could be in for a long wait; I’ve not seen an exchange happen for months,” the captain said.
“I hear there’s a woman what comes around an’ travels to Virginia now and again an’ carries letters with her; instead of wasting your time writing letters to Fremont, you should write them to your representative in Richmond. They the ones what make up the lists for exchange,” Kearns added.
“Really?” asked the incredulous artilleryman.
“She has some pass to go back and forth, an’ she does it regular.”
“Worth a try,” stated the artilleryman.
“Only if you’re from a well-connected family,” Will replied. “What good is a politician going to do for you unless he gets something in return?” Will looked over at Jackson Kearns and glared. That Kearns might have been the cause of all of Will’s pain and suffering was some consolation, but the guilt that Will might have spared him drove him to looking out for the man all the same. Kearns could still barely move his right arm, the round having pierced his shoulder but missed the bone.
The words hit close for Will as well. There was little hope for Will if release was reliant on a family name. If anything, his would be a detriment. He had tried to leave all of that behind him when he moved his family to Montgomery, but little good the attempt was doing him now. Though he possessed a modest-sized house and one or two servants, he was not money. His hands were tainted with the stain of the slave handler. Plantation owners were the economic benefactors of the pressed labor, but they didn’t soil their hands with direct contact. To be a slave driver was to be of low standing, just as anything else a man did that relied upon the work of the slave lowered his own status as well. Just as low as being a tracker and bounty man. Money could buy him a larger house and a place in the city, bu
t it could not buy him the dignity of a highborn officer like Jackson Kearns. He cursed quietly to himself.
The 1st Alabama had been filled with planters’ and politicians’ sons and nephews. They were a class that expected things, fueled with money from the lucrative labor force that gave more than it took. The slave who managed to elude capture more than a few days called for Will’s services in tracking. He made no shame about what he was good at, but his work had not endeared him to those he executed contracts for. Some of those men were holding seats in the Confederate Congress in Richmond. His chances for exchange were depressingly low.
Mail came for him a few days hence, and it was not good news. A fever was sweeping through Montgomery and medicines were at a premium, the bulk going toward the war effort or being hoarded by those with position. Facilities for synthesizing common remedies were now jealously guarded by state governors who exercised the right of state sovereignty. The stuff that was coming in through the blockade was priced high, making everything else costly to purchase.
Will’s wife was trying to put a good spin on the news, but it was the same for most of the confined officers: their families were suffering under the blockade and lack of amenities. Their daughter and Sarah were over the fever, but in general weak. Their houseman, the one luxury item they could afford, was gone, having crossed over with the retreat of Buell’s forces from Alabama. He was a free black and free to go as he pleased, and go he had. Will took the news like a blow. The man had been costly to maintain, but he was their one true show of wealth.
He vented his frustration to his messmates. “My wife say the fevers is over, but food’s expensive an’ leave them buying to survive on only, Bermuda bacon bein’ a dollar a pound. Them damn Yankees stripped the land bare afore they left, an’ my wife is buying bacon what come through the blockade from Northern farms!”
“At least the enemy is out of your state for the moment; my family is behind the lines in Kentucky,” said a young captain of infantry from the famed Orphan Brigade, those Kentuckians who had volunteered for the South and found themselves representing a state that was officially neutral.
“Papers say Kirby Smith is moving back into Kentucky; they trying to trap Buell an’ cut him off from Grant in Mississippi,” said the artilleryman.
“The Yankees is makin’ an example of every family of an officer in this army; withholding food an’ harassing them, so says m’ wife; an’ the guerrillas is making life worse for all as the Yankees barge into any house lookin’ fer them. I’d like to take my own saber to they backs m’self. They should be in the army doin’ some good an’ not causing trouble for folks back home,” said the Arkansas lieutenant.
Will excused himself from the table and wandered outside. The morning was alive with noises, and the yard was busy with activity. With little to occupy the time, and not an avid reader, Will wandered the compound as he did most days. It was also a chance to get away from Jackson Kearns. The man would give Will a look of scorn and accusation, a “you did this to me” look, whenever he wanted something. Will put up with it most times, but a break was always welcome.
Games and letter writing were the pastimes of choice amongst the prisoners, but he was feeling restless today. There was little point in pretending he could make a way to be exchanged on his own—there was no one who would take his plight seriously. Kearns said he’d passed several letters out of the camp via the local woman and he was getting some attention for exchange. He’d get Will out too, or so he claimed. Unconvinced, Will still kept a hope that the man might actually follow through.
The high walls were patrolled by sentries on an outer catwalk that rimmed the enclosure, though with little to keep an eye on, the sentinels were lazy and either only walked a little ways before turning back or just lounged on their muskets and daydreamed, noting little of what was happening within. A few escape attempts had been made, but nothing so serious that it warranted special attention by any of the guards. Will paid them little mind. So he couldn’t work the exchange system—it didn’t matter. He would get out.
The same crowds of soldiers to be seen on any given day were doing the same things, monotony the watchword of the prisoner of war. On his foray through the compound this morning he had recognized the makings of a chessboard and several men whittling away at the pieces. Will enjoyed chess, a pursuit that was more genteel than his upbringing might have suggested, but was just as stimulating as outsmarting an opponent in battle. Games of strategy and gambling were as common as lice in the compound. What drew his attention this morning was the group of Confederate enlisted men who were carving the pieces. Chess, being a two-person game, was not the pastime of a crowd.
Will possessed a sense—call it a nose—for chicanery. It had served him well in ferreting out the lying slave harboring runaways or the telltale sign that something was not right about the shed, or barn, or coop, or wherever a slave might be spirited away from prying white eyes. And being an officer, he did not feel bashful about approaching enlisted men about anything.
“How far along?” Will asked as he strode up to the group of men, startling the youngest. His boyish face told Will he was no more than seventeen. He had a wisp of a mustache growing under his nose and scraggly attempts at a beard on his cheeks.
“Huh?”
“Them pieces—how far along are you to completing the set?” Will asked again, ignoring the obvious stares of annoyance.
“Not too far along,” answered a youngish looking man with oily black hair and a wisp of a mustache under his nose. Bookish and intelligent, he was older than the first boy, but not by much. Another young soldier looked on but said nothing.
“We makin’ a chess set,” answered the youngest. He was dressed in artillery uniform, its red piping now faded.
“I gathered,” Will replied.
“What you be needin’, sir?” a tall, lanky soldier asked, glaring at the young one. These men weren’t very good at hiding the truth. Will, on the other hand, was a convincing liar.
“Just thought I’d ask about the chess set. I’d be obliged to play the first game when it’s done. It’s been a while since I’ve played, and I always enjoy a good game.” Play chess was all his messmates ever did. Five games that morning had numbed his eyes and limbs with inactivity. But the lie was useful now.
The tall man, looking hard at Will, mumbled something and then turned away.
“I don’t even know how to play,” the youngest blurted out.
Will watched the reactions of the other three men as they stared hard at their mouthy companion. Will said, “It’s aint difficult, but you has to think ahead of yer opponent if you wants to win.”
The bookish soldier broke in. “We just needed somethin’ to do, and whittling these pieces was distraction. I’ll play you sometime once we get the whole set made.”
Will nodded. “I’m Will Hunter, 1st Alabama Cavalry.” Though each man wore his rank while in the stockade, little was observed here.
The young one answered. “I’m Peter Pritchert, 1st Arkansas Heavy Artillery, an’ these is my pards, Stephen, Fredrick, and Lewis.”
The other men nodded in turn and seemed ill at ease. Taking his cue, Will nodded and bade them farewell, adding, “I’ll come by and play someday.” Walking away, his attention was on alert. They were too cagey just to be making a chess set for distraction. Will would watch them from afar. He felt the old tingle course through his limbs. He had quarry to chase again, and he’d almost forgotten what that felt like.
“What’s going on?” Jackson asked Will. Looking pale and uncomfortable, he was leaning against the officer’s barracks.
“Dunno. Them privates up to something,” Will replied.
“Listen, next time you write your wife, can you ask about Father’s plantation? I … I want to know how things are. He won’t tell me if things are bad himself, but I suspect things aren’t as he says.”
“Um, I s’pose I can do that.” Will nodded. “You heard from your father about excha
nge? You put in a word for me?”
“No, not a word.”
Will nodded. “I’ll go get us our rations.”
“Sun feels good today … good to get out of the barracks,” Jackson said, closing his eyes.
Will walked away. Kearns had no intention of seeing to anyone else but himself.
****
When Will was safely out of earshot, the four men looked at one another in shock and surprise. No one had approached them for anything after the public thrashing Lewis had given the fresh fish.
“Which one of you is tellin’ people?” Lewis asked, jabbing a bony finger at Pritchert.
“It ain’t like that, Lewis. I’ve not said a thing to nobody.”
“Then how is that man pokin’ around? An officer, no less? One of you is talkin’. We have to go in a few days or I’ll never get out. There’s no escapin’ Johnson’s. I can’t have anything queer this!”
“Don’t know, Lewis, but none of us has spoken a word to anyone, an’ we pretty much together all the time,” Fredrick said.
“He a spy or somethin’. Jus’ watch yourself, an’ don’t breathe a word to nobody about this! I ain’t going to Johnson’s!” Lewis poked that finger into Peter’s chest.
“Time to go an’ jaw with Oliver at the keeper’s house,” Fredrick said and stood.
“I’ll go with you,” Stephen said, stuffing the chess piece into his pocket.
When they were away from Lewis, Stephen grabbed Fredrick’s arm. “I don’t think we should go along with this, Fred. I don’t trust Lewis much, an’ he gettin’ tetched or something.”
“Why you say? You heard him. If he don’t get out now, he’ll never get out.”
“I’m bein’ honest, Fred. I’m not keen on breaking out. Partly ‘cause it don’t seem proper, but mostly ‘cause I don’t trust Lewis to not turn us all in if it suits.”
The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3 Page 48
