Paul looked up, a weariness in his deep-set eyes, and merely nodded an acknowledgment.
“How you holding up?” Philip asked. He could easily guess from Paul’s performance in the school of the soldier that he was not holding up well.
“I’m all right,” Paul whispered, and chewed on a corner of his cracker. The hardtack was thick and not brittle, necessitating a hard gnawing action to soften it up before it could be consumed properly.
Of the group who’d volunteered, there were young and old alike. They looked oddly like those who’d had opportunity before to volunteer but had chosen not to.
“Sir, you an officer?” a man sitting near Paul whispered.
“Yes, I’m a captain,” Philip replied.
“Sorry, sir, but you’re not wearing any rank,” the man hesitated in response.
“I’m the new chaplain of the 21st; this is my brother.”
The other men regarded Paul suspiciously, and Philip bit his lip. But they would have found out sooner or later that this was his brother.
“Chaplain? What we need a chaplain fer? Sir,” another man quipped. He was a big man with a rounded face and big, hairy hands that stuck out of his coat like two furry hams.
“Because the army’s concerned with your spiritual health as well as physical. That’s why you’ve a surgeon,” Philip replied.
The man nodded and quickly turned away. With the drill completed and the supper served, the men of the 21st were left alone to sit on whatever flat surface remained empty and do personal time. The clump of volunteers around Paul were content to pull out pencil and paper and write letters, their first after being gone for a soldier.
“Sir, excuse me,” said a bespectacled boy of about twenty, judging by his scraggy, thin mustache. “You been in battle? I mean, you don’t do any fighting, right?”
Taking his ease, Philip replied, “Yes, as were most of the 21st from what I know. I was with the 24th Ohio at Shiloh an’ some other skirmishes along the way. As far as fighting, I do not suspect I will be fighting that kind of war any longer.”
The youth nodded and was silent.
“Begging the sir’s pardon,” the round-faced man piped up, “why you wearin’ a collar, so to speak?”
Philip smiled. “I left it to volunteer, and I picked up back up to minister to the men of this regiment.”
“What’d you do with those Rebs we captured?” Paul asked.
Five pairs of eyes lit up and stared at Philip.
“Where’d you capture a Reb?” the round-faced man blurted out. “Sir?”
“The one I was delivering was shot trying to escape. The men of the 7th Ohio Cavalry were none too pleased at me for suspending their fun,” Philip replied.
“Which one?” Paul asked.
“Lewis, I think is what he was called. The one who murdered the others.”
The little group of men turned one to another in wonder, questions lighting their faces.
“Sir, you captured some Rebs? Where?” A youth with spectacles named Pine asked, as if it were the most fantastic thing he’d ever considered.
“They’d escaped from Camp Chase, and we stumbled onto them—Paul and I, that is, stumbled onto them.”
“And one of them killed someone?”
“One of them was accused of killing several of his fellows; two got away. The one shot and killed one of the cavalrymen who was guarding him.”
Officers were not supposed to become friendly with the enlisted men lest they have to order them to their deaths and shrink from the responsibility. But Philip was also a chaplain now, and his sole responsibility was the men. He was a little in awe of the reception and the bashful efforts of the new volunteers to try to relate to him, though an officer he be. Even the ruddy-faced ruffian was warming up to the idea of having a chaplain around.
Paul sat silently brooding while his older brother was the center of attention. It had always been his way to melt into the background, but it was now more than that. He had volunteered for the very regiment that his brother was going to be ministering to, a journey that had not taken him very far away. The humiliation of the drill was eating at him. Though never very outspoken, he was less so now.
“I’ll let you boys have your time,” Philip said and left the group.
“He do much ordering you around like he’s puttin’ on airs?” an older, ruddy-faced man everyone was calling Bushy asked Paul.
“No, I’ve not seen much of him since he was commissioned,” Paul replied.
“Ain’t your daddy a preacher too?”
“Yes, in Germantown. My brother volunteered a year ago and has been away but for two of these last weeks. That’s when we found them two escaped prisoners.”
“Yeah, how did you find them?” the boy asked him. “I’m Thomas, Thomas Pine.”
“Paul Pearson. My brother had this sense that they was hidin’ in the woods nearby, and we found them.” He shrugged.
“Was they dangerous?”
“No, hungry. We took them home for some food and took them to some cavalry that’d been camped outside of Germantown for a few days hunting them. I guess one of them got away clean after that.”
“Why’d ya feed ‘em?” the big man cried. His face was wet with sweat and spray from the river, and his cheeks glistened slightly with perspiration.
“Christian thing to do,” Paul replied.
“Hell, Christian thing to do would be to bash they heads in like you’d do a dog what hurt itself,” the man shot back, his companions all nodding in agreement.
Paul shrugged his shoulders in reply. There was little use in explaining his brother. He wouldn’t have done any such thing as to feed them, but he knew once they’d stuck their noses into it all that they were responsible for them, especially when they escaped again.
“You think we going to get uniforms when we get to Nashville?” Pine asked. They all felt out of place among the other soldiers on board. They were not eager for the discipline, but were eager to look the part even if they didn’t yet act it.
Philip stood nearby, close enough to just barely hear their conversations but not enough to appear to be listening. He was going to have to get used to the fact that being an officer would mean the enlisted men no longer talked freely in front of him.
“Chaplain?” a voice behind him called out.
Turning, Philip came face-to-face with the company commander, Captain Wofford, who was in charge of the new levies until they were doled out like rations to the 21st’s companies.
“Ever since we got that signal to turn about and head for Pittsburg Landing, I’ve had a bad feeling we’re not going to be getting to Nashville. Rebs is threatening Corinth, an’ all supplies to move there. It doesn’t bode well.”
Philip nodded. “Been thinkin’ about that day in April when we approached Pittsburg Landing in a transport like this.”
“Papers say Van Dorn was marching on Bolivar, Tennessee, an’ another group under Price was moving on Baldwin, Mississippi. With us spread to the hell an’ back all over Tennessee, they figure for a fight. Supplies on the steamer being rushed to Corinth.”
Philip had only cordially met the officers of the 21st who’d been in Ohio recruiting, and this man before him was a new face. Tall and lanky, like all Ohio farm boys, he had a rustic air that did not fit well with his rank of office. His gaunt face and deep-set eyes gave him a tired, worn-out expression. He was older than Philip and wore his rank haphazardly.
“Do they really think they will attack Corinth? What if they march on Memphis instead?” Philip asked.
The man had no answer.
“You’ve got my brother as a volunteer, you know,” Philip added after a moment’s pause.
“How you feel about that, Parson?”
“Don’t know. I’ve seen father and son torn apart by death and disease, and it has an effect on a body. Can’t say as I would have prevented it. He will get no special treatment from me, Captain.”
“That’s not what
I meant. What if he does some infraction? Are you going to interfere?” Wofford fixed Philip with a cold stare.
“If he deserves the punishment, you will get nothing from me about it. As long as I think he deserved it. I won’t stand for anyone taking the opposite view, that he is a special case for other shines by the men.”
“If he can learn to shoulder a musket and sit his detail, then he will do fine by me. I hear you wanted a commission as a chaplain. Why?”
Philip took a breath and leaned on the railing. The sky was a nice blue, with little to mar the still-green lushness of the riverbank. “I was a minister before the war and tried to get away from it by volunteering, joining up. But I couldn’t shirk God’s duty. After Shiloh it just made sense to seek a commission in any Ohio regiment. I was assigned to the 21st partly because your Colonel Norton knew Colonel Granville Moody, who knew my father. I seen the need for a firm, spiritual hand when I was just a soldier. I’ll do my part now with words instead of a musket.”
“And a carbine. I seen your kit, an’ that carbine is a little out of place for a chaplain, don’t you think?”
“Never know when you might need it; I brought in two escaped prisoners already with it. I think the men will have more respect for me if they see I’m willing to suffer and be exposed to fire just as they are.”
“That’s a fair idea, but not really the place for a chaplain, the front line.”
Captain Wofford was silent for a moment before continuing.
“You heard there was some excitement with the regiment in Alabama? Lieutenant Colonel Neibling got himself into some trouble with a Captain Canfield over some runaway slaves. They was some trouble between the officers and the soldiers over what to do with them contrabands that daily wandered into the camp an’ the planters who wanted them back. Lucky I was in Ohio, or there might have been more trouble for Canfield. There was almost a mutiny over it. All that fuss over some contrabands and giving them back to their owners.”
Philip nodded. Everywhere the army went in the South, there was some trouble over slaves and their owners, contrabands and those who claimed some special right to own them. The 24th Ohio hadn’t had any such problems that Philip recalled as that regiment marched through West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
“Seems it is a difference of political opinion. Regiment is about equal Black Republican and Democrat. You a Democrat?”
Philip didn’t honestly know what he was any longer, but a Democrat was the closest he’d come to any political affiliation, as to have been a Whig in Southern Ohio was to invite problems in one’s church and community. He hadn’t voted for Lincoln, but he hadn’t regretted that he won.
“I suppose I am a Democrat,” Philip answered. “What does that matter?”
Captain Wofford shrugged. “Might make for a hot time with those others in the regiment, men and officers alike, if you was a Black Republican. Trouble has had a way of telling who falls on the side of the abolitionists and who respects the rights of property.”
“If that is the root of the problems, then I will say that I’m not a typical Democrat, least not a Douglass one,” Philip replied. In the 24th Ohio it had never occurred to Philip or his pards to question anyone’s political affiliation. Everyone was there to defeat the rebellion. If some were of the Black Republicans or Douglass Democrats, it never came up with the enlisted men.
Douglass, senator from Illinois, had tried to diffuse the sectional tensions that were going to rip the Democratic party apart in 1860 by conceding blacks were, for better or worse, property, and the federal government had no authority to relieve a man of his property. He was neutral on slavery’s expansion but failed to coalesce a majority of party delegates for the national Democratic ticket, the Southern delegates walking out and forming their own convention, nominating John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky. With the vote for either neutrality or allowed westward expansion of slavery becoming the cause celeb or its halt, otherwise loyal Democrats voted Republican and for Lincoln.
“There were strong feelings either way,” Wofford said. “I think things worked themselves out, but you might watch out for the Canfield faction; they strong Republicans. They had been keeping runaways from their masters if they wandered into camp. I think you will have your hands full.”
“I don’t see that it is any of my business what the officers or men do while in camp,” Philip replied, and added, “I’ll see to the spiritual well-being of the men, but that is all I can do.”
“You wouldn’t side with Canfield?” Wofford prodded, keenly fixing Philip with cold, stone-gray eyes that were constantly dancing to and fro as if the man needed to keep an eye on everything at once.
“I can’t honestly say; I would need to understand what was going on before I made any choices,” Philip answered evasively. He was being felt out, judged before he could do anything in regard to the issues at hand. Would he incite mutiny if the commander of the regiment threw all contrabands out of the camp? Would he be an ally to this officer and others who would have supported Lieutenant Colonel Neibling instead? He hadn’t arrived in the regiment yet, and already he might be at odds with its commander, someone he’d need to cooperate with and take orders from.
“You wouldn’t use your place to preach against slavery? Against those who claim a right to their property? This has rocked the regiment before, and there’s no telling when it will again, so I’m just seeing where you might stand.”
Philip wanted a moment to think. He was prepared for pretension in the officer ranks, but not for picking a side on an issue that was impossible to find where you stood when he hadn’t even reported to the regiment yet. Was he a supporter of slavers or a supporter of the abolitionists? The latter appellation wasn’t an insult in certain circles for nothing. Slavers and abolitionists were extreme opposites that no one wanted to be linked to if they had opinions of a more moderate nature.
“I never said I was an abolitionist,” Philip said sharply, “but can’t say that I’d support returning slaves to their masters, neither. I don’t say they deserve to be slaves; I don’t think it can be prevented, the runaways. I don’t think they should be handed back.”
Wofford nodded, his answer bitter in tone. “The men, regardless of their stripe, would not take too kindly to an abolitionist preacher in the regiment anyhow. I just wanted to sound you out, see where you stood. If you had seen the wretches that daily tried to come into our camps in Kentucky and while I was in Alabama, you’d support turning them back over. Cooking food or cleaning laundry not much different than picking cotton and cooking for the big house. When they came into our lines they was a nuisance and a drain on our resources to feed, clothe, and watch out for. The lieutenant colonel was doing the right thing in turning them back over.”
Philip sized the man up carefully. This was his first taste of what it was going to be like ministering in the 21st Ohio.
Changing the subject, he asked, “If the regiment has marched, are we still going to Nashville?”
“Orders is for detached duty; we missed the regiment by a week. We without our colonel. Colonel Norton fell in foul with General Mitchell, division commander, and he left Neibling in command mostly. He’s been absent most of the time the regiment was in Huntsville. Neibling is a fair man, though some like Canfield do not get on with him. But it is not who one chooses to honor but the rank he holds. The officers in the 21st are men of honor; don’t get me wrong about the goings on over the darkies. I do not think idleness did the regiment much good in Huntsville.”
“Any idea how we’re going to get all the way up to Nashville from Pittsburg Landing?”
“Find a steamer headed back up the Tennessee. This diverting us is irregular and is going to mean we’re going to have to draw uniforms and equipment from the quartermaster’s stores there and find transport. All with a group of fresh fish.” Wofford grimaced.
Philip returned to his thoughts as Wofford left him by the railing. He smiled. He wasn’t any closer to joining his r
egiment and wearing in his new collar. What was God trying to tell him?
Paul wandered over and took up a space next to the railing with Philip.
“They diverted us down the Tennessee instead of the Cumberland; we not going to Nashville right away,” Philip related.
“Oh?” came the weary reply.
“We’re to land at Pittsburg Landing and draw equipment and uniforms and find some way of getting back up the Tennessee from there.”
Paul stared at the water. “I think you was right; volunteering is not what it was going to be in my head. I’m wondering about those papers I signed and what it will take to go all in.”
Philip turned and regarded his brother with concern. “You took the oath and were sworn into federal service, right? And you got Miss Henson to thank, also.”
“Yes and no, just her father.”
“Lose an arm, leg, or become too ill; that’s the only way out now. Death, you’ve got that option still.”
“That’s what I’m thinking of avoiding, that last one. Well, all of them.”
Philip shook his head. “You find a fine time to be evaluating your options.”
“Thought it was going to be all lining up and firing my weapon. I didn’t count on the boredom and the duty parts.”
“Keep your wits about you. You get used to it, and this little river trip is not usual.”
“Oh, so there’s not so much boredom?”
“No, there’s more of that, you’ll just be bored on picket, bored on fatigue duty, bored in camp, bored on the march, and scared out of your wits for brief moments. This here is just a taste of how bored you’ll be!”
“You’re not helping,” Paul said irritably.
“Sorry; but you’ve got to look forward and not back now that you’ve taken the oath.”
The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3 Page 72
