The Last Confederate

by Gilbert, Morris

  They cautiously pushed their way through the scrubby growth, and found themselves at the edge of a clearing. “We’ll go as far as that thicket,” Henry whispered. “We’ll be able to get a good view of the whole back side of the hill from there.”

  They ran at a half crouch across the clearing. Just a little farther, thought Thad. We’re almost—“Hold up!” a voice split the air. Thad whirled to see a troop of mounted men emerge from the trees to his left.

  “Cavalry!” Will Henry shouted. “Run for it!”

  Thad turned and sprinted for the woods they had just left, but a shot rang out and he saw Will go down. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mellon make it back to cover, bullets kicking up dust at every step. Thad threw his rifle down and stooped to help the sergeant up, but Novak could see it was too late. The bullet had struck Will in the throat. When he opened his mouth to speak, he said in a throaty gurgle: “Tell—Belle—always loved—her—!” and then he slumped and his head fell back.

  Thad leaped to his feet and made two steps toward cover, but a massive form blocked his way, and a blow struck his head. He fell to the ground, losing consciousness. He came to some time later and looked up to see blue uniforms all around him, and he heard someone say, “He’s coming around.”

  Thad felt arms pulling him to his feet, and an officer’s face swam into focus. It was a thin face, and the eyes were the bluest he’d ever seen. “Well, Reb, you’re a lucky man. Usually when I hit a man in the head with my saber, he doesn’t live to tell about it.”

  “Guess he caught the flat of it, Captain,” a short lieutenant said. “He’s got a knot big as a goose egg!”

  Thad’s head was clearing, and he looked around to see the body of Will Henry over to one side. Twenty or so cavalrymen were waiting on their mounts to his right, and the two officers were staring at him curiously. The captain began peppering him for information. “You men were scouts, I take it. What’s your name and unit?”

  Thad had no idea what he was or was not allowed to tell, so he answered, “Thad Novak, Third Virginia Infantry, Company A.”

  The lieutenant said, “That’s part of Longstreet’s division, isn’t it, Captain Winslow?”

  “I don’t think so, Madison.” He looked at Thad and asked, “You’re from which corps, soldier?”

  Thad stared at the officer, for he had caught the name Winslow. However, he shook his head, saying, “We been shifted so much, I don’t rightly know, sir.”

  Lieutenant Madison demanded, “What units are down there? We know they’re getting ready for a charge.”

  Thad shook his head stubbornly. Captain Winslow turned. “Masters, bring up that extra mount.” A corporal rode forward leading a horse, and Winslow asked, “Can you ride?” At Thad’s nod, the captain barked, “Get mounted, then.”

  “We’re taking him with us, Captain?” the lieutenant asked in amazement.

  “We can’t spare a man to take him back, we can’t turn him loose, and we’ve got to scout the rebs,” Winslow countered. “Nothing else to do. Besides, I want to ask him a few questions when we get back.”

  Thad mounted the horse, and Winslow ordered, “Forward.” Then he began to ask Thad about things other than military. “How is the spirit of your folks? You said your name is Novak. Where’re you from?”

  As they walked the horses slowly down a dim trail, the captain’s eyes were constantly searching the terrain. He paused once to set out flankers, but he listened carefully to Thad’s reply.

  Thad had one idea—escape, but he knew that such a thing was impossible unless something changed. At his back were twenty cavalrymen with carbines, so he waited for a break. He spoke freely to the captain, for he saw no harm in talking about conditions as long as he did not reveal any information about the army.

  He noted that the troop was winding around a set of low hills, and he knew that if they continued, they would soon make contact with Lee’s troops lying ready to make the charge. He hoped they would run into them; maybe in the action he could slip away.

  He saw that the captain was about to end their conversation, and he wanted to keep him occupied, so he asked quickly, “Are you any kin to Mr. Davis Winslow and his grandpa?”

  As he had known it would, the question brought the captain’s head around sharply, his bright blue eyes fixed on him. “How do you know them?” Winslow demanded. He listened intently as Thad explained, as slowly as he could, how that he worked for some people named Winslow, and the two he’d mentioned had come for a visit.

  Captain Winslow laughed incredulously and said in a strange tone, “Well, I’ll never doubt coincidence again, Lieutenant. Here we capture a reb and out of the whole rebel army, we get the one who knows my family.”

  “Hard to believe, Captain,” Lieutenant Madison agreed. “Are the Winslows this fellow works for your kin, sure enough?”

  “Oh, yes. Grandfather digs them up—a real buff on our family tree.” He began to question Thad about his relations on the rebel side, and in doing so he did exactly what Thad hoped—he led the troop around the bend of the woods and right into the Confederate battle line!

  “Captain!” Lieutenant Madison yelled, “there they are—and they’ve spotted us!”

  “Make for that gap in the trees!” Captain Winslow yelled, and Thad was caught up in the sudden charge. There were troopers to the rear and on each side, but he began to guide his horse to the outside of the mass. Rifle fire crackled and he heard the shrill rebel cry. A trooper to his left fell from his horse, and then another.

  Winslow saw at a glance they’d be cut to pieces if they didn’t change direction, so he shouted, “This way—right through the middle, men!” He yanked his revolver from his belt and led the troop right into the center of the rebel line. And as they dashed through, Thad spotted his own company just to his right!

  He jerked at the horse’s bit, but the animal was wild with fear and began running away, caught up in the mass of horses that plowed through the thin line of soldiers. The cavalrymen were hit hard, but they left a trail of Confederate dead as the Union cleared the enemy line.

  In the flurry of activity, Thad looked to his right—there was Lieutenant Beau Beauchamp staring at him! He tried again to pull his horse to the outside, but he couldn’t budge against the mass of horseflesh around him. To slip to the ground would mean being trampled to death by the troop behind.

  In the end, the charge carried the cavalry troop clear of the Confederates, and Winslow ordered sharply, “Take the prisoner to the rear of our lines, Lieutenant. I’ll get our information to headquarters. They’re forming for another charge, and the colonel needs to know.”

  He spurred off at a dead run, and the lieutenant commanded, “Private Johnson, take this prisoner to the rear. He’s the only reb we’ve got now, but we’ll have plenty more after they try to take that hill!”

  His words were prophetic. Brigade after brigade of riflemen came up that hill into a blanket of shrapnel, grape and canister. Those who survived the Union guns were cut down by musket fire from the 14th New York, which received the brunt of the rebel charge.

  A few isolated rebels survived the charge, but when they were brought to where Thad was held under strong guard, only one of them seemed to have any knowledge of the Third Virginia. “I think they got cut up bad,” he said.

  The Union Army finally moved out, and Thad’s mind was filled with fear as he recalled all the stories he had heard of the prison camps in the North. When they stopped, he and the other prisoners were put in an old barn, and all night long he kept thinking of the company, wondering if Dooley were alive—and wishing that he’d been with them when they charged up that hill!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A MATTER OF BLOOD

  The day after the battle of Malvern Hill, General Lee withdrew to Richmond, and Thad was taken with the other prisoners to Harrison’s Landing by McClellan’s army. As the prisoners were herded onto a gunboat to be taken to prison, Thad heard the lieutenant in charge argue wit
h the sergeant, who claimed they had beat the rebels.

  “Beat ’em? No! We’re running for Washington just like the Army of the Potomac always does—like a yellow cur with its tail between its legs.”

  “But—we must of kilt half the rebs in Lee’s army yesterday!”

  “I heard the general say that we lost 15,000 and the rebs lost 20,000—but the thing is—now we got to do it all over again.” The lieutenant cursed and added, “We got the right cause, but the rebs got the right generals. If we had one man like Jackson or Lee, we’d be in Richmond right now—but we don’t, so now we’ll go back and McClellan will build up another army for the rebs to bluff again!” He saw that Thad was listening and said, “Don’t get proud, Reb. You’ll probably be rotting in a prison for the rest of the war.”

  As they made their journey north, Thad heard more about the terrible conditions in the prisons. A middle-aged private named Jake Hill had been a prisoner in Elmira, and he gloomily shared his memories with Thad and the others.

  “Nothin’ but swill to eat—and sometimes not even that,” he complained as they huddled in the tiny room on the gunboat, suffering from the suffocating heat. “And talk about vermin—you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! It got so bad they had to make a daily haul to get the bodies of those of us that died in the night.”

  “They’ve fed us pretty well so far,” Thad mentioned.

  “Ah, these is Regulars,” Hill stated. “The prisons are run by civilians or else them that just signed up for prison duty service to git out of fightin’. Scum of the earth, most of ’em!”

  They were on the gunboat for three days, learning on the way that they were headed for The Old Capitol, a Yankee prison in Washington. From the gunboat they were transferred to a train and packed like sardines into boxcars. They were forced to stand up, but it was a short ride, lasting only three hours. Falling out, and put in a rough marching order, they shuffled their way down the streets of Washington. Their ragged appearance was a spectacle many citizens stopped to peer at as the unkempt group made its way through the burning July sun.

  Someone said, “There it is,” and Thad looked up at a tall, faded red hulk of a building, rambling in several directions, with a series of connected structures. He discovered later that after the British burned Washington, the prison had housed Congress, and afterward it had become a boardinghouse. As they marched into the main gate, a handsomely arched entranceway, he saw many boarded-over openings, and a line of barred windows with gray faces staring out and clenched hands against the barriers.

  The prisoners were shoved inside one of the largest buildings, and Jake Hill commented, “This sure weren’t built for no prison, but it beats Elmira all hollow!”

  They filed down a short passage, then up a stairway to a dark hall. The warm, fetid air struck them with smothering force, and the sheer size of the place was staggering. Everywhere there were prisoners crowded into the frame of crumbling brick, broken walls, and worm-eaten wood. Rough boarding had been nailed across many doors and windows; from other creaking doors hung large piles of rancid clothing, mingled with an all-pervading odor of bad drainage. The building was incredibly dirty—spider webs in the corners, unswept floors and accumulated piles of filthy cloth, paper and other debris.

  As they entered a large room, the armed guards yelled, “Hold up!” They stopped abruptly, nearly fifty men, and waited. Finally a door opened and a short, thick-bodied man emerged and stood before them. He had the red face of a drinker, and small piglike eyes set deep in his skull.

  “I am Superintendent Josiah Dickens,” he announced in a hoarse voice. “I want to give you some good advice on your first day at Capitol.” He paused and let his eyes run over the prisoners, then began to pace back and forth as he spoke. He had very short legs, and rolled from side to side, in a bearlike manner. He had large yellowish teeth, and bared them in what he evidently thought was a smile as he continued. “You will make life easy for yourself if you keep The Rules.” When he said The Rules, it was as if he had changed to another language. They were soon to learn that Superintendent Dickens thought The Rules were handed down by Moses along with the Ten Commandments.

  “There are some among you who, no doubt, are troublemakers, but we have ways of dealing with those. I am a fair man”—he bared his yellowish fangs again—“and so long as you keep The Rules, you will find me most understanding.” Then he jerked to his full, though stunted, size and aimed a blunt forefinger at them, his voice rising to an incredible roar. “But if you break one of The Rules, you will wish you had died on the battlefield!”

  For the next thirty minutes, he continued pacing back and forth, threatening them, and at the same time yelling that he was a fair man. Having finished, he abruptly wheeled and left the room.

  “All right, down the hall,” the guard commanded, and they filed down a narrow hall until the guard stopped, consulted a piece of paper, and called out four names: “Adkins, Simms, Alberts, and Rosner—number 12.” Another guard opened a door and the four men entered; then the door was shut and bolted. The rest moved slowly down the hall, and the guard read out: “Peterson, Novak, Willis, Brown—number 18!” Thad followed the other three into the room, and the door slammed behind them.

  The room was about twelve feet square, with four double-decked bunks on either side. In the center of the outer wall was a barred window with no glass. The furniture was sparse—a battered table and three chairs in the center of the room; another smaller table braced on the outer wall with a small mirror fastened to the wall just above the table.

  Two men were lying on their bunks, and one of them got up, saying, “Welcome to The Capitol, boys. I’m Sam Little.” He was a tall, thin man with a cadaverous face and not a tooth in his head. “That’s Beans Melton—but he’s ailin’ a mite, so just excuse him.”

  The newcomers introduced themselves: Roger Willis, a thirty-two-year-old blacksmith from Tennessee; L. C. Brown, a young farmer from the same state; Giles Peterson, a forty-five- year-old musician from Helena, Arkansas; and Thad.

  Peterson asked immediately, “What time is dinner served at this hotel? I’m plumb hollow!”

  “Sorry, you missed the main meal,” Sam Little grinned. “That comes near noon. They’ll be around with something ’bout dark.” He waved his hand around the room. “Take your pick, gents. You git all the livestock that comes with any bunk you chooses.”

  Thad was exhausted and flopped on one of the bunks. He closed his eyes and fell asleep instantly. He woke up some time later when the door slammed and somebody called, “Novak—suppertime.” He rolled out of the bunk and saw that a large black pot had been placed in the middle of the table. Sam Little grinned at him. “Here’s your plate and hardware. Come and git it!”

  A deep tin plate and a pewter spoon had been issued to each man, and Little picked up the pot and poured some of the contents into each of the bowls that were on the table. Thad picked up one of them, and Little said, “Break yourself off a piece of that loaf, you fellers.” They all got their food and three of them sat down in the chairs while the others sat on their bunks. Thad tasted the stew, which was mostly rice with a few pieces of strong-tasting fish. It was not as bad as he had expected, and he wolfed it down, ate the bread, then took a long drink out of the single bucket, using the dipper attached to the pail with a cotton cord.

  “I’ve had worse,” Giles Peterson stated, licking his spoon. “When I was with the Stonewall Brigade we would have thought we were eating at the Planter’s House in New Orleans if we’d gotten grub this good.”

  “Well, this is a little better than the usual,” Little replied. “But on the whole, I guess we git better than the fellers at Fort Delaware. Friend of mine was there. Said they had to eat rats.”

  After the meal the men sat around while Little told them about the prison.

  “How about the escape?” L. C. Brown asked.

  Small shook his head vigorously. “You might get through the pearly gates, boy, but you ain’t gonna ge
t through the gates of The Capitol. Why, there’s guards here that’ll shoot you on a whim! It’s Superintendent Dickens’ boast that no man ever got away from him. That’s right enough in a way—but he don’t tell ’bout them that die in here—and the twenty-two that’s been shot down tryin’ to run off.”

  “Guess we’re here for the rest of the war,” Willis grumbled. He looked down at his huge hands. “Sure hope it don’t last long. I ain’t never been locked up before.”

  Thad felt the same way, but Little said gloomily, “Since McClellan got run out of the Peninsula, I don’t figure it’s gonna be over no time soon.” He took a plug out of his pocket, bit off a small bite, then waved his hand at the sick man in the bunk. “They’s a lot of men gonna die like Beans there.” He saw them look quickly at the still figure, and added, “Oh, he can’t hear me none. He give up two days ago. Won’t eat nothin’, won’t even answer. I seen it happen before. Man jest can’t take this place and plain gives up. He’ll go pretty soon—maybe tonight, but in a week for sure.”

  “Isn’t there any hospital?” Peterson asked.

  “Oh, they’s a hospital, all right, but they don’t take men who’s got what Beans has,” Little answered. “Guess there ain’t nothin’ they could do for him, anyways.”

  “Men don’t die from just wanting to,” Peterson argued.

  “Oh yes, they do!” Little countered, nodding emphatically. “You’ll see it enough in here. Thing to do is don’t think ’bout tomorrow. That’s what pulls a feller down. If you git to thinkin’ ’bout bein’ here for five years, why it ain’t cheerful. Thing to do is jest think ’bout right now.”

  Thad thought about Little’s words a great deal the next two days. The food was the same at every meal, and he grew tired of it, and knew that he would despise it in a week. They were taken out once a day to the exercise yard—which was nothing but a narrow alley and packed with so many men they saw nothing but brick walls and a patch of sky.