1862

by Robert Conroy

  The rebels came at them, moving, firing, and howling. Billy and the rest of the Union line poured bullets into them. The advantage lay with the defender, who could aim and reload more quickly, while the advancing rebels had to reload more slowly and shoot awkwardly.

  Rebels fell and others took their place. Bullets smacked into Union soldiers, who also fell sometimes silently, and sometimes screaming in shock and pain. A soldier stumbled onto Billy, who cursed at him. Then he saw that it was one of his friends, and that he'd had his right arm torn off just above the elbow. The wounded soldier started screaming and blood gushed from the wound where a jagged piece of bone stuck out.

  Something wet struck Billy's forehead. Hell he thought, was it raining again? There'd been a damp mist all morning. He wiped his forehead and his hand came away red. It was raining blood and the rebels were still coming. In a few seconds they would be on them.

  Bayonets, Billy thought. They were going to use bayonets! He knew real fear for the first time in his life. He was a little man and the bayonet was a skill he hadn't come close to acquiring. A normal-sized man would push Billy's bayonet aside and ram his own into Billy's gut. His bowels contracted in fear and he almost wet himself.

  Now he realized he could die. At Bull Run and at this god-forsaken place, he'd killed at a distance and been safe. It had been a game, only thing was, someone just changed the rules. Now the targets, the men he'd been killing with impunity, were going to have their turn. And he could die. So many men in Union blue lay around him and he knew he could soon be one of them. He whimpered and wanted to cry, and he did wet himself.

  The rebels were only about fifty yards away and Billy's legs trembled. He could see their contorted faces as they screamed hatred at him. They were people who looked just like his own comrades and they yelled in a language he understood. If they'd been wearing blue instead of gray, there would have been no difference. The rebels were dressed in rags and many were barefoot. Were they all so poor? So what. He was going to be killed by someone who looked just like him.

  The rebel line paused, faltered, and stopped. They were twenty yards away.

  “Keep it up, boys,” Captain Melcher hollered. His hat was gone and blood from a scalp cut streamed down his face.

  Billy fired again and again into the densely packed Confederates, who seemed reluctant to close the intervening few yards. The more he shot the fewer there would be to bayonet him.

  The rebels began to fall back. Some tried to pick up their wounded, but the seriously hurt had to be left where they writhed on the gore-stained grass. The rebels retreated in a backward-facing walk that became an exhausted trot. It was over. He would not get a bayonet in his gut. At least not right now.

  Billy dropped to his hands and knees. He fumbled with his canteen and swallowed delicious gulps of brackish water. His face hurt where exploding powder had burned it. He wondered where Otto the Kraut was. He stood up shakily and looked at others like him who were gazing about in wonderment. They had survived. They would live to fight another day.

  The rebels had attacked three times in only two hours. The attacks had been savage, even frantic, with the last one being the worst and closest to succeeding. The Confederates had hurled themselves on the Union lines in an effort to chase them from their homeland.

  But they hadn't done it, Billy thought with satisfaction. They hadn't goddamn done it.

  Nathan and Lieutenant Winton rode back to McClellan's headquarters and found a scene of chaos instead of the usual ordered and structured formality. Couriers and staff officers ran about shouting orders that everyone else seemed to ignore. McClellan was nowhere around.

  Winton looked stunned. “I'll find out,” he said before Nathan could ask, and disappeared.

  On his own, Nathan found a sergeant who seemed relatively unperturbed. When questioned, the sergeant eyed Nathan's civilian clothing, then decided he had nothing to lose.

  “Stonewall Jackson's appeared on our right flank and is attacking Porters corps.”

  “Jackson's in the Shenandoah,” Nathan said.

  The sergeant spat some tobacco on the ground. “No. that's where he's supposed to be. only he ain't there and everyone's surprised that he's not following our rules. Right now he's attacking Porter's right flank and pushing it back. Somebody else is attacking the center, and our beloved little general is fit to be tied.” With that, the sergeant realized he might have said too much and strode off.

  Winton returned breathless. He confirmed the flanking attack on Porter, and they both knew of the attack against Hooker's center force.

  “What really has everyone confused,” said Winton, “is that Sumner has telegraphed a message that he is under a very strong attack in the valley and is pulling back towards Washington. How can these rebels be everywhere?”

  How indeed, Nathan thought. Scott had said that Lee would bedevil and confuse McClellan. Was that what was happening?

  “So what orders have been given?” Nathan asked.

  Winton looked downward and grimaced. “McClellan has ordered a general withdrawal. It seems we are returning to Washington.”

  Nathan didn't understand. “Are we in that bad a shape?”

  Winton was only a junior officer. He had no idea. At that moment, McClellan strode past.

  “General,” Nathan said.

  McClellan would have looked through him but for the civilian clothes that were out of place and drew attention. “Ah, Mr. Hunter. So you see, I was right after all. There are so many more Confederates than our poor army can deal with. Porter is falling back, but fortunately in good order, while Hooker is holding for the moment. That moment will not last forever. Now I must retreat and save my army.”

  “But what about Burnside?” Nathan asked. Twenty thousand reserves were sitting in the army's rear, doing nothing.

  “Stuart is probing around the supply depots. Burnside is to hold while the rest of the army passes through him. Burnside's role is changing from reserve to rear guard.” With that, McClellan nodded and walked away, surrounded by a host of staff officers.

  It didn't make sense to Nathan. The Union left was fresh while the center was holding. Burnside's force was more than enough to both secure the depots and to reinforce Porter, especially if Porter was falling back in good order. It struck Nathan as a chance to chew up the Confederates while they attacked, instead of the Union host being chewed on while it retreated. Retreats were chancy things. Even a well-run retreat could easily turn into a rout.

  And what would happen to the thousands of tons of food, ammunition, guns, and other supplies that were stacked around the Union rear? They could save the men, but how could they move the supplies? The answer was simple: They couldn't and wouldn't.

  McClellan was giving up.

  “Why?” Billy Harwell asked, and the question was taken up by a score of outraged voices. They had fought for the right to own the bloody field and saw no reason to leave it.

  Captain Melcher shrugged at the minor display of disrespect. “Orders. That's all I know. Orders.”

  Word had come down that they were to retreat. In front of them lay a field littered with Confederate dead and dying. They had stood up to the best Lee had and kicked it in the ass. And now they were being told to fall back. It didn't make sense. However, it was the army. It didn't have to make sense.

  They gathered their belongings and started to walk back to the rear. They looked behind them to where the Confederates had once stood. There was nothing. Around them, scores of other companies were doing the same thing in a vast migration northward.

  “Jesus Christ,” Billy wondered, “if there's so many of us, how'd we get beat?”

  He'd found Otto, who wondered the same thing, Otto had a bad cut on his arm and had wrapped it in a dirty cloth, Neither young man thought war was fun anymore,

  They came to an aid station, where Sergeant Grimes joined them. He was on a crutch and his left leg was bandaged around the knee. He moved the leg stiffly and groaned. He look
ed haunted and scared, Billy didn't feel the least bit sorry for him.

  Then Billy wondered if Grimes was faking it, He had gotten “wounded” just as the rebs were beginning their first attack, How convenient, he thought,

  Captain Melcher was behind them, Billy gestured to the captain to watch him. Then he gave Grimes a nudge that almost knocked him off his feet and down a gravel slope, Grimes threw away the crutch and hopped nimbly down the slope, all the while keeping his balance and swearing at Billy,

  “Praise the Lord, a miracle,” said Billy while Melcher watched in angry disbelief, “He's healed, sir, Our beloved Sergeant Grimes is healed, God bless him, sir, he's saved,”

  The rest of the company had stopped and stood in a rough circle around them, “Come here,” said Melcher to Grimes,

  “I need my crutch,” mumbled Grimes and someone threw it to him, He lurched awkwardly to the captain and stood with his head down.

  “Unwrap the bandage,” Melcher ordered,

  “I'll bleed to death,” said Grimes and there was snickering from the men.

  “Do it,” snarled Melcher.

  Slowly, grudgingly, Grimes unwrapped the bandage. It covered a knee that was clean and unhurt.

  “Glory hallelujah,” yelled Billy. “Another fucking miracle. My beloved sergeant has been cured. Now we can go and win the war.”

  Melcher glared at Grimes. “Sergeant, you are a disgusting piece of shit. You have two choices. You can be court-martialed and shot for desertion in the face of the enemy, or you can be broken to the rank of private and never again command men. What's your choice? Now!”

  Grimes looked around him. There wasn't a single sympathetic face there. “Private,” he muttered.

  Melcher walked over and ripped the stripes off Grimes's shirt. “Now you're Private Grimes, you rotten son of a bitch.”

  Melcher looked at his depleted company. A third of them had fallen in the day's fighting. “Harwell!”

  “Yessir.”

  “Private Harwell, you're a big-mouth smartass and probably worthless to boot. But you're Corporal Harwell from now on and you've got the squad, You treat Private Grimes well now,”

  Nathan had become separated from Lieutenant Winton, which was a relief to him and probably to Winton, He wasn't concerned about getting lost, The army was a vast migration, All he had to do was follow its lead. The army was an enormous herd of human cattle, all heading north.

  Like the rest of the army, Nathan had been headed in that direction for a couple of days. The front lines and the Confederate army were well to his south and rear. Now: however, the scent of smoke filled the air and soon eye-stinging clouds of the stuff played hell with his vision, Curious, Nathan urged his horse in the direction from which it came,

  After a few minutes he rode into a large clearing along a railroad siding. The ground around the tracks was piled high with small mountains of crates and bags, many of which were burning. Where they could, soldiers were strewing the contents about like trash, Scores of other Union soldiers ran about, setting fires and smashing into crates, while still others loaded goods onto flatcars.

  Nathan found an officer and asked the obvious: What was going on?

  The officer, a short, stout lieutenant with glasses, spat angrily on the ground, “Our orders are to leave nothing to the damned rebs, What we can't take back, we destroy,”

  With that, the lieutenant turned and stalked away. He had better things to do than talk with nosy civilians.

  Nathan tethered his horse and walked around the activity for a few minutes. The wastage of material was incredible. Clothing was being burned and food containers, particularly bags of flour and coffee, were being ripped open, their contents strewn about or mixed with dirt, Some imaginative soldiers had even made a point of urinating and defecating where they could to spoil some of the rest. It was organized vandalism by a group of angry adult delinquents.

  Nathan had just decided he had better things to do when there was the sound of shots, followed by hollers and shrieks. He turned to see a small group of horsemen charging towards him. Some of Jeb Stuart's rebel cavalry didn't want the supplies burned.

  Nathan's immediate response was to flee, but he had wandered too far from his horse. Several cavalrymen were bearing down on where he stood, but, with his bad leg, he didn't think he had a ghost of a chance of escaping on foot. Most of the Union soldiers had laid down their rifles to better destroy the supplies, and were running about in confusion looking for them. Nathan found a rifle laying alongside a crate and grabbed it.

  Quickly: he checked that it was loaded and cocked it. A rider was almost on him: howling and waving a sabre.

  Nathan raised it to his shoulder and fired. The recoil knocked him back a step: but when the smoke cleared both horse and rider were on the ground. He had shot the horse through the skull.

  The rebel cavalryman was dazed but conscious, and was trying to get a pistol out of his belt. Nathan ran up and smashed the rifle butt against his skull and then hit him a second time to make sure he was dead. He picked up the fallen man's revolver, cursing the fact that he wasn't carrying his own. It was in his saddlebag.

  Again, he checked his weapon and saw that it was loaded. He heard another howl and a second horseman bore down on him. Nathan gripped the pistol with both hands, and fired at close range. There was a scream of animal pain and anger and, as before, both horse and man fell to the ground. They were so close that Nathan had to jump aside to avoid getting crushed.

  This time, however, it was the man who didn't get up. One of his legs was smashed, and there was a gaping hole in his chest. His eyes were open and he glared at Nathan. Then they glazed over and rolled back in his head.

  Rifle fire erupted around him as the fat little lieutenant got his men organized. More horses and men tumbled to the ground. It was too much for the remaining rebel cavalry. With a few parting pistol shots that hit nothing, they rode off.

  “That was damn fine shooting for a civilian,” the lieutenant said. “You sure you ain't in our army?”

  “Maybe I just enlisted,” Nathan said. His hands were trembling and he had difficulty walking over to his own horse and mounting it. He noted thankfully that a soldier had put the wounded horse out of its misery.

  He rode a few yards away and stopped. He had spent years in the army and had served on the frontier fighting the Indians, but this was the first time he'd ever known that he'd actually killed anyone. Shooting at movement in the night or at a tree that didn't seem quite right was one thing. Blowing a man's chest out or beating him over the skull was another. Nathan leaned over and vomited into the grass. He hoped no one was looking. Then he decided he didn't much care.

  Chapter Nine

  The Union retreat from the Culpeper-Fredericksburg area had been long and slow. The army withdrew in good order, first caring for the wounded, and then tending to the mountains of supplies. That which could be moved was sent back to Washington by train and wagon: while the excess was destroyed. As the army sullenly moved back north: the sky was darkened by the smoke of scores of fires devouring the many tons of supplies that had just been brought southward at great effort and expense.

  The rebels would get some rewards, but not that much. Some foodstuffs, for instance, did not lend themselves to burning. The rebels would eat their fill, but only for a while. Southern papers had published accounts that the Union soldiers had poisoned some of the food. It wasn't quite true. As Nathan had seen, Union soldiers had urinated and defecated on piles of food or ripped open sacks so vermin could get at them. Then they had left signs saying the food was spoiled and why. They hadn't counted on so many of the rebels being illiterate. A number had eaten the bad stuff and gotten sick. Nathan felt no sympathy for them. It beat getting shot.

  The gloom of the defeat and retreat had been somewhat mitigated by the news of a bloody federal victory by General Ulysses Grant at a place called Shiloh.

  The only good thing to come from the travesty was Rebecca's response t
o his safe return. She had greeted him with a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek that had lingered a second longer than he'd hoped for.

  He had found her at the Washington office of the American Anti-Slavery Society. She had grabbed a shawl and taken him outside. While they walked down the street, she grasped his arm tightly and he could feel the warmth of her breast against it.

  “Everything,” she said, “you must tell me everything.”

  With some surprise, he found himself unburdening himself totally. He told her of watching the battle and of nearly getting killed by rebel cavalrymen. Then he told her how sick he had been after killing the two enemy soldiers.

  In the course of talking, Rebecca picked up the hint that something terrible had happened to him in earlier years. Skillfully, she pried out the story of the Apaches and the terrible destruction of his small command. He even wound up telling her about his recurring nightmares and felt relieved that he had shared them with someone. He felt lighter and better for having done so. Had Amy been alive, she would have been the one he confided in. Now it was the dark-haired and equally troubled Rebecca Devon.

  “Do you still think it was your fault?”

  “No,” he said, still conscious of the delicious feel of her body through God only knew how many layers of clothing. “I had pretty well gotten over it before the battle, but what I saw confirmed it. Too many unexpected things happen in war. Those rebels had no right being there at the supply depot, but they were. The Apaches shouldn't have been in my patrol's way, but they were. I had plenty of time to think of it during the retreat from Culpeper, and now I know I didn't cause either event to happen and I couldn't have stopped them if I'd wanted to. Terrible things take place in life and war and there's nothing anybody can do.”

  “Except not have a war in the first place.”

  “True,” he said. “Now tell me, what are you doing with the Anti-Slavery Society and not in the hospitals?”

  She shrugged and smiled grimly. “As much as I try, I'm not really much good with the wounded. Waiting for Thomas to die was the extent of my skills. Later perhaps, when the soldiers are truly convalescing, I will go and read to them and write letters for them. Right now, there really isn't much for amateurs to do, so I'm concentrating on getting people to pressure Mr. Lincoln to free the slaves.”