by Dan Gutman
“Hold your fire,” Joshua said calmly, aiming his gun. “Don’t use up any ammunition until they get close.”
“What should I do?” I asked Little John.
“Wait till he gives the word,” he advised. “Then fire at anything gray.”
The army marching toward us was still very far away, but I could make out Confederate flags and men on horses. To the sides of me, Union soldiers were rushing out from behind trees and tombstones to get into position. Some were wheeling cannons out of the woods.
The Confederates were coming closer, and I could see that they were trotting now.
“Fire!” somebody shouted, and a blast of guns erupted on the left and right of me. A few Confederate soldiers stumbled and fell. The others kept right on coming, pulling together to fill in the holes left by the men who had fallen.
“Keep low! Keep low! Stay alert!” shouted Joshua as he rushed to reload his rifle.
The Confederates stopped for a moment to aim and shoot. A few bullets zipped by. I ducked down into the ditch.
As the Confederates got closer, I could see that only some of them were wearing military uniforms. Most were in tattered old clothes. Few of them had shoes. Some of them had rags wrapped around their feet.
I couldn’t pull the trigger.
“What’s the matter?” Joshua demanded after firing his second shot. “Is your gun jammed?”
“No.”
“Then fire that thing!”
“I…don’t know if I can…”
“Are you an American?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then fight like an American!”
They were getting closer, and then they were running toward us, screaming that horrible Rebel yell the whole time.
I didn’t want to shoot. I didn’t want to hit a human being. But there were human beings running toward us and they wanted to hit me. So I pulled the trigger. A yellow-blue flash shot out of the end of the musket, and I was rocked backward.
I didn’t know if I hit anything. I rushed to reload.
“Joey!” Mom yelled from the bottom of the ditch. She was still helping Willie. “What are you doing?”
“Protecting you!” I shouted. “Stay down!”
It was a firestorm. Even though each man could only shoot once every twenty seconds, the roar of gunfire was continuous. There were thousands of us.
Union cannons were booming too. I always thought they just fired cannonballs. But as I was reloading, I could see men shoving these big cans down the barrels of a cannon. Then, when it was fired, stuff sprayed out of the cannon in all directions. It was like a giant shotgun, spitting out death.
One well-aimed blast would take out five guys or even more. I saw a guy fly ten feet in the air after getting hit. I could see men getting their arms or legs blown right off. Still they kept coming.
A shell hit the ground at the base of a boulder and sent it flying about fifteen feet in the air. It came down right on top of a guy. He never knew what hit him. It was horrible.
For a second, I wondered what was happening back home in Louisville. Kids were going to school, playing ball, watching TV, living their lives. Here at Gettysburg, guys not much older than me were shooting and killing each other.
Man, my life was so easy, it occurred to me. We’ve got a nice house, a car. We turn on the faucet and water comes out. Flip on the switch and the lights turn on. When I’m hungry, I go to the refrigerator and grab something to eat. I’ll never complain about anything, ever again, I promised myself. Just get me home safely.
I kept loading and firing, even though I wasn’t always sure what I was firing at. My hand was so wet with sweat that I had trouble pushing the ramrod down the gun. The barrel was getting too hot to touch. I had used up most of my cartridges. I kept firing anyway. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was insane.
“Fix bayonets!” shouted a guy on horseback.
A two-foot bayonet was attached to the barrel of each rifle. Joshua, Little John, and Rufus snapped their bayonets off and clamped them on to the end of the barrel so the sharp end was pointing out. I watched what they were doing and put my bayonet on too.
“You stand alone between the Rebel army and your homes!” shouted the guy on the horse. He had to be one of the Union generals. “Fight like hell!”
Joshua, Little John, and Rufus got ready to climb out of the ditch.
“Charge!” yelled the general.
I was about to climb out of the ditch when a hand pulled the back of my shirt, and I fell backward.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Mom said.
“I’ve got to go defend my country!”
“You stay right here, young man, and defend me.”
I had to watch. The two armies were right on top of each other now. There was no time to load rifles. They were running around the tombstones in hand-to-hand combat. It looked like professional wrestling, but it was real, they had real weapons, and they were really trying to kill each other.
They were swinging their rifles at each other now, and stabbing each other with bayonets. Men were cursing, cheering, screaming, moaning, and dying. Bugles were blowing. Horses were bolting. The smells of gunpowder and sweat and blood were in the air.
I remember I had once seen one of those Civil War reenactments where guys wearing Union and Confederate uniforms pretended to fight each other. Compared to this, that was like watching a ballet.
I wished I could just blow a whistle and make everything stop, like a referee at a hockey game. I wanted to tell them all to knock it off and go sit in the penalty box. I wanted to remind them that they were all Americans who spoke the same language and who loved their country.
It was useless, of course. The only thing that would stop this fight was if one side gave up.
Finally, that’s what happened. The soldiers in gray realized they weren’t going to take control of Cemetery Ridge. At least not today. The Union soldiers had better equipment. They had better position. They had more men. And they were defending their own turf.
I never heard anybody yell, “Retreat!” Maybe there was a bugle call or a signal from a drummer boy. But all at once, the soldiers in gray stopped fighting and started to fall back. They didn’t run away. They walked away defiantly. It seemed important to them not to be seen running away.
I thought the Union soldiers would chase the Rebels down the hill and fire at their backs, but they didn’t.
Suddenly, for the first time since I had arrived, the guns on both sides were completely quiet. It was like somebody had flipped a switch from ON to OFF.
For a moment, the only sound I could hear was my own breathing.
9
Dinner at Gettysburg
WHEN IT WAS ALL OVER, I HATE TO ADMIT IT, I FELT great.
I don’t know if it’s adrenaline or some other chemical that rushes through your body in times of stress, but whatever it was made me feel really alive. It was like all my senses were heightened. I had never felt this way before.
I had survived. I hadn’t realized it at first, but Mom and I were holding on to each other for dear life. We had been standing in the ditch watching the end of the battle, our arms around each other. I could feel our hearts beating. We were okay. We didn’t let go of each other for a long time.
After a few minutes, Little John walked slowly back to the ditch. Joshua was behind him, carrying the other guy, Rufus, over his shoulder.
“Is he hurt?” I asked.
“He’s dead,” Little John said, and then he burst into tears. Mom held him as he sobbed.
“We made them Rebs pay for this,” said Joshua, lowering Rufus gently to the ground. “I got me four or five of ’em myself.”
“They’ll be back,” said Willie, now bandaged up and on his feet. “Tomorrow, for sure.”
They stood around for a minute looking at poor Rufus. He had been shot up pretty good.
I had to turn away. I was not used to death. My grandmother died when I was little, but
I didn’t go to the funeral because my mother thought I was too young. Joshua, Willie, and Little John had probably seen a lot of death in their lives.
All around us, I could hear the sounds of shovels sticking into dirt, holes being dug. Joshua got out a shovel and started digging on one side of the ditch. I didn’t have to ask what he was doing. I knew he was digging graves for Rufus and Alexander, the guy whose uniform I was wearing.
Little John was sniffling and wiping his face on his sleeve as if he had a cold, but it was pretty obvious that he was still crying. He didn’t look much older than me. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, I figured.
“How old are you?” I asked, after he had pulled himself together.
“Fifteen years,” he said.
“They let you join the army at fifteen?”
“Course not,” he said. “They took my brother, and he was eighteen. So I come along too, and they took me. They ain’t too picky when you know how to drum and such.”
Little John told me that all four of them had lied their way into the army. Rufus was only sixteen and Joshua and Willie were just seventeen.
Things were so different in the 1800s, I thought. Nowadays, there’s a record of everything. Birth certificates, Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses. Everything is on computer. If I ever tried to pass myself off as eighteen, I’d get caught in a minute. But during the Civil War if a kid looked like he might be anywhere near eighteen, he could get away with it. Why anybody would want to lie their way into a war was beyond me.
“Where’s your brother?” I asked Little John.
“Dead,” he said, and he started sniffling again. “He got himself killed at Bull Run. Lots of my buddies are dead.”
Joshua lowered Rufus and Alexander into the graves he had dug. Mom and I covered them with dirt. Little John made a homemade tombstone out of a piece of wood. He stuck it into the dirt and cried some more. Willie couldn’t do much because of his arm, but he said a prayer over the graves. We took off our hats and lowered our heads.
“They were good men,” Joshua said sadly. “Coulda been any of us.”
“Could be any of us tomorrow,” Little John said solemnly.
“I reckon if a bullet ain’t found me yet, it ain’t gonna find me,” said Joshua.
“That’s what I thought yesterday,” Willie said. “But a bullet found me today, and I didn’t like it none.”
Rufus had obviously been shot, but Alexander didn’t have any blood on him. I asked Little John what he died from.
“Diarrhea,” he said.
“Diarrhea?”
I thought it was a joke, at first. I mean, diarrhea is funny. But Little John wasn’t laughing, and neither was anybody else. Mom leaned over and whispered to me that in this time, soldiers were just as likely to die from diarrhea or some other disease as they were from a bullet. They simply didn’t have the medicine to cure things.
I fussed with my uniform. I was wearing the clothes of a guy who had died from diarrhea. I didn’t feel too good about it. My hand brushed against one of Alexander’s pockets, and it felt like something was in there. I reached inside and pulled out a sheet of paper. The others wanted to know what it said, so I unfolded it and read it to them…
Dearest Molly,
Sorry I don’t write oftener. I pray these words reach you by August, when my 2 years in the army will be done and I can return home so we might be wed. We are marching to Gettysburg today, and the boys say we will meet General Lee’s army there. In the event that I fall, dear Molly, this letter shall serve as a reminder that my love for you is forever. I will never forget the blissful moments we spent together. My only regret will be not seeing the children we would have raised together. When my last breath escapes me it will whisper your name, Molly. If the dead can return to this earth, I will surely return to your side and be with you always. When you feel a breeze brush your cheek, it shall be me, whispering that I love you.
Yours,
Alexander
I folded up the letter and handed it to Willie, who said he would make sure Molly got it.
It was quiet for a while. Finally Little John broke the silence and asked, “You think Rufus and Alexander are cold down there?”
“They don’t feel nothin’,” Willie said. “They’re dead.”
That seemed to be the signal that the funeral was over. Little John gathered up some wood and Joshua built a small fire. They unrolled their sleeping blankets, where they had stored some of their food.
“Willie was bleedin’ pretty bad, ma’am,” Joshua said to Mom. “You might of saved his life.”
“I was just doing my job,” Mom replied.
“I’m obliged all the same,” Willie said.
“It would sure please us if you and your boy, Stosh, would join us for vittles this evening,” said Joshua. “It’s the least we can do to say thanks.”
“We got two extra rations,” Willie said, glancing at the graves.
Oh great. Now I would have to eat a dead guy’s food.
I was hungry, but the stuff they were taking out of their blankets didn’t look very appetizing. I would much rather have eaten at home. And as exciting as the battle had been, I didn’t exactly want to stick around to see another one. One of those bullets could very easily find me or my mom. I didn’t want either one of us to end up like Rufus or Alexander.
“Let’s go,” I whispered to Mom.
She shot me the look that meant I didn’t say the polite thing.
“We would be delighted to join you gentlemen for…vittles,” Mom said.
“Great,” Willie said. “Got any eatables?”
“It just so happens that I do.” Mom opened up her purse and put all her goodies on the blanket that Little John had spread out on the ground. Juice boxes. Peanut butter crackers. Go-Gurt.
The three of them stopped what they were doing and stared at Mom’s snacks.
“What the devil is that?” Joshua finally asked.
“Go-Gurt,” I said, ripping open the tube, “Portable yogurt.”
“What’s yogurt?” Little John asked.
I looked at Mom. Mom looked at me. I must have eaten a million gallons of yogurt in my life, and I had to admit I had no idea what the stuff was. Something to do with milk, I think.
“You’ll like these peanut butter crackers,” I said, changing the subject.
“Butter made from goobers?” Willie asked, wrinkling up his nose. “I think not.”
“Have you got any hot dogs?” I asked. They all looked at me strangely, and instantly I realized that hot dogs did not exist back then.
“You eat…dog?” Little John asked.
“How about a juice box?” Mom asked. She stuck the straw in the box and offered it to Joshua.
“You put juice…in a…box?” he said, examining it.
“Where’d you say you was from?” Willie asked.
“Louisville, Kentucky,” I said.
“Oh,” Willie said, as if that explained everything.
“I hear tell Kentucky folks do some strange things,” Joshua said, and he took a sip from the straw. A smile broke across his face, and he said it was the finest apple juice he had ever tasted. Mom passed around a few juice boxes.
“How do you fit the dang apple in the box?” Little John asked.
I couldn’t answer that one either. But it didn’t matter. We had a fine picnic. Joshua stuck something he called “salt beef” on to the end of his bayonet and held it over the fire to roast it. It was hard to chew, but okay. Willie and Little John contributed beans, rice, and some crackers they called “hardtack.” That stuff tasted like chalk. They topped off the feast with some cherries, which they had picked in the fields while they were marching to Gettysburg. Sometimes, they said, they got corn bread, dried potatoes, or turnips.
I wasn’t entirely comfortable sitting there eating. What would happen if the Confederates decided to suddenly come back and launch a surprise attack? They could wipe out the w
hole Union army while we were having dinner. I kept standing up and peering over the ridge to be sure nobody was coming.
“Sit yourself down,” Joshua said. “The Rebs skedaddled, and they’re lickin’ their wounds. They’d be crazy to attack us on this hill now.”
“Rebs are crazy,” Willie said.
“They ain’t that crazy,” said Joshua. “And they’re hungry too, just like us.”
“I heard the Rebs cut off folks’ ears, and they boil babies for breakfast,” Little John volunteered.
“Oh, that’s just talk,” Joshua said.
It occurred to me that these guys had no radio and no TV. There were no movies, no Internet. Some of them probably never even went to school. They only knew what they experienced personally or read in the newspapers, if they could even read at all. Everything else was just rumor.
“I heard the Rebs are gonna try to kill President Lincoln,” Joshua said as he bit off a piece of salt beef.
“They try that, and I’ll kill every last one of ’em myself,” Willie said, “even with this bum arm.”
I was about to tell them that I knew Lincoln would be assassinated, but Mom glanced over at me and shook her head no. She was probably right. It might not be such a hot idea to let anybody know we were from the twenty-first century.
Joshua heated up a pot of coffee over the fire. I never liked the taste of coffee, but the others were drinking it, so I had a cup.
Mom had been pretty quiet, eating and listening to the soldiers talk. She only interrupted a few times to say how tasty the beef was or to ask for a chunk of hardtack.
“I would be very curious to know if you fellows support this war,” she said, almost out of the blue.
“Mom!”
“What?”
“You’re trying to make this”—and I said the last word under my breath—“educational!”
“I am not!” she insisted. “I simply want to understand why these boys are willing to risk their lives. Why are you fighting this Civil War?”
I rolled my eyes. What a liar she is. I should have known it would only be a matter of time before she tried to turn this whole thing into a history lesson. That’s just the way she is.
