by Murray Pura
She all but dropped the lantern onto the ground and ran to him.
The impetus of her rush threw them behind the Dunker church and away from the dead and wounded. Nathaniel’s face was dark with burnt powder but Lyndel clasped his head in her strong farm-girl hands and kissed it again and again. “Nathaniel, you’re alive, thank God, you’re alive! How I’ve prayed for you!” She pressed her lips against his and they held the kiss for a long minute while the night rang with birdcalls and the rasp of crickets. “Stay with me. I need your help here. Miss Barton has a whole crew but I just have Morganne and Hiram to tend the wounded and help Indiana’s surgeons. The 19th needs you more at David Miller’s farm than it does at Joseph Poffenberger’s.”
He ran his hand over her cheek and played with the loose strands of her hair.
“Your eyes are so blue,” he said.
She laughed and put her fingers to his lips. “You can’t see my eyes in the dark.”
“Yes, I can. Your skin is so smooth and your hair is so wonderful. I wish it would all come undone.”
“Perhaps if we work hard enough on the wounded you will get your wish.”
He kissed her on the lips again. “How beautiful God has made you.”
“And how handsome my man is. Even under all that war paint.” She took a damp cloth from a pocket and wiped at his skin until some of the grime began to come off. “My sweet Nathaniel. A corporal.”
“Sergeant now. After today.”
His eyes were large and soft. She held him against her again, tucking his head into her shoulder. “So many brave boys. I pray their sacrifice will make a difference. I pray Lee will withdraw. He must withdraw.” She removed his black hat and kissed his hair. “But I need you with me. I do, Nathaniel. I couldn’t bear for you to walk off into the dark after only a few moments together. Won’t you stay close? Won’t you help me nurse the men here?”
Nathaniel lifted his head. “Captain Hanson knows where I am. He doesn’t want to see me until reveille. Said he’d put me in the brig if he glimpsed so much as the tip of my boot before drumroll.” He kissed the top of her head just in front of her kapp. “I’ll stay with you until four. Then I’ll have to skedaddle. There’s no telling if Lee and McClellan will mix it up again tomorrow.” He kissed her hair again.
“You picked a heck of a spot for a tryst, Yank.”
The voice came from the front of the church.
Nathaniel and Lyndel stepped around the corner. Nathaniel smiled and squatted beside the Rebel officer Lyndel had been nursing. “You can’t blame me, can you, Captain? This farm would be a place of beauty but for the quarrel we’ve had here.”
“I expect. Don’t think many of the dead would begrudge you, son. Could they rise, they’d hope you were first in line at the county-fair kissing booth.” He grinned through a beard matted with powder. “If there’s a heaven, they’re better off than you and me right now. And if there’s nothing, they won’t know it. Now if there be a hell, that’s something else again. I hope the Lord has mercy on all these boys.”
“Yes, sir.” Nathaniel dug into his coat pocket. “Have you something to eat? Would you care for a couple of buttermilk biscuits?”
The captain propped himself up on his good elbow. “Where on earth did you come by those? You Black Hats have one of your grandmothers following you around in her wagon, woodstove and all?”
“A comrade in arms made them.” Nathaniel’s voice caught as an image of Nip came to his mind.
“Thank’ee.” The officer bit into one of the biscuits Nathaniel offered him. “Soft too. Before your girl showed up I thought I could drink the Chattahoochee dry. Didn’t have a thought for food. Now she’s poured half a canteen into me I think I could swallow a dozen of these. The butter’s off but that’s nothing for a soldier. Am I talking too much, ma’am?”
Lyndel was washing both sides of the wound where the ball had passed in and out. “Talk all you want. No one’s going to give you chloroform tonight.” She brought cloth and dried leaves out of a satchel she’d placed on the grass and made a poultice.
“What’s that?”
“Canada wild ginger.”
“Why you putting it on me?”
“You fought through all this and now you’re going to go and get scared on me, Captain? It draws out the poison, keeps the wound clean, helps the skin bind back together. How’s that?”
“Feels good, all right.”
Lyndel stood up. “Can you walk a bit? Sergeant King here would be pleased to help you away from this carnage and find you a barn to lean against or a tree to lie under. Please take this canteen with you.”
“Why, thank’ee. I expect I would like to take that walk. I’m fair tired of the sight of this spot.”
He put an arm over Nathaniel’s shoulder and tottered up the road past the cornfield to the Miller farmyard.
“Not a barn or the house or anywhere they’re doing the surgery, son,” said the officer. “I swear I heard enough screaming today to last me a hundred year.”
“How about the old tree over there?”
“That suits.”
When Nathaniel headed back he saw Lyndel was walking about the cornfield with her lantern, examining men’s faces. The light passed over face after face and then left them to return to the dark. Dozens of black hats and black feathers lay battered in the dirt. He came up quietly beside her and saw the glint of water on her face.
“The captain’s settled,” he said softly.
She wiped the back of her hand over her cheeks. “Thank you, Nathaniel. I’m sorry. I just would like to have seen more young men survive.”
“I know.”
“Miss Barton was working here right after the Rebels withdrew and that was early on. The battle had moved east toward Antietam Creek. I came about noon. We were with casualties in the West Woods first, the place your men fought Stonewall Jackson. I watched it from time to time with Hiram’s spyglass, you know. When I could bear it.”
Nathaniel touched her gently on the arm to stop her from walking any farther. “There’s something you should know.”
Lyndel looked at him. “What? Please give me no bad news.”
He made a small smile. “War brings only bad news, Ginger. The worst of it is that I’ve lost Corinth to a Rebel bullet. He’s gone.”
Lyndel gasped.
When she regained control of herself, she asked, “There’s more?”
“Ja. Your brother and Joshua Yoder enlisted in the 19th Indiana. They’re in my platoon.”
Lyndel gripped his hand. “Don’t say so!”
“They fought today.”
“Oh—is Levi—is he all right? Joshua?”
“Neither of them is wounded.”
Lyndel pulled her hand free and wandered among the dead and the cornstalks until she reached the fence by the road. She climbed over it still holding the lantern and began to walk beside more bodies. The light touched on hands and eyes, it touched on heads of curly hair, on those who still wore their black hats or Confederate caps. Nathaniel climbed over the fence after her.
“Why did they do it?” she asked as she walked. “Did they tell you?”
“Your brother saw Lee’s men abduct Africans in Maryland. They took free men and women and children captive and sent them south to the plantations. Joshua—well, he couldn’t abide the thought of the North being conquered. Of living in a slave nation. I believe Levi also mentioned Charlie Preston.”
Lyndel was silent a few moments. The light swung in her hand and the light played on rigid faces. He knew she was hoping to see movement or hear a groan.
“Do you think we’ll ever meet up with Moses Gunnison again?” she asked suddenly.
“I don’t see how.”
“Or that leader of the slave hunters?”
“Levi’s seen him.”
“Where? When?”
“Just a couple of weeks ago. After Manassas and Chantilly. Your brother was collecting Union wounded under a flag of truce. Said
the Rebs called the man Georgey Washington. I suppose it was in jest.”
“George Washington! Some George Washington!” She suddenly dropped to her knees. “His leg just moved.”
Nathaniel squatted by the black hat. “Soldier, can you hear me? I’m Sergeant King with the 19th Indiana.”
A struggling voice whispered, “7th Wisconsin.”
“Do you know where you’re hit?”
“Arm. Right arm.”
“I have a canteen here.” He put it to the young man’s mouth. “Drink your fill. This woman’s a nurse. She’ll take good care of you. Things are going to get a whole lot better from now on.”
“I’m going to clean and bandage your wound, soldier,” Lyndel said, taking her satchel from her shoulder. “Then we are going to get you up to the surgeons.”
“Am I—am I going to lose my arm?”
“Perhaps not. At least not all of it. And your other arm will be just as good as it is now.”
He closed his eyes and turned his head away.
“Private, can I offer you something to eat?” asked Nathaniel.
“No, thank you, Sergeant.”
Lyndel finished bandaging the bone that had been fractured by a bullet. “We need stretcher bearers.”
Nathaniel peered through the dark. “Can’t tell where they are. It doesn’t matter. This boy’s young and slender as a birch sapling. I’ve got him.”
“Are you sure?” asked Lyndel.
“I’m sure. Just sling his arm so it doesn’t get knocked about.”
Nathaniel picked him up and carried him to the stables where the 19th Indiana’s surgeons were at work. Lanterns hung from the rafters, and the stable doors had been unhinged and were being used as operating tables. Soldiers lay groaning on the straw while Morganne mopped their brows or gave them sips of brandy to prepare them for the amputations. She glanced up at Lyndel in the black and gold light. Her eyes seemed to have no color.
“Just lay him here.” Morganne patted her hand on a patch of straw stained with blood. “It will be another hour. Is it a leg or an arm?”
“His right arm,” Lyndel told her as Nathaniel lowered the boy gently down beside Morganne.
“So young,” said Morganne quietly.
A shriek made Lyndel jump but Morganne scarcely noticed. Hiram leaned into a bearded Union corporal whose leg was being sawed off above the knee. Then he replaced a thick strip of harness leather in the man’s mouth.
“Bite, Jack,” he said. “Bite for all you’re worth. The doctor’s almost done.”
Hiram’s arms past his elbows were red.
“Miss Keim.” A surgeon looked up from a second stable door. “Would you give this man more chloroform while I probe for the bullet in his shoulder?”
Lyndel poured the sweet-smelling liquid from a bottle into a clean cloth she found on a shelf next to a rack of farrier tools. She held it over a young soldier’s mouth and nose. He writhed and twisted as the surgeon poked deep into a muscle. Both the surgeons were covered with blood and grime and sweat. Once the soldier lay still, Lyndel took another cloth, dipped it in a bucket of water, and quickly and firmly wiped first one doctor’s face and then the other’s.
“Thank you, Miss Keim,” said one of them. “Before you head out into the night again I wanted to tell you how much we appreciate the supplies you brought us—sharp saws, the chloroform and brandy, quinine and morphine and opium pills. Our own army has not brought up the supplies we need for fear the battle may resume tomorrow and the enemy capture the medical wagons.”
“I took a page from Clara Barton’s book, doctor. She is always bringing supplies to the field stations.”
“I’m glad you learned so well. Now some of our assistants are over in the tool shed just behind us. I have no idea how they’re fixed for horse-hair for suturing or whether it’s even been boiled to render it pliable. Do they have enough morphine to rub into the worst of wounds to deaden the pain? Or oiled linen and sticking plaster for bullet holes?”
“I promise I will look in on them before I head back to the battleground.”
“Miss David!” called the other doctor loudly. “I need you here. Bring a sponge and basin and take care of this blood from the amputation. Then administer some turpentine or tannic acid to stanch the flow.”
Morganne set the bottle of brandy to one side. “I’m coming.”
“Fetch some laudanum as well, will you? And I will need you to apply a tourniquet.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hiram,” the doctor went on, “you may lift the corporal down now and lay him on some fresh straw at the back. Then I’ll thank you to bring up that lad with the neck wound there.”
“Nathaniel!” Hiram looked at his friend and half-smiled. “I’ve not had a chance to say it’s good to see you. Can you help me lift this man down and the other up?”
“Of course.” Nathaniel scrambled to Hiram’s side and together they took the corporal from the stable door that was propped up on saw-horses. Morganne was still applying turpentine to the amputation as they set him in the straw. Then they picked up a soldier with blood running through the bandage on his neck.
“Thought you’d be looking for the nearest telegraph station to file a story,” Nathaniel said to Hiram as they placed the soldier carefully on the door.
“In the morning.” Hiram grunted. “First light I’ll ride out so the pickets can see who I am. Unless the fighting resumes.”
Nathaniel stared at him. “Do you think it will start up again?”
“Depends what McClellan does. He’s fought Lee to a standstill. I don’t think Lee will push for any more. It depends whether or not Little Mac wants to try to put an end to the Army of Northern Virginia. We still have more than twenty-thousand in reserve while Lee has none.”
“But Little Mac is no risk-taker, Hiram.”
“No, he’s not.”
The other doctor spoke up around a scalpel clamped in his teeth. “We’ve never had casualties like this, not at Manassas, not at Gainesville or South Mountain. I honestly don’t know who McClellan can summon up to fight.”
“The reserve would be enough, doctor. But I don’t know if Mac’ll do it. If he doesn’t, Mr. Lincoln will want to know why. So will the Congress.”
“There’s been enough slaughter for one battle. More than enough.”
Hiram put his hands on his hips and watched the doctor work morphine into a large gash in a soldier’s side. “That may be, sir. But if Lee’s army lives to fight another day you’ll see this again and again and again. The war could go on for years.”
Lyndel went outside the stables and headed for the tool shed. Suddenly she felt faint and sagged against a tree. She tried to remember what she was setting out to do. Then an arm went around her shoulder and back and held her up.
“Are you all right?” asked Nathaniel.
“I thought I was.” She leaned into him. “I’ve worked at Armory Square for months. I tended the wounded with Clara Barton at Second Manassas. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Some of the wounds are pretty bad.”
“It’s…it’s more than that. Do you ever think back to our families in Pennsylvania? How much they disapprove of our being here? Sometimes the weight of their censure is just too much along with all the blood and killing.” She looked up at his powder and blood dark face. “Nathaniel. I feel alone and far away from myself.”
“No,” he responded, kissing the top of her kapp. “You’re not alone.”
14
October 3, 1862
Antietam Creek
Dear Mama and Papa,
I’m hopeful you received the letter I sent on the 20th of September telling you the Elizabethtown boys are all right. Levi does not have a scratch on him, you may thank God. Joshua Yoder is also fine and was not wounded in the battle. In addition, Nathaniel is well just as I wrote you. You know, I’m sure, that Corinth King is with God now.
A friend, Mr. Hiram Wright, who is a war co
rrespondent for a Philadelphia paper, told me he sent a telegram to you on my behalf on the 19th. Did they bring that to your door?
I don’t wonder you’re angry that your Amish children are here, the cost of war is so terrible. Every day we lose more of the very men that we rescued from the battlefield on the 17th and 18th of September. Yet some are saved and will return home to their families and I’m grateful to our Lord Jesus I can be part of that.
Solomon Meredith is in command of the 19th Indiana regiment once again since Lt. Col. Bachman, a very nice man, was killed. One of the first things Colonel Meredith ordered done was the burial of our slain with wooden headboards placed at their gravesites. The 19th Indiana was called upon to bury the Confederate dead also. It took several days and the heat made it a harder job than it already was. Much as you hate this conflict—don’t we all?—you would be glad to hear what one of Nathaniel’s men said, a Private Plesko: “I would bury them no matter who they were, not just because they’re Americans but because they are human beings and they too are made in the image of God.”
We feel the Emancipation Proclamation of September 22nd has made at least some of the sacrifice worthwhile. The president would never have issued it except that General Lee withdrew from the field here the day after the battle and retreated to Virginia. Mr. Wright is adamant the decree will prevent Britain and France from recognizing the South as a sovereign nation. Even though it won’t take effect until January 1st, as you know, and only pertains to those states in rebellion against the Union (not the four slaveholding states that did not secede), Mr. Wright believes it will incalculably harm the Southern cause by making slavery a critical reason for the conflict. Perhaps some of the states that left the Union will return by January 1st because of the Proclamation, as Mr. Lincoln hopes—who but God knows? Yet slavery is the reason your Amish boys have taken up arms, much to your grief and displeasure, and I’m glad the president has taken up arms against it as well and by so doing declared their intentions honorable and righteous.
