by Murray Pura
“A door gets slammed or a draft darts in and I have to rebuild one of your rooftops or walls,” she pretended to complain.
Ham laughed. “Mrs. King, we all think you enjoy playing about with these cards as much as we do. So we slam the doors and leave the windows open on purpose to give you the opportunity you crave.”
“Nonsense, Corporal. Wherever on earth did you get that idea?”
Yet, in truth, when Nathaniel was out and Lyndel hadn’t yet reported to the field hospital, she sat at the long table and added another wing or repaired a collapsed corridor of jacks and deuces, finding a certain quiet and a deep satisfaction in balancing card edge against card edge and establishing something that remained erect simply by an act of air and paper and faith. She didn’t say so to the men, not even to Nathaniel, but she called the vast structure the New Jerusalem.
One evening near the end of April, well aware that the Army of the Potomac would soon be ordered out against the Army of Northern Virginia, Lyndel and Nathaniel worked side by side to refashion a broken roof. At first their attempts were not successful as card after card fell to the tabletop, often bringing others with it. Eventually, however, they found a rhythm and speedily fixed the roof and added a new wall. They were about to erect a tower, when a knock thudded against their heavy wooden door. Lyndel looked at her husband.
“Perhaps this is it,” she said.
“We’ll see.” He turned in his chair to face the door and barked, “Yes? Who’s there?”
“Sorry to disturb you, sir.” It was Ham. “But Private Plesko was on picket duty and was approached near the wharf by a sergeant wishing to speak with you.”
“It’s quite late, Corporal. Can’t the sergeant wait for the morning?”
“He says he’ll be gone by morning, sir.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“West, sir, to campaign with Generals Grant and Banks in Mississippi. He only has a few hours and insists on meeting with you and your wife.”
“Me and my wife?” Nathaniel got to his feet. “My wife? Whatever for?”
“Calm yourself, dear,” Lyndel said softly.
“I don’t know, sir.”
Nathaniel started for the door. “What is the sergeant’s name? What unit is he with?”
Nathaniel threw open the door before Ham could respond. A mixture of firelight, moonlight, and wood smoke tumbled into the house. Beside Corporal Ham in his black hat was a tall man in blue uniform with the stripes and diamond of a first sergeant on his sleeves. Nathaniel stared.
“Sergeant…” he began but didn’t finish.
Lyndel pushed back her chair and stood up. “Who is it, Nathaniel?” Then saw the man’s face.
“Sergeant Moses Gunnison, First Louisiana Native Guard, assigned to the Department of the Gulf under General Nathan P. Banks,” said the visitor cheerfully. “I was hoping I’d find the two of you at home this evening. And I hoped you would allow the intrusion.”
21
They talked for hours, seated at the small table where Lyndel and Nathaniel ate their meals, the short candle at the center fluttering in the air from an open window.
McClellan’s battles with Lee the year before had disrupted life on the Hargrove Plantation where Moses worked as a slave. A skirmish that swept through the farm fields and barns provided enough confusion for him to make his escape through Maryland and Pennsylvania and New York, this time getting across the border into Ontario. The war prevented pursuit but Confederate agents were present in Ontario planning raids into Northern territory and he had to elude several bands before finding a community of ex-slaves who had settled there. Most of them had crossed the border by means of the Underground Railroad before the war started.
“I prospered there,” Moses told them, sipping at what Nathaniel called his Cannonball Coffee. “I had many skills that brought me good money from the Canadian farmers. Some of whom were Amish. After the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect Frederick Douglass sent recruiters into Canada to enlist ex-slaves. They were having trouble getting a great many to sign up in the Northern states.”
“Why was that?” asked Nathaniel.
Moses bit into one of Lyndel’s oatmeal biscuits. “Same as with the whites—everyone was roaring for a fight in ’61, when they thought the war would be quick and easy and over by New Year’s. But freedom is never easy—not to get it, not to keep it, not even to live it. What with all the hard fighting and dying in ’62, and here we’re heading into our third summer of warfare, none of my people are much interested in trading what they finally have now for a fight in which they could lose everything—their very lives. We Africans are doing well in New York and Ohio and everywhere else—liberty, employment, a working economy, our own roofs over our heads. Up in Canada, we’re living high on the hog too. Why, all black men can vote in Ontario, can you imagine? I confess I felt no great urgency to enlist in the army to do battle with Jeff Davis and the Confederacy.”
Lyndel pushed the plate of oatmeal biscuits and a tub of butter at Moses. “I know the South has threatened to hang Africans who put on the uniform of the Union army.”
“That gives some men pause. There are others who are worried about coming up against blacks in combat, those fools fighting in gray for the slaveholders so they can hold on to the miserable scrap of a life they’ve got. Myself, I’d run a bayonet through them as easily as I would a slave driver. They’re traitors in my book the same way Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee are traitors to Washington and the Constitution. No, none of that made me hold back. It was the freedom and the peace I was enjoying.”
He leaned back in his seat with the fresh coffee Nathaniel had poured him. “Charlie changed my inclination. Come at me in my dreams like one of them fiery seraphim with a sword. Showed me the marks of the rope burn on his neck. Practically walked me through the South, plantation after plantation, all the slavery and whippings and degradation. Asked if I was going to let this carry on another two hundred years while I got rich and fat north of the 49th. My heart was going like a steam engine when I woke up. So I came down to Boston and they put me in the 54th Massachusetts, a black regiment, which was the unit I trained with. More recruits started coming in so they made up a sister regiment, the 55th, and had a mind to transfer me over to give the new troops some feeling of stability.”
But a general found out Moses had originally come from New Orleans and been sold at an auction for more than 15,000 dollars before being carried off to Virginia in his twenties. African units were being formed in Louisiana and were certain to see action long before their eastern counterparts. There was a strong need for New Orleans men to serve as noncommissioned officers. So Moses was on his way west to the Mississippi.
“That’s the long and short of it.” His pocket watch chimed. He pulled it out of a pocket and opened its silver lid. “I’ve got a bit more time. Big Frank said they’d be unloaded and ready to head back to Washington by two.”
“Moses.” Lyndel put her hand over his. “We gave Charlie a proper funeral. He’s buried in the Amish cemetery at Elizabethtown.”
Moses nodded. “I’m glad to hear it.” He fixed his eyes on her. “What puzzles me is finding the two of you here. I read about the lieutenant’s promotion in the newspaper. You I’ve read about several times as Miss Lyndel Keim the nurse. The other day I caught mention of your wedding in Belle Plain. So I got leave to ship up here for a few hours before they send me west to serve under Generals Grant and Banks.” He stared at them. “I never forgot your names. And I’m pleased to see you married. But you’re Amish, aren’t you? It was my understanding you don’t take up arms or resort to any form of violence.”
Lyndel folded her hands on the tabletop. “No, we don’t. But I felt from God I must nurse the wounded. Nathaniel felt he must resist slavery. There are two other Amish men in his platoon, including my brother.”
“What do your people think of this?”
She looked at her hands. “Well, they’re not pleased
with us. They won’t talk to us anymore, won’t send letters or packages of food or warm socks or even healing herbs for the battlefield casualties. We are cut off.”
Moses shifted in his chair to gaze at Nathaniel. “How is it for you, Lieutenant?”
Nathaniel half-laughed. “No better. We’re orphans now.”
“You know that Thou shalt not kill is a poor translation from the old Hebrew tongue of the Bible. The commandment actually means Thou shalt not murder. God made allowance for Israel’s people to fight in wars for national survival and to defend themselves from personal assault.”
“Ja, ja, so the chaplains have explained to me. Still, when I came out of winter camp last year I felt ashamed to march with a gun on my shoulder. It’s now 1863 and I still feel guilty. Perhaps more so, for I have slain other men.”
“Who would have slain you.”
“I realize that.”
“And have slain my people by the thousands.”
“Ja. I’m not turning back now. My hand is to the plow. If the Lord wishes to condemn me, he must do as he sees fit. I wish we could have resolved this with prayer and goodwill. But that didn’t happen. But suppose we had marched without guns, fallen to our knees, and recited the Lord’s Prayer while the Rebels lifted their muskets to shoot? They are a religious people. I’ve read about how Lee and Stonewall and other officers are concerned to have less profanity and drinking and gambling among their troops. In particular Stonewall and Lee are anxious to get Bibles and gospel literature to their men. Would they shoot while we knelt by the ten thousand to pray?”
“Perhaps not. But neither would they give up their slaves, since they have convinced themselves the Bible permits them to hold men in bondage.”
Nathaniel furrowed his brow. “A lazy reading of the Scriptures takes them to such a place. A calmer reading with prayer and due attention to detail shows that the Spirit of the Lord moves us toward liberty of soul and mind—and body. A liberty that allows us to serve God and serve our neighbors freely.”
“I had heard you were something of a preacher. Big Frank told me the steamboat crews call you the Reverend King. With very little jest, I assure you.” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “I had best get down to the steamer.”
Nathaniel extended his hand. “We’re glad to have seen you again, Moses Gunnison. You’re a good man and will always be welcome at our home.”
Moses took the offered hand and said, “Just as you have had to become comfortable with guns, so too have I had to accept a white man’s hand of friendship. I have never had a white man as a friend before.”
“Then you have one now,” Nathaniel said.
Moses looked down at their still joined hands, then glanced over to Lyndel’s hands. “You have no wedding bands.”
Lyndel grasped Nathaniel’s hand and kissed it. “We didn’t have the money for it, Moses. Nor is it an Amish custom.”
“A man needs his symbols.”
“It is not our custom.”
Moses stood a moment, thinking and looking at the candlelight flickering in the room. He opened a breast pocket and tugged out two plain gold rings. “My mother and father. Born in America. Died in slavery. The master whipped me to find these but I never let on where they were. Mama and Papa had them since I was a boy, I don’t know how. Only wore them at night in our shack. Hid them under the floorboards in a little pouch that was always covered with dirt.” He tossed them gently in his hand. “My good luck charms.”
“Those are very special, then,” said Lyndel. “Did you have them with you when you sheltered in our barn?”
“I did. Hidden on my body. Nehemiah Hargrove didn’t think to search me for them.”
“Was that his name—the leader of the slave hunters?”
“That’s right. Youngest son of the master. He’s with the Rebel army now.”
“My brother has seen him. He says the soldiers call him Georgey Washington.”
Moses snorted. “On account the Hargroves claim they have blood ties to President Washington. Washington set his slaves free when he died, I told them once. Bullwhipped me for that. Was Nehemiah who lynched Charlie. You see him again, God grant you lay him low in the dust forever.”
The sharp lines that had appeared on his face with the mention of Nehemiah Hargrove vanished when he put the rings in Nathaniel’s hand. “My gift. We orphans ought to help one another out.”
“Oh, no, no,” protested Nathaniel, immediately giving the gold bands back. “We can’t accept such a gift, your parents’ rings.”
“Prayers are enough for us,” Lyndel spoke up. “Truly, Moses.”
Moses thrust his hands in his pockets. “I’m not much of a praying man. I believe you’ll get farther with the rings. Every time you look at them you need to remember each other. And me. And the ones enslaved.” He wouldn’t take the bands back from Nathaniel. “It’s you who are the praying types. So pray for my people. Don’t just fight for them with your muskets and bandages. Fight for them with God and his holy angels. Those are blood rings. They tie you to one another. They tie you to me and my people.”
He opened the door and stepped out. The light of a half-moon shone on his face and uniform. He saluted. “Godspeed, Lieutenant King. I hope to see you again when this war is over.”
Nathaniel returned the salute. “God bless you, Sergeant.”
Moses smiled at Lyndel. “Mrs. King, you do look resplendent. Marriage suits you. I trust you will fare well.”
“Thank you, Mr. Gunnison. And I you.”
They watched him make his way between the cabins to the Potomac. Lyndel took the smaller ring from Nathaniel and found it fit on her ring finger a little tightly but she left it there. Nathaniel’s was too large and loose so he moved it to the next finger. The moon found the gold and made it gleam.
“How strange,” Lyndel said, gazing at the rings on their hands, “It was nothing I wished for.”
“Nor did we wish for a log house,” Nathaniel responded. “But our friends gave us one regardless.”
“Stay with me a moment, love.” She sat on the step. “I shouldn’t ask. Reveille always comes too early.”
He lowered himself beside her and she leaned her head with its white kapp against his shoulder. His arm went around her.
“How wonderful that Moses is alive,” Lyndel said. “I would always wonder what had happened to him.”
“Yes.”
“And wonderful that he found us.”
“We seem to be in all the papers.”
“I feel that if he’s on his way to the Mississippi to campaign, then it can’t be long for you.”
“We hear the same things you hear from the officers’ wives. Maybe on May 1st or 2nd. Or later.”
“I thank God wherever you go our ambulance wagons will be right behind you.”
“Let’s not talk about it,” he said, kissing her red hair. “These hard things come soon enough and talk doesn’t lessen the sting.”
“The wives complain that Belle Plain is muddy when it rains and the air intolerable with mosquitoes. Then they complain it gets so dusty when it’s so dry a person can’t breathe. I don’t share their ill feelings toward this place. I was married here, had my first home with you here, entertained our first visitors as husband and wife here. To me, Belle Plain is a blessing, a bit of heaven on earth.”
“Our time has been so short, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be sorry. Our month here together has been full of wonder. I feel stronger in my body and in my spirit than I have since Fredericksburg. No other woman in the world could feel so treasured and complete and fulfilled as I do.”
“I wish I wasn’t marching.”
“Oh, I long for the day you’re a farrier with a shop under a great spreading oak tree. But not before the slavery of men like Moses Gunnison is ended. Didn’t you sense God had something to say to us through him tonight?”
“Ja, I did. But who knows how long it will take to turn things around, how many more
battles? There have been so many defeats and reverses.”
She squeezed his hand. “I pray something special happens this summer. Something truly astonishing.”
“What would that take the form of?”
“A complete shift in fortunes.”
“We thought they had shifted with Antietam Creek.”
“I ask for something more then.”
He kissed her eyes. “What an interesting person you are. You remain irresistible.”
“Just because of my hair?”
“Just because of your mind and your spirit. I’d love to stay put another month and tell you more about it.”
She laughed. “Oh, wouldn’t that be something? Let’s see if we can pray in more April showers and stave off the spring campaign until June or July.”
But Lyndel’s long honeymoon had ended. A few days later, at noon on April 28th, she stood with the other wives on the knoll on which she had been married, the leaves thick over their heads, and watched the Iron Brigade move off with the rest of the First Corps, the men singing about hanging Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree. They were heading for Fredericksburg again, where Lee’s army had spent the winter. All the women but Lyndel had handkerchiefs to their eyes. She returned to her house, the thunder of thousands of men’s voices still distinct in the distance, and swept the floor and front step clean.
After that she picked radishes and lettuce, made a salad for two, sat at the table and ate her portion, then opened a window and let a spring breeze take the house of cards down one wall at a time. She turned to Psalm 91 in her Bible, read it, and got up to pack her bag, the words running like a creek of new water between the banks of her fears: Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Four hours after her husband had marched deeper into Virginia she sat with Morganne David and three physicians in a wagon that bounced and rolled in his footsteps, dust hanging like gauze in the afternoon light.
