The War Raged On: A Short Story
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The War Raged On: A Short Story
Jennifer Pitts Adair
Copyright 2010 Jennifer Pitts Adair
Listening to the agonizing screams surrounding him, Jeremiah pulled his shaking body from beneath the dead soldier who’d fallen on him. Lying on his stomach, his heart pounding, he begged God to allow him to survive this heinous place. The odds were against him ever witnessing another sunrise; the quickly growing pile of bodies blanketing the lush green grass far outnumbered the remnants of both armies still refusing to back down first. The lucky ones died instantly. Others suffered an excruciatingly slow demise; the relentless howls and moans from all across the open field instilled a terror in Jeremiah’s heart that he’d never known before.
The thick smoke, from the fleets of cannons protecting both armies, temporarily blinded him. In those few seconds, when his lungs burned from the taste of gunpowder and his eyes lost sight of the approaching Confederate Army, he knew he would die. In his three years in the Union Army, he’d yet to witness anything as horrific as today. Yes, he’d heard stories from some of the men in his unit that would make the bravest man’s blood run cold, but he’d never witnessed any of it. Until today he foolishly believed those were stories invented to boost the morale of the veterans and to terrify the newest, untested recruits. Even his year at West Point didn’t prepare him for the reality of war.
He preferred the stability of life at school over the uncertainty of a war where an entire town of recruits could meet their demise in a matter of minutes, but his country needed him. His father, a former Massachusetts senator, took pride in being the father of a patriot. His doting mother, on the other hand, never spoke of her son’s enlistment. Although endlessly supportive of her husband’s now fading political career, she never ceased reminding her family of their southern upbringing.
Both his mother and father enjoyed a life of privilege growing up on booming Tennessee plantations. His father yearned for a career in politics; unfortunately for his mother, those dreams involved somewhere bigger than the local cotton communities he despised. After their wedding, they packed up their wagon, hitched up the horses, and drove out of the south forever. While his father busied himself campaigning for local politicians and befriending every powerful figure he crossed paths with in the hopes of one day ascending into office himself, his mother occupied her time corresponding with her younger sister back in Tennessee. As the years flew by she experienced the life changes in her family, from births to deaths, through her sister’s perfectly scripted handwriting. They even shared the joys and hardships of their first pregnancies, three months apart, over the seemingly endless distance that separated them. Nothing brought her more pleasure than those small envelopes, addressed from Tennessee, bearing vivid details of the life she dearly missed. Though she was far from the south, the south was never far from her.
As Jeremiah lay silent, aiming his rifle at a young Confederate furiously trying to reload his rifle across the field, he thought of his mother’s sympathy and love toward these people. If you asked him, they were all troublemakers for starting this war. Well, at least there’s about to be one less of them, he thought to himself, and pulled the trigger.
An hour later, when the Confederate Army retreated bringing an end to the day’s battle, Jeremiah breathed a deep sigh of relief. Glancing around the open field, he knew he must have died in battle. Nothing short of hell itself could possibly be as horrendous as the sight lying before him. Young men, clad in both gray and blue, lay crumpled on the ground. His eyes darted from left to right surveying the piles of mutilated bodies as far as one could see. Several men reached for him, gasping with their final breathe of life. Others couldn’t reach for him, needing their hands to hold together gaping bullet wounds. He saw one young Union soldier, not much older than himself, holding his own intestines in his hands as he struggled to choke out a final word. Jeremiah, unable to process the cruelty of war, turned away.
Looking toward his right, he spotted a group of Union soldiers walking aimless through the piles of Confederate dead. He stood frozen, watching the peculiar event taking place a few feet away. Every few seconds one of the men bent down next to a dead soldier and searched his pockets, tossing discarded objects on the ground and placing others in his own pockets. Curiosity getting the best of him, he slowly approached the group of men.
“What’s going on?” he inquired innocently.
“The spoils of war,” one of them answered without diverting his attention from the task at hand. “See something you want, take it.”
Five miles to the south of the battlefield, Samuel Galloway fell in step with his unit. Marching all day toward no place in particular, his feet ached from the newly formed blisters from his ill-fitting shoes. The shoes were at least one size too small. Having outgrown them since the war began and unable to acquire a pair that fit, he wisely decided to keep forcing his feet into the pair he had. After all, traveling day after day in shoes too small had to be better than walking those miles barefoot.
He longed for this war to be over. Not only did he miss wearing shoes that fit, he missed wearing clothes that fit. After three long years of army rations, the clothes that once fit him perfectly now hung loosely from his lanky six foot frame. The meals supplied to them could never be called appealing, but at least in the beginning the food covered their tin plates as they sat around the campsite at meal time. Gradually, the meager portions became smaller and smaller, until their stomachs still ached after mealtime.
At first Samuel assumed he’d caught typhoid fever. He’d watched teenage boys in the camps, and even seasoned veterans, fall ill with the fever. Struggling on, not wanting to admit defeat, they wasted away before his very eyes. Their symptoms mirrored each other: stomach aches, weakness, weight loss. As the days went by though, and he never developed a fever, he eyed the other healthy soldiers around him and realized their clothes no longer fit either. His body wouldn’t quickly deteriorate until it one day collapsed in the middle of a march, leaving him dead in the middle of nowhere. No, there was no disease ravaging his 21 year old body. He, along with everyone else, was simply starving.
He often thought of his family and wondered how they were getting along during the war. The stories passed around from the men returning from furlough indicated times were hard on everyone. He pictured the bustling plantation he’d left behind in 1861. Surely, his family was faring well, he tried to reassure himself. His family, while not the wealthiest in the county, certainly had the means to not only survive this war, but to also continue thriving during it. If they were struggling in any way, then Heaven help the rest of the families in Tennessee.
After an endless day of marching, the soldiers finally stopped to rest, unaware that only two miles away hundreds of men clad in blood covered blue and gray uniforms lay motionless on the Virginia countryside after the day’s slaughter. Samuel leaned his back against a tree and laid his rifle on the grass next to him. Although the officers had yet to speak of battle, he’d spent enough time in the army to know the only reason to march so relentlessly, so methodically, was to bring reinforcements to a losing battle. He could sense the urgency in their movements; they were needed as soon as possible. Just as he had before every battle, he took a scrap of paper from his pocket and smoothed the wrinkles out of it. Borrowing a pen from a man sitting nearby, in small neat letters he wrote his name and address on it. He opened the left side of his jacket and carefully attached the paper to the safety pin waiting there. If he should die on the battlefield so far from home, at least someone would be able to identify him and let his family know he was at peace.
Meanwhile, on a tiny hill at the edge of the field Jeremiah sat staring down at the remains
of the day’s grueling struggle. As the sun set over the western horizon, the dying men below screamed in ways he never imagined possible. Loud, high-pitched, like a wild animal slowly tortured until death became a welcome relief. Grown men, reduced to little boys, cried for their mothers. There was a time when Jeremiah would have despised men for being so weak, but now he finally understood that those men weren’t weak. They were in pain, and they were afraid. No one could hold that against them. He thought about the bodies of the dead Confederate soldiers scattered about the countryside below. If it weren’t for their uniforms he wouldn’t be able