by Jana Petken
He and the other regiment members with him had arrived in Yorktown to the news that advances were already under way due to the growing threat from Federals at Fort Monroe. Thus they had been ordered to join the force already in place at the newly fortified areas on and around Warwick Road. The strong advanced positions sat mostly on the north side of a branch of the Back River at Big Bethel Church, about thirteen miles south of Yorktown and eight miles from Hampton. A smaller outpost had also been established at Little Bethel Church, which was about the same eight miles distance from both Federal camps.
It was imperative that the entire peninsula be taken and held by the Confederacy; this had been drummed into them, for should they fail here, a massive force of men from the North would come, open the gates to the rest of the southern states, and lay waste upon them.
George Coulter rested his head against the same tree trunk. His legs were stretched out, arms folded across his chest and shoulders relaxed. Jacob stood for a moment and stretched his body. Cleaning and priming weapons was a tiresome task and not one he enjoyed. He looked at George out of half-closed eyelids. He liked George. He was the best of the Coulters and the only one of them not to stab him in the back. His divorce proceedings were going better than he’d hoped. Elizabeth had signed all the papers bar the final one, which would set him free. She had received the settlement money and was almost out of the picture, yet the Coulters had demanded even more money from him, insisting that he pay compensation for the shame they had suffered at his hands. George had spoken up against his much older siblings and parents, who were almost bankrupt. “You cannot steal from a successful man to cover your own inadequacies in business,” he’d told his father.
Jacob had refused to pay the Coulters a dime. He would be regarded now as a rogue, a hard-hearted son of a bitch who had dumped his wife for a prostitute. But somehow the only part of that analysis that bothered him was the word prostitute. If he got out of this fight alive and made it back to Portsmouth in one piece, the Coulters would find out just how much of a son of a bitch he really was.
“Jacob, when do you think it will happen?” George said.
Jacob sighed. He was growing impatient with men asking that damn question. He thought about how to answer George. The Yankees would be on the move any time now; he was sure of it. They knew where the Confederate lines were, and they would not want to miss an opportunity to push them back. They probably had eyes on them already and were getting ready to march from Fort Monroe. Everyone knew as much as he did, yet the same question arose every five minutes, and every five minutes he tried to answer it in a different way. He felt drained of energy, waiting and wondering, not to mention feeling exhausted by his men’s incessant ponderings on battle.
“I’ll tell you what I’ve told every other man here in our brigade: Don’t ask so many damn questions that I can’t answer. Just be ready with rifles that fire and sabres that are sharp enough to split a man’s head from his body. Asking about when we’re going to be attacked is not the question, young George. The questions should be: Do I have enough rounds in my belt pouch? Is my canteen full of water? And here’s another important one: Are my damn boots comfortable enough should I have to make a run for it?”
“Gosh dang, Jacob, should you be talking about running?” George exclaimed. “What’s Colonel Godwin going to think if he hears talk like that?”
Jacob laughed. “I reckon he’s going to be thinking the same thing, George. There ain’t no shame in retreating if it’s called for. I’d rather live to fight another day than get my ass shot off first day out. Wouldn’t you?”
“You scared? I’m scared. I got moths flying around in my gut just thinkin’ about them Yankee, sons of bitches.”
“We’re all scared. Any man here who says he’s not is a liar. But we’re on home ground. We have good cover. Anything that comes near us will be cut down in that clearing there. I reckon that before long we might even march on Fort Monroe and kick those Yankees back to the North to lick their wounds.”
“I sure hope so, Jacob. I hope you’re right. We’ve got the good Lord on our side, I reckon. We didn’t ask for this fight. We only asked to keep what is rightfully ours. I figure when those Yankees see what we’re made of, they’ll hightail it out of Virginia ’cause there ain’t nothin’ meaner than a Virginian who’s all riled up.”
Jacob looked towards the sparse treeline sitting directly in front of him. Trenches were well dug in. Men were already manning them. Heavy artillery, a couple of cannons, and rifles were dotted around the lines and standing erect against the trench’s dirt walls like sculptures on display. Men from North Carolina and Georgia, already hardened by the march to this position, were laughing, talking, and writing letters home on scraps of paper. Wagons with canvas covers sat idle in rows, with ammunition and supplies under the hoods. A few tents were set up for officers and command posts. A medical unit prepared surgical instruments, intent on making them as clean as possible. Niggers, being used as aides to some of the higher-ranking officers from other states, walked around with sullen expressions of barely veiled resentment. Horses were tethered to long roped lines, his own horse, Thor, among them. They would do battle within hours, Jacob secretly thought – he’d never felt so scared in his entire life.
“George, go find something to do. I’m going to get some shut-eye,” Jacob said. He twisted his head. The tree trunk obscured George’s face, but he could see his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. They were trembling. “Tell Sergeant Tybrook to come to my tent – and, George, remember, there ain’t nothing worse than waiting for battle. I reckon our first fight will calm us all down. We’ll be wondering what all the fuss was about after it’s over, believe me. Just remember what I told you in Portsmouth. You stick to me like a fly round shit. You do what I do at all times. You got it?”
“I got it, Jacob.”
“All right, I’m turning in. It’ll be dark soon, and after I talk to Tybrook, I aim to have at least one good night’s sleep before we’re thrown into hell. I suggest you do the same.”
Chapter Twelve
General Butler, commander of Fort Monroe, devised a plan for a coordinated dawn attack on the Confederate front lines near Bethel Church. Isaac, accompanied by Nelson, walked back to his office from the meeting and felt his legs trembling with trepidation. Having just received orders to march, he now wondered what to take with him and what he might find on the battlefield. This scenario, he told himself, had always been a possibility, but it had been, according to General Butler on his arrival at the fort, a slim prospect and one which would probably not transpire. The general’s words floated through Isaac’s mind now as he walked into one of the infirmary’s treatment rooms.
“Your duties will lie solely with the everyday medical care of the soldiers within these walls. We will have men enough to fight but what we don’t have are enough doctors to mind the men at this fort.” What had happened to change the General’s mind was not for him to question, of course, but he believed that his colleague and superior, Colonel Driscoll, a war veteran, was decidedly more equipped to deal with battle injuries than he was.
“Nelson, we march tonight,” he said, hurriedly putting his supplies together in satchels. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but General Butler has seen fit to entrust us with caring for the men going into battle. So what do you say?”
Nelson was glum in the face. He had no desire to leave the fort. He had enough work to do here, he thought, what with all them niggers arriving here on the run and sick soldiers to mend. The last thing he wanted was to go out there and meet those slavers just itching to shoot a nigger. “Well, I ain’t gonna be no use to nobody. I ain’t never had no cause to fire no gun, Mr Isaac,” he said. “Miss Mercy got mighty worrisome I might do myself harm with a gun in my hand. She say I ain’t got the disposition for violence. I got no rifle anyhow …”
“It’s all right, Nelson,” Isaac assured him. He tried not to smile at Nelson’s earnestness. “
With a bit of luck, we’ll be at the rear of the columns, behind the men with the guns. Soldiers don’t want their doc getting shot at, now do they? We’ll find ourselves a good spot and dig ourselves in. You just remember that if anyone gives you an order to advance without me, you tell them what I always tell you. You’re my orderly and you don’t leave my side.”
There were two columns. Isaac and Nelson marched towards the rear of the left-hand column, alongside the ambulance wagons and field orderlies. The Union command wanted to advance during the middle of the night and catch the enemy out before dawn. Isaac couldn’t fathom why this was so important. If anything, it invited more danger. It was so dark that he couldn’t make out more than the ground beneath him and boots of men in front of him. It wasn’t as though the war were going to be won by mid morning because of this one skirmish, he thought.
After picking up more men in Newport News, the two columns took to Warwick Road. As they marched, Isaac found himself thinking about explosions, the deafening sound of gunfire, smoke, and blood. It was funny, he thought, how easily the mind could imagine such things when it had never actually experienced anything remotely similar. “God damn it, this has got to be the worst possible time to march on an enemy,” Isaac murmured to no one in particular after hitting his foot against a heavy stone on the road.
He moved out of formation and swung his body up onto the closest ambulance by hanging on to a hand railing next to the driver’s bench. Why walk when I can ride? he thought, now sitting beside the driver. He looked ahead with a better view of the lines and noted straight away that the two columns had split. He presumed they were closing in on Bethel, but apart from seeing a thinned outline of marching men directly in front of him, he couldn’t see a damn thing to give any indication of where they were.
“What’s them noises over there?” Nelson asked Isaac, nervously walking beside the wagon. He pointed to the right. Isaac looked and saw only trees but nodded his head. “I hear it. There are men in among those trees. They’re close.”
“Our men?”
“I don’t know. They could be. I reckon it’s the other column.”
“What if it ain’t them? What if it’s them Southerners?” Nelson said, panicking.
“I don’t know!” Isaac said, harshly this time. “Just keep your ears open and stop talking, damn it.”
Isaac heard murmurings in the ranks. The men had heard noises too. He could feel their nervousness infecting him. There was definite movement on the right, some sixty feet away. Tree branches were swaying from side to side in the wind, waving at them, taunting them like black giants. The leaves rustling sounded like soft moaning. He cursed the darkness again. It was impossible to see anything clearly.
The first shot fired, cracking into the air. Isaac hunched down, the top half of his body bent forward and his head resting on his knees.” He was a sitting duck up here, he thought. “Keep as close to the wagon as you can,” he said to Nelson as he jumped down from the wagon. Better to be on the ground shielded by the wagon than sitting on it like a firing target, he thought.
“Who that firin’ at us?” Nelson, asked.
Isaac’s head jerked up at the sound of a voice shouting from the direction of the trees. “Boston!” it shouted. “Boston!” He then heard this for a third time. He listened for a voice in his column to shout something back, but when none came, he turned to a sergeant standing next to him.
“Why is he shouting Boston?”
“Damned if I know, sir,” the sergeant answered. “Don’t mean nothin’ to me.”
Another shot fired on their column, then another. Bullets began whistling past them in quick succession. The line broke. Someone shouted, “Take cover!” Men hit the ground and lay on their bellies. Some were shooting recklessly into the darkness towards the trees. Isaac and Nelson used the wagon to shield their bodies and waited for orders to come down the line.
Isaac took a couple of strides forwards and looked over to his right. Fire lit the sky. Smoke hovered around misty figures, visible thanks to the gunfire. Soldiers were running in and out of the treeline dressed in what looked like grey uniforms. Isaac didn’t care who they were. The bastards were firing at them, and that was enough to make his heart race with fear. Confederates, Isaac decided. They had been caught out by the enemy, who had probably stalked them for miles. He saw a man just in front of him fall silently to the ground. A pool of blood surrounded his head. He had his first war casualty.
Rifles were being loaded, fired, and reloaded. The Union field commander, Ebenezer W. Peirce, was pushing the men on, urging them forward, even as a few of them fell. Those designated with the task carried as many injured and still bodies lying on the ground to the ambulances. They were on broken and swampy ground, difficult for men to manoeuvre but even harder for the ambulances to advance. The column halted. They dug themselves in, using the thick woods behind them. “What’s the other column doing, Lieutenant Greble?” Isaac shouted to the regular army man.
“Damned if I know, sir. I can’t pinpoint their position. Reckon they must be behind us. Hold your position, Major. You’ll hear us hollering for you if you’re needed up the line.”
Isaac nodded, found himself a reasonably sheltered spot, and drew his gun. Nelson lay beside him. “Miss Mercy sure was right. I ain’t got no stomach for violence,” he said.
Chapter Thirteen
Jacob woke up to the sound of a bugle call and immediately heard gunfire. It was just past dawn, and the noise of boots running back and forth on hard-crusted ground sounded like thunder. Jacob stood just beside his tent flap, tying on the sash which Mercy had given him, and stared up at the patchy red sky, not yet painted in the sun’s golden rays.
George appeared, wide-eyed and fearful. His questioning expression was that of a young child asking for guidance. Jacob smiled in an attempt to put him at ease. “Well, George, guess this is it. I’m ready for the Yankees, are you?”
“I’m ready, sir,” George answered, “but I’ll admit I ain’t sure what I’ll do if I come face-to-face with one of them.”
Jacob put his hand on George’s shoulder and grinned boyishly. “Well, it’s like this: You shoot the ass of anyone who points a gun at you. You make sure that your eyes and ears are looking and listening for a body who might not be pointing a gun at you but who might have it in his mind to do just that. You remember at all times to keep your head down in one of those trenches out there and think of nothing else but keeping the bastards back.”
George nodded and straightened himself. “You’re wanted in the officers’ tent. I’ll walk with you and wait outside – if that’s all right.”
“You do that. You keep me in your sights today. I’ll make sure you’re in mine, and when this is over, we’ll have coffee and cornbread. You got it?” Jacob smiled again.
“I got it, sir.
Jacob was in position on the forward line. The trench he and George were in had a depth of about four feet, which made it uncomfortable to sustain a firing position in a half-crouched, half-standing state. The orders had been clear: stay under cover, draw the Federals to their position, and cut them down. His eyes scanned the clearing in front of their dugout. Shouts were growing louder. Enemy orders to advance were rising with the wind behind them.
The first shells were fired and landed about twenty feet in front of Jacob. He should not have been surprised, but nonetheless, his heart thumped wildly in his chest. “You keep that rifle loaded for me, Private,” Jacob said to George. “When I’m out of ammo, we switch, just like they taught us. Keep your head down. There ain’t no reason for you to see what’s happening. That’s my job. Just make sure I’ve got ammunition ready to fire.”
“Yes, sir,” George panted. “I don’t see Nathan.”
“Your brother will be fine. Ain’t no time to start looking for him, you hear?” Jacob said, hardening his voice.
The Federals came from the trees firing indiscriminately at nothing in particular. “They must have thought we’d
be standing in line waiting to get gunned down,” Jacob said to George. “Their damned arrogance will be the end of them here.”
After what seemed like a never-ending flurry of crossfire, Jacob heard Colonel Godwin order an advance. This is it, Jacob thought. This would be the test of his courage. He would know his measure as soon as he got out of his well-sheltered trench and onto the hard shell ground above. “Forward with me!” he yelled to his Portsmouth members. “Sabres ready and guns loaded! Let’s drive these Yankee sons of bitches back!”
Jacob’s head spun with the noise of shells, bullets whistling past him, and men yelling like wild animals. He wasn’t sure whom he was shooting at, but as far as he was concerned, anyone who was coming towards him was a target. He lost his direction and footing in a thick fog of fire. After a while, the heavy mist cleared just in time for Jacob to see the first Federal retreat. First a regiment left the field, leaving a small force that was still attempting to take Confederate positions. They too were forced back with a ferocious volley of shellfire. As Jacob watched the enemy run back, leaving the clearing empty, bar their dead and wounded, he wondered if all battles would be like this – a racing heartbeat, adrenaline pumping through his veins, fire, smoke, and anguished cries of injured men.
He ran back towards the trench. It was no more than thirty feet in front of him, yet every step towards it seemed long and endless on legs which could barely hold his body. When he reached it, he hunkered down with George. The fight was all but over. Colonel Godwin had ordered his men back, leaving only a few men from Georgia chasing the last of the lagging Federals off the battlefield.
