Gettysburg: The Crossroads Town

by Tim Black

  Mrs. Weikert, Bette realized, had been up before the rooster, gathering eggs from the chicken coops. Also, Bette detected the aroma of freshly baked bread. A bowl of apple butter was already on the table and Bette began to salivate when she envisioned apple butter spread over warm, fresh bread. Up until this trip, Bette had thought an Egg McMuffin was a delicacy. Next to Mrs. Weikert’s bread, Mickey D’s served cardboard.

  Victor made an appearance and plopped himself down at the kitchen table. Mrs. Weikert ignored the hungry girls and set the first plate of scrambled eggs before Victor, in act of male privilege. A famished Bette held her tongue, but she glared at Victor. He ignored his classmate and began shoveling the scrambled eggs into his pie hole. Bette realized that Mrs. Weikert gave deference to men and boys, as if to say that males were the more significant gender. She resented the male privilege in the 19th century. Thank the Lord for the 21st century, Bette thought.

  Finally, a famished Bette was given some scrambled eggs, which she estimated to be less than half the amount of the pile on Victor’s plate.

  “I’m delighted to see you in a dress, Bette,” Mrs. Weikert commented. “It becomes you.”

  Bette smiled politely, but secretly seethed.

  “I am so happy to see you back today,” Mrs. Weikert continued. “I hope I have seen the end to your foolishness and that you will stay put today.”

  “I think there may be action today,” Victor said between shovelfuls of food. “I want to see what is happening.”

  “Are you thinking of joining the army, Victor?”

  “No, ma’am,” Victor replied. “I’m not old enough.”

  “Why brother, I have heard the Rebels take boys as young as fourteen, and even have taken a girl or two,” Bette needled. “Surely, if a girl can fight, you can.”

  “Girls don’t fight,” Mrs. Weikert said. “Why that is a silly idea, Bette. Your brother is too young to fight. How old are you, Victor?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Well, maybe next year, but the war will surely be over by then,” Mrs. Weikert added with assurance.

  No it won’t, Victor thought. It still has two more years, two bloody years and more men will die in the Civil War than in all the nation’s other wars combined—620,000 dead, 2 percent of the nation’s population, the modern equivalent of over 6 million people. And sadly, most died of disease, Victor mused. He had a head for numbers since he first read census figures in an old almanac when he was a little boy. Victor could rattle off old baseball players’ lifetime batting averages from Babe Ruth’s .342 to Ted Williams’ .344 to Joe DiMaggio’s .325. He read a statistic once and it was uploaded into his memory. He could be a tad obnoxious about his gift as well, but it served him well on the academic team. No teammate complained when he answered correctly during a competition. He dreamed of appearing on Jeopardy!, and had gone so far as to practice talking to Alex Trebek in the bathroom mirror. His eidetic memory really bothered Minerva, and the thought of an irritated Minerva made Victor smile. However, at this moment, as he was lost in his thoughts, he did not hear the voice of Mrs. Weikert.

  “Victor, Victor?” she called. She waved a spatula in front of his face.

  “Huh?” Victor said, his daydream over.

  “I asked if you wanted more eggs,” Mrs. Weikert said.

  “Ah sure,” he said. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Do you daydream often, Victor?” Mrs. Weikert asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Victor admitted.

  “Levi does too,” Mrs. Weikert said, referring to her son who was twenty-one. “All my boys were daydreamers until they got married,” she laughed. “Then they didn’t have time to dream.” She laughed again. “Their wives made sure of that.”

  Bette wondered what Mrs. Weikert meant by that remark. Bette was offended. She daydreamed too, although she conceded no one she knew could daydream as deeply as Victor Bridges. Victor often gave Bette the feeling that he wasn’t really there. Like there was no one at home upstairs. That somehow Victor was away in his thoughts. Victor, Bette admitted, was brighter than she, but she would never admit that to him. She would rather die than tell Victor Bridges that she thought he was smarter.

  Just as Bette was musing, Bruce Catton appeared in the kitchen. He said to Victor and Bette, “Big day today. Pickett’s Charge!” he shouted.

  Thankfully neither Tillie Pierce or Mrs. Weikert could hear the dead historian. “I’ll meet you two out by the privy in five minutes,” he said, and floated out through the kitchen wall.

  Victor excused himself from the table. “I have to visit the privy,” Victor said.

  “Me too,” echoed Bette.

  “One at a time, children,” Mrs. Weikert said, and then said to Tillie, “Did I use too much grease in my cooking, Tillie?”

  “Not that I noticed,” Tillie replied.

  Out by the privy Victor and Bette met with Bruce Catton’s ghost.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Catton began. “I have been trying to figure out where we can watch Pickett’s Charge. I think Big Round Top would be alright again. That is, if the Union troops aren’t stationed on it. You should be able to climb the eastern slope, however, like you two did yesterday. Are you ready to go?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Catton,” Bette said. “I think I had my fill yesterday.”

  “What? Bette, this is the greatest charge in American History we are talking about.”

  “I know.”

  “C’mon, Kromer,” said Victor. “Don’t be a chicken. This is why we came out to the battlefield. If that’s how you feel you should have stayed in town.”

  She looked at Victor and then looked at the ghost, reading disappointment on their faces. They wanted her to see Pickett’s Charge. Suddenly, she didn’t want to let Victor down. Was she feeling something for him? He was such a rascal. He was so undependable, at least that is what Minerva told her. She felt a tiny bit guilty about having feelings for her best friend’s ex-boyfriend, but she rationalized that Victor was an “ex.” He was, therefore, fair game, she decided. And besides, what was she going to do all day at the farm? Chores? Cut sheets into bandages?

  “Okay, you two,” Bette said. “I’ll go, but I am going to wear a dress today.”

  “That must be tough for you, Kromer,” Victor teased.

  “Oh, shut up, Victor Bridges!”

  Chapter 9

  Mr. Greene, on crutches, retreated to his hotel room to rest after the surgeon removed the bullet from his leg. He assured Minerva that he was fine and that he really only needed to rest for a while and he would be “right as rain.”

  Minerva, who had grown up in thunderstorm-prone Florida, had no idea what Mr. Greene’s colloquialism meant, but she noticed his pale face and thought that it would be best to check on him in an hour or so.

  When she arrived at his bedside an hour later, she checked her teacher’s forehead and determined that he had a fever.

  “I think you are running a fever, Mr. Greene,” she remarked. “I need a thermometer, however, to check my suspicions.”

  “I think you may be right, Minerva. I feel dizzy and hot. Good luck with finding a thermometer.”

  “Really, Mr. Greene, didn’t they have thermometers in the Civil War?”

  “I didn’t say that, Minerva. There weren’t many thermometers and they were cumbersome to use. They were placed in the armpit.”

  “The armpit?”

  “I’m afraid so. Go down to the courthouse and see if you can find one. I doubt if the surgeons will be using theirs. Thermometers took too long to register a temperature and most physicians didn’t bother with them. They didn’t have time to fuss with them due to all the wounded men they had to treat.”

  Minerva returned to the courtroom in search of a thermometer, expecting to find a tiny, modern apparatus. She approached a nurse who was taking a break. She ventured a question to the woman.

  “Are you one of Miss Dix’s nurses?” Minerva asked, referring to Dorthea Dix, the woman who
pressed for the Union army to employ women nurses. The male physicians and male nurses balked at adding women to their staff, but the enormous number of casualties made the addition of women nurses necessary. In many ways, Minerva had learned, the female nurses employed by Dorthea Dix were far ahead of the male surgeons in overall cleanliness.

  “I am. May I help you?”

  “Yes. My uncle was wounded by a sniper’s bullet and he is resting at the hotel, but I fear he is running a fever and I wish to borrow a thermometer.”

  “A thermometer? Why, girl?”

  “To check his temperature.”

  “Do you know how to use the device?”

  “Yes,” Minerva bluffed. “It goes under the armpit.” She didn’t know more than that and she was counting on Mr. Greene’s expertise, but the nurse seemed impressed.

  “I will get you one to borrow,” the nurse said. “We have one and it has not been used.”

  The nurse returned with a wooden case about two feet in length. She snapped open the case and there lay a large axilla clinical thermometer with an ivory scale and a cord running from the temperature gauge. Minerva could see the temperature settings, but the medical thermometer reminded her of the large measuring device that her late grandmother placed outside on her back porch to check the outside temperature.

  “Thank you,” Minerva said to the nurse.

  “Return it tomorrow, please,” the nurse replied.

  Minerva returned to Mr. Greene’s hotel room and gave her teacher the case. He snapped it open and examined the device. “See that section with about a half inch of a silver fluid, Minerva? That’s mercury.”

  “Mercury? Why that’s harmful, Mr. Greene.”

  “Relax, they didn’t know that. And a little exposure to mercury is not going to kill me, but if I have a fever, that might do me in. In your studies of early medicines, did you read anything on the Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793?”

  “Yes, there was a debate between the followers of Benjamin Rush and a French doctor on how to treat the fever victims. Rush preferred bleeding.”

  “The French physician was Jean Deveze. His method was the more successful. Benjamin Rush? Yes, the man sure liked to bleed. The French method of treating yellow fever while keeping the patient hydrated, and applying cold cloths to the forehead turned out to be the more satisfactory treatment. So, Minerva, I will place the cord under my armpit and close it and you hold onto the thermometer and watch the mercury rise, alright?”

  “Alright, Mr. Greene.”

  “When it finally settles, let me know and I will remove the cord. Then you read the temperature on the tube. After we read the temperature, you shake the thermometer and the mercury should return to its starting place.”

  After several minutes, Minerva noticed that the mercury had stopped climbing. She read the temperature.

  “Between one hundred three and one hundred four, Mr. Greene.”

  Greene managed a weak smile. “I was afraid of that. We can’t let it go any higher, Minerva or it might cook my brain. I’m afraid I am going to require your help. Well, you do want to be a doctor. You might as well get a head start.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Go down to the outside pump and get a bucket of cold water. Then soak some hand towels and apply them to my forehead. I’m afraid you are going to have to do this for several hours, Minerva. I am sorry to inconvenience you.”

  Inconvenience her? Minerva was delighted to be useful. Five minutes later she returned with a bucket of cold water and began soaking small hand towels. She applied the first one to her teacher’s forehead who asked her, “Aside from infections do you know much about the mortality rates from battlefield wounds during the Civil War, Minerva?”

  “No.”

  “Well a shot to the small bowel had a one hundred percent mortality rate. No one survived that wound. An abdomen or head wound had a ninety percent mortality rate. But wounds were only one-third of the deaths in the Civil War. Two-thirds were attributed to “the fluxes,” what today we know as diarrhea or dysentery. Three million cases of diarrhea or dysentery and four hundred thousand deaths. Of the battlefield wounds, ninety-three percent were gunshot wounds, six percent from artillery and less than one percent by bayonet or sword. A third of the wounds were the arms, a third the legs and the other third were wounds to the trunk or head. Three-quarters of all operations were amputations, so you can see I was very lucky.”

  “Except for the fever that I believe the surgeon gave you because he didn’t wash his hands, Mr. Greene.”

  “That is quite possible that he inadvertently gave me bacteria, but thankfully we have the antibiotics. Perhaps you should give me another now.”

  “Yes, sir,” Minerva said.You know, Minerva,” Greene continued after he swallowed another antibiotic pill. “The bullet that hit me was .58 caliber and traveled 950 feet per second, although I believe it slowed down. Compared to today’s ammunition, the minie ball was not as deadly. The AR 15 bullet is certainly more deadly than the minie ball was. But the surgeons were so fearful of gangrene that they usually amputated within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. They often amputated when it was a fracture. So if I had stayed overnight at the courthouse hospital, I doubt if I would be returning to Cassadaga on two legs. You know you may have a chance to meet Major Letterman, a Union doctor who developed the ambulance for use in the Civil War. You can trace the modern ambulance to Letterman. He saved thousands of lives by getting the wounded to triage centers quickly. In fact, the tent hospital that will pop up after the battle will be named for him.”

  As usual, Minerva was fascinated by Mr. Greene’s Google-like mind, but she thought what he really needed to do was stop his historic ramblings and get some sleep. Sleep, nature’s restorative, she thought. Her teacher needed that.

  “You need to get some sleep, Mr. Greene,” Minerva said forcefully. “I will stay here until your fever breaks.”

  He smiled. “Thank you, Minerva,” he said.

  Mr. Greene finally drifted off to sleep and thankfully slept with his head up. Minerva changed the warm cloth with a cold one and turned to read a page from Sarah Broadhead’s Diary to pass the time. Reading the Quaker woman’s diary was like seeing a movie trailer for a coming attraction, in this case the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

  Diary of Sarah Broadhead

  July 3, 1863

  To-day the battle spread with the fierce cannonading before 4 o’clock a.m. Shortly after the battle began we were told to leave this end of town, for likely it would be shelled. My husband declared he would not go while one brick remained upon another, and, as usual, we betook ourselves to the cellar, where we remained until 10 o’clock, when the firing ceased, We could not get breakfast on account of our fears and the great danger. During the cessation we managed to get a cold bite. Again, the battle began with unearthly fury. Nearly all afternoon it seemed as if the heavens and earth were crashing together. The time that we sat in the cellar seemed long, listening to the terrific sound of the strife; more terrible never greeted human ears. We knew that with every explosion, and the scream of each shell, human beings were hurried, through excruciating pain, into another world, and that many more were torn, and mangled, and lying in torment worse than death, and no one able to extend relief. The thought made me very sad, and feel that, if it was God’s will, I would rather be taken away than remain to see the misery that would follow. Some thought this awful afternoon would never come to a close. We knew that the Rebels were putting forth all their might, and it was a dreadful thought that they might succeed. Who is victorious, or with whom the advantage rests, no one here can tell. It would ease the horror if we knew our arms were successful. Some think the Rebels were defeated, as there has been no boasting as on yesterday, and they look uneasy and by no means exultant. I hope they are correct, but I fear we are too hopeful. We shall see tomorrow. It will be the 4th of July, and the Rebels have promised a glorious day. If it only ends the battle and driv
es them off it will be glorious, and I will rejoice.

  At twilight, a maid came around and lit the kerosene lamp in Mr. Greene’s hotel room. Minerva thanked her and handed her a dime.

  “Thank you, miss. Please remember to blow out the lamp before you go to bed,” the maid advised.

  As it turned out the light from a full moon shone in through the window illuminating the room. Minerva walked over and blew out the lamp, fearful that she might drift off to sleep and cause a fire that would burn down the Gettysburg Hotel. She was happy to get along by moonlight.

  After a time, the water in the bucket turned lukewarm and Minerva returned to the pump, poured the warm water on the ground and filled the bucket with cool liquid.

  She kept changing the towels on her teacher’s forehead until midnight when she fell asleep in her chair. She awoke two hours later, mad at herself for drifting off. She checked on Mr. Greene. He was better. The fever was abating. The infection was passing.

  She looked heavenward. “Thank you, Lord,” she said. She didn’t quit the procedure, but continued applying the cold cloths to the teacher’s forehead until dawn when Minerva checked Mr. Greene’s forehead and it seemed normal.

  Her teacher awoke with a smile. He looked at Minerva. “Did you stay with me all night, child?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “How do you feel, Mr. Greene?”

  “Splendid!” Greene said, seemingly surprised at his condition. “Oh, the wound hurts a bit, but my leg isn’t broken. I don’t think much tissue was torn either. The bleeding stopped. I was shot from a distance and I think that was probably why my wound wasn’t as severe; the velocity of the bullet had slowed over a long distance. I am not dizzy, nor do I feel hot. You did a nice job, Minerva.”

  “You were very lucky, Mr. Greene,” Minerva said. “The antibiotics sped things up,” she added.

  “Don’t I know it,” he agreed. “Let’s get up and get some breakfast. I could eat the proverbial horse. Why don’t you go to your room and freshen up and we will meet in the hallway in twenty minutes. I think I can take my own temperature now,” he added.