Andersonville (63 page)

What is your opinion as to the management and police of the general hospital grounds?

As good as the limited means will allow.

What are the facilities?

There is a necessity for at least three times the number of tents and amount of bedding on hand at this time.

What of medicines?

The supply is wholly inadequate. Frequently there is no supply of medicines. Great delays are experienced in the filling of requisitions.

Chandler folded his papers, put them away, pinched out the candle in order to discourage insects. Both he and Elkins had become oblivious to the hurt of mosquitoes. Hordes droned day and night, sometimes in visible clouds, again they were blown away by a wind. The two men sat in silence for so long that Harrell Elkins fell asleep and was roused by his own head snapping forward. He came awake to see the colonel’s dark shape poised on the edge of the gallery, his back to Elkins. The young surgeon had a vague sleepy thought about some seeker for self-destruction teetering on the edge of an abyss.

Chandler was speaking of the past, something about his youthful days at West Point, and Elkins tried to send his attention hounding on the heels of Chandler’s conversation, so that the visitor would not be aware of this lapse into slumber.

Walked the same paths in his time that I did in mine, said Colonel Chandler. And so, of course, did Grant and Sherman and most of the leading Yankees. They’re enemies now, but I do not hold them to be arch-fiends. This old wretch seems to fit the description. I could not speak in this fashion to a subordinate or a superior; but you, sir, are a doctor—however young—and doctors must be father confessors to all.

Elkins managed to say, A portion of the responsibility which we must assume with the Hippocratic Oath.

Gad, sir, that man is completely indifferent to the welfare of the prisoners! He’s undisposed to do anything to alleviate their sufferings. When I remonstrated with him I received only foul language in reply; when I spoke of the great mortality existing among the prisoners, and pointed out to him that the sickly season was coming on, and that sickness must necessarily increase unless something was done for the prisoners’ relief—the swamp, for instance, drained; proper food furnished them, and in better quantity; and other sanitary suggestions which I made to him— He replied that he thought it was better to let half of them die than to take care of the men.

Elkins said, I have encountered the son, never encountered the father.

Major Hall had spoken to him previously. I’d suggested that he present some recommendations to the general whilst I was otherwise engaged. The major returned to me white of face; when he reported the fury and the obscenity employed, I could not well believe him, though I do trust Major Hall. I thought it incredible, thought that he must be mistaken! No, says Hall, he not only used those words once, but twice. Well, my friend, as I have just stated, subsequently General Winder made use of the same expressions to me.

Chandler took up the belt and sword and pistol which he had put aside when he sat down. I trust that you will forgive me, Surgeon. I’m better for the gift of Miss Claffey’s nectar, and for your patience. My work here is concluded—if there can be any conclusion to such an effort—and I shall be proceeding to the headquarters of the Army of Tennessee.

Their hands squeezed, the colonel wished Elkins success in his labors and cautioned him about wearing himself to the bone. He sent respects and sympathy to the Claffeys, then walked away across the black lane. Harrell Elkins was fast asleep in his chair before Chandler had reached the first picket.

It was almost lewd, thought the colonel, that he should now be entertaining memories of long-ago days at the Academy. Yet he presumed that it was because an illusion of idealistic service had been projected to youths there. At present, in observing the ideal trampled so cruelly and the service debased, he turned for comfort to thought of surroundings where this dream, now mutilated, had been born. Had John Winder been human when younger? Had he stolen bread-and-butter and hidden it in his leather bell cap, as Chandler had done when he was a cadet? Had he joined in a bread-and-butter feast after Taps in the old South Barracks? Had he gone illicitly to Benny Havens’ and plunged his hot face into a mug of beer bought on credit?

When you and I and Benny, and all the others, too,

Are called before the Final Board, our course in life to view.

May we never ’fess on any point; but straight be told to go,

And join the army of the blest, at Benny Havens’, oh!

In his tent Chandler relighted his lantern and stepped upon the path he had longed and yet feared to tread. He wrote a supplemental report to Colonel Chilton. In a small way he thought he would have been harming his own conception of the military ideal to which he was sworn if he did not do so. It was as if the flag had been befouled by Winder. He, Chandler, might not be able to scrub the colored folds clean again; but he wanted to own his soul, even if he were shorn of rank in the process.

My duty requires me respectfully to recommend a change in the officer in command of the post, Brigadier-General J. H. Winder, and the substitution in his place of some one who unites both energy and good judgment with some feeling of humanity and consideration for the welfare and comfort (so far as is consistent with their safekeeping) of the vast number of unfortunates placed under his control; some one who at least will not advocate deliberately and in cold blood the propriety of leaving them in their present condition until their number has been sufficiently reduced by death to make the present arrangement suffice for their accommodation; who will not consider it a matter of self-laudation and boasting that he has never been inside of the stockade, a place the horrors of which it is difficult to describe, and which is a disgrace to civilization. . . .

 XXXVIII 

T
he young old friends from West Dummerston, Vermont—Adam Garrett and John Appleby—had taken up tenancy together on a portion of the crowded terrain commonly designated as the Island. Their green past was fled. Nowadays the fact that they had a halfway decent shebang (even though the Island lay surrounded by putrid bogs, and thus its inhabitants were named the Leper Colony) was more important than a remembrance that once, side by side, they’d walked to the covered bridge across the West River, and extended their fishing poles, also side by side. It was more important to Adam Garrett that he had been able to barter for a handful of dried beans, than that he had been wounded at Gettysburg when he served previously with the Sixteenth. It was more important to John Appleby that he brought home a fair mess of roots to repay laborious hours of digging, than that he had served under the admired Colonel James M. Warner, an actual graduate of the United States Military Academy . . . few of the Volunteer Regiments could claim such a commander! Camp Bradley at Brattleboro, with Hallie Small and Hephzibah Clark fetching loaded baskets on visitors’ day: that was forgotten. So were forgotten old Austrian muskets put into the excited hands of awkward country boys. John forgot the filth of Cliffburne barracks since now he dwelt in an ocean of filth which would have made Cliffburne spotless in comparison.

The youths remembered only that they were both captured at the abortive Weldon Road battle southwest of Petersburg, in the early evening of June twenty-third.

Their principal friends on the Island, since so many of the Eleventh Vermont boys lay dead, were two artillerymen from Battery E of the Fifth Maine. One was sick, one was in comparatively good health. The Maine boys lived in a dugout adjoining. Sometimes in early days of captivity the four New Englanders argued vociferously as they cited the advantages of their respective States. Sometimes they came close to blows; then in the end, being good Christian village boys with a bounce of humor, they shook hands and said that it was a pity there weren’t some New Hampshiremen in between to act as a buffer.

Through blinding heat, with mosquitoes keening thicker each night, they neglected rivalries and ignored the remembrance of Maine and Vermont. Might there be parents and clear-eyed tawny-haired girls who mourned them as Departed, or who had heard the truth of their capture and prayed for prison doors to be swung? Appleby had raked hay on his father’s three mowings terraced above the gentle valley of the West River, Garrett had unpacked boots and weighed out sugar and sacked salt in his father’s store. Portland Hyde had ridden logs in a river: he was a lumberman and proud of it; and the man Caldwell boasted earlier of how many cows he’d milked night and morning since he was knee-high to a cow. At last it mattered not what they had been, where they came from, what orderly dreams they’d once held. Congregationalism mattered not, nor did the fact that Hyde’s mother had been a Quaker and his father was not a Quaker, but still his mother insisted on talking Plain in their home. . . . Andersonville reduced them to a single pattern: they were stamped out of that pattern by the enormous heavy die of confinement, like a row of four toy tin wretches holding hands.

Late one day the lumberman Hyde died of dropsy as the sun was draining down behind the fence. Adam Garrett and John Appleby tossed a penny to see which should go with Caldwell, carrying Hyde down to the dead row. Appleby lost—or won, depending upon how you looked at it: Caldwell had agreed to give Hyde’s shirt to the man who helped him. It was not so much the weight of the body as the awkward task of handling a tall object like Portland Hyde, who weighed perhaps ninety pounds at death (exclusive of the fluid in him) but was still six feet and three inches in length. His flannel shirt was not good for much—tatters, mainly—but it had three large buttons on it. John Appleby planned to wash the shirt in a broth of ashes and get rid of most of the lice for a time at least.

Caldwell came over and said, He’s gone. He ain’t got a breath in him, and they all crept back to take a look at Hyde. The lumberman lay flat on his back with brown eyes protruding, and late flies settling stubbornly around the eyes, and moving in and out of the open mouth.

If there was some way to prick him and get rid of all that there dropsy water, he’d be simpler to carry. This was Appleby’s idea.

I could use my penknife, Adam Garrett suggested.

Not on Porty, Caldwell cried, bristling. He may be gone to meet his Maker, but no one’s to put a blade in him.

Hellfire. I was jesting.

I calculate we should hold a service. Porty was a good church man.

Garrett told John, Fetch your Scriptures.

John’s Scriptures consisted only of Matthew with part of Mark and the last two pages of Malachi. He had them rolled around a bit of stick and tied with yarn, and covered with a piece of stained linen. Handling the flimsy leaves with care, he thumbed until he found the verses he sought.

...He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall you see him: lo, I have told you.

A few people came from surrounding shelters and watched apathetically; they stood with rough hair fuzzy against the pink sunset. A neighboring New Yorker called out, If I see him I hope he’s not still sick. God, how he stunk. Hope you take him out of here tonight, Hay Rube.

I’ll Hay Rube you, next time you get within reach of my club! Caldwell threw a stone which had braced the main pole of his shelter; he missed the New Yorker, but the little crowd dodged and scattered, and went back home.

Leave us repeat the Lord’s Prayer.

Garrett felt that this service was miserable and inadequate, whatever the intention. They mumbled through the Lord’s Prayer, and tied the dead man’s big toes together with a bit of hemp. Then the Vermonters tossed their penny.

Caldwell stood musingly as he flicked lice out of his beard. Guess I’ll pack up and move. Moving day for me. Or moving night.

Where to?

Member there was four fellows from our battery living over on the North Side? They come down to see us last month. Well, I hear that two are still alive. You know how it goes: man doesn’t like to live alone.

He worked Hyde’s body aside until he could remove the bark from their storehouse. They had some rice, a packet of dirty stationery imprinted with eagles and goddesses, a wad of soft soap in a rag, two pencils, a suspender strap, a few other odds and ends.

Caldwell wrote on a torn envelope,
Portland Hyde Battery E Fifth Maine Artillery
and with another strand of hemp string they tied this paper around Hyde’s ear.

I’ll bind these oddments up in the blanket, and Caldwell did so, folding the ragged edges tightly together so that nothing might be lost. With a last length of tent cord he tied the pack over his shoulder, and turned to shake hands with Adam. Drop in if you get up our way. It’s in the furthest northwest corner, right past the last big well. They got two gray army blankets on top, and old pine boughs around the edges. It’s about the biggest shebang in the neighborhood.

You’ll still have to draw rations with your old Ninety, Adam warned him.

But I can dwell happier up there with my Maine friends. Maybe I can flank into their Ninety one way or another.

And get put in the stocks?

It’d be worth a try. Come along, Jim Along Johnny.

They lifted Hyde, Hyde made a belching noise; Caldwell had him by the feet, Johnny by the hands. We won’t take off his shirt and drawers till we get him to the gate. They carried the corpse into the gloom.

Garrett cried while they were picking their way down the slope of the Island, Hi, Caldwell. Tent poles—

You can have them, Adam. More than I can fetch now. I don’t want to come all the way back. His words floated faintly up the incline where tiny fires were glowing, with apes crouched above the colored flames, blowing in turn to keep the fire climbing through damp bits of splintered roots. For another minute or two Garrett could watch the two vertical shapes with that horizontal thing swaying between them; he lost them against deeper blackness of the marsh.

Adam wrenched up the four tent posts which had supported the blanket roof above that abandoned hole. He brought also the stones piled for extra bracing. Air smelled better already, with Hyde carried away. The New Yorker had been right . . . it was just the way he said it.

John came home half an hour later, picking his way stubbornly among shelters, and being roundly cursed when he stepped too close to any person or fire. You could follow his course up the low slope of the Island merely by listening to the oaths following as he moved.

He did some cursing on his own account after he reached home. That plaguèd God damn bitchy dropsy! Hope to high hell and hellfire I never get it! Scurvy’s bad enough, but— Adam, I vow, I stopped down there in the creek and washed my hand a dozen times. Even them maggots smelt clean by comparison.

What was it? Dropsy— You mean Portland Hyde?

Damn, twas his hand. I mean the skin. We’d got his drawers and shirt off of him, and then we took hold to give him a heave across that little fence. I vow! The skin come loose from his hand like it was rotten cloth or something. Just peeled loose like a big glove. There he was in the row, and there I stood, a-holding onto the skin of his hand where it come loose on me. I like to puked my gizzard out.

Garrett muttered.

What say?

I said, Glad that I lost that penny toss. You can have the blame shirt and welcome.

I got it right here. Them three buttons will come handy, though one is split. What say? Want to turn in? Want some rations first?

They decided to eat half the piece of pone they were saving, and reserve the other half for morning. They still had one onion, but it was keeping well; they had agreed to save the onion for soup, in order to flavor the next meat ration when and if it was forthcoming. Mosquitoes hummed thickly while the men ate. They lay down, spooned closely; each covered his head with an old leg-of-drawers.

Garrett slept well, or at least better than usual; he dreamed of ferns. He tried to think of Hallie before he drifted into slumber; but rapidly she was joining the remote company of people in his past whom he could never reassemble, by voice or figment of face, no matter how earnestly he attempted to conjure them. He dreamed about a ravine of ferns below Black Mountain; it was summer, and there was agreeable coolness, and he walked through the bank of ferns. A woodpecker went down in long slicing flight from one tree and soared quickly up against another dead trunk, and clutched, hammering. Garrett didn’t know what kind of woodpecker it was. But he saw the ferns clearly, and someone said something about blackberries in plenty.

Bam. Pam.
Two shots woke them up . . . among mosquitoes . . . after midnight. The shots sounded like muskets but of different bore. There was a faint yell, whether the cry of the victim or a hoot of derision they did not know. A few voices called out the persistent litany of, Give the Rebel son of a bitch a furlough, then there was such silence as ruled—the wasting, crowded silence of mumbles and wails and snarls and hog-callings which went on forever, latticed like a visible structure beneath the stars.

With sunrise the vast population began to own a dimension of activity as well as sound, with men kindling fires anew, men beginning to bargain for food, men beginning to fight and tussle, men squatting at the sinks, men foraging for water in the marsh, men unable or unwilling to reach the sinks and squatting along the swamp’s borders instead. Johnny was first out of the shelter, but he returned promptly and pushed his head back under the sagging overcoat with an expression of incredulity akin to amusement on his blackened face.

I swear, Adam. Damndest neighbors we got.

Adam Garrett joined him on hands and knees, and together they stared amazed at the transformation adjoining. When they went to sleep the night before, the dwelling-place which Hyde had relinquished through death and which Caldwell had given up as a matter of choice— The depression was a depression only, with no shred or twig to mark it. Now new poles had been put up, and a canvas cover which was close to being clean and white flaunted in the early breeze. The cover hung nearly to the ground on their side, but when currents of air twitched it, figures could be seen snuggled together in the scooped-out pit.