Boys of Wartime: Will at the Battle of Gettysburg (10 page)

“Thank you.” The colonel started forward. His hand was still on my shoulder. I dragged my eyes away from Abel's and went with him.

“You come back this way,” the officer said. “We've got lots of wounded on this side of the lines, too.”

“I'll see you again,” the colonel said. “When I come back to town.”

The officer didn't know that the “doctor” was making a threat. Abel must have suspected. Still, my friend from Tennessee didn't give us away.

That was two times now that he had saved my life. He knew my father was in Washington. Why had he lied for me?

I couldn't ask. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. We were in a strange kind of no-man's-land between the two armies. Each step I took should have been as familiar to me as my own home, but my town had been transformed by two armies of fighting men. With each step, I expected a bullet in my back.

How different this was from all my fancy dreams about leading men into battle, waving the Stars and Stripes as I charged the enemy. I never imagined I would be sneaking away from them, waving a white handkerchief so that my own side didn't shoot me dead. I used to be sure I would be brave in battle. Now all I wanted to do was hide.

My muscles twitched under my skin, making me want to run, or leap into a ditch, or do anything but what I was doing. Even so, I knew that if I did run—toward the Union lines or back to Mother—one side or the other would fill me with lead.

The colonel's grip steadied me, and I was forced to keep pace with him.

The walk, just a short ways, seemed to take forever. Finally we reached the Union pickets. I raised my white handkerchief even higher and waved and waved. I waited to see a flash of fire and hear the pop of a musket. It didn't come. We were safe.

The colonel was truly a military man. The firm but respectful doctor tone he used with the Rebels was replaced with one of command. Within seconds he had identified himself and secured a messenger to get his papers to General Meade.

We went into the Wagon Hotel, where he got a quick briefing from the officer in charge. Sharpshooters had pounded holes in the roof and were shooting at the Rebel sharpshooters in Gettysburg.

I thought the colonel might leave me there, and I'd have to wave that white handkerchief all the way to the Weikert place, but he had other ideas.

“Come with me,” he said. “I'll find a safe place for you before I report to General Meade.”

We left the hotel and made our way to the top of Cemetery Hill. The colonel stopped and took a rifle from one dead soldier and a cartridge box from another.

“How is it that a Rebel drummer would lie to an officer for you?” the colonel asked me.

“We fed him,” I said. “A few days ago when the Rebs came to town. He was starving and we fed him.”

“You saved his life,” the colonel said. “He returned the favor.”

I didn't tell him that Abel had saved me twice, and all I had done for him was give him some food and a pair of shoes. I owed him a lot more than he owed me. But it was all too much to think on right then.

I was a jumbled mess of pride and fear and sadness. My plan had worked! I had gotten a Union colonel across enemy lines. At the same time, I knew I could have just as easily ended up dead in a heap on the ground. And I had left my mother alone, surrounded by enemy soldiers. Throughout it all I was as scared as Grace would have been. Worse—as scared as the twins would have been.

Suddenly I was crying. I was ashamed, but I couldn't stop. I kept my head down and kept my feet moving, hoping the colonel didn't notice.

He waited for me to master my emotions.

“There are a lot of men who wouldn't have been able to take that walk with me,” he said gently. “You were brave when it counted. You'd make a fine soldier.”

I nodded my thanks, not trusting myself to speak.

Soon we were in the cemetery. Soldiers slept among the gravestones like living ghosts.

Colonel Braxton met with some officers in the cemetery's gatehouse. I told them everything I knew about what was happening in Gettysburg—the house-to-house searches and the barricades the Rebs had built to slow any Union advance back into town.

The officers sat on the floor around a candle stuck in a bottle, drinking coffee. They talked about what might have been if they had more troops and seemed a little bit heartened by the fact that more Union soldiers had arrived, and others were on their way.

I recognized the general—General Howard—I had taken to the top of the Fahnestock Brothers store that morning.

It was late. After midnight. I was more tired than I had ever been in my life. I went outside, sat on the ground, and looked at my town. I imagined a Sunday dinner. The whole family around the table. Father would lead the prayer. Jacob and I would tease Grace about her proper manners, and the twins would giggle while Mother scolded us to leave her be.

But we hadn't been together at the table for a long time. Tonight, enemy soldiers sat there with their Union prisoners.

The hills were alive with the sounds of Union soldiers chopping and shoveling, positioning themselves for battle. All around I heard the creaking and lumbering of artillery being pushed and pulled into place. I was relieved to see that the Union wasn't giving up after their retreat. But I was worried about Mother. What if one of those cannons was aimed at my house?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Weikert Farm

 

 

 

I
wasn't alone with my worries about Mother for long. General Howard asked me to walk with him to the top of the hill. He inspected the Union's position in the moonlight and decided that the hill and the ridge were a good place to fight.

“Will you fire on the town?” I asked.

“We'll shell the Rebels,” he said. “If the citizens take to their cellars when the cannons start to roar, they'll be safe. No damage will be done to the town that can be avoided.”

That didn't calm me much. I knew my mother would be doing her best to help the wounded soldiers. I didn't believe she would go to the cellar, not when there were men who needed nursing.

“The soldiers with your mother will make sure she keeps herself safe,” Colonel Braxton told me.

It was an answer meant to soothe me, not one I truly believed. I thought about trying to make my way back to town. But I knew Mother didn't want that. In the end, I decided to walk to the Weikert place like she wanted.

The colonel told General Howard he would come back shortly with General Meade, and mounted a horse.

“I need to take you somewhere safe,” he said.

“My sisters are staying at a farm about a mile and a half down the Taneytown Road,” I told him. “I'll go there.”

“Climb on.” He reached for my hand and pulled me onto the horse. “I'll take you.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist. “What was in your papers?” I asked.

At first I thought he wouldn't answer. “I guess you've earned the right to know,” he said finally. “We intercepted some communications between General Lee and one of his commanders. Battle plans.”

“Will it help the Union win?”

The colonel shrugged. “Everything's different now. Lee planned to take Harrisburg. But now both armies have dug in here. Lee was forced to change his plans.”

I asked another question. One that had been troubling me ever since I saw the waves of desperate men running through town. “Will the Union retreat again?”

I felt his back stiffen. “There will be no retreat. We'll hold this ground or die trying.”

His answer was meant to reassure me, but it had the opposite effect. What if the rest of us died with them? Did the two armies ever think of that?

“What does everyone want with Gettysburg?” I asked.

“It's not Gettysburg,” the colonel said. “It's an accident that we ran into each other here. But we can't let Lee win a battle on our own land. It's bad enough they've been beating us all over Virginia. If the Rebels have control of Harrisburg and Philadelphia, Washington will be totally cut off from the rest of the North.

“Lee hopes a victory in the North will give the Copperheads the political power to end the war,” he continued.

The Copperheads were Northerners who wanted peace, even if it meant letting the South secede. Their opponents in Washington named them after the deadly snake because they were poison to the Union.

“We've got some Copperheads in Gettysburg,” I told him. I didn't say that I was starting to wonder if they were right.

“They want peace at any cost, but I say letting the South go is too high a price,” the colonel said. He steered the horse around a group of soldiers shuffling down the Taneytown Road. “Don't you worry,” he told me. “Lee's not going to win this one.”

Before I knew it, we were almost at the Weikert farm. I asked the colonel to let me down so I could walk the last bit. I had much to think about, and I needed to settle it in my mind before I saw Grace. I expected a good long r ound of yelling about leaving Mother alone with enemy soldiers, plus about a million questions. I wanted my mind to be clear.

“I might have need of a messenger,” the colonel said. “Why don't you stay with me?”

“Me? A messenger?” I asked. For a moment I was excited. That was even better than a drummer!

“You've been brave,” he told me. “You kept your head when many would have panicked.”

I thought about having to run through crowds of soldiers with dispatches for the officers. The words “Got 'em” echoed in my head along with the images of all the dead men I had seen. Suddenly, being a messenger was the last thing I wanted if it meant I had to stay in the fighting.

“Thank you, sir, but I have to take care of my sisters.” I was relieved to have an excuse.

The colonel nodded.

I watched him ride off, and then turned into the Weikerts' front yard. It was all torn up. I saw a light flicker in an upstairs window, and then go out. I decided to make my way to the barn rather than rouse the family. I expected to fall into a pile of hay and sleep there until morning, but that was not to be.

The screams and the moans reached me first. Then I turned the corner of the house. The barn doors were wide open. Soldiers milled around outside. Inside, the barn was crowded with wounded Union soldiers, and a few Confederates.

Men lay side by side, moaning and crying. Some pleaded for water. A few called for a doctor. Others begged to be released from life. Nurses moved among them, but there seemed to be little they could do.

On seeing me standing upright, one of them shoved a crock of beef tea and a tin cup into my hands.

“Start over there,” he said, pointing to the back of the barn. “Give a swallow to anyone who can manage it.”

I gripped the crock and stared. I wanted to run away screaming. Instead, I corked up my feelings and stumbled in the direction he pointed.

I knelt beside a man with blood all over his stomach. He tried to shove an envelope into my hands. “Send this to my wife,” he said.

I didn't want his letter. I raised his head and tried to get him to drink, but he wouldn't.

“Take it,” he moaned.

“You can send it yourself,” I told him, “after the battle.”

He only blinked at me. He was dying. He knew it. I knew it. I took the letter.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

His eyes were already clouding over. I wanted to stay with him, but there were too many others who needed my help.

The men who were awake wanted someone to talk to. One wanted me to pray with him, and I did. A few asked me to write letters, but I had nothing to write with, nor any paper. They all wanted to tell me where they were from—places like Wisconsin and Maine that I had never seen.

One of the Rebs was from Tennessee. He wasn't too badly wounded, but he sure wasn't looking forward to a Union prison camp.

“You know a drummer named Abel Hoke?” I asked.

The man nodded. “We're in the same company.”

“I saw him a few hours ago—in Gettysburg. He's just fine,” I told him.

He seemed grateful for the news. I wondered if I would see him again after the war, when I went to visit Abel.

It was still dark when I made my way back to the front of the barn to refill my crock, though it seemed as if I had been in that barn for days.

A surgeon stood in a corner covered in blood. A lantern swayed above his head. Under it, he was sawing off the arm of a soldier. The surgeon threw the limb into a wheelbarrow that was already heaped high with arms and legs and stitched the man up.

“Next!” he yelled.

Two men carried the groaning one-armed man to a spot on the floor and then brought the surgeon another soldier. His leg was mangled by a minié ball. Those bullets, favored by both the North and the South, shattered bones. There was no saving a limb if it got hit by one. I caught a whiff of chloroform, and before the soldier was even asleep, the surgeon started to saw again.

I gagged and ran out into the yard. I had to hold onto the side of the barn to stay upright. Then I gave up and sank to my knees. I knew I should go back inside, that the wounded needed help, but I could not bring myself to do it. Not right then.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Another Task

 

 

 

 

T
he next thing I knew, the sun had risen. I had fallen asleep and dreamed of rumbling thunder. It was artillery fire in the distance. The battle must have resumed at first light.