Finding Hope in Texas (20 page)

“I was just wondering.” Jeez, that must have
caused a lot of heartache. All these men went off to war thinking
it was some grand adventure and many of them didn’t make it home.
That was a lot of loved ones who missed them for years to come. I
guessed that if the families were lucky, they might have gotten the
remains back for a proper burial, a chance to say one final goodbye
as their tears fell into a six-foot hole. But many didn’t even get
that chance. A letter had to do, if that. Some were just never
heard from again, their bodies lost on some distant battlefield
that might as well have been on another continent, not in some
other American’s backyard. I guess I should’ve felt lucky about my
loss. I got to give my loved ones a proper burial, say my goodbyes,
our whole community did. At least they weren’t just gone and
forgotten.

Jeez, why in the heck do these people do
this reenacting business? Do they really show what war was all
about?

The drive down was long but scenic, if you
liked the open fields of Texas. The little towns that popped up
along the interstate took just mere seconds to go through, nothing
like the Dallas area. This was the way I’d always pictured the
state, with flat plains where longhorn cows grazed in meadows and
cowboys moved herds from one field to another. I guess a lot of us
Northeasterners thought that way about the Lone Star State. Heck,
it was probably the world that thought that, like it should be some
blast back to the times of cowboys, Indians, cattle drives and
shootouts. And Ft. Worth still had some of those attractions, for
entertainment purposes of course. I didn’t know they had
reenactments. Were any battles fought in Texas?

The temperature stayed cold even as we headed
further south. Mr. Peet still had the defroster going when we
reached the Madisonville exit, only stopping once to get a bite to
eat and stretch our legs. We rolled through the little town and
headed out towards the park area. There we pulled to the side of
the road to get out and register. The sun had already gone down, so
the only glimpses I got of the canvas tent city were by headlights
from cars entering the encampment. We approached a man sitting
underneath a modern day canopy with a heater blazing away. After
signing a waiver, paying the registration, and getting directions
to our camp, we made our way down the rock road for our
destination.

Even with the cold, people were out putting
up tents or loading them with the gear they needed to survive for
the weekend. When we pulled up, most of them group stopped what
they were doing to come and say hello or to even offer their
assistance in helping us get ready for a night in freezing
temperatures. Mike and Hunter were the first to appear, offering
their assistance as Hunter gave a big hug to Lizzy. Daniel and his
son Archer were next, but Jason never did show up.

“Alright Lizzy,” Mr. Peet said, placing a
head lamp on so that he could see, “if you would teach Hope the
adventures of putting up a wall tent, we will knock my A-frame out
real quick and then finish with yours, okay?”

“No problem. Follow me, Hope.”

We had already opened the back of the cargo
trailer and began to peep into its insides.
Man, I
had no idea so much stuff had to be brought out for this
hobby
. Didn’t the real Civil War people only carry around a
blanket and sleep under the stars? The Civil War of 2009 had
trailers, heaters, and big plastic containers, full of God knows
what. I guess it was good though, because I really didn’t want to
do the whole sleeping-under-the- stars thing, anyway. We began to
unload all of it, with Mr. Peet and Hunter grabbing the bigger
boxes marked “tents” and moving them into position.

I quickly found out that a wall tent was
named so because it was a tent with walls.
Duh.
Basically it
looked like a house that you would draw when you were about five
years old, without the chimney. Lizzy and I unwrapped it and stood
each side up on sticks while Hunter hammered in the ropes to keep
it from falling over. Finally, Mr. Peet and Daniel hoisted the
center pole to make it freestanding. The inside was impressively
big, at least for us two. We soon filled it with a couple of cots,
a cooler, and a large kerosene heater right in the middle. Once we
got it going, the cool air was whisked away and we soon felt warm
and toasty as we laid out our sleeping bags and arranged our
clothing for the next day. Lizzy looked over my dresses and gave me
glowing reviews on how pretty they were.

“You know you could’ve used mine again.”

“Yeah, I know. I just thought I should have
something of my own. You and Mr. Peet have just given me so much
already. I didn’t want to mooch off you anymore.”

“Oh, come off it, you’re no mooch.” She
looked out into the darkness between the two canvas sheets that
were our front doors. “Dad sure is going to miss his heater
tonight,” grinned Lizzy.

“He doesn’t have one? But, it’s like thirty
degrees out there.”

“He’ll be okay. This is what he calls
‘roughing it’ for a weekend. Besides, he’s got his sleeping bag and
enough coats and blankets to wrap up in that he will probably get
hot.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t mean to
take anyone’s heat, but sure I wasn’t about to give it up, either.
The wind had a bite to it that no one should’ve been out in, except
a bunch of crazy recreationists. I just didn’t want to recreate
pneumonia or a non-Civil War era disease like swine flu.

“So will Jason be at this event?” I asked
nonchalantly, hoping Lizzy didn’t catch on that my whole entire
weekend was based on her answer.

“Mmm, I don’t know. Sometimes he has to work
late at the hardware store, so he comes in early on Saturday
morning. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason.” I spread a blanket over my
sleeping bag, but the heater had already warmed the whole tent,
feeling that I should give it to Mr. Peet instead of having it for
myself.

“No, reason, huh? Yeah right.” I gave a
playful yet menacing glare at Lizzy as she gleamed right back at
me. “Have you started
Cold Mountain
yet?”

“Yeah. I’m most of the way through. Ida and
Ruby are rebuilding the farm and Inman has just killed three
Federal soldiers for stealing the hog of some poor farm woman.” I
paused for a moment, feeling hotter than I should have. “It doesn’t
end well, does it?” Lizzy gave me a look, but answered with a
question.

“Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s the Civil War. How many happy
stories came out of it? Everyone...dies.” My mind flashed to the
three caskets that sat at the front of the church, holding the
remains of my family.
God, why wasn’t it four?
If I could
have that question answered it would mean the world to me. Would it
have been that much more of a tragic loss? At least we would have
been together and in peace. People seeing our tombstones at the
cemetery would have read the date in which we all died and cringed,
wondering what horrible disaster had taken us. I bit hard against
my lip, trying my best to keep controlled. Lizzy got up from the
canvas floor and grabbed my hands, holding them steady and looking
into my eyes.

“Just read it, it’s a good book, and remember
that it’s fiction, okay? None of what happens in it is true.”

It had been a good book, but why did she have
to give it to me, knowing what I had been through? Why was I
foolish enough to read it? I took a deep breath and nodded, calming
down a little. After a moment, she let my hands go and patted my
arm. “Some of the worst tragedies have made some of the best
people.” I didn’t know if she was talking about Ida, Inman, or me.
She turned and walked toward the canvas door.

“Where are you going? It’s cold out
there.”

“Do all you Northerners bellyache all the
time?” she smirked as she sounded like her father, the strong
Southern heritage coming out to belittle me in the best of ways. I
couldn’t help but smile, pulling my modern coat tight around me and
following her out into the darkness. We found Mr. Peet and others
already bundled up in their stylish 1860s wool uniforms sitting
underneath a canvas canopy in front of a tent. They welcomed us
into their round table.

“What time is officer’s call in the morning?”
asked Mr. Peet.

“Well, you being the only officer here,
shouldn’t you know?” asked Daniel.

“Seven is what I heard,” said Mike.

“Da–” Mr. Peet looked up at me. “Oh, sorry,
Hope.”

“It’s nothing I haven’t heard while sitting
in your class.” A bit of laughter came up from the table and Lizzy
scolded her father and his teaching antics.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he apologized. “It
just slips out from time to time.” Then his glare fell upon me. “As
for you, snitch, I feel a pop quiz coming up on Monday: FYI.” The
conversation bounced around the table like a ping pong ball from
what needed to be done for the event, who was there, who wasn’t,
how everyone was doing, a few jokes, and finally everyone parting
ways to get some sleep. Lizzy and I turned the heater up high as we
packaged ourselves deep within our sleeping bags; another item I’m
a sure soldier did without.

The winds had calmed by morning as we awoke
to find that the dew had frozen to the grass, giving each fiber an
individual look until our shoes waded through them. Mr. Peet busied
himself with a small gas grill that he’d placed on his table,
cooking eggs on one side, bacon on the other.

“Ladies, grab a plate and have some
breakfast,” he ordered. As we ate, we saw other people in our camp
doing the same thing, either grilling or placing their food upon
the open fire that was at the center. All the tents were laid in
two lines facing each other, making a road down the middle of the
encampment. On the opposite side of our row stood the A-frames in
one long line, our side being the side for wall tents, besides Mr.
Peet. At the end of the A-frames stood a small tent barely three
feet tall.

“Who would sleep in that?” I asked, knowing I
sounded snippy.

“That’s Jason’s. He must have come in during
the night.”

He slept in that?
It had no front door
and there were only a few blankets on the ground.

Lizzy must’ve noticed my shocked expression.
“Yeah, he is more hardcore than the rest of us.”
Hardcore? That
doesn’t sound good.
She continued. “That just means he does a
better job of living like they would’ve back then. He doesn’t use
much modern day equipment through the weekend. If he freezes all
night and doesn’t get much sleep, it’s that much better, since the
average Civil War soldier would’ve too. But they used to sleep two
in those tents. Our tents would have been for colonels and
generals, not two girls.”

“Man, he takes it that serious?”

“We all do, mostly. Just most of us don’t
want to go
exactly
through what they did back then. Jason,
he’s of a different breed.”

We both looked off at the little primitive
tent barely big enough for one person much less two. I felt so
weak, knowing that I couldn’t have slept in the cold all night like
that. He had to have been shivering all night long rolling around
on the uncomfortable ground.
And men did this for four years, if
they survived that long?

As if he’d timed it perfectly, Jason passed
down the lane between the tents to his own, falling to his knees as
he began to go through his few possessions. Mr. Peet walked over
and offered him a bacon and egg tortilla, which he’d just pulled
off the grill.

“No, I’m good,” he answered, holding up a
hardened piece of cake bread, which he’d dipped into his cup to
soften before eating. Mr. Peet could only shrug and began eating
the food himself.

“I’m going off to officer’s call here in a
few minutes. Would you get everything going this morning, Sergeant,
with a roll call? Have them fall in here and get a head count. I’ll
just tell ‘em we have around twenty that will be on line
today.”

“Sounds good, Captain.” Jason stood quickly
and gave a pointed salute, which now Captain Peet returned. Coming
over to us, he explained the same thing, telling me to keep an eye
on Lizzy and for her not to get me into any trouble. Finally, he
shut down the grill, put it away in some old wooden box, and headed
off to officer’s call.

“Well, you want to get dressed?” asked Lizzy,
already up off her canvas stool and headed back into the tent.
Putting on my dress seemed sort of strange, knowing that all around
me were men from God knows where and that my only cover came from a
thin piece of canvas. Still, as we walked out into the open wearing
our camp dresses; others said how pretty we looked in our 1860s
garments. We watched and listened as Jason made the rounds, calling
“Fall In” as he went, whatever that meant. The men in the unit did
so, forming two thin lines one behind each other in the middle of
the road. He went on to tell them about cleaning their rifles,
being ready for drill by ten o’clock, and that the battle was going
to be at two that afternoon. By that time, Captain Peet strolled
back into camp.

“So what’s the story at officer’s call?”
someone asked. “What color are we going to be this time?”

“Gentlemen, we are going to honor the North
today as the 2
^nd
Illinois Infantry.” You could hear a
slight, but noticeable grumble come up from the ranks. “I know, I
know. We haven’t gotten to go gray in a while. I guess you can call
us the Con-Federals since we galvanize so often. But hey, someone’s
got to do it down here, and as long as we get into a heck of a
fight, why not us, right?” The little pep talk seemed to work on
the men as a few more items on the day’s agenda were discussed
before the group was let loose on their own.

The time before the battle was pretty relaxed
with men getting ready by loading rounds into little tubes of
paper, cleaning their weapons, or drilling, with Jason leading the
unit out into the field to do. Lizzy and I watched from a distance
as the group moved ever so slightly into different positions. She
explained how they would only make up a small portion of the Union
army and would be joined by other infantry regiments in long lines,
two men deep. Then she took me up the road to the sutlers, who had
sat up in large tents to sell their reenacting equipment to all
those interested. The hobby wasn’t cheap, and I could see how
someone could spend a few hundred dollars in a short period of
time. What I really couldn’t believe was that people actually made
a living selling these items: the thought shouldn’t have been that
abrasive to me since I’d shelled out three hundred bucks for my
clothes. Needless to say, neither of us bought anything.