The Sentinels of Andersonville (5 page)

A
DIRT ROAD
cut through a stand of pines and led east from the sandy bank of the depot. Two hundred and twelve weary men moved slowly through double lines of guards. Most were captured in the hard fighting northeast of Atlanta, where Sherman ground his way south, inch by bloody inch; some were transferred from other prisons close to the fighting, where Confederate authorities feared to be overrun by wild, vengeful Yankees come to set their captives free.

The men were from all over the Union. Most were native-born Americans; others were immigrants
 
—German, Irish, Italian, French, Polish. There were a few Indians, one from a tribe in Minnesota and one from Kansas, and two black men from the 54th Massachusetts Colored Division. There were hapless sailing men from the Dutch Indies who had taken their chances supplying blockaders and gotten caught in the cross fire, arrested because they might be Union spies. There were a few Marines, some sailors. Most were army regulars, and most of those were veteran volunteers. Some were pressed, and some were bounty scags, men who would sign up in one county to
collect an enlistment dole, then head for another county and do the same. The men represented every character and position in society, except those in the echelons of the rich; that sort could hire substitutes to do their fighting for them.

They were mostly farmers. They were blacksmiths and shoemakers, hatters and coopers, shopkeepers, sheriffs, and barbers. They were teachers, lawyers, printers, and daguerreotypists; groomsmen, carpenters, barkeeps. Most were young, and of those, the average age was twenty-one. The oldest in this group was forty-seven, a brawny blacksmith from Iowa.

A man of smallish build rode alongside the men on a gray mare. He wore a gray cap and a short gray coat. His hair, beard, and eyes were black. He was from Switzerland, and had immigrated in 1849. His name was Captain Henry Wirz.

“Pye Gott, if you tam Yankees don’t tay in dem ranks
 
—no rations!” He swung his revolver about in a menacing fashion. “Tay in dem ranks, you no good . . .” and off he went in a flourish of profanity.

A few looks of mild surprise went his way, and a few veteran campaigners shook their heads; they were quick to sum up different sorts of leadership, and this ranting captain who had nothing to rant about
 
—who would fall out of rank while sandwiched between armed guards?
 
—would likely shake down to be the punitive, nit-piddly sort, the kind to set you on edge for future or imagined offenses just because he could. Some men could lead with few words, and others couldn’t lead with many.

Lew Gann had seen his type on both sides of the line. A man like that in a position of power was unpleasant at best, and dangerous at worst.

“You dere!” Wirz roared, and spurred the gray mare ahead.

“Welcome to Andersonville,” Emery quipped. He walked
alongside Lew in a line of guards. “I’d stay on that fellow’s good side, if I were you.”

“He don’t have a good side,” the guard ahead of Emery said over his shoulder.

“Who, Wirz?” snorted the guard behind. “I’ll see his good side on a cool day in hell. Which, sad to say, is where you boys is headed.”

“Don’t drink the water,” the guard in front advised. “Not from the stream. Only as a last resort, and only on the west side where it flows into the stockade.”

“He’s comin’ back, Drover.”

“Head for high ground
 
—it’s better there. Do
not
go for the water under the deadline. Ain’t worth the risk. Stay out of the
 
—”

“Drover.”

“God be with ya, boys.”

Lew and Emery exchanged a glance.

“What is that smell?” a man next to Lew asked. “Judas! Smells like an open sewer in New York City.”

The guards were silent. Wirz trotted up.

 
—

Violet waited until most of the men had gone through the pines and then followed. She was careful to keep a good distance between herself and the end of the line. No one noticed her.

Where was the hospital located? Was it inside the stockade?

“Hello, Papa! Why, I happened to be in Andersonville, picking up my seashells, and . . . and you will kill me where I stand.” Maybe she could tell the truth. “The truth is, I wanted to see where you work. You said we couldn’t go near the prison, but you didn’t say anything about the hospital
 
—and you will still kill me dead.”

Papa, I want to know why you look the way you do. I want to know why you and Mother have hushed conversations that end with
Mother angry or crying. I want to know why the guards aren’t supposed to talk to us about their jobs. I want to know why the light has gone out of your eyes.

I’m not a child anymore. I lost a fiancé in this horrible war, and that earns me something. I want you to talk to me, and not like the other girls. I want to know why you should be more careful, why that man was afraid for you, and why I am now, too.

The last Yankee prisoner walking in the tramped-up dust of two hundred men glanced over his shoulder, then looked again at Violet. She smiled and gave a little wave. He did not wave back.

She frowned. Perhaps he didn’t deserve the smile and wave. So much for her attempt to be kind on behalf of the one good Yankee named Lew. She’d tried to spy the good one in line, but she had only seen his back when he and Emery Jones left to be counted into groups; other than a limp, she wasn’t sure she’d know him.

“You tay in dem ranks, you no-good dirty . . .” and from this far back Violet heard such a violent outpour of cursing, her steps slowed in shock. Half those words she’d never heard. Half she had, but never in this profusion.

It was that Captain Wirz. She had stood around the corner of the commissary building when the men were counted into groups of ninety. He then selected a sergeant out of each group to take charge of that group for roll call and rations
 
—and all the while, through the counting, the instructions, the choosing of the sergeants, came a constant flow of vitriolic words. Even the Yankees, who were likely well acquainted with and perhaps even the inventors of such profanity, seemed surprised.

On behalf of the hosting nation, she was piqued with Wirz. He ought to show a better example of Southern graciousness than that. These aggressors needed to know what sort of decent folk they had trespassed upon. Once they found out, they might repent and go
back home. What a thought! And then things could go back to when they were lovely and normal.

The one good Yankee she had seen gave her hope. It was the first real hope she’d felt in a long time, and wasn’t it strange to come from such an unexpected source. She realized at this moment how downtrodden her spirits had been. When Papa was unhappy, she was unhappy.

She put her hand to her nose. What an
awful
stench! Was it like this every day? And Dance had to put up with it?

 
—

Dance jumped down from the ladder and lost sight of Violet. He couldn’t see past the slowly moving group of men. They were now crossing the footbridge over Stockade Branch, and when the dirt road came to a T, the group would swing to their left.

Many people came and went around the stockade. Violet would not get much notice unless she came right up to the north gate. It was heavily guarded with double doors, and she’d not get in. From there the prisoners entered a holding pen, and once they were all inside, the north gate door would lock and the final entrance to the stockade would open. It wasn’t the north gate that worried him.

On her right, when the road came to the T, she’d see the dead house, with the dead being loaded even now, and past it she’d see the sick, waiting in groups outside the south gate for an opening at the hospital. The dead and the sick were two things Violet Stiles must not see, for then she would see Andersonville, and Dance would lose her.

He started for the oncoming men with long strides. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t risk the attention.

Violet, why? Why now?

Volume Eight came before his eyes, and he knew it was his fault.

“You remain a mystery to me, Mr. Pickett,” Violet had said at the dinner table. “A man of your education, your family? You could have gotten an early post to any regiment you chose, especially if your father is friends with the governor. Everyone knows Joe Brown is loyal to his friends. Yet you are content to serve guard duty when I know you have it in you for something more. You have no desire to distinguish yourself for the Cause. I find it selfish.”

“I am far more than selfish, Miss Stiles: I am an infidel. I don’t believe in the Cause.”

“Oh, I suppose that puts you in fashion. Is that a university sentiment?”

“It is a Dance Weld Pickett sentiment.”

“What good is all that learning if you don’t have a patriotic bone in your body? Are you not a Southerner? Are you not a Georgian?”

“I’ll tell you what I do believe: This war has rescued you and your kind from boredom.”

“Me and my kind. What is your meaning, Mr. Pickett?”

“You’d be lost without your little knitting brigades. Your letter-writing campaigns. All for the Cause. All for our boys. You and your kind sicken me.”

“
You
sicken
m
e
!”

“Why, Miss Stiles. Such lovely color in those cheeks. Temper does you proud.”

“Why do you
 
—? All I want to do is help! All I want to do is my duty!”

“I’ve seen your sort of duty.”

And this is when Dance should have stopped. But he kept on, because he was angry, because Violet was so willfully blind just like everyone else. He could not bear the thought that maybe she really was just like everyone else.

“I saw women just like you visit their ‘duty’ upon wounded
soldiers in Richmond.” His tone went mocking and girlish. “‘Gracious, Mary, look at this disgusting wound
 
—oh, the horrid smell!’ ‘Oh, look at that one, Emma! He’ll lose his leg for sure! Who will marry him then?’ And that boy had to lie there and take what was visited upon him
 
—determined charity from genteel women who wouldn’t
touch
him with gloves on! They did nothing real! Nothing that mattered! They went just so they could say to their friends, ‘I did my duty. I visited the sick, like visiting Jesus himself. Pin me a badge, right here!’ Yes, you sicken me with your ‘duty.’ All of Americus sickens me. Such a fine sermon that preacher gave this morning, don’t you think? On the Good Samaritan? Everyone amening the man? What a joke. The Good Samaritan. Of all things he should choose to preach on. Never saw such a collection of hypocrites in my life. Americus is one great
cesspool
of hypocrisy!” He banged the table. “
Maybe
I’d change my mind if even
one
of them
 
—”

He saw Posey’s face first. He saw Mrs. Stiles next, whose eyes were lowered. Dr. Stiles, whose face had gone stiff. The entire table had gone silent.

He noticed the empty decanter. It had only musty sediment left at the bottom.

“Mercy. Why . . . I’ve gone and had three glassfuls.”

“Four,” Posey said, her voice small.

Next to Mrs. Stiles sat the preacher’s wife. And on the other side of Dr. Stiles was the preacher. He never dreamed anyone would hear the conversation at the other end of the table, not above cutlery and chatter and children.

He didn’t care about the preacher or his wife. He didn’t care about anyone in that room more than he cared about Dr. Stiles. Not a trace of reproach in that face. Just heaviness.

A flush of shame swept over him.

“Sir . . .”

“What is wrong with Americus, Dance?” Posey asked, stricken.

“Nothing, Posey. Sir, I’m
 
—”

“I like Americus right fine. Don’t you?”

He couldn’t lie to Posey, not looking in her eyes.

“No, little girl. Mostly I don’t. Most of it is uglier than . . . the worst things I’ve seen. But this part of Americus, right here where I’m at
 
—this is the best part. Do you know how much I love coming here? Do you know I wait for it all week long, and start waiting the minute I leave that door? It is the best place on earth, Posey girl. Best place I’ve ever been.”

Posey slid off her chair and crept into Dance’s lap.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and rested her chin on his shoulder. He froze.

“Have you had a bad week, Dance?” she asked softly.

All the air went out of him.

The faces came before him. They were before him every waking moment, and never left his dreams.

He prayed to God not to do something exceedingly stupid.

He whispered, “Pretty bad, Posey girl,” then gently lifted her off his lap and into Violet’s, folded his napkin, and left.

The next time he showed up at the Stiles house for Sunday dinner, it was long over, and he was stone drunk.

She was here because of him. He had provoked her. He had dropped hints all along because he wanted her to know. He wanted her to see. What was in him that wanted her to see and to know
this
? How perverse! How cruel and mean and past the worst thing he’d done because the truth was, he was getting back at her. Getting back at all of Americus. He wanted her to come and see so she would be as helpless as he, so she would meet her match and be brought down, and he had wanted to see her face when it happened.

Dr. Stiles would not have fought so hard to protect her unless he was right about her, and Dance was wrong.

He had to get to her before she saw. He couldn’t run. He ran.

 
—

The dead house was made of pine boughs, and gave dead men more shelter outside the stockade than the living had inside.

Every morning, anyone detailed for dead duty carried out corpses by stretcher from the stockade or from the hospital and took them to the dead house. They piled the bodies into the pine-bough structure until there was no more room, and then they piled them outside. There the bodies would wait until the wagon came to move them out, sometimes not until the next morning. When the wagon came, the dead-duty men loaded it up, and when it was full, a full load being twenty or so, off it went to be met by the boys on burial detail in the graveyard for Federal prisoners, a good spell north of the stockade.