Boys of Wartime: Will at the Battle of Gettysburg Page 5

  Then I remembered how it felt to have a musket pointed at my head. Would I be brave enough to fight? What if I had to point my musket at Abel, or a boy like him?

  Someone said we should run to Seminary Ridge to get a look at the fighting. I wondered if I should go home to Mother and the girls, but I wanted to see the battle, too. I promised myself I would only stay a few minutes. No doubt our men would take care of the Rebs in no time.

  The ridge was full of men and boys waiting to see the Rebels get a fair drumming from our side. I climbed a tall oak tree in back of the Seminary building. I could see all the action. There were a lot more Rebs than Union men. They had their cannons lined up on Herr’s Ridge, ready to fire. The Union cavalry had dismounted and made a line of battle facing them on McPherson’s Ridge.

  The Rebs advanced, coming nearer, but the Union men made them fight for every inch. Then the Rebel cannons opened fire. Dragons with fiery breath roared and sent shells flying. The air was full of smoke and the smell of saltpeter.

  I was sure we were far enough away, but then some of those Rebel shells missed their mark and flew in our direction. One sailed through the air. It sounded like it was coming right at me.

  “Watch out!” someone yelled.

  I curled my body into a ball and gripped my branch. The sounds of the battle disappeared, and all I heard was the shell whistle as it flew over my head. Limbs cracked. Leaves and branches fell to the ground. Behind me there was a loud thud as the shell hit the earth, followed by an explosion.

  I opened my eyes, stunned to be alive. Then I climbed out of that tree so fast I’m not sure I didn’t sprout wings and fly. There was a deep gouge in the earth, like a grave. I swallowed hard, thinking that my dead body might have been lying there along with the shell.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself and then joined the stampede toward town.

  The part of town nearest the battle was all chaos and confusion. People ran here and there, yelling that the town would be shelled. Some had already packed their things and were heading south, away from the fighting. Others went about their daily business with an air of determination. I saw Mr. Broadhead picking beans in his garden.

  “Not going to leave any for the Rebels,” he said.

  I ran down West Middle Street toward Baltimore. Daniel Skelley and some others were on the observatory deck on top of the Fahnestock Brothers store. I thought I should go home to comfort Mother and the girls, but I decided to take one last look at the battle first.

  The Union line had been pushed farther back. I worried the Rebs were winning, but Daniel pointed to the Union soldiers moving over the fields from the Emmitsburg Road in front of Dr. Schmucker’s, under cover of Seminary Ridge.

  “There’s the infantry!” he shouted. “They’ll get them!”

  I was about to go home when a Union general and his staff rode down Baltimore Street from the south. It was only then that I realized how mixed up this battle was. The Rebels were coming at us from the north of town, and the Union soldiers from the south.

  The general stopped at the Courthouse and looked up at the belfry. We thought he would get a better view of the battlefield from our observation deck, so I ran down to the street.

  “There’s a clear view from the roof, sir,” I said. “We can see all the fighting.”

  “Lead the way,” he said.

  “It started around eight o’clock this morning,” I told him, leading him and a few aides up to the Fahnestock Brothers’ third story. We went through the trapdoor and onto the roof. “At first it was just the cavalry on our side, but the infantry joined the fight about an hour ago. There are a lot of Rebs out there, but I know you’ll beat them.”

  The general greeted everyone with a nod but said nothing more. He used field glasses to watch the battle and survey the land around town. I stood at the ready, hoping he would have more questions for me.

  Seeing things through a stranger’s eyes sure can change your view. I saw that our Diamond was in the center of everything. There were roads all around town like spokes on a wheel, and every single one of them headed straight for the center of Gettysburg. No wonder both armies found us.

  The general pointed out Cemetery Hill to his aides. It was back where they had come from. Was he already planning a retreat? I had no time to ask the question. A scout pounded down West Middle Street at full gallop, shouting for General Howard.

  The general with us called out that he was Howard.

  “General Reynolds is dead,” the scout yelled. “You are wanted on the battlefield immediately.”

  I thought about Abel’s simple words. “Dead. Shiloh.”

  Did General Reynolds have children? Would they have to say, “Dead. Gettysburg,” when someone asked about their father?

  All of sudden I was glad my father wasn’t a soldier, but safe in an army hospital treating the injured. I was glad Jacob was a prisoner and not in the middle of a battle.

  General Howard gave instructions to one of his aides to ride back and hurry the rest of the infantry along, leaving some men behind to occupy and fortify Cemetery Hill. Then, in an instant, he was galloping toward the fighting.

  About ten thirty, more infantry soldiers marched down Washington Street, heading for the battle. I had forgotten all about going home. Instead I perched on the plank fence around Mrs. Eyster’s Young Ladies Seminary to cheer them on.

  Their uniforms were the thickest kind of wool. Most men had wool blankets and knapsacks belted to their backs. Cartridge boxes and canteens hung over their shoulders. They had been caught in the rain and dripped water and sweat in the hot July weather.

  They marched on the double-quick through rows of townspeople handing them cake and bread with apple butter and water. The men would grab a tin cup, drink, and fling it back as they ran.

  They didn’t have the easy confidence of the cavalry from the day before. These men were headed into battle. We could hear the shells thundering, the muskets popping. Some of these men would die today. They knew it. Now I did, too.

  Officers urged the people to stop feeding them—we were slowing the soldiers down—but no one wanted to send them into battle without food and water and shouts of encouragement. It was the only thing we could do.

  A military band had set up on the Diamond to play “The Star-Spangled Banner” and other patriotic airs. There was a chorus of bullets and shells behind them. Wounded men limped through the streets. I saw one Union soldier cleaning his hand in a horse trough. A bullet had gone clean through his flesh.

  “There are enough soldiers here to whip all the Rebs in the South,” Albertus McCreary yelled.

  My stomach was beginning to fill with dread, but I pretended to share his excitement. “I bet the war ends today,” I said. “And we’ll win it!”

  I saw a column of Confederates being marched through town under a Union guard. Prisoners! I thought the Union must be winning. Abel’s face flashed across my mind for a moment, and then I shook him off. The Union and Abel couldn’t both win this battle, and I was for the Union. Abel would have to lose with the rest of the Rebels.

  I cheered and cheered until my voice was hoarse and my throat sore. I realized I had better head on home and make sure Mother was all right.

  Grace and I reached the kitchen door at the same time. She carried an empty basket.

  “I hope you gave those soldiers nourishment instead of nosegays,” I told her.

  She grabbed my ear and dragged me into the kitchen. “You’ve had Mother worried sick,” she said.

  I shrugged her off. What did she know? “I was helping a general,” I told her. “A Union general,” I said again, waiting for a reaction.

  She ignored me. Only set down her basket and walked into the parlor.

  I followed her.

  Mother was talking with Mrs. Shriver and Tillie Pierce. The noise from exploding shells had grown considerably now that the infantry was in the fight. The twins jumped with each boom. China clattered in the cabinet. Jacob’s p
icture fell from the wall, and the glass in the frame shattered.

  Mother went white. The twins clung to her and started to cry. Grace’s lips trembled.

  “Don’t you see?” Mrs. Shriver said, wringing her hands. “If we don’t leave here, we’ll all be killed.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  A Family Separated

  Wednesday afternoon, July 1, 1863

  Mother picked up the frame and slipped it into her apron. “I don’t believe the Union will let them take the town,” she said.

  “The children, then,” Mrs. Shriver said. “Let me take them with me.”

  “Take them where?” Grace asked.

  “Mrs. Shriver is taking her children to her parents’ farm until the battle is over,” Mother said calmly. “Tillie is going with them.”

  I knew the Weikert farm. It was about three miles away, out by the hills called the Round Tops. We picnicked there sometimes in the summer, and cooled ourselves in Rock Creek nearby. It was far from the fighting.

  Was Mother going to send us away? Already Father and Jacob were far from home; would Mother further divide us? Stay here by herself with a battle waging outside? I couldn’t let her.

  “I’m not going,” I said. “I’ll stay with you. Send the girls away.”

  Mother eyed me steadily for a moment, and then turned to Grace. “I want you to take the twins and go with Mrs. Shriver,” Mother said. “You’ll be safer there.”

  Grace started to object, but Mother shushed her. “It will give me peace of mind to know that you’re away from all this.”

  I steeled myself for a battle of my own.

  Mother surprised me. “Will can stay here with me. I’d appreciate the company.”

  I pushed my shoulders back and stood tall, proud to be singled out to stay. I told myself that Grace had to leave town just when things were getting exciting. That I wanted to be in the middle of all the action.

  After a short whispered exchange with Tillie, Grace ran upstairs. She clattered back down with her best dress in her arms.

  “What in the world?” I blurted. Where did she think she was going, to a church social?

  Grace ignored me. She went out front and opened the cellar doors. A minute later, she came back empty-handed. “I’ll not have my best things ruined,” she said.

  “I’ll see you for supper tonight, or in time for breakfast tomorrow. This battle will be over before we know it,” Mother told the twins, giving them a hug. “You mind Grace.”

  Sally and Jane Ann held hands and sniffled a bit, but they seemed to enjoy the idea of an adventure. It helped that they adored Tillie, the prettiest girl in town, and often played with the Shriver children.

  Mother and I stood on the doorstep and watched them go. First Jacob, then Father, and now Grace and the twins.

  I squeezed Mother’s hand. “They’ll be back before I even have a chance to miss them,” I told her. “And Grace will be bossier than ever.”

  Mother started to reply, then gasped and gripped my arm. I turned my head in the direction of her stare. A wagon pulled up in front of the Courthouse. What appeared to be a dead man lay in the back. There were a few wounded soldiers with him. Those who could walk helped the others inside.

  “Go with the girls, Will,” Mother said.

  Part of me wanted to run after them as fast as I could, to get away from these dead and wounded men. But I couldn’t leave Mother there alone. “You just said I could stay!”

  “Walk with them as far as the cemetery,” she said. “Then I’ll know that they’re safely away.”

  I had to make sure that this wasn’t part of a secret plan between Mother and Grace. That Grace wouldn’t force me to stay with her once I was out of town.

  “I’m coming back,” I said firmly.

  Mother nodded. “I’ll be in the Courthouse,” she said. “Those men will need nurses. Let me know that the girls are safe, and that you are, too.”

  Mother and I left the house together. She turned in the direction of the Courthouse to help the wounded. I went the other way.

  I caught up with Mrs. Shriver and the others quickly. My plan was to take my leave of them when we reached the cemetery. But Cemetery Hill was full of Union soldiers preparing their cannon to fire, and I thought I’d best see them farther along.

  “Get yourself into a cellar,” one of the soldiers told us. “You’re in danger!”

  Grace tried to talk Mrs. Shriver into stopping at the cemetery’s gatehouse and taking refuge there, but Mrs. Shriver flat out refused. She was determined to make it to her parents’ farm.

  We could see the battle on Seminary Ridge. Shells burst in the air and on land. Whenever the smoke lifted we saw soldiers running all around and the smaller puffs of rifle fire. The noise was loud enough to set my ears to ringing.

  Taneytown Road was full of Union soldiers heading for the fight. I could not see the end of the line in either direction.

  Between the morning’s rain and the tramping of thousands and thousands of boots, the road had turned into a thick muck up to our ankles. The twins could not walk in it. Grace and I each lifted one onto our backs and struggled forward while Tillie and Mrs. Shriver helped her two young ones.

  An ambulance wagon passed. Sally hid her face in my shoulder so as not to see the man in the back. Grace’s eyes were fixed in front of her. Jane Ann stared, her mouth a perfect O of surprise.

  The man wore a crimson rose on his blue coat. It wasn’t a flower. It was blood. I stared right into his eyes, waiting for them to blink. They did not. He was dead.

  Grace stumbled to her knees, exhausted. We only had gone halfway. Mrs. Shriver and Tillie looked as worn out as I felt. The young ones were utterly done in. Too done in to make it all the way to the Weikert farm. But going back would take just as long as going forward. I did not know what to do.

  I spotted a farmhouse just ahead. “Let’s stop there for a rest,” I said. I wished the whole group of them would stay there until the battle was over, but I didn’t think Mrs. Shriver would be willing.

  “The Leisters’,” Mrs. Shriver said. “Yes, let’s stop for some water.”

  The soldiers had drunk the well dry. The people of the house had fled, and a Union general was using it as his headquarters. The place was full of soldiers, some of them wounded.

  I explained our predicament to one of the general’s aides. “I have to get these women and children about a mile and a half down the Taneytown Road. Can you help us?”

  To my great relief, he agreed to try. We waited under the shade of a sycamore tree while he saw what he could do.

  He waved us to the front of the house a few minutes later. We struggled through the mud to reach him. Grace stepped right out of one of her shoes, and I had to dig it out of the muck for her.

  “I’ve found a wagon,” the soldier said when we finally reached him. “This farmer has agreed to take you the rest of the way.”

  Grace eyed the wagon with concern. It was already quite full of household goods, and the driver was in a hurry to get himself and his wife away from the battle as quickly as possible. Mrs. Shriver and the girls had to crush themselves between the family’s treasures. The wheels sunk up to their hubs once they settled. It would take a long time to reach their destination.

  Sally wailed as they drove off. “Will! I want Will!”

  I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I knew she would forget all about me in a minute, but still it pained me to hear the fear and sadness in her cry. She and Jane Ann did not understand. Each day they looked for Father to come home, no matter how many times we told them he would be away for some time. They didn’t remember Jacob at all. They were just three when he left.

  I watched as they drove off, listening to Sally’s cries. I don’t know why I could hear her above the sounds of battle. Or maybe I just imagined that I could.

  More and more soldiers tramped toward them and me. When they came to the wagon they parted around it and then closed up again, like water aroun
d a rock in a river.

  I stood there for a long time, telling myself that I could still see the wagon. But I couldn’t really. I finally turned and headed back toward town. I took to the fields as much as possible to avoid the mud, and my way home was a great deal quicker without the children.

  When I reached the edge of town, artillery caissons and wagons were coming at me at the gallop. A trickle of Union men ran behind them. At the top of Baltimore Street hill I could see even more men running, some of them throwing off their guns and their knapsacks as they ran to lighten their load. Others carried wounded on their backs.

  An officer galloped past, shouting, “Women and children to the cellars. The Rebels will shell the town!”

  I grabbed a man’s arm. “You’re retreating?” I asked him.

  “Simply changing fronts,” he said.

  The wild mob that ran toward me was not changing fronts. They were retreating, leaving us in the hands of the enemy.

  I screamed at them to stop. No one heard. No one cared. A man tried to scale a fence into the alley and then gave up. He shoved his way into the throng on the street again. For a moment, I saw his eyes. They were desperate, wild. What had they seen that he would act so?

  What was going to happen to Mother? To me?

  The officer wheeled his horse around and shouted again, loud enough for everyone to hear. “All you good people, go down into your cellars or you will be killed.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “To your cellar!”

  Iexpected to find Mother at the Courthouse, but she had already returned home. She was on the doorstep, giving water to the retreating men. I nodded to let her know that the girls were safe. Her eyes filled with tears and she nodded back. There was too much uproar around us to talk.

  I was glad about that. What was there to say? Our men were retreating. Running.

  It was better not to think about it, to concentrate on small tasks like making my way to Mother, dipping a cup into the bucket.