Boys of Wartime: Will at the Battle of Gettysburg Page 6

  Even so, I couldn’t help but see exhausted soldiers drop out of the rushing throng, slip into alleys and yards and houses. Their clothes and skin were black with dirt and gunpowder. Streams of sweat poured down their faces. Many were wounded.

  The Union forces were in complete disorder, running helter-skelter. There were more men on Baltimore Street than I had ever seen. I could have stepped my way across the street on their heads without ever touching ground. A couple of them ran into our side yard, only to find a dead end at our fence. They ran out again and pushed their way back into the blue wave that surged past.

  The men grabbed for the water and urged us to safety at the same time. “To your cellar!”

  I looked up and saw soldiers in gray about a half block away. They struggled in hand-to-hand fighting with some of our men.

  “We’ve got to go,” I said, grabbing mother’s arm. I fought to appear calm, but my hands were shaking as I struggled to open the cellar door.

  Mother left the water bucket and helped me. A wounded man limped in behind us and pulled the doors closed. He dropped to his knees on the dirt floor, panting. One of his arms was covered in blood.

  My heart raced. I stood on my toes to peer out the cellar window while Mother tried to help him. We had no water to give him, or bandages for his wounds. There was fighting all around the house, but mostly blue legs still.

  A cannon suddenly stopped on the street right in front of me. The Union men fired down Baltimore Street toward the Diamond, trying to stop the Confederate advance. The noise and the dust were terrific, but one artillery shell couldn’t hold off the whole Rebel army. In a few minutes, gray uniforms outnumbered the blue ones around our house.

  “Shoot that man going over the fence!” one of them yelled.

  There was a loud bang and then a scream.

  “Got ’em!”

  I closed my eyes and slumped against the wall, swallowing hard to hold the contents of my stomach down. This was not the battle of my daydreams. I had not imagined the sharp, hot smell of blood mixed with saltpeter. I had not imagined men running, scared. I had not imagined joy in the killing. The words “Got ’em” echoed in my ears.

  I had not imagined the fear, sharp and metallic in my mouth.

  Things quieted down and I peered out the window again. There was no blue anymore. Only gray.

  Seconds later, a Southern voice warned his comrades not to drink the “wawtah” we had left for the soldiers in front of our house.

  “Bet it’s poisoned,” he said. “Wouldn’t be a bit surprised if these Yankee devils poisoned their wells, too.”

  Mother pursed her lips at the thought. “No Gettysburg woman would do such a thing,” she muttered.

  Her calmness amazed me. “Will they kill us?” I asked the Union soldier.

  He shook his head with a groan. “But they will me. Where can I hide?”

  We quickly pulled some barrels into the corner, leaving just enough room for him to crouch behind them. He handed Mother a diary and asked her to keep it for him.

  “My name and address are on the flyleaf,” he told her. “Please send it to my wife, if—”

  The cellar doors burst opened. Mother slipped the diary into her apron’s pocket. I dropped an empty crate on top of the Union man. Three Confederates stomped down the stairs.

  “Any Yankees down here?” the first one asked.

  Mother pushed me behind her. “My son and I are both Yankees,” she told him.

  “I mean soldiers,” he spat. His gun was trained on us.

  We both shook our heads no. I held my breath. What if they looked behind us? Would all three of us be shot?

  Then I saw it. There was blood on the floor. A bright red stain only just beginning to seep into the dirt. I tried not to look at it, sure that I would draw it to the Rebels’ attention. Only I couldn’t control my eyes. They kept flicking to the stain, and away again.

  Two of the Rebels walked around the cellar, poking into barrels. One of them stabbed his bayonet into the ash barrel. He found our hidden ham.

  “You won’t mind if we search upstairs,” the first one said.

  It wasn’t a question. It was an order.

  “Of course not,” Mother said. “Let’s all go upstairs. I can cook some of that ham for you.” She took the first soldier by the arm and led him toward the stairs like he was the preacher come for Sunday dinner.

  The other two followed, grabbing all the canned goods they could carry. I brought up the rear.

  “My son can probably scare up some beans from the garden if they haven’t been trampled. And I have some potatoes in the kitchen,” Mother said.

  The idea of home-cooked food must have distracted them. They followed her up to the street without searching the cellar. The wounded soldier remained safely hidden. They never saw the blood on the floor.

  Upstairs, we found two Union men hiding in the kitchen. One Reb stayed behind to guard them while the others searched the bedrooms. I followed. They found two more Union men under the beds. And then one in the garret.

  The Rebels took their weapons and marched their prisoners downstairs into the kitchen. One had been shot in the arm.

  “I thought you said there were no Yankee soldiers here,” the Rebel in charge said suspiciously.

  Mother’s eyes widened. “They must have come into the house while we were in the cellar. I had no knowledge of them.”

  “Well, they’re prisoners now,” the Reb told her. He picked up the ham. “We’ll be getting them out of your way.”

  “Surely you can all have a meal first,” Mother said.

  The next thing I knew, five Union prisoners and three Rebel guards were sitting around our table trading stories and jokes while Mother peeled potatoes. With Abel it had been hard enough, but this I didn’t understand at all. They had been shooting each other just ten minutes before. Now they acted like old friends.

  “Will, go outside and get me another bucket of water from the well,” Mother said. “And see if there are any beans worth picking.”

  I did as I was told. At some point the fighting ended and a strange quiet settled over the town. I couldn’t imagine the battle was over for good. If General Howard was true to his words of this morning, then the Union army would be setting themselves up on Cemetery Hill just outside of town. The two armies were only taking a breather, and Gettysburg was trapped right in the middle of them.

  The Rebels tore down fences and built barricades in the street, but for now there was no more shooting, no more cannon fire.

  At least Grace and the twins were safe, I thought. If Father were here, he would be treating the wounded. Jacob would do whatever he could to make sure Mother was unharmed. I had to try to do the same.

  I found enough beans to fill a small bowl. Then I set about getting the water.

  That’s when I heard a noise that didn’t fit in with the other sounds around me. I stood still for a minute, listening. It seemed to come from the carriage house. I opened the door and let my eyes adjust to the dark.

  A Union soldier crouched behind Father’s carriage, holding his side. “Help me,” he said.

  I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching. “Are you wounded?” I whispered.

  “Just a scratch,” he answered. “I have to get back to the Union lines.”

  Our house, our street, our whole town was in Confederate hands. “We’re surrounded,” I whispered. “The house is full of Rebs, so is the street.”

  “I have urgent communications for General Meade,” the soldier said.

  I was too stunned to answer. General Meade—he was the one in charge of the whole dang Union army! Took over for Fighting Joe Hooker just a few days ago. I read it in the newspaper.

  “I must get to General Meade,” he said again.

  “The Rebs have the town,” I said. “The Union retreated.”

  “There has to be a way to get across the lines,” he said.

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “I do
n’t know how.”

  He wouldn’t take no for an answer. “After dark,” he said. “Help me. Or go in my place.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A Risky Plan

  Wednesday evening, July 1, 1863

  Go in his place? The words were still hanging in the air when I heard Mother call out to me.

  “Will, I need that water,” she said.

  I jumped, hitting my head on the doorway of the carriage house. “Coming!” I said. I turned back to the soldier. “I’ll come back,” I told him. “I’ll try to bring you some food.”

  “I don’t need food,” he said in a harsh whisper. “I need to get to General Meade!”

  With each step back to the house, I expected to be shot. I set down the bucket in the kitchen with shaking hands. Mother cupped my chin and looked into my eyes. I gave my head a small shake so she would know not to ask.

  “Will,” she said brightly, “why don’t you take down the names and addresses of these men so we can let their families know that they are alive and well, even though they are prisoners.”

  It was a Southern lady who had written to us of Jacob. His captain only knew that he was missing. I was grateful to do the same service for other Union men.

  I wasn’t grateful to be entertaining Rebels. These fellows weren’t anything like Abel. They were in high spirits over the day’s victory and seemed to take delight in taunting us.

  “How do you like this way of our coming back into the Union?” one of them asked Mother.

  “I’d rather your return was peaceful,” she answered calmly.

  “Your Mr. Lincoln wouldn’t let us leave the Union in peace,” he said. “So we’ve come back in war. It was the North that started this struggle, not the South.”

  One of the Union men, Adam Schurz from Wisconsin, began to argue about who had really started the war, but I couldn’t listen. How would I get the soldier in the carriage house across enemy lines?

  I turned the problem over and over in my mind. I did not see how I could do it, but what if the communications he spoke of would turn this battle? What if they meant the difference between a Union defeat and a Union victory?

  His words echoed in my mind. “Help me. Or go in my place.”

  I could almost see it. I’d sneak past the Confederate guards, creeping from doorway to doorway and slithering in the grass. As soon as I reached Union lines, I’d let them know how important my mission was.

  But the day’s events wove their way into my imaginings. Instead of hearing the thanks of a grateful General Meade, I heard the loud report of a sharpshooter’s rifle.

  I screamed while a Rebel soldier yelled, “Got’em!”

  Mother put a bowl of steaming potatoes into my hands, drawing me out of my nightmarish fantasy. I couldn’t go in the Union soldier’s place. Nor did I want to.

  I set the potatoes on the table, next to a plate of sliced ham. If it was possible to get across the Confederate lines, wouldn’t the soldier in the carriage house already be on his way? How would I do it, if he couldn’t?

  The Rebel in charge was still trying to belittle the prisoners at our supper table. “We’ve taken Baltimore and Harrisburg,” he said. “Washington is next. The war will end any day now.”

  I swallowed hard. Was the South really going to win the war?

  “You’re spinning tales,” one of the Union men answered. “Robert E. Lee’s entire army is right here,” he said. “The South doesn’t have enough men to take all those cities.”

  That started another debate. I hoped that Union man was right. Even so, I couldn’t listen anymore. I walked into the parlor and opened the front door to take a breath.

  The Rebs had built a barricade right in front of our house. They had stacked their guns and were cooking and relaxing. I couldn’t see the Union lines. Rebels stretched up Baltimore Street as far as I could see.

  Across the street, six-year-old Mary McLean leaned out a second-story window and sang at the top of her lungs. “Hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree!”

  Someone snatched her into the house and slammed the window closed.

  I held my breath and waited for the soldiers to fire on her house. Jefferson Davis was the President of the Confederate States. Rebels wouldn’t take kindly to songs about him being hanged. The soldiers under the window only laughed and launched into a loud round of “Dixie.”

  I scanned the street for Abel. If he was in town, I thought he would make his way to our house. But what could he do? I certainly couldn’t tell him about the soldier in the carriage house. About the important papers for General Meade. He was the enemy. His duty would be to turn the soldier in, and me for hiding him.

  I wished Father were here, or Jacob, or even Grace. I felt frozen despite the heat. Rebels were all around the house. That Union officer would be arrested or shot before he took a step. General Meade would never get his urgent communications.

  It would be dark soon. I finally had my chance to join the war. To do my part for the Union, and I was afraid. All I wanted to do was curl up in the cellar with that other soldier and hide.

  Some Rebels approached the house. One carried a man on his back. The other held his arm as if he was afraid it would fall off.

  “A doctor lives here?” they asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “but he’s not here.”

  Mother came up behind me. “The Courthouse is being used as a hospital,” she said. “And the Presbyterian Church.”

  “They’re both full up,” the soldier told her. “Every church, every building in town is full up with wounded.”

  Mother pulled me out of the doorway so that they could come in. “Bring them into the parlor,” she said.

  The man being carried moaned something awful when they laid him on the settee. His chest and belly were covered in blood. The other—the one with the wounded arm—dropped into a chair. He could barely sit upright.

  “Will, get me some more water,” Mother said. “We’re going to need it.”

  The other Rebels came out of the kitchen then, with their prisoners.

  “Do you have a red flag to hang from the house,” their leader asked.

  “Red flag?”

  “So the sharpshooters will know this is a hospital,” he explained.

  “If my house is to be a hospital, then perhaps you’ll leave those three gentlemen here,” Mother said, pointing to some of the Union men. “They’re wounded.”

  With that, our house became a hospital. Mother hung Grace’s red shawl from an upstairs window, and three of the Union prisoners got to stay with us instead of going to prison. I was sorry for the other two. Maybe the Rebs would parole them when the battle ended instead of marching them down south.

  “I’ll need lots of water,” Mother told me. “See if you can find me something to use for bandages.”

  I headed to the back of the house to get more water from the well. On my way through the kitchen, I shoved a piece of bread into my pocket for the soldier in the carriage house. I would have to tell him there was nothing I could do. There were too many Rebs around. If his papers made the difference between victory and defeat, I guess the defeat would rest on my shoulders.

  I was filling the bucket when an idea started to form in the back of my mind. I thought of all the times Father had set out in the dark to help someone who had taken sick. It seemed like he was always going off in the night.

  That’s when it hit me. If the soldier was a surgeon, Union or Reb, he could move around in the dark. Go from place to place. Tend the wounded.

  Father had left a medical kit behind. What if the soldier carried it and pretended to be a doctor? Would he be able to get across enemy lines?

  I set my bucket down and looked all around. No one appeared to be watching me. I crept into the carriage house to share my plan.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  White Flags

  I whispered my plan in the dark while the soldier wolfed down the bread. He was still crouched behind the carriage.

>   “I’ll need a green sash,” he said.

  “Green sash?”

  “A surgeon’s sash,” he told me.

  I didn’t think we had such a thing.

  “It might be safer for me to wear one of your father’s suits. Pretend I’m him,” he said. “Can you bring one to me?”

  “I’ll try to get one out of the house. There are Rebs inside. Wounded ones.”

  He crept forward and gripped my arm. “Do what you can,” he said. “You’ll have to come with me. Show me the way. Say you’re my son.”

  I gasped, much too loudly, and then looked around to see if anyone was close enough to hear. I thought my plan would be enough to keep me at home, but he still wanted me to go with him. My heart was drumming in my ears. I could tell this man was used to giving orders. But I wasn’t a soldier. I was scared. And I was probably putting Mother in danger by helping him.

  I could just leave him here, I thought. Go back to the house. Never bring him the suit, the medical kit. Help Mother with the wounded. Put him out of my mind. He could find his own way to the Union lines.

  It was like he could read my thoughts.

  “I’m counting on you, son,” he said.

  I nodded and slunk back into the yard, sure that I would be shot at any moment. I picked up the bucket and crept in the back door. I realized my legs were shaking when I collapsed on the floor. Sweat dripped down my face, or maybe it was tears. I was too mixed up to know.

  The tramp of the guards outside reminded me that we were prisoners. My breath came in quick gasps and I couldn’t seem to calm it. Finally, I focused on a piece of crockery on a shelf. My thoughts and my breathing slowed.

  The kitchen was dark. Sometime during the day the gasworks had been shut down.

  Mother came in with a candle and found me. “Are you hurt?” she asked, rushing over to check my arms and my legs.

  “No. Not hurt,” I told her. “It’s something else.”

  Mother sat on the floor with me while I whispered my story. Her eyes were wide and frightened in the candlelight. I told her everything in one big rush.