Andersonville (15 page)

Pete did not return to his corner but stood at the line and glared down at Muir.

“Don't get up!” he yelled.

His yell was echoed by the men watching, Raider and regular alike, though Pete's was a command and theirs more of an anguished entreaty.

Muir sat up. He spit a tooth up at Pete. It bounced off his hairy belly.

He got up and went to his corner for a splash of water, then returned to the scratch line, nearly walking right into Pete, his eyes were so swollen.

Turner signaled the start.

The fifth round lasted five seconds.

The sixth was four seconds long.

The men ceased begging Muir to stop. They began to cheer him on, even those who had bet against him.

By the seventh round he was a blind and bloody mess, like something newborn, and the cheers ceased. Now the crowd was silent, and Big Pete looked at Turner uncertainly, as if awaiting approval to torture the sailor more.

Eight rounds in and Muir had stopped throwing punches. He merely rose, found the line, fell, and rose again.

A man beside Barclay was weeping.

“Quit!” Pete roared. “You're done!”

Muir shook his head, and the mere act nearly sent him to the ground again.

The men began chanting now, but it was no name; it was a mantra.

“STOP. THE. FIGHT.”

“STOP. THE. FIGHT.”

Muir dismissed the crowd with a wave.

Up in the hills, the Rebels watching the exhibition and picnicking, joined in the chant.

“STOP. THE. FIGHT.”

Turner looked to some unseen authority on the hill, perhaps Wirz himself, then nodded and went to the scratch line. He waved the fight as a draw.

Pete walked back to his corner and left the ring. He looked back a few times at the sailor.

Muir stood there at the scratch line, blind and unrecognizable. When Rickson came to get him, he swung at him and landed the first blow he'd thrown in four rounds.

It took three Raiders to persuade him to leave the ring.

The lack of an outright winner threw the camp into turmoil as the bookies declined to honor bets. A riot nearly broke out on Market Street as a crowd of men tore down one of the wagering fronts, a leatherworker's shop, and a squad of Rebels burst in and fired a few warning shots to disperse the rioters.

Sailor Jack Muir was practically deified in the days that followed. All talked of his stunning display of will, and soon he became above reproach, even as one of Mosby's men. All agreed he had put up a game fight, which led some (mostly those who had bet on him in secret) to reason that since he had been the last to step out of the ring and had never gone down for good, technically he was the winner, not Big Pete.

This all served to heighten the feeling against the Raiders as men seethed and talked of marching on the camp and collecting their winnings themselves.

Then, two days after the fight, everything changed.

Barclay was returning to the stockade from a day of work when he crossed onto Broadway and was suddenly swept up in an irresistible tide of prisoners marching toward the North Gate.

He couldn't go against the flow of humanity surging down the avenue. It seemed like every mud dugout, blanket tent, and shebang had disgorged its bedraggled occupants.

Was it some mass escape attempt? He tried to fight his way to the edges, to get clear of the mob, but it was no use. He tried to make out what the purpose of the march was, but the cursing and shouting of the prisoners was an unintelligible mélange in his ears.

He soon found himself standing at the North Gate porch with a press of men.

The cries died down as the Rebels scrambled along the rim of the wall, aiming their muskets.

A lone hoarse voice shouted up from the front, and Barclay pushed forward, straining to hear.

“Y'all get back!” shouted one of the boys on the wall. “We'll parole the first dozen that comes closer to Jesus!”

“You fetch the captain, boy!” the man down front retorted. “Fetch him quick! We want to talk to Wirz!”

The boy disappeared, and the others hunkered wide-eyed in the torchlight of their pigeon roosts, priming their rifles, fighting to keep them from shaking.

Barclay managed to squeeze to the side of the front line and saw Limber standing there, legs akimbo, a limp, frail form draped in his arms.

“It's got to stop!” he hollered up at the wall, half sobbing. “We want justice! Justice for young Ranse Popwell! Sailor Jack Muir and those goddamned Raiders killed him this night! Killed a mere boy for his own father's watch!” Barclay was stunned and thought the accusation a joke in poor taste, but Limber raised his arms above his head, holding the sagging corpse aloft like an offering. It was the body of the drummer boy, pale and saintlike in its repose.

“Killed our Red Cap!” he bellowed, and every man gathered there joined in the cry, as though to lift their outrage to heaven itself.

The rifles on the wall multiplied.

The mob of men surged toward the gate, carrying Barclay along with them.

Barclay closed his eyes as the Union prisoners shrieked and roared up at the scared-looking young Rebel sentries on the stockade wall. It was as though the angry shouts of the mob gave Limber strength to lift the dead drummer boy over his head. Or perhaps it was their collective fury that lifted Red Cap's frail corpse.

When Barclay opened his eyes, he craned to look over the bobbing heads and fists to the glowing pavilion of the Raiders in the southwest corner of the stockade. Either they were oblivious to the commotion, to the heinous charge being leveled against one of their number, or, more likely, they didn't care, trusting to Captain Wirz's apathy to shield them from any retribution.

He shook his head. He couldn't believe Jack Muir the sailor was responsible for the boy's murder. It didn't make any sense. So soon after he had shown such heart to the whole camp? He himself had spoken to the man, and though he had chided him for throwing in with the lawless element of the camp, he hadn't sensed in him a killer. A brawler and a tough, sure, but not a cold-blooded slaughterer of boys.

Even before the big bout, Jack Muir had proclaimed himself an abolitionist, had come to his and Clemis's aid against his own comrades. He had seemed genuinely remorseful when Barclay had taken him to task for joining the Raiders. What was happening here? Was Mosby saddling Jack with the death of the boy as punishment for losing the fight? Maybe Sarsfield had done it to get back at him.

Whoever was responsible, there was Red Cap's body, pale and dead in Limber's arms at the head of the advancing mob, damning evidence to the contrary of his character.

There was a pistol shot from the wall, and the men flinched and halted as a whole but did not disperse as they had when Chickamauga had tripped across the deadline and died. Muir had broken their collective hearts with his betrayal, and now their outrage had made them heroes. Limber held the sagging body of Red Cap close, as if to shield him from the Rebels.

There in the torchlight, leaning over the sharp pickets of the wall, was the commandant, Captain Wirz, lowering his smoking LeMat pistol, a savage judge's gavel.

“What is this?” he roared down. “Crawl back to your holes, by
Gud
, you Yankee vermin, or I'll order the cannons to pulverize you!”

“So order 'em!” Limber hollered back, impassioned beyond caring. “Better to die than live like rats in this hell! Better to die men than live with
this
!” And in the last, he lifted the boy's body again for emphasis.

Wirz's expression fell at the sight of the dead child.

“What has happened?”

“Just the end result of you turning a blind eye to the crimes of these goddamned Raiders, Wirz! Take a good look! He's just a boy—not more than fifteen years old—and he's dead! Killed for a watch, the only thing he had in the world left of his father.”

“Who did this?” Wirz demanded through his teeth. “By Got, I'll withhold rations from every one of you animals till the culprit is brought before me!”

“That ain't enough anymore, Wirz!” Limber countered. “They been robbin' and killin' us for months and tradin' with your own guards, and you know it!”

“I?”
Wirz said in outraged disbelief, slapping his own chest. “You think
I
would permit such a thing?”

“If you are innocent, then your ignorance permits it!” Limber said, and the men shouted their agreement. “Everybody knows who the villains are in here! What we need ain't a scapegoat; we need them out of our midst!”

“What would you have me do?” he yelled over the shouts of the prisoners. “I cannot spare men to police you!”

“Then authorize us to police ourselves!” Limber shouted.

This notion settled on the crowd in silence for a few seconds, and then one by one they yelled their agreement.

“Will you stand down if I consider this?” Wirz shouted, holding up his hands.

“No!” Limber said, surprising everyone with his newfound boldness. “Only if you authorize it!”

Wirz lifted his hands again for quiet. It was almost a minute before he got it.

Barclay stared at the filthy, downtrodden men around him. They were of one enraged heart. They'd had enough. They could storm the walls and push the pickets down now if somebody suggested it.

“Stand down this night and I will, in the morning, hear a delegation in my office,” Wirz said like a monarch deigning to hear his subjects' demands at last. “Select for yourselves representatives and we will discuss this at length. But you must stand down here and now.”

Limber cradled the dead boy, his nostrils flaring. He turned to look at the equally excited men. Barclay held his breath. It would take only a word. Did Limber know it? Every remaining muscle in every haggard man tensed.

“What say you, boys?” he asked, surprising Barclay with his restraint. Maybe he wasn't all bluster and urge, after all.

“Say the word, Jim,” called a voice from the crowd.

“We're with you, Limber!” said another.

Limber slowly turned back to Wirz.

“All right, Captain,” he said, the mob quieting enough to allow him to talk. “Tomorrow morning, after the roll.”

He walked back into the crowd, and the men parted for him and his somber burden.

“Let's go to bed, boys,” he said. “We'll meet in the morning and see what this Dutch bastard says then.”

Barclay watched Limber pass like a venerated champion. Romeo and Big Pete attended him like Lancelot and Gawain. He caught no sight of Charlie, though. Was she waiting in the shebang like Guinevere? Maybe that analogy had gotten away from him.

Barclay broke from the crowd and headed home to his tent, bewildered by the way things had played out. Maybe he was wrong about Wirz. The commandant had seemed genuinely upset at the boy's death. Maybe Day was right and General Winder was the one behind this, after all.

Clemis was sitting up in the tent when Barclay entered. They'd agreed that neither one of them would sleep alone from now on unless the other was there to keep watch.

“What was all that ruckus down at the gate?”

“The drummer boy, Red Cap, was killed and robbed. They're saying that sailor boy did it.”

“Didn't figure him for that,” Clemis said quietly.

“Nor did I,” Barclay said. “Get some sleep. I'll take first watch. I want to be up early in the morning.”

After roll call had concluded without Captain Wirz making an appearance, Limber stood on a stone on the corner of Market and addressed those who came to hear, relating what had happened the previous night to all who'd missed it.

Barclay was among them.

“Now what I want,” Limber said, “is a delegation from each of the regiments. It don't have to be all sergeants.”

“You really think you can reason with that lunatic, Limber?” a man named Gossett opined. “Seems like the old Flying Dutchman would rather put a bullet in your eye than hear you out.”

“If I didn't think it'd do any good, I wouldn't put myself up here,” Limber said. “We owe it to Red Cap and to all our brothers that've had their throats cut by that murderin' rabble. We have to try, boys.”

Dozens of men finally raised their hands, and Limber pointed them out one at a time and urged them to step forward. Romeo, Big Pete, and Doctor John were all selected. He picked out seven others and seemed to know everyone by name. He paused when he reached the end and saw Barclay standing there with his hand in the air.

“What're you doin', Barclay?” he muttered.

“Volunteerin' for the delegation, sir.”

“Put your hand down, boy,” said Big Pete.

“You said you wanted a man from every regiment. That means the Negroes, too. Major Bruegel's dead,” Barclay said, “and there ain't a sergeant among us.”

“Ain't you had your fill of Wirz, boy?” Big Pete chided.

“You aim to start somethin' against them Raiders,” Barclay said. “I 'spect you goin' want all the prisoners with you. They ain't all represented, how they goin' trust you?”

“They ain't gonna take us seriously we march up with you,” Big Pete insisted. “Get back in—”

“No, Pete,” Limber interrupted. “He's absolutely right. Fall in, Barclay.”

Barclay touched his cap and joined the others. Doctor John smiled thinly and nodded.

Wirz had said he'd talk to Limber and his contingent and hear their grievances in his office. What better way was there to get a better look at the man?

Limber led them to the gate, and they waited in the sun, standing in parade formation. That was Limber's idea. He said it would lend them an air of authority even though there was no officer among them. They stood for nearly an hour, sweating, till the ration wagon appeared. Several of the men hungrily watched the wagon rumble by, but to their credit, no one broke rank.

The Confederates ignored them entirely.

Rations were distributed, and the empty wagon rolled out again.

A half hour later, the wicket opened and Turner came through with four other men.

He stood in front of Limber, looked him up and down, looked the men behind him over, and spit.

“This your delegation?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Limber answered hoarsely.

“All right, then, follow me out.”

He turned, and Limber ordered them to fall in and march.