Andersonville (91 page)

But,
mein
General— Where do they get exchange?

God damn it, I didn’t say that they were to
be exchanged
!
I said that you were to
tell them that they would be exchanged
!
Can’t you get that through your thick Swiss skull? You are to
tell
them that there is to be a
general exchange.
Tell them that vessels are waiting in the harbor. Instruct your subordinates to talk exchange, exchange, exchange, where the prisoners will hear it. Drop rumors where they’ll do the most good. I don’t want these black-hearted Federal sons of bitches to cut for it. I don’t want them loose. At least there are some thousands of them over there in the pines that aren’t going to trouble anybody further!

Wirz repeated:
Ja.
So I am to tell them they get exchange. But truly they do not get exchange. Then they do not run away.

That’s the ticket, Captain. Transportation officer thinks he can get me two or three trains by tomorrow—day after tomorrow at the latest. How many would you say are able to travel?

Upwards from two thousand prisoners we have already by the hospital. In camp maybe thirty thousand we have. Wirz considered slowly. Maybe half from those— No, maybe twenty thousand from those. They could walk—they could walk to the cars.

Then publish that information immediately!

A laugh like a growl sounded deep below the seamed bulging face, deep within old tissues.

I’d like to see their faces when they walk into Camp Lawton, instead of aboard a ship! By God, maybe I will be there to see their faces! Twould be worth the journey.

He dreamed aloud: I am considering removing my headquarters as far as Florence. . . . God damn Sherman. God damn all the Yankees; but God damn Cump Sherman the most. I wish I’d had him in my class at the Point. I’d have made him sweat! But of course he was there years after my time. . . .

Winder hoisted himself suddenly into a sitting position and glared at Wirz as if he had just discovered him in the room. Well, what are you fingering for? Get out, and to the business! Carry out my orders to the letter. I’ve got to see to it that Sherman isn’t reinforced by any prisoners that might be halfway considered as able-bodied. Get along with you. . . .

Ja, mein
General. Wirz got along.

Faithfully he drew up an order, and copies were passed along to Wry-necked Smith and the other Roll Call sergeants. On the evening of the sixth of September, squads were assembled within the stockade. Wirz’s order was read aloud.

Prisoners: I am instructed by General Winder to inform you that a general exchange has been agreed upon. Twenty thousand men will be exchanged immediately at Savannah, where your vessels are now waiting for you. Detachments from One to Ten will prepare to leave early tomorrow morning.

It can’t be true.

God. Can’t be
true.

And will I go back, and will I find a pale blue sky in spring—the spring day which meant the most to me, though this is next to autumn now, the heat is cooling. And will I go back into that day, or go ahead to it? . . . Somehow be exchanged, get home, make my way to the day again, and springtime clinging around the day. When that ribbon-blue sky is covered by thin motionless film: more a suggestion of clouds than clouds in fact . . . my shadow elongated, when the sun hangs low, to five times its normal length. I know—I’ve paced it off. I’m little, I’m but five feet tall; but my shadow was twenty-five feet long on all that fresh grass . . . fresh grass tender as fine minced salad under old weeds. And larks talkative beyond us; frogs in Garnett’s marsh trying to talk comfort; a solitary crow reiterating some annoyance a hundred times. And peach blooms, breath-taking in their cream and candied pinkish flesh: fluffy, close-packed, strung out along the twigs and thinner branches . . . broom straw blazing, polished tan like tin, letting the low sun burn it up . . . haze like Indian smoke, a springtime haze, all over the horizon.

God, God, it isn’t
true.

Through all the raw yelling.

...But if it were true— What a soldier I would be! Oh, what a cavalryman I would be again! Just take me back, up in that Tennessee valley, and see how fast I travel when the bugle starts to blat Assembly! The orderlies wouldn’t have to wear out their patience, trying to get the laggards to fall in for Roll Call. Gad, how glad I’d be for stable duty! And when they blew the Water Call, how glad I’d be to mount my horse and ride him! Let them sound a million Guards or Drills when I get back! Why, great damnation, there’d be music in the Surgeon’s Call!
Come—get—your—q-u-i-n-i-n-e. Come, get your quinine; it’ll make you sad; it’ll make you sick. Come, come.
Let them play Reveille, then Assembly, then Boots and Saddles; let the gunners go to hitching up, let the buglers signal Forward. Let the wheels roll, let me hear Right Turn, Left Turn, as batteries roll away. I’ll never be a lazy coffee-cooler again. What a soldier I will be!

Oh, God, I don’t
believe
it.

You mean to tell me—God, or Holy Ghost, or Somebody—that all those rumors have come to life and built a thing we can believe? Why, I see Alice now— I’d forgotten her for so long. And Mother comes back in my mind, and Etta is standing here, and Sister Kate has come to have a meaning. Father does mean something now, and so does Brother Rufus. So does Shep; I can even tolerate Muggins the cat! I can taste the ginger cake and cucumber pickles—taste them on my tongue, and I can hear that fire gong a-thudding, and I can hear the laughter of a certain child. . . .

You mean to say there’s a
world
within the world?

There’s cider to drink?

There’s Chicago smoke to smell, instead of these pine smudgings?

You mean to say I can stand with Ma in front of St.-Mark’s-In-The-Bouwerie once more, and look up at that facade with its trees and animals a-feeding, and feel good holy thoughts? That I can run my fingernail through moss above old Peter Stuyvesant, and think all sorts of grave and holy thoughts about the past? That now there can be a past, because there is a future?

God, God, oh God Almighty!

Slap me on my sore back, Willie.

Punch me in my sore belly, Herbert.

Swat me on my sore arm, Augustus.

We’re a-going home.

You mean to tell me there can be that slough beside the Mississippi, and great big channel cats a-waiting there? That I can walk to Hazel Green, that I can work the dasher churn for Auntie? Mean to say there’s hazel nuts in Wilder’s brush? You mean to say there’s that cold clear good driving honest clean wind coming in across Lake Huron? You mean to tell me there’s fresh respectable snow atop the Alleghenies, and we can go a-sledding? Oh, how glad I’ll be to cut the wood, to clean the old cow’s stable. How glad I’ll be to wrench the flinty dry corn ears and thud them up against the bang-board. . . .

How glad I’ll be to climb the stairs to Sweet’s. And let’s see— What’ll I have? Why, Uncle Amos—thank you kindly, Unk. I’ll take a glass of ale—maybe two glasses, or more, if you give the word. And let’s see now: well, these are Long Island oysters, but— Yes, that’ll be fine. Thank you, Uncle Amos. And I wouldn’t be surprised but what I could eat a dozen, right along with you. . . . Here’s the nice fresh lemon juice, and there’s pepper sauce in the flask. Yes, thank you. And I’d like to grind off just a few flakes of this good black pepper. A dozen of the oysters, then! No—don’t think I’d fancy flounder; but I’ll take the broiled halibut, if you don’t mind. Broiled halibut? That’s good: just the way I like it, in that little crockery baking dish; and kind of sputtering and talking as the darkey brings it to us. And boiled potatoes, too. Yes, I’ll take some slaw along with it. And all the good fish market smells coming through the window, and sounds of wheels a-rumbling, and masts a-sticking up along the waterfront like great big weeds, and beer barrels being rolled across the sidewalk, and—

But tis true, by jumping Jesus Christ!

Well, let me tell you first: twill be good to be back with the boys! If you know anything about the Army of the Cumberland, you remember that we’ve got just about as good a record as any regiment that trains around Pap Thomas. And you know him: he don’t allow no slouches near him! You can bet five hundred dollars to a cent on that. And then offer to give back the cent if you win! Ours is Jim Steedman’s old regiment. You know him: you’ve all heard of old Chickamauga Jim. You remember how he throwed his division—seven thousand fresh men—into the Rebel flank on that second day at Chickamauga. Hell’s bells! he made Longstreet wish he’d stayed on the Rappahannock. Hell’s bells! he made Longstreet wish he’d never tried to get up any little sociable with a gang of Westerners! If I do say it myself: we’ve got as good a crowd of boys as ever ate a chunk of sow belly. We got all the grunters and weak sisters fanned out the first year; and since then we’ve been on a real business basis. . . . No, no, we weren’t licked, we never were licked! The way I got caught was when we left camp one night and went out about five miles to an old cotton press. A nigger told us there were a lot of nice smoked hams hidden there, and we found them all right, and hitched up a team to take them into camp. Hadn’t seen no Johnny signs anywhere, so we set our guns down to help load the meat. And right then a company of Reb cavalry popped up out of the woods and flung themselves on top of us before we could say Scat. You see, they’d heard about the hams, too.

Tis true.

We’re going.

That’s official!

You heard the Rebel’s reading of the orders.

There will be a smell and blush of haws upon the hillside, if I can but survive to reach the hillside. . . .

Brother, I believe a brief service should be held.

A service should be held indeed; but I should say not necessarily
brief,
Brother Frank!

And now Brother Boston has prayed.

And now we shall read:
The
wilderness of the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. . . .
And
the sound and rumble of response, the muted chant of response, congregational response, all in a lower worshipful key.
It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing. . . . And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

The first detachments were marched out of the stockade on September seventh. Ira Claffey was busy with his Negroes constructing a log bridge across a branch of Little Sweetwater at the farther boundary of the plantation where August storms had left destruction. So he did not see the prisoners go, he did not know that any were leaving definitely, he had heard only rumors.

At midnight his light slumber was disturbed by an unprecedented screaming of engine whistles at the Anderson station, where the side track switch was jammed; a train waiting there could not enter upon the main line until repairs were effected. Ira went to his window. The valley glowed red with those same baleful flames which had shone in February, though tonight flames were fewer. It was one thing to guard prisoners being fetched into Andersonville, quite another thing to watch and guard them on their way to be Exchanged. . . .

Ira put on his clothes and hung a shawl around his shoulders; the night was unseasonably chilly. He went through woods and past the south camps and stood close to watch the exodus, then moved nearer the South Gate.

Some of these were the identical goblins who had marched in their Belle Isle rags half a year earlier. Their rags were worse now: many Yankees were nearly naked, their grimy skeletal limbs were sticks. Ira wished to cry a hosanna because these people were being taken away, yet he could only grieve at their plight. He did not know the men and boys, he did not know their names. They were enemies reduced beyond the point of enmity because suffering made men brothers, and made brutes into men to be pitied. Undoubtedly there were raiders, or their one-time sycophants, in the halting collapsing throng. Starvation they’d shared with the rest. It divested them of monstrosity.

...Here marched Eben Dolliver, with one other survivor of the Moon Hotel mess. Here walked the sergeant named Colony, who had once been a member of the same household in which the dead Edward Blamey was numbered. The Wingate brothers lay on the hill toward the north. . . .

A queer shape moved in torchlit gloom beside Ira, and he saw that it was the Confederate sergeant with the twisted neck, whom often Ira had observed on duty.

How many are they taking, Sergeant?

Reckon bout ten detachments left already, Mister. Reckon there’s about seven coming out tonight. They’re only letting the well ones go.

Would you call these prisoners well?

Leastways they can walk. They won’t let no crawlers go. Nobody that has to be carried.

...Here moved the wraith named Private Allen who had shared the shebang with Nathan Dreyfoos; and Tyke, the drummer boy who had wept in a crowded box car last spring. There were the Vermonters, Garrett and Appleby, and somewhere ahead of them staggered their neighbor from Maine. In the herd was a soldier named Malachi Plover, and another named Willie Mann (one day, before many months had passed, Willie would press his clipped scarred head into the pink cambric lap of Katrine Christine Ernestine Fiedenbruster). . . .

The boy who’d kept a diary, John Ransom, was just coming through the gate. Ira did not know him, he knew none of them, yet his heart went out. He thought, Only the well may go, that lad is unwell, he can scarcely walk. Actually he can’t walk: that big Indian is holding him. The edged voice of an officer clipped through the shadows: Hold on there. Wait! That man can’t walk. He can’t go Out—

Such a press of smelly bodies crowding. The officer ran for a few steps on the outskirts of the column, gesticulating. He turned, seeking a guard. The shaggy-haired Indian leered in pine knots’ flare, his hard face grinned, his teeth shone. Yes, yes, he walk all right, he go. Still he had his arm wrapped around the sagging bent scurvy-ridden puppet whom he loved and carried. Other prisoners bawled and muttered, they seemed shaking in mass hysteria, a disbelieving delight . . . more pushed out through the gate. The officer had to run back to his post again, he could not prevent this violation.