Boys of Wartime: Will at the Battle of Gettysburg (13 page)

Colonel Braxton walked over a few minutes later. “I hear I've been gravely injured,” he said.

“This is the Reb drummer who saved your life,” I told him. “It was the only way I could get help.” My voice caught. I had to fight to keep the tears back. “He's not a drummer anymore—not without a hand.”

Colonel Braxton peered into my face. “Are you the boy from Gettysburg?”

I nodded, looking down at myself so that he wouldn't see my tears. It was only then that I noticed that my clothes were covered in blood and dirt. I imagine my face was covered, too. I hadn't changed my clothes in three days.

“It's me,” I said. “Will Edmonds. I've been at the farm, helping the wounded. Then I found Abel.”

The colonel crouched in front of Abel. “What did the surgeon say?”

“He'll live or he'll die.” My voice caught again. “I don't know what happened to him,” I blurted. “There's too many dead.”

“Yes,” he said with a solemn expression. “Too many.”

I wondered how many friends he had lost since the war began.

The colonel patted my arm. “I'll try to find a wagon to bring him to a hospital. We won't let your friend die if we can help it.”

Suddenly the quiet was broken by a sharp report from enemy lines, followed by another. There was a pause of a few seconds and then the sky opened up. Only it wasn't thunder and rain. It was artillery shells.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“This'll decide it!”

 

 

 

 

T
his wasn't like the shelling of the past few days. This was ten times louder. Men fell to their knees just from the sound of it.

“This'll decide it!” Colonel Braxton yelled. He seemed excited. “This battle will end here.” He ran toward the headquarters, shouting something over his shoulder.

I couldn't hear him. The Confederate guns roared and ours answered. The ground that trembled before now shook. My teeth rattled in my mouth, and I could barely stand. A shell hit Meade's headquarters, sending men dashing outside. Others hit the fields around me, making deep gouges, like graves, in the earth. One minute a man was standing there, and the next he was just a bunch of parts, scattering in ten different directions.

Water was all I had in my stomach, but I heaved it up all the same. Smoke was all around me. There was so much saltpeter in the air, the taste of it filled my mouth.

I focused my eyes on Abel so that I wouldn't see any more flying body parts. There was nowhere to go. I had dragged him right into the thick of the battle. I crouched over him while shells flew overhead, convinced I was going to get the both of us killed. Thank goodness I hadn't brought Grace and the twins with me.

“They're safe in the cellar,” I whispered. “Safe in the cellar.”

Abel groaned, whether from pain or the noise I couldn't tell.

“Don't you die on me,” I screamed. “You saved my life and I aim to return the favor. Don't you die on me!”

Just as suddenly as the shelling started, it stopped. I had seen enough over the past three days to know what that meant. When the shelling stopped, the infantry took over. Cannons were replaced with rifles, artillery shells with bullets and bayonets.

I put my hand on Abel's chest and felt it rise and fall, rise and fall. He was still breathing.

Through the smoke, infantry soldiers moved ghostlike into position. When the smoke finally cleared, most of them were gone. My ears were ringing, but at the same time the quiet was spooky after all that noise.

A soldier ran out of what was left of Meade's headquarters. “Get yourself away from here,” he yelled.

I looked at my friend. He couldn't walk, and I was too done in to carry him. Besides, was there any place safe?

“Go,” Abel groaned. “Go.”

“I'm not leaving you,” I said.

Abel gave me one of those funny nods—he would not have left me either—and then he seemed to pass out again.

All around us was confusion. The air was heavy with gunpowder. Knapsacks, blankets, and guns were strewn everywhere. A few officers stood in front of headquarters, tension written all over their faces. I spotted a pair of field glasses a short distance away and ran for them.

I climbed the tree above us, anxious to know what was happening and to look for a safer place to bring Abel. The Rebel infantry marched out from the cover of trees on Seminary Ridge by McMillan's orchard. The Union men were scrambling into position on Cemetery Ridge. A broad field sat between them.

Two long lines of Rebels marched into that field and started to cross it. The lines must have been a mile wide. It was hard to believe that there were that many soldiers still standing after all the wounded I had seen.

They were silent. No Rebel yell. No double-quick. It was a grim, steady march. They crossed the Emmitsburg Road and kept coming.

Why were our men not shooting?

When the Rebs were close—too close—our big guns opened up again. Rebs fell in waves. They didn't retreat. They didn't run. They simply closed ranks and kept coming.

Soon our cannon fire was replaced with musket fire. Beyond the smoke toward Seminary Ridge I expected to see Rebels running away, back to their own lines. There were none. Had they broken the Union lines? Had they pushed past the infantry?

Suddenly, it was quiet. The bullets stopped and were replaced by cheers. But who was cheering? Who had won?

Once again, the smoke cleared. The field was full of dead, gray-clad men. The boys in blue were cheering. There was no retreat. The Rebels had kept coming until every last one of them was dead or taken prisoner.

I guessed the Union had won, but what did they win? What did all that killing amount to?

Tears streamed down my face. I climbed down to join Abel. He was asleep, but I spoke to him anyway. I had to say the words out loud, if only to convince myself. “It's over,” I told him. “I think we're safe for now.”

No one seemed to know what would happen next. I heard more fighting from the direction of the Weikert farm and I called out to a soldier coming from that direction.

“Is there fighting there?” I asked.

“There's fighting everywhere,” he answered.

I remembered Mother's words to me in the kitchen before I left. “Find the girls at the Weikert farm and wait out the battle there. It will be safer,” and the scared, angry look on Grace's face when I didn't go down into the cellar.

There was nothing I could do. No way right then to know for sure they were alive and well. I focused on Abel. About the time the sun was setting, his eyes flickered. The air had cooled a bit, but his skin was so hot it was like touching fire. He tried to sit up and raved like a madman, insisting that he had to find his drum, join his company.

“My daddy's waiting,” he kept saying. “My daddy's waiting.”

I didn't have the heart to tell him that his daddy was dead. I was even afraid to go and find the surgeon in case Abel found the energy to get up and leave.

“No,” I said. “Your daddy said to wait right here.”

I poured water over his head, hoping that would cool him down some. Then I grabbed a cap and fanned him like crazy.

After a few minutes he fell asleep again. Was this the fever the doctor spoke of? Would it kill him?

“Dang it! I didn't carry you all the way here and lie to a general's aide for you to go and die on me.”

Men were moving around us, collecting the dead and the wounded. A Union man came near but I wouldn't let him take Abel. They wouldn't take care of him like I would. I didn't want him to end up dead, or a prisoner.

Abel woke up a few hours later and started raving again. I poured more water over his head. I had managed to find some bread and some beef tea. I gave him as much as he would take. I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten.

One soldier nearby was munching on a piece of hardtack. Jacob had written to us about how awful hardtack tasted. About how the biscuits were hard enough to break a tooth. About how they were full of weevils. But I hadn't eaten in a very long time. The soldier saw me eyeing it and I guess I looked as hungry as I felt. He threw me a biscuit.

I gnawed off a bite and held it in my mouth for a long time before it was soft enough to chew. On a normal day I might turn my nose up at such a thing, but today it was the sweetest thing I had ever eaten.

My colonel never came back. I wondered if he was dead, but I was too tired to worry about him much. With the hardtack in my belly, I lay down next to Abel. I kept my hand on his chest so I could feel it rise and fall, and drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY

By the Dawn's Early Light

 

I
t was near dawn when I heard movement around me. I sat up, rubbing my eyes. The soldiers slapped each other on their backs. I heard cheers coming from inside Meade's headquarters.

“What happened?” I asked.

“The Rebels are withdrawing from the town,” a soldier told me. “We're fixing to march into Gettysburg.”

My heart leaped. The Rebels were withdrawing. My family was safe. Soon we would all be together again. I wanted to race into town and find Mother.

Abel must have heard, and it was like he could read my thoughts. “Where's your mama?” he asked.

“In town,” I said. “You were injured. I brought you here.” I touched his face. He wasn't nearly as hot as he was last night.

He pushed himself up on his elbows. “Got to get to your mama's house,” he mumbled.

His face was still pale, but not the same deadly white it had been yesterday afternoon. “You're not strong enough,” I told him. “And I can't carry you that far.”

“Your mama,” he said, stronger this time. “She'll be worried.”

He dragged himself to a seated position. He looked at his bandaged hand and then at me.

“It's gone,” I told him.

I thought that would take everything out of him, but he only nodded. Then he grasped the tree trunk with his good hand and pulled himself up. He wobbled for a second before letting go. He was as unsteady as a new colt, but he was on his own feet.

“Let's go see your mama.”

“Are you crazy?” I asked. “You almost died. You've got a surgical fever. You can't march into Gettysburg.”

“You go then,” he said.

“I'm not leaving you alone here.”

“Then take me with you,” Abel insisted.

Finally I agreed. “We have to take it slow.” I pulled his good arm over my shoulder and wrapped mine around his waist. He said he didn't want my help, but he was as useless as a shot-up drum.

We fell in line behind a column of soldiers and slowly made our way forward. The military band at the front played familiar patriotic songs like “Battle Cry of Freedom” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but everything else seemed unreal and unfamiliar.

Taneytown Road was so torn up by wagons and shells that we stuck to the fields, eventually making it to the Evergreen Cemetery. It was a strange and blighted place in the early morning light. I hardly would have recognized it as the site of Sunday strolls.

Grave markers were overturned and broken. The grass was trampled into mud, flower beds were black with gunpowder, and body after body lay above the ground instead of below it. At first I thought the dead had been unearthed, but these were soldiers. The new dead, not the old.

Rain started to fall, like heaven itself was weeping.

The carnage got worse as we headed toward town. Battle debris was all around us. Broken down artillery wagons, guns, knapsacks, cartridge boxes, coats, and shoes were strewn about, along with letters, photographs, and even Bibles. There was a long line of unburied men, so black and bloated that I could not tell which side they fought for, nor did I care.

I strained to get a look at my house, but it was too dark and too far away still. My eyes darted here and there, looking for some assurance of the civilians' safety, but there was none.

As the sky lightened, I could see that houses were peppered with bullet holes. The Rupp house had no windows left at all, and there were two dead men on the porch. One Rebel sharpshooter was slumped over dead, half in and half out of a garret window farther down Baltimore Street.

The smell was overpowering. Worse than when we found the dead rat under the floorboards at school. Worse than a thousand overflowing privies. I tried to breathe through my mouth so that the stench would not overwhelm me, but then it filled my mouth and made me gag.

The sun was beginning to rise. Folks peered out their windows and opened their doors. They seemed dazed at first, then waved handkerchiefs. Their voices joined with the band.

I could see the flag now at the front of our long column. How many times had I imagined myself marching behind it, celebrating a glorious Union victory? How many times had I imagined myself a hero?