Bring the Boys Home (4 page)

When they got the wounded soldier behind the lines, the surgeon took one look at his arm and said, “It’ll be back to the hospital for you, Lieutenant.”

Cecil had been drugged by the surgeon to kill the pain as the bullet was removed, but by now he had presence of mind enough to reach up and grab Jeff’s arm, saying, “Jeff, will you take me back?”

Jeff looked at the boy’s pale face and said, “If Pa will let me go, I will.”

Colonel Majors, when he heard of Cecil’s request, said, “Take a wagon, Jeff. See that he gets to the hospital at Chimborazo. Go by and visit the family on your way back. Tell them we’re still holding on.”

As Jeff’s horse and wagon pulled out of Petersburg, he heard the rumble of the guns behind him and the sharp crackling of musket fire. And all he could think was,
I wish it was all over
.

Looking back at Cecil, he saw that the young man was unconscious. “At least you didn’t get killed,” he murmured. “If those doctors can save your arm, you’ll be better off than the rest of us, because those Yankees are not going to quit!”

T
he months in the trenches at Petersburg had drained Jeff of strength. He woke each morning hungry and faint, and others around him were even worse. Each day men limped out of camp or were carried on stretchers behind the lines.

“We can’t go on like this, Tom.” Jeff had eaten a small portion of cornbread soaked with bacon fat, his portion of the breakfast, and now he looked mournfully at the empty tin plate. “I could eat a horse!”

Tom had finished his own breakfast and lifted his eyes to his brother. “That may be the next thing we’ll have to eat.” He strained his eyes to see across the trenches through the early morning fog. “They’re over there,” he murmured, “and I expect we can look for them to come just about any time.”

“You think we’ll make any more attacks like we did on Fort Stedman?”

“No! The only thing we can do now is run.”

“Run?” Jeff stared at his brother doubtfully. “Most of us can’t even
walk
, much less run.” He glanced toward the rear, where General Lee’s headquarters was located. “What do you think General Lee’s thinking about this time, Tom? He’s got all this on his shoulders.”

“He’s pulled us out many a time from impossible situations, but I don’t think he can do it this time.”

Gen. Robert E. Lee had indeed performed military miracles throughout the long years of the Civil War, but now there was nothing more to be done. Richmond would have to be abandoned. Even as Jeff and Tom sat in the mud wondering, Lee was trying to find a way to move his 57,000 remaining men out of the trenches. It was hoped he would meet up with General Johnston and continue the fight elsewhere. He knew that he had only one escape route and that, if he waited too long, Grant would be all over him.

Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, rushing toward Richmond from the Shenandoah Valley with 5,700 cavalrymen, became the key to the Northern strategy. He would later write in his memoirs, “Feeling that the war was nearing its end, I desired my cavalry to be in at its death.”

General Lee, on March 29, learned that the Federals were closing in. He sent two officers to make a way for the retreat—Gen. George E. Pickett and his own nephew, Fitzhugh Lee. Ordinarily these were fine officers, but at a spot called Five Forks both Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee made a sad mistake. It was spring, and the shad were running in a nearby river. The two commanding officers were invited to a fish bake, and the two men, as hungry as the rest of the soldiers in the tattered army, eagerly accepted.

Neither Pickett nor Fitzhugh Lee expected to be attacked. However, they were sadly surprised. Sheridan did attack, rushing into the battle, yelling and waving his sword, driving the Federals forward like mad men. The Confederates were defeated.

After the defeat at Five Forks, Jeff and his fellow soldiers were on the march, and no march in the history of the Army of Northern Virginia had been as sad as this one. As they trudged along, Jeff turned to look at his father, coming up from where he had been encouraging the men at the rear. Jeff had not expected his father to stop to talk—he seldom did on a march—so he was surprised when the colonel’s worn horse pulled up beside him.

“Are you all right, Corporal?”

“Yes, sir.” Jeff looked around at the squad that he had spent so many years with. “We’re ready for whatever comes, Colonel.”

A thin smile touched Nelson Majors’s lips. Long ago he had said that the South would lose, and now he was seeing the curtain come down for the final time. “Don’t risk yourself, Jeff. It’s over. Stay out of trouble.”

“Yes, sir,” Jeff said, “and I wish you’d do the same.” He plodded along a few more feet and said, “Where we going, Colonel?”

“We’re heading for Amelia Courthouse. We’re supposed to have wagon trains of food there.” He looked down the lines of ill-clad, weary soldiers. “If that food’s not there, I don’t think we can go on.”

April 4 dawned. The Army of Northern Virginia pressed on—30,000 hungry men. Their pace quickened somewhat as they heard the sound of firing off to the south.

“That means Sheridan,” Colonel Majors said aloud.

“We better have some food, Colonel,” a lieutenant said wearily. “The men can’t go much farther.”

Jeff was among those who reached Amelia Courthouse at about 8:30, and what they found
there was heartbreaking. Despite an abundance of ammunition, not a single ration awaited the famished troops. Hour after hour, starving regiments marched into Amelia Courthouse only to find nothing to eat. Many men at this point simply gave up and melted away into the woods. General Lee rode past his hungry men, and Jeff’s squad raised a cheer as he went by.

The night passed, and light showers and wind whipped through the troops as they tried to sleep. All the next day a constant drizzle fell. General Lee wore his gold spurs and his best clothes, but his face was pale, and he knew that the end was near. If his men were well fed and rested, they could outmarch the Federals and join Johnston, but such was not to be.

Finally, on the south side of a small branch of water called Little Sayler’s Creek, the two armies met in battle for the final time. It was the last effort of the army of the Confederacy. They had only 7,000 men left to face Sheridan, and it was a hopeless situation. The Federal assault cut into the gray-clad troops, and as the Yankees closed to within yards, a strange silence fell over many in the lines.

Jeff and his friends were not in on that action, but he heard the sound of the guns. Looking around, he said to his brother, “We’re surrounded, Tom.”

“I reckon so. It’s all over.”

Somehow, Tom’s words brought wild relief to Jeff. He had fought long and hard for the Confederacy. He had buried many good friends. But like his father and Tom himself, he knew that all hope was gone. “I reckon it is, Tom.”

On April 7, 1865, General Grant wrote a letter to Gen. Robert E. Lee. It said briefly,

Lee received the letter, and he, too, wished to stop the bloodshed. As the Confederates marched on past dawn into the bright, warm sunshine of April 8, he thought about that letter. He answered it, asking what terms Grant would make. And then he learned that General Sheridan stood between his forces and the South’s last route of escape. It was at a place called Appomattox.

On April 9, General Lee said, “There’s nothing left for me to do but go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths!”

The two generals met in the home of a man called Wilmer McLean. McLean had been living near Manasses in Virginia when his life was interrupted
by the first battle of the war. He had moved to Appomattox to escape the fighting.

Grant arrived at the McLean house with a terrible headache. He had slept little, his uniform was unpressed, and he looked more like a private soldier than the general of the largest army in the world. General Lee wore his finest uniform.

The two generals met in the living room of the farmhouse and worked out the terms of surrender. Actually, there were no hard terms laid down. At one point Lee said, “The men in our army own their own horses. Would it be permitted for them to take them home?”

General Grant assured Lee he would see to it that the men kept their horses. He would also give orders that the Southern soldiers be allowed free passage on all government transportation in order to reach their homes.

The two generals parted, and for all practical purposes the Civil War was over.

T
hree soldiers wearing blue uniforms moved forward as a part of Grant’s vast army. All three had fought in Tennessee but had been shifted to the last battles in Virginia. One of them, Royal Carter, wore the stripes of a sergeant. The two who marched beside him were privates.

Drake Bedford glanced at his close friend Pvt. A. B. Rose. “Well, Rosie, I guess we’re about going to wind it up today.”

Rosie, a tall, gangling soldier with huge feet and tow-colored hair, put his light blue eyes on Drake Bedford. “Sure wish I had some of my liver medicine with me,” he moaned. “I figure I’m going to need it.”

Bedford, tall and darkly handsome, laughed aloud. “You never had a sick day in your life! You’re just a hypochondriac.”

Rosie stared at his friend sadly. “You just don’t understand what a sick man I am, and I lost all my medicine in Tennessee.”

“Yes, but you got a fiancée instead!” Royal said. He nudged Drake with his elbow. “Can you imagine old Rosie here a married man?”

“As well as I can imagine you, Sergeant,” Drake said. “You’re just as engaged as he is.”

Quickly Royal glanced up at the tall private. He had to look up, for Royal was not tall, though thick and strong. He was often called “The Professor” by
the soldiers, for he had spent some time in college. He thought of the rivalry between himself and Drake Bedford over Lorraine Jenkins. He thought,
Drake’s taking it well, losing Lori. I don’t believe I could have done as well if I had lost her to him
. Aloud he said, “I don’t reckon we’ll get married until we get back in Kentucky.”

Drake grinned, showing no ill feelings. He had been recently converted, and the change in him had been almost unbelievable. “Well, you fellas are all taken up, but I’m gonna relish gettin’ back and bein’ a returning hero. Every girl in Pineville will be wan-tin’ to get her hands on me.”

The three soldiers were not at all unhappy that the war was over. They had fought in some of the final battles, and it had been Royal’s constant fear that in some battle he might encounter the Confederate soldier who had been his best friend for years, Tom Majors. Fortunately, Royal’s unit had engaged in little actual fighting, and now, on April 12, he was glad that the order had come to review the stacking of muskets by the Confederate army.

“It seems strange, not fightin’,” Rosie murmured. They were tramping down the Richmond-Lynchburg Road, which led from the Confederate camps across the north branch of the Appomattox to a slope beyond the courthouse.

“Sure is,” Drake agreed, “and for my part, I’m glad it’s over.”

“I think we’re all glad it’s over,” Royal said.

Then a command came, and their lieutenant came to a halt, saying, “Look, there’s the Confederates.”

Eagerly Royal searched the ranks of ragged soldiers that had formed on the square. He was looking
for any one of the Majorses, and soon he whispered, “There he is! There he is! There’s Colonel Majors.”

There was no sign of General Lee, but another general had dismounted and was now standing in front of the Confederate ranks.

Royal continued to search the Southern lines, and then he saw Tom Majors—behind his father and flanked by Jeff. “There they are!” he said. “All three of them. Thank God they’ve all made it through the war!”

“That’s right unusual,” Drake said, “for a family to get through without losing somebody.” He looked over the surrendered troops and said sadly, “They don’t look too good, do they?”

“No, they don’t,” Royal agreed.

The Confederates, without drum or fife, marched forward in the measured tread that had become part of their souls.

“They sure been whittled down,” Drake said quietly.

“So have we.” Royal looked around at the Union’s remnants of units from Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York. He thought of all the men who lay in graves scattered across the South.

Then he turned to watch as the Southerners came with their swinging route step and swaying battle flags. In front was the proud Confederate insignia, the great field of white with a canton of star-strewn cross of blue on a field of red.

Royal watched as General Gordon and his men approached. He saw the Union general, Joshua Chamberlain, speak to an aide, who called the Federals to stiff attention.

“Carry arms!”

Gordon rode by at the head of his column of men. Few eyes were dry on either side as the ragged yet proud Confederates passed, made their salutes, then dropped their rifles, bayonets, cartridge boxes, and flags in heaps beyond a triangle just east of the courthouse.

As the men filed by, Royal suddenly found himself looking into the face of Tom Majors. Tom missed a step, so that the man behind bumped into him, and the two men who had been friends since their boyhood days stared at each other in profound silence.

Glancing to his right, Jeff saw his brother and the Union soldier caught up in the moment.

And then he reached the stack of muskets. Though some threw down their weapons with anger, Jeff laid his down tenderly. He knew he was saying good-bye to part of his life, a part that he would never forget, and he felt, once again, tears sting his eyes.