Gallant Boys of Gettysburg (2 page)

Sarah came over and put her arm around her younger sister. Sarah was a beautiful girl. She had dark hair, dark blue eyes, and a creamy complexion. She said, “You’ll have your birthdays together again when this war’s over.”

The mention of the war threatened to dampen everyone’s spirits, and Mrs. Carter quickly said, “Now, let’s have some more ice cream. Ezra, you can turn the crank.”

When the party was over and everyone was gone, Leah sat on the front porch with Ezra. The two had been quiet for some time, and finally Ezra said, “Have you heard from Jeff lately?”

“I got a letter two weeks ago.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he thought there’d be more fighting soon.” She turned to face him and shook her head. “I worry so much about him—and about Royal.”

Ezra had given his parole not to return to the Union army, but Leah knew he remembered some of the terrors and hardships of the war.

He said, “Well, I guess all we can do is pray for them.”

Leah reached over and patted his hand. “Yes,” she whispered, “I guess that’s all we can do.”

Sarah was standing at the window when a tall, rangy man on a tall, rangy mule pulled up in front of the gate. A smile touched her lips. She had
always thought that Pete Mangus and his mule resembled each other a great deal. Pete carried the mail in the mountains close to Pineville, Kentucky.

Sarah hurried out to meet him. The sun was high in the sky, and this spring of 1863 had been the mildest that people in Pineville could remember. “Hello, Pete,” she said. “You have some mail for us?”

“Shore do.” Pete fumbled in the leather bag slung over the mule’s shoulders and came up with a small packet of letters. He shuffled through them and nodded. “Got two. One’s from your pa, looks like. And the other is the one you been looking for, I reckon.” Pete grinned down at her and handed her the letters. “That young Rebel you’re so sweet on shore keeps the mail hot, don’t he? But you was sweet on him before him and his family left to go South.”

Sarah sometimes got upset with Pete, who felt that his status as mailman enabled him to know all the private business that went on between those who exchanged letters. However, everyone in the valley knew that she and Tom Majors had been, as Pete put it, “sweet on each other” before the war. Now, however, Tom was in the Confederate army, and her own brother was in the Union army. A great problem, but that’s the way it was.

She longed to open the letter from Tom at once but knew that Pete would demand to know exactly what it said, so she said, “Stop on your way back, and I’ll give you some of the gingerbread I’m making.”

“Shore will!”

Sarah hurried into the house and opened Tom’s letter, which was brief. Sitting at the kitchen table,
she read it slowly, savoring every word. As she read, she could see Tom’s face. He was tall and dark and handsome like his father, Nelson Majors, a Confederate captain, and like his brother, Jeff, who was a drummer boy in the same army.

Sarah’s lips grew tight, for Tom wrote of the hardships that the people of the South were enduring. She knew he did not do this to arouse pity but simply to relate the facts. He did not mention the fighting that was to come, but her heart contracted as she realized that a young man in the Confederate army—or the Union army for that matter—had little chance of escaping without at least being wounded.

The last paragraph said,

Sarah put the letter down and sat for a long time staring at it. There was a sadness in her that she could not contain. Finally, with a sigh, she folded the letter and picked up the other one. It was not from her father.

She did not recognize the handwriting at first, and when she opened the letter she looked at once at the signature at the bottom of the page. “Abigail!” she whispered and smiled. But when she began to read, the smile left her face almost instantly.

Abigail Smith had been her best friend since early childhood. She had married a young man
from the North named Albert Munson. It had been one of the saddest moments of Sarah’s life when her friend moved away to Pennsylvania. Now as she read Abigail’s letter, lines appeared around her eyes as she frowned at the fine script:

Sarah put down the letter and frowned. She had been apprehensive about her friend’s marriage,
for Abigail had indeed been spoiled. Sarah had liked Albert at once, but he was very young and apparently had very little money.

She got up and walked through the house aimlessly. She sat for a while beside Morena, smoothing her sister’s blonde hair and helping with the game she was playing. Morena was ten physically, but would never be more than two or three years old mentally. She was a sweet, very beautiful girl and won the hearts of all who saw her.

As Sarah guided the youngster’s hands in a simple game that involved a stick and a ball, she tried to imagine what it would be like to be in a strange place with none of your own family and be expecting a first baby. And even as she sat there, she made up her mind.

I
‘
ll have to go to be with Abigail. Somehow I just have to!

Sarah said nothing to anyone until late that night. Just when her mother was getting ready to go to bed, Sarah stopped her. “I want to talk to you, Ma.”

“What is it, Sarah?”

Sarah took Abigail’s letter from her pocket and handed it to her mother.

Mrs. Carter read it quickly and looked up. “You want to go to her, don’t you?”

“I have to, Ma. She’s the best friend I’ve ever had—and she’s so alone and so frightened. Will it be all right?”

“It will be all right with me.” Then a thought seemed to come to her, and she said, “One thing troubles me. They say that the Confederate army might be planning to invade the North again. Do
you suppose they would get as far as Pennsylvania?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Sarah answered quickly. “But in any case, I’ll have to go.”

Mrs. Carter had the same blonde hair and green eyes as Leah. She was a warm-hearted, strong woman, and now she made an instant decision. “Your father may worry about you, as I will—but I think it’s the right thing for you to do.”

Two weeks after that conversation, Sarah settled into her seat and looked out the open window of the wood-burning train. Her father was on the platform, and her mother, and Leah, who was holding Morena’s hand. They all waved furiously, and as the train picked up speed, she called out, “Don’t worry about me! I’ll be all right!”

She could not hear their answer as the train left the small town station, but she waved until they disappeared from sight. Then she listened for a while to the clicking of the steel wheels over the tracks and felt a touch of fear. It was a long way to Pennsylvania, and she had never gone anywhere by herself—not this far at least. But then she thought,
I’m nineteen years old, and God will take care of me!

These two facts reassured her, and Sarah Carter leaned back and watched the trees rush by as the train moved steadily north.

W
hen Sarah looked out the train window at the Gettysburg station, she saw no sign of Abigail. The trip had been long and arduous, and her back was stiff as she rose and gathered up her two suitcases.

A tall, lanky sergeant wearing a blue uniform stepped up, saying, “Here, lemme take that for you, miss.”

“Why, thank you, Sergeant.” Sarah had been besieged constantly by younger members of the Union army on board the train. At first they had been shy, but during the long journey more than one of them had artfully managed to sit beside her and strike up a conversation.

Sarah noted that the sergeant wore a wedding ring. “You’re a long way from your family, Sergeant.”

“Yes, ma’am, I am. They’re all the way back in Indiana—but they’re doing well, last report.” The sergeant picked up her two bags in his hamlike hands and simply plowed his way through the privates who had clustered in the aisle. “Make way there, you jaybirds! Give a lady room.”

The sergeant stepped off the train, put down the bags, then reached back and helped Sarah to the platform.

“Thank you so much, Sergeant,” she said. “I pray that the Lord will be with you in the days to come.”

“Why, that’s right kind of you, miss,” the sergeant said, his eyes opening wide. “I’ll appreciate your prayers.”

Sarah smiled and began to search the crowd that had met the train. Actually, no more than twenty or thirty people were there, and none of them, she saw at once, looked anything like Abigail Munson.

I suppose she’s getting too close to her time to be meeting trains
, Sarah thought. She walked toward the small building that served as an office, but before she could step inside she was intercepted by a feminine voice.

“Miss Carter? Sarah Carter?”

Sarah turned to see a young woman coming toward her. “Why, yes, I’m Sarah Carter.”

The girl was no older than nineteen. She was of medium height and had bright blue eyes and light hair. “I’m so glad to find you,” she said. “My name’s Jenny Wade. I’m a friend of Abigail’s. She asked me to meet you.”

“Is she all right?”

“Oh, yes, she’s fine. Just not getting around too much right now. I’ve got a carriage. Where are your bags?”

Jenny Wade at once took over, and soon the two girls were in a small buggy pulled by a single gray mare.

“Get up there, Helen!” Jenny Wade said, slapping the reins on the animal’s back. “That’s a funny name for a horse, isn’t it? Helen. I named her after
a doll I had that got burned up when I was a little girl.”

“We have a horse on our farm back in Kentucky named Gertrude.” Sarah smiled. “I didn’t name her, but I always thought it was a nice name.” She looked around the streets as they passed along. “How many people are in Gettysburg?”

Jenny shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, really. I suppose nearly a thousand if you count everyone close by. There’s some students out at the seminary, but most of the young men are gone to the war.”

“How is Abigail doing, Miss Wade?”

“Oh, call me Jenny.” The girl smiled prettily. “She’s not really doing as well as we’d like. The doctor says she might have a difficult time.”

The two girls talked about Abigail and the baby that was to come until finally they turned onto a side street lined with white frame houses, most with oak trees in the yard.

Jenny suddenly asked, “Have you got a sweetheart, Sarah?”

Sarah flushed at the question but then managed a smile. “Well, not really, Jenny. Have you?”

“Oh, yes, I have—a soldier. I’m engaged to Johnston Skelly. Isn’t that a funny name? I’ll be Mrs. Jenny Skelly. And Johnston—that’s a last name I always tell him. But that’s what they called him.”

“When do you plan to get married?”

“Soon. As soon as he gets back. He’s due to get a leave—I think within the next three months sometime.”

“You mean you’ll marry him before he goes back to the army?”

“Oh, yes. Johnston argued with me, but I always could twist him around my little finger. He’s so sweet, and I’m so mean to him that sometimes I’m downright ashamed of myself!”

Sarah could not imagine this cheerful young woman being mean to anyone, and she listened as Jenny spoke of her fiancé. Finally Jenny pulled up in front of one of a line of buildings on a fairly busy street.

“Abigail lives upstairs over that shop there. See the windows?”

Looking up, Sarah saw a sign that said MATTHEW’S GUN SHOP. A set of stairs opened up beside the shop, and farther up she saw curtained windows on the second floor.

She stepped out of the carriage, and Jenny tied the mare to the hitching rail.

“We can carry your bags up. You take this one.” Jenny led the way to the stairs, and they ascended a set of rather steep, narrow steps. There was no light except from the doorway below, and Sarah climbed carefully.

Arriving at the landing at the top, Jenny knocked on the door. “Abigail? It’s us. We’re here!”

There was a long pause, and then the door opened slowly. Light from a window blotted out all except the figure that stood there. Then Sarah heard Abigail’s voice calling her name. She stepped forward and was grabbed at once in a close embrace.

“Oh, Sarah. I’m so glad you’re here!”

Sarah hugged the young woman and then stepped to one side so that Jenny could enter carrying a bag. “I’m glad to be here, Abigail,” she said. “It was so nice of you to ask me.” She put it like this so
that there would be no feeling of obligation or debt in Abigail’s mind.

Jenny disappeared into a side room, then came back. “I put her bags in the spare bedroom. I’ll let you two talk now, but you’re coming over to have supper with us tonight. Come about five o’clock.”

“You can tell me more about Johnston then,” Sarah teased. “And I’ll bet you even have some pictures of him you want me to see.”

Jenny laughed. “Yes, I do. Lots of ’em. I’ll see you at supper time.”