Karl Bacon (14 page)

A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil:
but the fool rageth, and is confident.
PROVERBS 14:16

J
OHN ROBINSON DIED ON THE 12
^TH
DAY OF
A
PRIL
. H
IS RIBS HAD
healed satisfactorily, but during the last few days of March he came down with a severe cold. Every day seemed to bring with it a new symptom, first a pounding headache, then a fever, and then chills racked his body.

One night during the first few days of April, we were out on picket duty with the rest of the regiment. “Every part of my body aches,” he told me; his voice was now raspy and his breathing labored.

“I know you try to avoid sick call, but I don’t think this is just another cold, John. You should see Doc again. Go see him as soon as we return to camp.”

The next morning Doc Rockwell examined John for a few minutes and ordered him to go immediately to the hospital. I went along to help him if necessary. After a thorough examination, the doctor at the hospital said that John’s ribs had healed and that he most likely had pneumonia. John was admitted to the hospital for further rest and treatment.

When not out on picket duty, I visited John as often as possible. Terrible fits of coughing contorted his entire body. How greatly he suffered I will never know, but whenever I approached his bedside, his eyes lit up in joyful greeting. For several days in a row Jim, Charlie, and I went to visit John whenever we could. I concluded each visit with a reading from my Bible and prayer for my beloved friend. No matter which passage I had decided to read, John always requested that I read the first few verses of the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, and I could not help but notice a faint smile on his lips when I read verse 3:
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

On Saturday the 11
^th
I visited John in the evening. John had a different request.

“Read from Job,” he said.

“Job?”

“Chapter nineteen. Here, let me find it,” he said, reaching out a feeble hand to take the Bible from me. He found the page he wanted; a shaking finger weaved down the page as his eyes followed. “Here,” he said, handing the Bible back to me, “verses twenty-five and twenty-six.”

“‘For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’”

“Those are good words, Michael,” John said, “full of promise and full of life. They’re words you can live by, Michael, and they’re words I can die by.”

I could only shake my head against that thought. I took John’s hand in my own—we had never touched like that before—and knelt beside his bed. I implored our heavenly Father to spare John and allow him to return to all those who loved him.

John reached under the blanket. “Here is my pocket letter.
Please see that Abby gets it. I love her … and the children … so … so much. Tell her I deeply regret leaving her.”

I took my prayers to my bed that night. In the morning I rose early and quietly so as not to disturb Jim and Charlie. I walked to the hospital as soon as it was light enough to see the way, confident that my nightlong supplications had been heard, and that God would certainly accede to my pleas for John and his beloved family—and for myself.

In the heavy gloom of the ward I made my way to John’s bedside.

“John?” I shook him several times. “John?” His eyes were fixed and his chest was still. He was gone.

I sagged to the floor in the dark shadows beside John’s bed and buried my face in my hands.
Why, God? Why now? Why this way? He was my brother—it was Your will for us to be here, wasn’t it? How often he cheered me when I was miserable! And who is there, now that he is gone? His war is ended, but mine goes on. Must I fight alone?
I was powerless to resist the wracking sobs that woe and despair tore from my body and my soul.

Sometime later a pair of ward orderlies appeared and wrapped John’s body in a bed linen. I watched through bleary eyes as the orderlies carried John slowly down the length of the ward, through a doorway in a whitewashed wall now brilliantly bathed in the rising springtime sun beaming through the windows.

The only official observance of John’s death was Chaplain Stevens’s brief remembrance of him in his pastoral prayer during the regular morning service. Afterward I went to regimental headquarters where I asked for and received permission to accompany John’s coffin as it, along with one other, was taken by horse-drawn cart to Aquia for transport northward. I remained at the landing until the steamship cast off and sailed
up the Potomac, until the last traces of the trail of dark smoke marking its passage had fully disappeared.

Every step of the eight-mile walk back to Falmouth was filled with complaint to the trees that lined both sides of the road and to the cool night air above, but mostly to the ground beneath my feet.

“God in Heaven, I know You plan and do all things for Your own glory, but why did You take John? I could understand if he had been killed in battle. We both understood that from the beginning. But of pneumonia brought on by a silly snowball fight? How can I tell Abby and Jessie Anne what happened? Lord God Almighty! There is no glory in that, merely added grief for Abby and the children and me at the senseless tragedy of it. Did I not pray enough? Have I committed some great sin? Was some great duty left undone? Have I offended You in some way?

Sunday, April 19, 1863
Camp of the 14
^th
Conn. Rgt. Vol. Inf.
Near Falmouth, Virginia

Dear Jessie Anne,

The second letter enclosed herewith is, as you can see, addressed to Abby. John wrote it shortly before his death. I trust that you will deliver this letter to Abby by your own hand.

A week has passed since that black day, and I am trying to employ myself usefully in the everyday affairs of army life. Four cracker boxes are on their way to you, evidence of such employment. There is one box each for Jim, Charlie, and me, full of things we cannot carry on the march, but may have need of again. Please launder the greatcoats so they will be ready for us when autumn returns.

The fourth box holds John’s personal possessions. Please give it to Abby. How deeply Abby and the little ones must grieve. Words
cannot express my love and sorrow, yet I have written her a short letter, which is in the box as well. I hope it will be some small comfort for her. I know I need not ask this of you, but please go to visit our dear sister and her children often.

I was allowed to accompany John’s coffin to the landing. When I returned to camp, I dealt with John’s possessions. Jim and Charlie offered help, but I reckoned this my final service to John. I cleaned and polished John’s Springfield rifle. How many hours did we spend doing this chore together? We often engaged in a private competition whenever we had shooting practice. “How many shots did you get off?” or “How many hit the center of the target?” we would ask each other. John usually won the former contest, probably because of his longer arms, and I usually won the latter, perhaps because of my somewhat younger eyes. I lay the gleaming rifle down on John’s bunk and added his cartridge box, canteen, haversack, greatcoat, and several other items of army issue. Then I carried the pile across camp to the quartermaster.

Then I folded each item of clothing neatly, even his extra pair of long flannel drawers, and packed them into the aforementioned crate. I polished his muddied Hickham’s until they were spotless and shiny. His Bible I packed as I found it, for I knew it contained the well-worn photograph of his family, and I thought it best not to view their images. His smoking pipe I held under my nose for several moments, savoring the sweet aroma of the burnt tobacco and knowing how that smell would forever remind me of him. Only two of John’s possessions did I retain—his coffee sack and his tobacco pouch—both of which I thought no one of John’s family would desire and that I could make good use of.

All furloughs have been canceled in preparation for the spring campaign. On Wednesday the 15
^th
, we were under orders to march away from this place with eight days’ rations. A day’s ration is twelve ounces salt pork and one pound hard crackers. With a total ration of twelve ounces of ground coffee and an equal amount of
sugar, rations for eight days weigh something over fifteen pounds. You might not think this a great burden, and it was not when first setting out on a march, but hour after hour, the knapsack grows heavier; the straps cut into our shoulders and chafe the skin beneath our clothing.

Jim, Charlie, and I packed everything we would not carry with us. After no little wrestling within myself, I finally determined that I needed to take my blankets and my shelter tent, my mess plate and coffee cup, my writing things, an extra change of drawers, my Bible, the sewing kit you gave me, and whatever clothes I chose to wear at the final moment of departure. In addition to my knapsack and haversack I will carry my Springfield rifle, a cartridge box, and a cap box. Whatever remains will fall into the hands of Rebels, opportunists, and scavengers.

We retired on Tuesday evening in full anticipation of an early march the next morning, but it began to rain sometime after midnight, and no gentle, cleansing and refreshing spring shower was this. Rather, the rain came down steadily and heavily all through the day and into the next night. We hastily lashed our shelter tents upon the roof again and once again sat huddled together before a blazing fire.

The roads were once again impassible, and any speculation that the campaign might begin anytime soon was laughable. Truly our only solace was that the rain had come before the army had moved out.

So here we wait, doing regular duty or parade drill as necessary. It is a difficult thing for an army to wait for battle, for it has been primed and readied like a musket that had been loaded and cocked. Day after day passes without action, and the gleaming spirit of the army, which had been painstakingly polished over the last two months, has begun to lose some of its luster. As powder in a musket, when left too long, becomes damp and useless so that no spark can ignite it, so the fire in the belly of an army
spoiling for a fight has begun to cool and fade. There are disputes and fights among the men over pitifully insignificant things, slights more imagined than real. I think an army must fight an enemy or it will fight itself.

As for me, I do not like being idle either, as idleness allows my thinking to drift toward how I dearly wish to be at home or how sharply I miss John. In your latest letter you expressed concern for my welfare, particularly my state of mind. I have concern as well, for I fear I have become the man of Lamentations – “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.” Has He set His hand against me? I often feel only the hard back of it, rather than the softer palm. If for some past or ongoing sin, it has not been shown me and I do not know of it. I see only that I must endure this affliction as I see no way of escape.

The comfort of friends like Charlie and Jim is precious to me, but I often think I am now all alone, even though I know that the Almighty attends unto my way without fail. Pray for me that this knowledge will suffice and at last provide comfort. May I again know Him as the Hope of the hopeless. Do what you are able to ease Abby’s sorrow and comfort their little ones.

I remain your most affectionate husband,

On Saturday the 25
^th
, I was sitting on Jim’s bench, reading my Bible and enjoying the warmth of the mid-afternoon sun, when Charlie Merrills approached at a run. “I’ve just come from Major Ellis. Hooker changed his mind.”

“You mean the campaign has been canceled?”

“No, no. As of the first of May, the band is going to start up again and I am to lead it.”

“That’s great, Charlie. I’m happy for you, but now that we’re going out in the field there can’t be any concerts.”

“Perhaps, but now that music is legal again, I intend to see that the band is a credit to the regiment, like it was before.”

The warmer weather of late April had finally dried the roads. No religious services were held the day after my conversation with Charlie as the army prepared to march on Monday. General Hooker’s master plan was that the entire Army of the Potomac would swiftly and secretly march out to the west where it would cross the Rappahannock and Rapidan Rivers and assemble ready for battle in the rear of Lee’s army.

To everyone’s surprise, the plan worked.

The Eleventh Corps, commanded by General Howard and comprised largely of German-speaking immigrants, was new to the army and had seen only limited action as they had been manning the defenses around Washington. No one, not even General Hooker, could say if this new corps would fight well or not. General Hooker sent them marching off to the west, so that they would be positioned as far as possible from the enemy until their worth was known.