The Deserter (14 page)

First Lieutenant, Artillery Reserve, Captain John Bigelow's 9th Battery, Massachusetts Light, Lt. Col. McGilvery's Brigade

T
he moon that had shone so full and round over the entire battlefield from Culp's Hill to the Round Tops on the second of July would not rise this evening until midnight, reduced to its last quarter.

But it was midsummer, and the air was warm. There was a faraway rumble of thunder. Ida lay back and pillowed her head on her valise and covered herself with her shawl. Her child tumbled for a while and then was quiet. It had been a long and terrible day. Dozing, Ida dreamt about Seth's boots.

When a harsh light shone in her eyes, she blinked and sat up.

It was a man with a lantern. He withdrew it from her face and lifted it so that she could see him. At once Ida recognized the soldier who had come into the barn just as she was leaving it.

“Ma'am?” he said. “Mrs. Morgan?”

Laboriously Ida stood up, her bonnet awry.

“I came to find you.” Bowing slightly, the officer introduced himself. “My name is Gobright, Lieutenant Noah Gobright.” He nodded at the great pale side of the barn across the way. “I was there just now, visiting a friend, and Doctor Chapel told me you were looking for your husband.” Gobright turned up the flame and set the lantern down on the ground. Then he said, “I know your husband, Mrs. Morgan.”

Ida pulled her bonnet straight, her heart beating. Lieutenant Gobright was not crude like the sergeant guarding the dead across the way, nor awkward like the surgeon in the embalming tent. Oh, what was he going to tell her?

Hurriedly she explained. “The list in the newspaper, it said he was missing. I've come to find him. I've looked everywhere.”

Instead of speaking, he reached inside his coat and drew out a bundle wrapped in a handkerchief. “I've been carrying this around,” he said, handing it to her. “I meant to send it.”

Ida quailed as she unwrapped the handkerchief, whispering, “But this is Seth's.” Then she uttered a small cry, because one corner of the cambric square was red. She had hemmed and embroidered the handkerchief herself, but she had used no crimson thread. Fumbling with the things inside it, she murmured, “Oh, my letter, my last letter. Oh, please …” Ida's voice failed her, and she had to start again. “Please, Lieutenant Gobright, tell me where you found them.”

Instead of answering, he began talking about his part in the battle, the struggle between Captain Bigelow's artillery and the Mississippians of General Barksdale's brigade, the way General Barksdale, with his white hair streaming behind him, had driven his men forward until he was brought down, there in the orchard of green peaches on the second afternoon.

But the story had nothing to do with the strange absence from duty the next morning of First Lieutenant Seth Morgan of the Second Massachusetts. Lieutenant Gobright stopped, and then with hesitating pauses, he spoke about comrades killed in action.

Ida waited. Why wasn't he answering her question? Her heart sank, but she vowed to maintain her dignity no matter what Lieutenant Gobright said.

His voice died away. For a moment there was nothing but the murmur of the hosts of summer insects, and then a scream from the direction of the barn.
Poor Sam
, thought Ida,
waking up again to the knowledge of his plight
.

But then Lieutenant Gobright began talking again, more cheerfully now. “I think your husband is most likely still alive. But—”

“Alive!”

“But perhaps he left the battle.”

“Left the battle?” Ida didn't understand.

“You see, it's where I found the letter.”

“Where you found it? But where was it?”

Lieutenant Gobright picked up the lantern. In the brighter light she could see that he had turned his head away. “It was beside the pike, the Baltimore Pike.”

“Oh,” said Ida with rising excitement. “Then he had been there?”

“I think so.”

“But what does it mean?”

Gobright looked at her again and reached for her hand, not boldly, but kindly. “I'm afraid, Mrs. Morgan, it means he was trying to get away to Baltimore.”

She stared at him, still uncomprehending.

“He was on the run.” As she still didn't seem to understand, he put it more plainly. “He was deserting.”

“No, no.” With an impassioned motion Ida snatched back her hand.

Thinking that it would comfort her, Gobright took something else out of his pocket. “This was with the letter.”

Startled, Ida took the little folded sheet and looked at it wildly. It was a sermon for men going into battle. She could see only the hymn at the end, and then at last she broke down and wept.

Holy Ghost, the Infinite!
Shine upon our nature's night
With thy blessed inward light,
Comforter Divine!

We are sinful: cleanse us, Lord;
We are faint: thy strength afford;
Lost—until by thee restored,
Comforter Divine!

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
28
CORNHILL, BOSTON

MY DEAR DAUGHTER

L
ieutenant Gobright commandeered an ambulance and drove Ida back to town. But when he jumped down to inquire at the Globe Hotel, he came back shaking his head. “They say they're full up, but it's the bar that's full up.”

A drunken man reeling along on crutches heard Gobright and shouted at him, “They dug it up, didja know that?”

“Dug what up?”

“Whiskey, two barrels of whiskey, two gin.” The crippled man laughed so hard, he staggered and nearly fell. “Under the cabbages. They hid it under the cabbages.”

“The sisters,” said Lieutenant Gobright to Ida, climbing up again. “They'll take you in.” He shook the reins and headed the horse back down Baltimore Street. “Saint Francis Xavier,” he said. “It's another hospital.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Ida. “Forgive me, I've been so much trouble.”

“Not at all, ma'am, not at all.”

At the church, Gobright jumped down again and went inside. From the street Ida could hear his voice raised in powerful persuasion. Almost at once a woman ran out the door to help Ida down. At first in the dark Ida could see only her enormous white cap. She was a Sister of Charity, she said as she took Ida's arm. “We came from Emmitsburg with Father Burlando. Oh, we saw such terrible things on the ‘way, dead men being buried in pits beside the road.”

“Well, good night then, Mrs. Morgan,” said Lieutenant Gobright. He clucked at the horse and the ambulance rolled away. Ida called out her thanks, but Sister Camilla was urging her inside.

The entry was another operating chamber with a prostrate patient, blood on the floor and a heap of arms and legs tossed to one side, but this surgeon was smoking a cigar and swearing as he flourished his saw.

Tut-tutting softly, Sister Camilla swept Ida through a door into the church and led her down an aisle, holding a candle high.

The straw under their feet was blood soaked, and there was the familiar stench. Never afterward would Ida be able to erase the scene from her mind. She trailed after Sister Camilla through a great congregation of wounded men lying on boards across the backs of pews, moaning and calling out, “Sister, Sister.”

“In here, my dear,” said Sister Camilla, opening a door at one side of the altar.

Ida whispered her thanks, but Sister Camilla did not stay to hear. As she whirled away, the cries were louder, more desperate, “Sister, please, Sister.”

Sister Camilla called out to them cheerfully, “I'm coming,” and closed the sanctuary's door.

Ida sank down on the floor, sobbing, and fell instantly asleep.

In the morning she woke early and sat up, listening. The hospital chamber was quiet, as though the men were all asleep, or perhaps they had all died.

Then she remembered the train. “The track's been repaired,” the lieutenant had said. “There'll be a train for Baltimore at the depot at ten, but it won't be for passengers. They may not take you.”

But they must take her. Ida stood up with difficulty and smoothed her rumpled skirt with her hands. She was thankful to find the priest's comfort stool behind a curtain, along with a bowl, a pitcher of water and a slop basin. She brushed her hair, did it up again, tied on her bonnet, wrapped herself in her shawl, picked up her valise and ventured outside by the priest's private door.

There was a small child on the street. Ida smiled at her and said, “Can you tell me the way to the depot?”

Instead of answering, the little girl wrapped her hand in Ida's skirt and dragged her along. At the intersection she kept a tight hold but pointed up the street with her free hand.

Ida thanked her, kissed her, unwrapped the small hand and watched her set off reluctantly, walking backward and waving. The children too, thought Ida, must have seen terrible things.

The approach to the depot was obstructed by loaded wagons. Baskets and boxes were heaped beside a building that had become a storehouse for the Christian Commission. Ida saw sides of beef packed in straw and ice, baskets of eggs, stacks of folded undergarments and piles of blankets. Iron cots leaned against the wall. Men and women were unloading hospital equipment—weights and scales, urinals and mortars, chests of pharmaceuticals. A couple of boys walked by in the direction of the station, trundling a steaming boiler of coffee.

The fragrance of the coffee was delicious, and so was the aroma of baking bread. Ida had eaten nothing since yesterday morning, but she did not want to bother the women who stood beside one of the wagons, heaving down baskets of crockery. They looked at her curiously, but she only nodded and walked on.
It's all right, I won't be any trouble
.

The blockage on the street grew thicker. Horse-drawn ambulances and crates of supplies were everywhere. When Ida worked her way past them to the depot, she found the platform lined with a long row of wounded men. Nurses were moving among them, both men and women, and so were town ladies, handing out slabs of buttered bread. Boldly Ida reached for one as the tray went by. From somewhere a brass band was playing “Home, Sweet Home.”

The train had already come in, but it was not about to depart. Roustabouts were shouting and running around with crowbars. Officers bawled orders and a steam whistle shrieked. Ida could see a deep cut off to the left of the depot, but it was empty of track because Gettysburg was the end of the line. Since there was no way for the locomotive to turn around, it would have to push the cars all the way back to Baltimore.

Someone was shouting, a postboy with a mail pouch. All the heads looked up. Some of the men sat up and looked at him eagerly as he began calling out names in a shrill, nervous voice. Most of the names went unanswered, but a few letters were passed into outstretched hands. “Perley Wheeler? Here, give it to him, he's way in the back. Albertus Strong, you got a couple. Mrs. Ida Morgan?”

Everyone stared. Ida gasped, then went forward clumsily and took her letter while the postboy went on calling out names. “Private Schuetz? Private Doobey?”

Ida's letter was from her mother, who had addressed it in care of Ida's cousin Cornelia in Philadelphia, and then Cornelia must have put her baby aside long enough to forward it, vaguely addressing it to:

Mrs. Ida Morgan
Gettysburg Penna.

Reading the letter, Ida could almost hear her mother's firm confident voice:

My dear daughter
,

Cornelia's letter shocked us all. When Eben finishes the cultivating that he promised to Mr. Hosmer I will send him to bring you back. How could you be so foolish. Poor Mother Morgan has taken to her bed
.

Mrs. Weston of Lincoln has heard from George who was at G'sbg in 18th Mass reg't and is well. I hope you will inquire about Edward Chapin with 15th Mass. They have not heard from him and live in dread of the newspaper as do we all. Mrs. Ripley fears for Ezra who was at Vicksburg. Mother Morgan joins me in praying you will come home at once. Think of the health of your firstborn so soon to see the light if not your own. Please telegraph about Seth and self
.

Yr devoted mother
,
Eudocia Flint

Ida smiled. Cornelia must have written her Aunt Eudocia about her newborn baby and also about Ida, and then Ida's mother had snatched up pen and paper, and then the mail train carrying her letter to Philadelphia had made a record run, its whistle blasting all the way, and Cornelia had sent the letter on.

Of course Ida would not go home. And it was not possible to telegraph. She would write from Baltimore.

TO
BALTIMORE

B
ut first she must get there. Ida found her way to the ticket window, but it was shut. She turned to a large woman in a mighty apron. “Please, ma'am, may I travel to Baltimore on this train? I have money. I can pay my way.”

“Good heavens, girl,” said the woman, looking her up and down, “what on earth are you doing here?”

Ida did her best to sound sensible. “But I'm really very well. I've been looking for my husband, Lieutenant Seth Morgan of the Second Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. I'm told I may find him in Baltimore.”

“Well, my girl,” said the woman crisply, “you're not going to Baltimore on this train. There's no room for the likes of you.”

“But I can help,” pleaded Ida. “I can spoon-feed. I can change dressings.”

“Oh, is that so?” said the nurse. “What about bedpans?”

Her question was sarcastic, but it did not seem so to Ida, who had been raised on a farm. She was acquainted with all that fell from the bowels of livestock, and she had performed this kind office for her dying father when he was crushed by a falling tree. She answered at once, “Oh yes, I can do that.”

The big woman in the apron studied her, then scribbled out a chit. “Here,” she said, “they need water. The dipper and butt's over there.”