The Deserter (21 page)

Homer turned over the pages of Brown's 1866 edition with awe. At the request of the Harvard Corporation, Francis Brown had scampered around collecting information about every student who had joined up or been drafted during the Civil War. He had winnowed information from the Academical Department, the Medical School, the Law School, and the Scientific School. He had written it all down, he had made lists, he had sorted them into classes, and he had put sad little asterisks beside the names of the men who had died. His roll was a masterpiece of industry and attention to detail. He had finished his list in 1866, but did he then rest? No, no, he kept right on, adding new names and scrounging for more, producing an expanded version in 1869.

Homer exulted to Mary. “Your great-great-grandfather's in it. I found out that he was a first lieutenant, but now he's more mysterious than ever.”

“He is? Oh, Homer, what does it say?”

“‘Present at Gettysburg, further history unknown.'”

“How strange! Do you suppose it means he deserted at Gettysburg?”

“Could be. It might explain all the dark looks and raised eyebrows in your family.”

“The shame, you mean. Oh, I'm sick and tired of the shame.”

“Well, you'll like this. A lot more of those jolly men on your Hasty Pudding playbill are in Brown's list. They were in the war too.”

“They were? Oh, show me, Homer.”

In the end she put it all together in a scrapbook, with regimental histories from Francis Brown's
Roll of Students of Harvard University Who Served in the Army or Navy of the United States During the War of the Rebellion
.

CIVIL WAR HISTORIES
OF PERFORMERS IN
HASTY PUDDING

Charles Redington Mudge, 1860

(Female Smuggler and Nubian Acrobat)

First Lieutenant, 2d Mass. Vols. (Infantry), May 28, 1861; Captain, July 8, 1861; Major, November 9, 1862; Lieutenant Colonel, June 6, 1863.
KILLED AT GETTYSBURG, July 3, 1863.

Otis Mathias Pike, 1860

(Despised and Celebrated Knight of the Inkwell)

Private, 2d Mass. Vols. (Infantry), July 12, 1862.
KILLED AT GETTYSBURG, July 3, 1863.

Seth Morgan, 1860

(Concord Rosebud)

Second Lieutenant, 2d Mass. Vols. (Infantry), May 25, 1861; First Lieutenant, November 9, 1862.
“PRESENT AT GETTYSBURG, further history unknown.”

Noah Gobright, 1860

(French Maid, Fair, but Alas!)

First Lieutenant, Artillery Reserve, Captain John Bigelow's 9th Battery, Mass. Light, Lieutenant Colonel McGilvery's brigade.
IN ACTION AT GETTYSBURG.

Horace John Hayden, 1860

(Listen to the Mockingbird)

Second and First Lieutenant, 3d U.S. Artillery, August 5, 1861; Brevet Major, October 2, 1865.
HAYDEN'S BATTERY WAS AT GETTYSBURG.

Stephen William Driver, 1860

(Fairy Bell)

Acting Assistant Surgeon, USA., April–November 1863.
PROBABLY AT GETTYSBURG.

George Gill Wheelock, 1860

(Whistling Solo)

Acting Assistant Surgeon, USA, January 13–July 8, 1865.
TOO LATE FOR GETTYSBURG.

Stephen Minot Weld, 1860

(Young Scamp)

Second Lieutenant, 18th Mass. Vols., January 24, 1862; First Lieutenant, October 24, 1862; Captain, May 4, 1863; Aide to General Reynolds at Gettysburg; Lieutenant Colonel, 56th Mass. Vols, July 22, 1863; Colonel May 6, 1864: Brevet Brigadier General, U.S. Vols., March 13, 1865; mustered out, July 12, 1865.
HUGELY IMPORTANT, FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG!

Order from General Reynolds in Weld's diary:

“
Ride at once with your utmost speed to General Meade. Tell him the enemy are advancing in strong force, and that I fear they will get to the heights beyond the town before I can. I will fight them inch by inch
.”

Thomas Rodman Robeson, 1861

(Polly Ann and Augustus Tompkins)

Second Lieutenant, 2d Massachusetts Vols. (Infantry), May 28, 1861; First Lieutenant, November 30, 1861; Captain, August 10, 1862.
DIED AT GETTYSBURG, July 6, 1863.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1861

(Ludovico, a Respectable Gentleman)

Private, 4th Battery Mass. V.M., April 1861; First Lieutenant, 20th Mass. Vols., July 10, 1861; Captain, March 23, 1862: Lieutenant Colonel (not mustered), July 5, 1863; A.D.C., mustered out, July 17, 1864.

WOUNDED BEFORE GETTYSBURG.

William Yates Gholson, 1861

(Great Lyric Tragedienne)

First Lieutenant, 106th Ohio Vols., July 16, 1862; Captain, July 24, 1862; killed at Hartsville, Tennessee, December 7, 1862.
DIED BEFORE GETTYSBURG.

Henry Pickering Bowditch, 1861

(Brabanto, a Hasty Old Codger)

Second Lieutenant, 1st Mass. Cav, November 5, 1861; First Lieutenant, June 28, 1862; Captain, May 13, 1863; discharged, February 15, 1864; Major, 5th Mass. Cav, March 26, 1864; resigned, June 3, 1865.
PROBABLY IN CAVALRY BATTLE AT GETTYSBURG, JULY 3, 1863.

Henry Weld Farrar, 1861

(Mr. Snoozle)

Vol. A.D.C., staff of General Sedgwick, March 1863; Second Lieutenant, 7th Maine Vols., April 10, 1863; First Lieutenant, March 15, 1864; Captain, June 7, 1864; Brevet Major, October 19, 1864; Brevet Lieutenant Colonel.

PROBABLY AT GETTYSBURG.

John Bigelow, 1861

(Montano, caught in a row but not disposed to fight)

Captain, 9th Mass. Battery, February 11, 1863: Brevet Major, U.S. Vols., August 1, 1864; resigned December 11, 1864.
HERO IN BATTLE OF THE PEACH ORCHARD, July 2, 1863, AT GETTYSBURG!

NOTE!!! In the first Hasty Pudding production of this 1861 class in March 1860, Sir O. Pikestaff was again responsible for “These Tearfully Comical Sidereal Abominations Involving Gaulish Chieftains, Druids, Bards, etc., Which Have Been Got Up with Utter Recklessness as to Pecuniary Considerations!!”

“Well, it's a very nice collection,” said Homer, looking at Mary's pasted pages, “but are we any closer to exonerating your great-great-grandfather?”

“Oh, I suppose not,” said Mary. “I was carried away, that's all.”

PART XVI

FINDING LILY

THE B&O

L
ily LeBeau had boarded the train several cars farther forward. Ida told herself to keep a sharp lookout at every stop and be ready to jump down if Lily got off, because if she lost Lily, how would she ever find Seth?

Oh heavens! For a moment, everyone in the car bounced and swayed as the train floundered over a rough place on the track. Ida guessed that the rails had been torn up by the enemy and patched together again. The car wobbled and lurched, and its occupants lurched with it, their possessions rolling in the aisle.

Ida clung to the back of the seat in front of her and thought about the safety of the infant growing so rambunctiously inside her. She didn't really worry. The child had given her no trouble so far. But some of the other passengers glanced at her in concern. She smiled confidently back, and when the rails smoothed out, she devoted her attention to the view racing past the window.

She was fascinated by the size of the fields, so much bigger than the rocky tracts of arable land at home. Every one of these endless rail fences must enclose a dozen acres or more. The corn was tasseling everywhere. There were long slatted barns and broad fields of tobacco. She saw a woman in a sunbonnet sitting high up on the seat of a cultivating machine in one field, the reins of the plodding horses in her hand.

Leaning against the glass to look back, Ida wanted to jump off the train and tell her that it was the same at home. Her father was dead and her husband was in the war, so now it was up to the women and children to carry on.

Last fall, it had been Ida and Eben, Sally and Josh who had wandered around the apple orchard, picking up the windfalls. Their mother had followed after them, helping little Alice gather good ones in her pinafore. Of course, thought Ida, smiling to herself, Mother Morgan had never helped at all, being too sickly, or so she said.

This summer, who would load the wagon and carry the peaches to market? Hired help was hard to come by, and it was a grueling drive in the middle of the night. Perhaps this year they would take them in on the cars. It was strange, thought Ida, how little she blamed herself for staying away from home in this busiest of all seasons. Perhaps being with child had made her selfish. But child or no child, she was determined to find Seth, no matter what terrible thing he had done, no matter how cruelly he had chosen another way.

“Your ticket, ma'am,” said the conductor, appearing beside her.

“Oh, I'm sorry, I don't have a ticket. May I buy one?” Ida held out a five-dollar bill, hoping it would be enough.

The conductor shook his head. “Well, ma'am, we ain't supposed to sell tickets on the train, but everything's topsy-turvy anyhow.” He handed her the ticket with her change.

Ida smiled and said, “Thank you.”

But the conductor was in a conversational mood. Taking hold of the brass loop on the back of her seat, he explained why things were topsy-turvy. “First of all, there's all them crates of medical supplies for the hospitals down there.”

“Hospitals?”

“In Washington. The whole city's turned into one whopper of a hospital. And then there's all them trucks of coal. Look, missus, quick now. See 'em there on the siding? Abe Lincoln, he says they'll all be dark as pitch if we don't get 'em there in a hellfire hurry.”

“Goodness me,” said Ida.

The conductor expanded in the warmth of her interest. “Biggest problem is the men. Mr. Garrett, he's commandeered ten locomotives to carry ten thousand men, that's a thousand apiece.”

Ida was happy to have someone to talk to. “Who's Mr. Garrett?”

“You don't know Mr. Garrett? Why, he's the most important man in Baltimore. He owns this here railroad. And if Mr. Garrett says ten thousand men's going out today, ten thousand men
will
go out today. Did you see them fellers back there at the depot in Baltimore? Couple thousand, he said they was all supposed to go out today, heading for some godforsaken place.”