When Johnny Came Marching Home (27 page)

"Yes sir. Would seven thirty be a good time?"

"It would, yes," he said, taking my hand again.

"I'll be there."

Rebecca had been oddly quiet, and as we stepped out onto the front lawn I led her aside. "You seem uncomfortable around Reverend Harris," I said.

She gave a small shake of her head and kept us walking away from the church. "I never know what to say to him," she said. "His son is dead, a boy I grew up with and knew as well as I knew you and my own brother. And I liked him, I liked him very much back then. I considered him my friend for all those years. But he came home a different person, and it was a person I learned to hate." She stared up at me. "I mean that, Jubal. I hated him, and I wasn't sorry when he died. I think I was even glad that he was dead, and I know I've told you that before and I know that it's an awful thing to say, and that it's wrong and maybe it's even sinful, but I can't help it. Johnny was a monster when he came back, and he killed my mother just as sure as if he'd pushed her into that river, and in my heart I know he deserved to die. So whenever I see Reverend Harris I see how sad he is, and I want to comfort him, but I'm thinking all those things and I don't know what to say." She shook her head more vehemently this time. "I just don't know what to say."

We began walking back toward the church. "I wish I was wise enough to tell you what to do," I said. "I feel the same way when I talk to him. I feel it for some of the same reasons, and also for other things I know about Johnny, things he did during the war."

"What did he do? I always thought that what happened to him at the Confederate prison had turned him into what he was."

"No," I said. "Johnny changed long before he got to Andersonville." I stopped and saw Bobby Suggs across the road, standing in front of the Johnsons' store watching us. As I met his gaze he raised one finger to the brim of his hat and then pointed it at me like a gun.

"That man makes my skin crawl," Rebecca said. "There's just something about him that's—"

"Evil," I cut in. "If he appears around you, stay well away from him. And then you come get me or you send for me as quick as you can."

"You make him sound very frightening."

"He's as bad as Johnny ever was," I said. "Maybe worse."

When I glanced back across the road, Suggs had mounted his horse and was riding away from us. He was headed in the opposite direction of Billy Lucie's woodlot, and I had no idea where he could be going.

"I made up a picnic lunch," Rebecca said.

"Shall we ride up to that place on the river?" I suggested, grinning.

"Oh, no." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "I do not intend to walk down the aisle with a big, fat belly. Besides, I invited Josiah and Jemma to come with us, and to bring little Alva too."

My smile widened. "That would have made Abel very happy," I said.

 

* * *

 

We had our picnic in a meadow that was dotted with red clover, buttercups, and Indian paintbrush, and after we had eaten our chicken and cheese and apples, and washed it all down with cold cider, the women went off to gather bouquets for their homes.

"Looks like Jemma plans to give a woman's touch to your ragtag old cabin," I said.

"Already has," Josiah said. "She done put curtains onna windows, a tablecloth onna kitchen table." He sighed. "My sista tried a few years back, but I woun't let her. But ain't no way I kin stop Jemma. Woman jus' looks at ya like ya crazy an' does what she wants."

We both started to laugh and Josiah leaned in close. "Looks like Rebecca's got her cap set on ya. How ya feel 'bout that?"

"I feel good." I tugged at my half-empty left sleeve. "I worried about this, about what it would be like coming to her this way, but it doesn't seem to matter to her. I don't understand it, but I'm damned happy she feels that way."

Josiah put a hand on my knee. "I'm gonna tell ya somethin', Jubal. An' I wants ya ta know I means it. Iffen I was ever needin' somebody ta watch my back, an' Jubal Foster was missin' one arm an' bowf legs, Jubal Foster'd still be the one I'd be wantin'."

"I feel the same way about you, Josiah."

We both jolted to the sound of a horse moving along the road below us.

"Is 'at who's I thinks it is?" Josiah asked. "It is. Tha's 'at sumbitch Bobby Suggs."

The women and little Alva were below us picking flowers, and Suggs reigned in his horse and sat watching them. When Josiah and I both stood, he shifted his gaze to us and raised his finger to his hat brim, but this time he made his shooting gesture at each of the women.

Rebecca had noticed the horse and rider and had raised a hand to her eyes to shield them from the sun. When she recognized Suggs, she froze. Despite the distance between us, I could see the fear on her face.

"Son of a bitch," I hissed as I took a step toward the road. But Suggs was already riding away.

 

* * *

 

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1863

The officers in our new intelligence unit had interrogated our prisoner for most of the night, and the following morning had sent out a balloon to confirm the location of Lee's army. The report that came back said Lee was moving north through the Shenandoah Valley and could be expected to either turn toward Washington or move up into Pennsylvania.

General Hooker quickly put his army in motion, moving all 80,000 men north and keeping those troops between Lee and any quick turn he might make toward Washington. Throughout that march Hooker continued to send out balloons for reports on Lee's progress, and when his army passed into Pennsylvania he became certain that Lee had decided to take his campaign away from war-ravaged northern Virginia and into the Union's own territory, perhaps even as far as Harrisburg or Philadelphia. Speaking to his troops when they had finally encamped, Hooker expressed the belief that Lee was mounting his second attack into Union territory with the goal of coercing Northern politicians into giving up the war against the South. It was a plan, Hooker told his men, that he had no intention of allowing his enemy to achieve. But by the time we reached the outskirts of Gettysburg, Hooker found himself relieved of command in favor of General George Gordon Meade.

"We runnin' through generals like shit runs through a goose," Abel observed as we sat about awaiting our next orders.

We were stopped on a rise known as Cemetery Ridge, looking down on areas called the Peach Orchard, Rose Woods, the Wheatfield, and Devil's Den.

"Who the hell names these places?" Johnny snapped. "An' who the hell decided ta put us in a place called Cemetery Ridge? It's like somebody's tryin' ta bring us bad luck."

I had talked with our lieutenant and he assured me that the main body of Lee's army was well to our north, and that our position was a defensive one, needed to guard against any flanking action designed to cut off our supply route. It was something, he said, that might well keep us out of the bloodiest part of the coming battle.

I told this to our men in hopes of lifting their spirits, but had little success. They had seen what Stonewall Jackson's flanking attack had done to General Howard's forces at Chancellorsville, where some 6,000 men had been killed, wounded, or captured in an assault that lasted only a few hours. It was a demoralizing memory.

 

* * *

 

The initial fighting began on July 1, when the first elements of both armies fought for control of the low ridges to the northwest of the small farming town of Gettysburg. Those ridges, initially defended by a lone cavalry division, were quickly reinforced by two corps of Union infantry. But Lee threw overwhelming numbers into the battle, simultaneously assaulting Union troops from the north and northwest, breaking the hastily assembled Union lines and sending them on a retreat through the streets of the town. When the first day of battle ended, the retreating Union forces had taken up new positions in the hills just to the south of the town, not far from our own position. So now the battle had moved to us, and we reinforced our trenches and readied ourselves for a full-scale assault.

It came the following morning, as Rebel troops swarmed through the Wheatfield, Devil's Den, and the Peach Orchard. We were ordered to lower trenches located on the side of Cemetery Ridge under the cover of heavy artillery fire. Howitzer canisters filled with grapeshot exploded two hundred yards ahead of us as we moved to the lower trenches, firing as we ran, and I could see the bodies of Confederate troops being thrown back as explosion after explosion cut swaths across their ranks.

We passed through one level of trenches and moved to another, lower still, and set our defensive position. The Rebs pressed forward through the devastating artillery barrage and a steady stream of minie balls fired from our position. Thousands moved toward us in succeeding waves and Abel and I lay beside each other, loading and firing over and over again.

"It's a damn turkey shoot!" Abel called out over the roar of weapons. "I jus' can't figger out which side the turkey is on!"

Bullets slammed into the trench wall and whistled past our heads. Each time we fired we ducked down to reload and the buzzing sound of return fire passed over us. Each time I rose to shoulder level to fire another round I expected a minie ball to slam into my face.

I glanced up and down our line and saw the bodies of our men that had been thrown back across the trench, and I realized that while the Rebs were being slaughtered down below us, we were sustaining enormous casualties of our own.

By midafternoon we were ordered up to the next trench line which had been dug some fifty yards below the summit of Cemetery Ridge. Again Union artillery opened up, laying out an overwhelming barrage as we moved along the hill. Still, the Rebs kept firing and before I reached the safety of the trench I could hear bullets hitting the ground on each side of me. I hesitated at the top of the trench and waved my men forward, shouting at them to get to cover as quickly as I could. As I crouched there, shouting, something heavy slammed into my chest and knocked me over the trench wall. Flat on my back, I looked up into Abel's round, dirt-streaked face, and realized he had knocked me back into the trench.

"You stand out there like 'at, yer gonna get yer ass shot off," he said.

Abel had hit me like a freight train and I struggled to regain my breath. "I was just trying to get the men to cover," I wheezed.

Abel grinned. "The only damn fool wasn't scramblin' fer cover was the dumb-assed sergeant, ya silly sumbitch."

The fighting ended for the day as light faded from the sky, and when I took one last look down the hill below us, a sea of blue- and gray-clad bodies greeted my eyes. The words
slaughter
and
bloodbath
played across my mind, and still I knew the battle was not over. Off in the distance, in the area known as Devil's Den—a seemingly endless expanse of massive boulders and scrub growth—I could see Rebel forces reforming, and I knew tomorrow would bring yet another assault just as fierce as the one we had endured today.

 

* * *

 

That night we sat around a campfire, some men taking their turns on watch while others slept and still others told tales of the battle they had just fought. Abel and I sat silently, just grateful we were alive. Across from us one of our men played a mouth organ, sending the mournful wail of "Vacant Chair" down the line of men.

"Damn," Abel growled. "Don't be playin' 'bout the vacant chair at the table. Give us somethin' light an' happy, somethin' the men kin sing to."

The man switched in midmelody and took up the strains of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home."

"Now tha's more like it!" Abel shouted as he began to clap his meaty hands to the rhythm, while other men picked up the lyrics:

 

When Johnny comes marching home again
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We'll give him a hearty welcome then
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The men will cheer and the boys will shout
The ladies they will all turn out
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.

 

The old church bell will peal for joy
Hurrah! Hurrah!
To welcome home our darling boy
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The village lads and lassies say
With roses they will strew the way
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.

 

Get ready for the Jubilee
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We'll give the hero three times three
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The laurel wreath is ready now
To place upon his loyal brow
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home . . .

 

I left the campfire as the men finished the final stanza and then started it up again. I headed for the uppermost trench to take my turn on watch and give those who were there a chance to sing and relax, and I wondered if the Rebs could hear us; and if they could, I wondered what they thought about the men they had fought so fiercely that day, the same men they would try again to kill when the sun rose on the morrow.

 

* * *

 

The breaking dawn brought the Rebels en masse, thousands of them screaming their infernal Rebel Yell as they stormed out of the Devil's Den and surged back across a wide, open area that lay below Cemetery Ridge. Again our artillery opened fire, the canisters of grapeshot driving the Rebs back to the boulders.

Their officers urged them forward yet again, and I watched one, his saber raised high above his head, move to the front of the line to lead the charge. Five feet away a canister exploded and the last I saw of the officer was his saber—his arm and hand still attached—flying up into the air and falling to earth among the line of men to his rear.

As the Rebs came into rifle range I ordered my men to open fire. We were in the trench fifty yards below the summit, and our orders were to hold that position unless we were overrun, and then retreat back up to the final trench above.

Again, the Rebs approached in succeeding waves in what was to become known as Pickett's Charge, what the newspapers would call the most dramatic infantry assault of the war, some 12,500 Confederate troops led by General George Pickett in a desperate attempt to break through Union lines.