Andersonville (42 page)

How did he come to join the cavalry?

That was an oddment. It began when he was a little boy, dragging those willow baskets of washings along the even east-and-west streets of Galena or—much worse—up and down the nearly vertical north-and-south streets of Galena. There was an older boy named Clovis Tibbetts and he had a black pony with a red saddle. The sight of this pony drove Seneca into fits of jealousy, quiet spasms of envy. In solitary imaginings he owned not a pony but a horse; the horse was as high as a house, and not merely black but black and white; the red saddle was crusted with gems on the saddle-bow. (I guess, said Seneca, that the stirrups were solid gold.) But this was mere wishful illusion: no creature except a rat ever dwelt in the MacBean stable during Sen’s boyhood, no nervous fairy hoofs twinkled along the driveway. (I didn’t want to
be
Clovis Tibbetts, he said. I just wanted a pony—or a horse—as good as his or better’n his.) Acutely he recalled one hot afternoon when he was lonely, he had nothing to do, he had no work to do, no one to play with; his grandfather snored in a stupor; his grandmother was ironing clothes. Gran, he said, I wish—

What do you wish, lad?

Wish (he whispered it) I had a pony.

What would you do with a pony, laddie?

I’d ride it.

She said brightly that she would prepare a pony for him. He must remain inside the house, he must not peep out until she gave the word. He waited, his throat dry, his breath coming fast; he hid himself in a closet so that he might not be tempted to disobey her command. When at last she chirruped from the lawn outside he came dashing. . . . What magic was here? She had said that she would fix a pony for him. Did she know a neighbor from whom a pony might be borrowed? Had she—? It was a pain and jabbing but— Had she
borrowed Clovis Tibbetts’ pony
?

The woman had done her best. She had rolled a cask from the woodshed—a decrepit wooden barrel which had been salvaged from somewhere and was to serve as kindling. On this cask she had folded a makeshift saddle made from a shawl, and she had attached reins of faded ribbon. Now, lad, she said, bestride your pony, and ride far far away. Ride to the ends of the earth. . . . Sen nodded, he thanked Gran in a murmur, he waited until she was gone back to her work, and then reluctantly he climbed astride the barrel. It did not look like a horse, it did not smell as a horse smelled, it was a miserable makeshift, it did not feel between his legs as a horse must feel.

And damn, he said. Soon I looked up—might have heard a noise out in front, along Bench Street—and there he was. Riding past. Clovis Tibbetts on his pony. Red saddle and all. Right then was when I joined the cavalry.

Ah, yes. I understand. I have never been poor—I might be a wiser man had I been poor. But I understand.

Never rode a horse until I was grown, except— Oh, once in a while, bareback to water, on somebody’s farm. But I had the notion.

I know. Anyone who’s had dreams would know.

Then I was working away off, hell to yonder, when they fired on Fort Sumter. The paper I worked for was edited by a man who hated Abolitionists, and he declared that only Abolitionists were rattling the sword. Maybe I had absorbed some of his teachings—you know, putting his notions into type. He had a fine style with words, somewhat like Thomas Carlyle. And equally opinionated! So it took me a while to make up my mind.

...Funny what this prison life does to a body, Brother Nathan. I never told anyone about that heretofore, except one lady. But this awful place makes a man talk at times. And dream.

Nathan said, A man escapes in his dreams. I go far, even though I have not been here long.

Well, I can guess what you mean. Paris, Rome, England—all those lands where you’ve been. But take care you don’t go too far. Man can’t live sole alone on dreams.

I shan’t go too far.

Not far enough to lose those qualities of leadership. They’ll be needed. You’ll be needed.

No, I shall not go too far.

Seneca MacBean said that he had a hero who demonstrated qualities of leadership. . . . Perhaps from the time his young fingers first plucked type Sen MacBean had been possessed of a desire to tell his own story in his own way. Between the ens and ems of his occupation had risen the legendary skill of the campfire yarn-spinner, the cracker-barrel raconteur. He loved a good story for the story’s own sake, and told stories well; but when his own emotion or experience was involved he could rise to a simple dramatic height. He chewed the words with wide jaws, there was slyness in his eyes as he talked, he seemed meditating between sentences; yet the pauses were urgent in their very silence. Any listener would wait with eager ears and soul, his attention would not wander until the nasal Western voice carried along the narrative and made it march and shine in the telling.

So Sen had a hero. At home they called the man Cap, because one time he had been a captain in the army. He was not at all the embattled swordsman of antiquity, like the Gillies MacBean described by Seneca’s grandfather. John MacBean said that forever any youth should be proud to wear the name of MacBean; the youth had only to think of Gillies. Gillies MacBean stood alone in some old Highland war, to guard a breach through which the enemy must advance. He fought until he became a martial saint; at last he was killed; the dead lay piled. Gillies MacBean was the subject of a lament which the wrinkled Scottish printer could recall only in part:
And
each day the eyes of thy young son before, shall the plaid be unfolded, unsheathed the claymore.

So be proud to be a MacBean, ye ken.

Yes, Grandfather.

Say, Aye!

Aye!—and then his grandfather would chuckle.

But the man called Cap, said Seneca, was styled differently. He remembered seeing him, the day Cap first came to town, progressing slowly off the boat which tied downtown at the wharf on Fever Creek; the wife came first, in charge of her little family, and Cap followed, carrying two kitchen chairs in his hands. He had failed in business since leaving the army (he drank himself out of his commission) and was being more or less pensioned by his father. His two brothers ran a business, and Cap was destined to help them, and people hoped he’d make a go of it. But the brothers were sharper than tacks. Cap was not.

Take a farmer: he’d come into the store to trade for some harness, and Cap would help him to select the harness, while the brothers watched suspiciously.

Farmer’d say, How much is this here harness?

Cap’d say, Let’s see. Here’s the tag. Twenty-five dollars.

Farmer’d steam and blow up. This here set? Twenty-five dollars? Why, by mighty, it hain’t
worth
twenty-five dollars!

And Cap’d examine the harness all over, critically. Then he’d shake his head and say, Guess you’re right. Doesn’t look like twenty-five dollars’ worth to me, either.

And then those brothers would be fit to be tied.

Time the war busted out, Cap was eager to join up again, and they had a local militia company called the Jo Daviess Guards. But the folks in town held their own notions about who should be officering that company, and Cap wasn’t included in their speculations. They held an election, but Cap wasn’t elected; somebody else would command. Well . . . he couldn’t carry liquor, and once he’d been compelled to resign from the army, and a man who had no brains for harness-selling probably wouldn’t have any brains for commanding a company. With his tongue unhinged by a glass or two, Cap told a few of his friends that he’d written to Washington, written to the War Department. He said that he had been educated at the National expense and now thought he ought to repay his debt to the Nation; in his own opinion he was fit to command as much as a regiment. But no reply came. Some clerk had scorned the letter and filed it away.

Well, Seneca MacBean was back in town, called by his grandfather’s last illness, the day that the Jo Daviess Guards marched to the train. They looked pretty fine, for green troops; they had a power of sparkle to them, and the young officers looked imposing. Then a few folks started to laugh. What did they see? Here came old Cap, walking or marching or whatever you want to call it, along the street. He was keeping pace with the Jo Daviess Guards, bound and determined to follow them at least as far as Springfield where troops were rendezvousing. There he trod along in his shabby citizen’s clothes and faded hat, carrying a limp carpetbag in his hand. Quite a sight. No wonder the folks laughed and nudged one another.

My hero, said Seneca MacBean. What you might call Qualities of Leadership, in upper case.

Where is Cap now?

Some weeks ago I heard that he’d been given command of all the armies of the United States. Man by the name of Grant.

 XXV 

T
he first few days of Floral Tebbs’ military experience had been marked by wide-spread festivity: the planning thereof, the excited contemplation thereof, the celebration itself. The Twenty-sixth Alabama was about to leave for the front and a majority of veterans in those ranks looked forward to departure with hysterical relief. They did not care how many Yankees shot at them in far hills where soon they would reëncounter the enemy. Battle would be a delight in comparison to the stench and monotony of this duty at Andersonville. Georgia Reserves would relieve them here, Georgia Reserves would go On Picket and On Parapet instead of the Alabamans. Good enough for them.

Flory Tebbs wished that he also might be bound for fields of glory, but still the primary appurtenances of soldier life were thrilling. Contemplation of the altered musket issued to him sent him into a blissful daze. He loved to touch the cracked walnut of the old stock, even though he forgot and left his piece leaning outside to rust against a tent-rope the first night, and was cursed by his sergeant. The sergeant was a pimply mentally retarded youth named Sinkfield whose chief accomplishment before this war seemed to have been in the killing of little pigs at an Atlanta slaughter-house. Sergeant Sinkfield was fond of reciting the death throes of little pigs and could imitate their squeals to dread perfection. After enduring a shove, slap and verbal blasting from this bestriped hulk, Flory took to polishing his musket with sandpaper which he and two new cronies stole from an ordnance chest left untended at the big star fort. The musket barrel accumulated no more rust, it was abraded until it hurt the eyes in sunlight, it gleamed beneath the stars.

When not trooping through one of their disordered drills or digging fresh trenches for latrines, the raw Reserves were set to clearing a space on level ground among the pines near the road to Anderson Station. This area was dragged, pounded, wet down, stamped again, swept clean. It was to serve as a dance floor. Everyone prayed that no rain would fall on the thirteenth of the month. No rain came. Throughout the countryside folks made a holiday, and black people thronged to watch. The string band played for hours; The Girl I Left Behind Me seemed the only rendition on which fiddles, banjos and the two guitars could get together properly, but there was better music offered in solo by various musicians. Dust crawled in a cloud from the clay floor. Over to the east beyond the uneven palisade and sentry shacks Yanks stood in droves, watching the merrymaking across that low place where the stockade dipped over the creek. They stood upon high ground on one side, the celebrants were upon distant high ground on the other side, they could see. It seemed funny to have Yanks watching you while you danced.

Floral Tebbs did not dance; he did not know how to dance any more than he knew how to read, and he did not like to have girls near him. The detail of unlucky guards who had drawn Parapet lounged on their platforms, peering toward this unprecedented frolic, paying more attention to the gaiety than to the Yanks they were set to watch. Thus no one was shot at the deadline during those hours, and sly bold prisoners took advantage of the opportunity to steal wood and comparatively uncontaminated water from the danger side of the scantlings.

Laurel Tebbs, her little witch’s face afire with excitement, was whirled from hand to hand, from group to group. The gross Sergeant Sinkfield attended her persistently, hugging her thin body against his oversized body whenever he found a chance. Laurel wore an old purple gown of her mother’s, gathered in wads at the waist to take up the slack of extra goods; she had done this alteration herself, and it was not wholly successful; but the color was bright, her petticoats were mended, she had scrubbed and pressed them, they showed when she swung and skipped, men found them enticing no matter how bare and brown and bony the scarred limbs which twisted beneath the folds. Laurel had upset a pot of boiling water over her feet and ankles when she was tiny. Plentiful scars still showed, mottled, pink, creamy amid the tan.

Flory regarded his sister with disgust, and stalked away to the pit where bodies of two foraged half-wild hogs were basted slowly above barbecue coals. Just look at my younger, cried the Widow Tebbs to Captain Ox Puckett as they bounced to the end of the line. Going along over there. He does make quite a soldier.

Flory? He won’t never make no soldier.

But he
is
one. In that little Yankee jacket too big for him—

Honey, these here Reserves is slime. Just pure slime.

Ox Puckett, how dast you? Flory hain’t no slime!

Oh, no, not him specially. What I mean: no fit drill, no fit discipline. The non-coms is quarter-witted and slothful, and anybody knows that non-coms are the backbone of the military. Leave us pray to God there don’t come no general rising of the Yanks! These here Reserves would cut for it—I don’t care how snipsish is the jacket Flory’s a-wearing! . . . Come along, let’s get into this new set. But let me kick off these boots first and go sock-footed.

Coral Tebbs attended the pic-nic, after declaring with oaths that he would die sooner than go. He spent some time glowering at dancers from a distance; later he accepted a gourd half filled with pine-top and was drawn into conversation by two of the Alabamans who happened to have been in the battle at South Mountain back in ’62. The conversation became animated, rowdy; the pic-nic was ignored by Coral and nearly ignored by the others; little points of fire burned in Coral’s black gaze. He drank more pine-top and later became sick at his stomach, and threw up behind a tree. The Alabamans had seemed suddenly like comrades, and he had had no comrade in a long time. Now the Alabama boys (comrades: what were their names? Loopy and Cox) would be going to the front, and he could not go to the front. He could not go anywhere much. He fumbled his head-aching way toward home long before the pic-nic was done. Uncle Arch Yeoman saw him reeling; he came out of his store and smelled liquor, and upbraided Coral, and offered him a Temperance tract.

God damn you, said Coral, I don’t want no Temperance track. Go wipe your ass with it! He pressed the paper into a ball and threw it at Uncle Arch, and went on toward the Tebbs place, whimpering to himself, blowing his nose with his fingers as he traveled.

His brother Flory had found also boon companions in a manner which suggested that they might be more or less permanently welded in partnership, since they were members of Flory’s new mess and slept beside him. Both were from Chatham County and had known each other before they came to serve. One was a tall starveling who’d spent early years at a Poor Farm, the other a runaway apprentice who declared that his father was executed early in the war for murdering his lieutenant. This latter youth, Irby Flincher, became Flory’s favored compatriot because they were nearly of the same size although Irby was three years older than Flory. Times when they stood unclad Flory took pains to conceal his nakedness from the others because he had no hair and the other elder boys had hair. In anguish Floral inspected himself and petitioned the Almighty to grant him hair, and by June was rewarded in observing a few limp sprouts of blondish texture above his rudimentary organs. . . . Irby Flincher had a trick of giggling privately with the other member of this triumvirate whose name was Mackey Nall. They talked of corn-holing, browning and other mysteries unknown to Floral Tebbs.

Floral was beaten up several times during the early weeks of soldiering. He was whipped by Sergeant Sinkfield, by Corporal Woodall, by a loutish private from up in Bibb. Once he attempted to run away to the Tebbs place and scream his trials to the widow; but fleeter people fetched him back. Sinkfield talked of bucking and gagging, but Flory was sentenced finally to march back and forth on picket duty with a Yankee knapsack on his back—a knapsack filled with bricks. It appeared that he was turned to be a whipping boy, being one of the smallest and perhaps the youngest in his command.

One night he and Irby Flincher got into a discussion about which should sleep under a new leak sprung in their rotten tent, and Irby attempted to enforce his demands. Flory had come to the end of his rope. He shrilled, I don’t give the shit off’n a tomcat if your Daddy
was
a killer, and very nearly gouged out one of Irby’s large brown eyes in the resulting struggle. Irby shrieked for help, Mackey came to help him, Floral Tebbs bit the lobe from Mackey Nall’s right ear. After that he was termed a devil-festered little runt, and respected accordingly. Within a few days he and Irby and Mackey were friends again, and swaggered together off duty.

Irby said, You know them bricks.

What bricks, Sojer?

Like old Stinkfield-Sinkfield compelled you to tote for punishment. Member where they come from? From nigh that bake house.

God damn, I don’t hanker to carry no more bricks.

But I got a good idea come to mind. Let’s get down back of them stumps where no one can’t see nor hear us, and I’ll tell you what.

Together the three squatted in hiding and Irby explained his plan. They were bothered by mud in their tent; water rose out of the trench beyond the canvas whenever new rains came pelting. Well, sir. There were plenty bricks over next to that bake house where apparently old Dick Winder planned to build a new oven. Well, sir. There wasn’t any guard set over them bricks. . . . Irby Flincher’s eyes were huge and pale-rimmed and luminous—they looked like the eyes of Holy folk in Bible pictures—they shone with wistful brilliance when he talked feverishly.

Sojers, we can crawl over there one at a time in the dark. No guards about, specially if it’s raining pitchforks and nigger-babies. Make a tolerable platform, raise our beds out of the mud.

But twould be hard sleeping.

Ain’t hard sleeping better than wet sleeping, Sojer?

Spose the quartermaster cotches us?

Oh, he couldn’t cotch the pox! Where do you reckon he got them boards from—build himself a fine new office and quarters? Some of that same lumber Colonel Persons got to make barracks for the Yanks in the stockade!

Hell, it hain’t fitten them Yanks should have barracks and us have none.

Reckon we’ll have barracks fore long. So I heard tell. But meanwhile—

They made private creeping sorties, the bricks were transferred laboriously. Their other tentmate (an asthmatic Millerite with brown fangs who warned the three little ruffians to prepare for an eventual reappearance of Christ on earth) threatened to disclose their thievery unless they toted some bricks for him too. They whispered about a possible accident which might ensue; they had heard of such executions awarded to soldiers who made themselves obnoxious . . . a loaded gun might go off suddenly, unexpectedly. But none of them had yet whetted his savagery to the edge of cold-blooded murder: they liked to talk about it, that was all. They fetched bricks for old Ducky Duckworth, they had a dry and well-paved tent. There was never any official inspection of the tents . . . it was expected that barracks would be constructed soon, and so in time they were constructed. Meanwhile no one appeared to have missed the stolen bricks, and the three robbers prided themselves.

Together or singly they stole other things. The post adjutant owned a slab shack to which only he had the key, and rumor claimed that the shack was stuffed with good things to be sold at fancy prices to prison sutlers. Floral Tebbs watched sharply whenever he passed this structure on a slight incline above the road. He observed that it was set on posts, but that a very small person—one of his size or Irby’s—might snake his way between the squat pilings and perhaps gain entry from beneath. Boards had been nailed tightly to the sleepers, ambition was thwarted to begin with. Later Flory discovered by candlelight, and with Mackey and Irby lying along the ground outside to shield the candle’s flare— He discovered that one of the sleepers was worm-eaten. You could practically push the nails out with your fingers, or at least with a claw-hammer if one might be filched. In time this too was accomplished, and, under cover of the trampling and barking of a thousand new prisoners arriving in one night, the nails were dispensed with. Irby and Flory got into the adjutant’s shack and passed things out to Mackey Nall beneath the floor. They made several raids before an investigation disclosed the nature and manner of this burglary, though not the perpetrators thereof; then the floor was rebuilt and a guard was stationed at the building twenty-four hours a day. Nevertheless the scrawny freebooters had made off with red pepper, honey, salt, saleratus, half a bushel of onions worth sixty dollars Secesh per bushel, an entire box of tobacco worth twenty-two fifty; and to crown their achievement they had drained away several quarts of precious sorghum from a vast barrel which was believed to be worth the startling sum of three hundred and twenty-five dollars—not Secesh, but in greenbacks.