Andersonville (44 page)

Hah, he’s still there. Little squirt—he weren’t more’n sixteen and skinny too—he tried to give me trouble.

Cookie looked critically at his big right fist and saw that there was blood drying. He wiped the blood on his trousers. He quoted gaily to Ed Blamey before he turned to his wooden trough, to begin raising the biscuit dough— He quoted, If you don’t believe I’m a butcher, just smell of me boots.

Ed Blamey reached for his bottle of pine-top.

On the sentry platform Floral Tebbs stroked buttons of the stolen jacket, and considered how they would shine even more delightfully in the sun if tomorrow became one of the rare fair days of this month, if indeed the sun shone. He would rub buttons, they would be alive with golden fire, people who had no such buttons would look their envy.

Fifty rods away a gaunt Jewish sergeant of the Eighty-fifth New York (but still powerful, holding control of himself, not straying too far no matter how many similar moons he had worshipped above other lands) sat with big hands clasped across his ragged knees, worshipping this moon. Suddenly Nathan Dreyfoos realized that he had been craving the moon and the silent simplicity and clear freedom which it represented more than he had craved any delight or fulfillment during the twenty-three years through which he’d lived. He had forgotten that brothers-in-arms and brothers who had once borne arms alongside him had suffered and hungered and desired in the same manner. He had been selfish, insensitive to their need. He thought of the dead Corley, the dead Stevenson—he had neglected their memory utterly. He was blanketed with shame. In weakness he prayed to moonlight and to the Almighty God or Monster who made that moonlight, he prayed: Oh, give these other survivors the same release and independence, afford them the same ability to go kiting beyond the stockade, grant it more quickly and more firmly than you grant it to me!

He begged this; but it was as if some caterpillar of voracious falsity crawled active beneath the stalk of his benevolence—a larva who fed on the stem, and awarded rottenness before it could be recognized by his soul (but recognized only by the small portion which begged). Please me first, give me escape in the first moment you can manage it, I care not for the rest, find me a way out, leave me free, Devil take the others.

 XXVI 

S
ometimes it seemed to Henry Wirz that his brain was made of rubber, it was a rubber sack filled with stones, it stretched to paleness as more stones were necessarily introduced and as the weight grew. Stones were labeled Hospital, Crowding, Incompetence of Guards, Poison Swamp, labeled with many other unpleasant names and reminders. In constant screaming temper Wirz bounded from desk to stockade to headquarters, back again to the office of the quartermaster, thence to the quarters of the surly Dick Winder, back on horseback to the stockade to mete out a new punishment or to make a new observation. If it were possible for him to loathe the prisoners more each hour of his life he loathed them so. But his trained physician’s attitude could not countenance the filth of these creatures without wishing to exorcise it merely on the grounds that it was filth. A row of sinks—these he’d built (they were totally inadequate, and this he knew; but they were placed on the lowest ground within the pen for purposes of drainage; and half the sick were too sick to use them, to muster strength to creep or stagger to the sinks; and he ran out of lumber). A bridge across the creek—this he’d managed to have constructed (but it was too narrow, it sagged: again the shortage of lumber and tools). A shoring of the creekside, a fumbling attempt to deepen the stream and thus increase its flow . . . this hopeless effort was achieved amid shrieks. Almost before his eyes Henry saw planks of the shoring melt away, split for tent poles, hacked into bits for firewood. His shivering hands were tied, the entreaties he sent to higher echelons were lost or filed. Who cared? Not the Winders.

By God, I get that damn hospital out of there once.

Odds seemed at times insurmountable but he toiled with frenzy, he hated the sight of those few tent flies packed in the northeast corner, hated the sight and clamor and stink of invalids motionless or gesticulating. In heat of late May he would have rested with pride if rest were ever a state to be attained by Henry Wirz (but it was not). He saw the tent flies sprouting in a new location, and outside the pen at last. He’d procured more tents, lumber to build bunks (not enough lumber, not enough bunks) and had even built a portion of a separate fence around the establishment. It was not a good hospital. At least it was outside the main stockade. Outside,
ja . . .
he kept telling himself that it was better, better. Rotten tent flies, a considerable number of small A tents, a limited number of wall tents scraped from some camp farther at the North and dumped off a flat car one rainy day along with the sodden supply of A tents. . . . This collection of awning rose on a few acres of land east of the star fort, east also of the surgeons’ offices. The ground was higher than the areas immediately adjacent, and sloped toward the southeast, but marshes sent up their aroma on two sides. A small stream, one of the many branches amid those valleys, ran through a corner of the hospital enclosure. Quickly this became a thing of reek and evil.

This was the place where Ira Claffey’s black people had dumped their loads of bastard melons months before. A more noisome cargo of decay was now dumped here on the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of May. After that many people were carried out daily on carts, and more came to take their places, puffing, drooling, hullooing; they were lugged in blankets or on makeshift stretchers, they were carried in the arms of stronger men.

Still it was better. It was outside the stockade. Outside! Much better,
ja.

Four patients were jammed into each of the A tents, eight patients in the wall tents; under common flies lay as many as could be crowded together—six or eight men—sometimes more, under the larger flies. Bunks had been made by driving forks of saplings into the soil and placing scraps of planking—or, more frequently, pine poles—across them. But— Not enough bunks. The sick lay on the ground, some had pine straw, some had no pine straw. If Henry Wirz had been able to devote a greater share of his time to this task he would have seen to it that all had pine straw to lie in. He was a very busy man. He had to be many places at once.

Captain Winder, I tell you now, it is again I make request for you to— Requisition for spades and axes! It is I must have a larger prison, God damn!

Oh, that’s all very well, to speak of implements; and I got them last year and I presume I can get them again; but these damn planters won’t coöperate. All of them want to keep their niggers at home. They raise hell all the way from Macon to Milledgeville every time I try to get hold of a few niggers.

By God, mine own niggers I got. Prisoners I got, nigger prisoners. In the carload I got them!

Well, wouldn’t that be forced labor? Contrary to the Rules of War? Next time I have communication with my father I’ll—

I tell you, you Sid Winder, those picks and spades and axes, those I got to have. God damn, I blow them Rules of War up somebody’s ass, I tell you!

Sid Winder had been manicuring his nails with his penknife. After Wirz left he saw a great bluebottle fly upon the barrelhead beside him, and tried to impale the fly with his knife blade, and missed. He thought, Little bastard of a Swiss squirt. I don’t understand how the old man tolerates him. But we surely are killing off a lot of damn Yankees here. Everybody’s got to do his share. Sid Winder thought of Harrell Elkins, thought of him with undying hatred and with a fear which he could never quite put down . . . cavalry sabers at two paces.

Wirz hacked fiercely at the problem, and eventually he secured his coveted tools. Once more the chant of black voices moaned among trees, this time due north of the existing stockade. Once more resin dripped, chips spun, shaggy tops came crashing.

Oh, he gone up there. Never come back again.

Where you say he gone?

Ooohhh. . . .

Work went forward with speed surpassing far the laggardly construction of the original stockade. Only some ten acres were to be enclosed, the ground was mainly flat, there was no creek to be crossed, no gates to be made. Simply it was an extension of the rectangle by about six hundred feet. Main Street and South Street would still serve as arteries for traffic and commerce. It was told lugubriously Inside that the raiders would undoubtedly preëmpt the fresh space for themselves—it would not be saturated with slime, it would be higher, more healthful, farther away from effluvium of the marsh. In fact the raiders had no intention of moving. Why should they move? They had their castles, their pavilion, they had all the room they wanted; as for effluvium, most of them had been born in it. Faster, faster sounded the click of axes, drone of the diggers, sharp cries of overseers beyond the north wall. Henry Wirz was no lounging Sid Winder. He drove unceasingly.

Where you say he gone?

Ooohhh, ooohhhh, way up there above.

He gone up there, up in the sky. Never come back no more.

Ooohhh. . . .

A strange calm, comparative silence came in the middle of June: heavy work was done. Now was essential only the final touch on ladders and sentry stations. On the evening of June eighteenth there came the sound of digging and prying. The more energetic prisoners gathered outside the deadline to gape up at shacks on the north rim. There were no longer any guards on those platforms. A portion of the fence began to sway, first one log toppled, then three or four others were pried and they fell thunderously. That’s enough, a voice called outside. Big enough hole for them to get through.

Provident prisoners had taken up already their dirty bundles of personal belongings, their cooking tins; they rolled the fabric of shebangs and were treasuring the poles. Men seeped gingerly across the abandoned deadline at first, but soon a minor riot ensued as more and more sought to force their way through the aperture, to make claims on new holdings in the clean area. There were more than twenty-two thousand people in the place on this day, and if these twenty-two thousand were distributed evenly throughout the old acres and the new there would be an end to unbearable swarming. But— Hold on. What of the future? How many more trains would come wrenching to the Anderson depot? It was rumored that all prisoners held by the eastern States of the Confederacy might be concentrated in this one place. For how long would pressure be relaxed? Oh, dear Lord above, it would tighten, it would tighten.

By the hour of darkness the bulk of migration was concluded. In human and animal fashion grass had appeared greener on the other side (it was greener, it would not be for many hours; by the next day there would be no grass) and more folks stampeded into the north enclosure than could be accommodated. Many late arrivals limped back to their old haunts in disgust, and in turn found their original quarters occupied by men who had moved up from marshy regions; there were fights throughout the wet moonlit hours. Henry Wirz rode home pleased with himself. They had said that it was impossible to move the hospital outside; the hospital was now outside. They had said that it was impossible to enlarge the stockade; the stockade had been enlarged. His immediate project was for the removal of the old fence. Seven hundred and eighty feet of palisading, each log twenty feet in length . . . dried out; and the buried ends would not have been long enough in the earth to decay. What might not he build with this treasure? A separate punishment stockade—he had thought of that, he had planned for that with what amounted to affection. And bridges and trestles. On the morrow he would cry for wagons, wagons. Should he not obtain wagons from some source or other the logs could easily be snaked out at the ends of chains, hauled by mules. If worst came to worst he might harness gangs of Negroes together and have them pull the logs.

Chastised into performance by tightening of narcotic energy, he was back at the stockade soon after sunrise on the morning of June nineteenth. He climbed fussing to a new sentry station north of the corner of the old stockade. At first he became sick at his stomach and tottered dizzily; then he began to rave, literally, until frothy spittle flew from his beard. The fence was gone. The old fence was gone. The solid palisade was vanished as if giants had leaned down from the sky and plucked the pines like toothpicks. It was not merely that the old line of stockading had been dug up or knocked down:
there were simply no logs in sight.

Who, who, who? That damn Sid Winder? That damn Dick Winder? That damn colonel commanding the post? No one had authority to do this thing. The lumber was his, his—it belonged to Henry Wirz, he had plans for using it— He stood gasping for breath at last, German curses still lingering in echo— He would find curses in English when— When he had more strength— He would go to General Winder in person— His property had been stolen. A seven-hundred-and-eighty-foot line of logs twenty feet tall. Someone had taken his logs.

Prisoners, sir, the old guard was saying weakly behind him.

Vas?
What you say, guard?

I said, Captain, twas the prisoners as done it.

Them damn logs?
Mein
logs? Them damn Yankees? Son of a bitch—

Yes sir, Captain. We heard them a-doing it. All night long. But nobody’d give us any orders to fire. And they wasn’t inside the deadline—not much, anyways—

Yankees. They had taken his fence, with their bare hands they had taken it, picked it apart with striving fingernails, scraped it to nothingness with puny primitive tools. Firewood, flooring, roofing: it bloomed about the fuming area. As Henry’s vision cleared, he could look down and recognize split pine posts here and there, the rows of newly splintered material.

They do that, he croaked again, not daring to believe.

Yes, Captain, they did so, sure as white blossoms make little apples.

He crept down the ladder, his head was aching. Twenty-two thousand three hundred sixty-two Yankees. Was that the last report he had drawn up? No, no, he could not recollect. Twenty-two thousand Yankees, each had eight fingers and two thumbs . . .
ach, ja,
some had been amputated; but there were more than twenty-two thousand prisoners, and so— Call it two hundred and twenty thousand fingers. He closed his eyes and he could see the mass of those clawing twitching curling fierce fingers like a nest of worms as big as a house— As big as— As big as the Louvre? Not that big.