Different Sin (15 page)

They strode two blocks in silence. Zach cleared his throat. “There’s more to take into account than just your feelings about our friendship. In fact, I’m damned if I can understand your eagerness for the front, considering how little stomach you have for bloodshed.”

“I suppose I can accustom myself to the sight of bloodshed.”

“It’s more than the sight, David.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the risk to your own life!”

“I’m going as an artist, not a soldier.” Zach halted. He caught David’s arm and pulled him around to face him. “David, to sketch scenes of the fighting like those Lumley’s been sending, you’d have to expose yourself to fire as much as if you were a soldier!”

“I don’t think—”

“Give it some thought, will you!”

“I’m not intending to endanger myself. I’ve got to get going now.” David forced himself to put Zach’s words from his mind. He hurried down Broadway, not slowing till he reached Pearl Street and the New York Hospital.

One wing of the hospital had been turned over to the military. The cots of injured soldiers filled the wards in closely packed rows, a neatly printed name card set in the rack nailed to the foot of each bed. A stream of visitors—nurses, doctors, anxious parents, sweethearts, curious onlookers and straight-backed society matrons bearing the charitable gifts of the Sanitary Commission—bustled up and down the aisles. David stood to one side and studied the ward. A few aisles over, a bearded veteran shuffled a deck of cards, dealing them onto a thin board propped between the edge of his cot and that of his neighbor. A third player sat at the foot of one of the cots, a pair of crutches tossed to the floor.

The man’s right foot was missing. David made his way toward the players. He took his eyes from the pants leg, pinned neatly below the knee, and joined the small group of recuperating patients who’d gathered to watch the game. The group shifted their attention to the scene forming on David’s sketchpad. “Hey, he can draw, Jake! Sure caught that shnoz of yours! You gonna make us out heroes in the illustrated, mister?” David smiled shyly, noting down the soldiers’ names and regiments.

Other aisles held soldiers suffering more deadly wounds. David walked through them quickly, uneasily trying not to disturb the wounded men, though the ward was filled with the constant undercurrent of groans and calls.

“Mister, hey mister!”

David turned. A freckled boy of seventeen or eighteen lay propped up on a pillow, bedcovers neatly drawn to his chin. He grinned weakly at David. “Can you help me to a drink, mister? Nurse left a jug of water, but I ain’t got any way to get to it.”

“Yeah, sure.” David spotted the water pitcher on the floor by the edge of the cot, and filled the cup lying alongside. He held it out to the boy.

“You gotta hold it to my mouth, mister. One of them shells took both my arms clean off. Damned if I wasn’t clear back of the lines, too, helpin’ carry my buddy to the surgeon’s tent. Reckon I was lucky the doc was near to hand when it happened.” The boy attempted another grin. He grunted as he tried to heave his body into a sitting position. The sheet slid down, revealing bandaged stumps ending inches below his shoulders.

David froze in shock. He struggled not to stare at the boy with the expression of horror he knew must be on his face. The water shook in the cup.

He felt the cup eased from his fingers, heard a man’s soft, steady voice. “Here, give me that. I’ll take over here. You’ve other work to do.” He fled halfway across the ward before he turned to look back. The poet, Whitman, sat on the edge of the cot, cradling the boy’s tousled curls against his chest, holding the cup to his lips as tenderly as a mother nursing her babe.

Slowly David raised his pencil to his pad. He tightened his grip on the pencil till his hand stopped shaking. The gray-haired poet was easing the boy back onto his pillow, kissing the freckled young face as he arranged the covers. David glanced down at his pad, surprised to see the scene taking form without his conscious volition.

He stood, breathing deeply till he felt in control of himself again. His fingers held the pencil lightly now, guiding it over the paper in swift, automatic response to his mind’s commands, nerves and muscles working in sure, accustomed harmony.

Other soldiers called out, “Hey, how’s about drawing my picture, mister?” David did quick sketches of as many as he could. From time to time he glanced down at his hand, imagining it being ripped from his body in a swift, bloody explosion.

He’d finished far more sketches than Leslie had requested. Doubtless the editor would be impatient to see them. David lingered in the ward, nevertheless, presenting small sketches to several of his more eager models. He was in no hurry to face Leslie with the news that he wouldn’t be going to the front after all.

THE LINE OF PEOPLE WAITING TO ENTER MATTHEW BRADY’S GALLERY turned the corner of Broadway and stretched down Tenth Street. After a long summer of Union defeats, McClellan had whipped Lee in the battle of Antietam.

Brady’s photographs of the battle—the first photographs of the war to be publicly exhibited—were attracting jubilant throngs.

David inched after Zach as the queue advanced a few shuffling steps; the hoop skirt of the woman behind him grazed his ankle as the line jerked to a halt again. He gave a sigh of resignation and tapped Zach on the shoulder. “I got a letter from Mike today, did I tell you? Though he didn’t write much, except how pleased the colored are over Lincoln’s proclamation—that the slaves in the Secesh states will be free after New Year’s.”

“And about time! Though it doesn’t go nearly far enough, I’ll tell you that!”

“Well, I don’t see how he expects to enforce it where he’s no power, in any case.”

“The power will come, I’ll warrant you! Now that Lincoln’s taken the first step to abolishing slavery, the Union’s bound to show new resolve.”

“I suppose. Though the Copperheads are strong enough here in New York. Anyhow, Mike writes that Peter’s more unhappy than ever that Lincoln won’t allow colored to enlist. He’s been champing at the bit to join up.”

David shuffled forward a few steps as the line moved up. “Mike and Rachel feel the same. They’ve been petitioning Massachusetts to let colored into the state militia. I can’t really understand their thinking, to tell the truth. You’d think they’d be pleased to have Peter out of the fighting.”

Zach turned and looked at him. “It’s how I feel, at any rate,” he said quietly. “Damned pleased to have someone I care for out of harm’s way.” David flushed and looked down.

Zach smiled. “Though there’s much to be said for allowing the blacks to fight for their own freedom. Especially—” He broke off as the line surged forward.

The door to Brady’s gallery opened and a stream of visitors emerged. In contrast to the talkative, waiting crowd, the men and women leaving the exhibit were silent, their faces blank with shock. The line moved again. David entered the gallery and followed Zach upstairs.

Brady’s long reception room was filled with viewers clustered around each of the photographs. The gallery was unnaturally quiet, sounds more muffled than could be accounted for by the thick carpeting alone. David could hear the hiss of gas in the chandeliers as he and Zach moved down the line of photographs.

The camera had recorded the battle with a grim realism no artist’s pen could match. A line of Confederate soldiers lay in the country lane where they’d fallen, their bodies heaped on one another like bloody flour sacks tossed in a wagon. Other Confederates sprawled along a cornfield fence they’d died defending, rifles dropped from outstretched, stiffening arms. David tried not to wonder which old friends and acquaintances might lie among them.

A Union burial detail labored to dig a mass grave for a row of Federal dead. A half-dozen Southern artillerymen stared lifelessly toward heaven, a few hundred yards from a shell-pocked country church. A dark-haired boy lay crumpled on the ground, eyes open in blank, arrested shock, one of the 26,000 casualties in a single day of battle at Antietam.

A young, fashionably attired woman swooned, saved from falling only by the press of the crowd. The onlookers parted as her escort assisted her to a couch.

“They should have better sense than to admit the ladies to a sight like this,” a balding man standing behind David muttered. David nodded. He felt a bit queasy himself as he gazed at the dead boy. Zach pressed his hand a second, his motion hidden by the crush of the throng.

The gallery visitors filed out to Broadway in nearly complete silence. “It’s a damned disgrace!” the bald man suddenly cried out. “White men dying like flies to free a bunch of nigger savages!”

Zach spun around to confront him. “I warrant you, sir, the niggers would fight for their own freedom if they were but given leave.”

“Freedom!” The man spat a mouthful of tobacco juice in the direction of the gutter. “To overrun the North! Mark my words, letting the niggers loose’ll prove our undoing. Damned abolitionists dragged us into war against the Southerners and now that ape in the White House means to steal the Sechesh’s rightful property! It’s the destruction of the Union he’s brought on us!” Most of the dispersing crowd had stopped to listen; half a dozen loudly seconded him.

“I daresay, sir, it’s Southern sympathizers like yourself who’ll destroy the Union quicker than any proclamation of emancipation!”

A heavyset man nodded emphatically at Zach’s response. “I’ve two boys fighting for the Union and no use for Copperhead traitors!” Others rallied to his side. David eyed the angry crowd uneasily, trying in vain to signal Zach to move on.

The bald man raised his voice to carry over the shouted epithets opposing factions had begun to fling at one another. “At least the Southerners know how to keep their niggers in check! Mark my words, niggers by the thousands’ll be roaming our streets, living off our bounty, attacking our women! Hordes of savages—”

Zach’s voice boomed out again. “Given half a chance the colored can act as civilized as whites.” He caught David by the arm. “You can testify to that better than I can.”

David winced and pulled back. “For God’s sake, Zach! Let him talk. It’s not worth starting a fight over.”

“Not worth—” Zach dropped David’s arm, turned back to the bald man. A hack approached, wheels clattering noisily on the cobblestones. The wrinkled Negro driver reined his horse as he searched the crowd for fares. The man spat again. “Goddamn niggers stealing a livelihood from white men!” The black driver hesitated an instant, then whipped the horse down the street.

“Now listen here!” Zach thundered. “You’ve no right—”

“I’ve a right to live in a white man’s country, by God, without nigger lovers like you forcing your amalgamation on me!”

The gallery door opened and another group emerged. A slender, elegantly dressed man stopped at the edge of the crowd. His well-modulated voice cut through their yells. “Gentlemen, may I remind you we’re in the presence of the gentler sex.” The bald man looked abashed, hurried off with a muttered apology.

The man who’d chided him moved closer as the crowd drifted away: Zach’s friend, Byron Roosa. Zach greeted Roosa with surprised pleasure. David nodded curtly, then spun on his heel and strode up the street. Zach caught up to him, puffing angrily.

“You could’ve at least spoken to Byron. It wouldn’t hurt you to be civil.”

“I have nothing to say to him.”

“Listen to me, David, he’s offered you his apology—”

“I don’t want to argue about it, Zach.”

“David—”

“I told you, it’s not worth arguing about.”

“Not worth— What in damnation do you find worth arguing about? Your own brother’s colored, yet you wouldn’t say one word in their defense to that Copperhead bigot.”

David winced. “It was a waste of breath. You weren’t about to change his mind.”

“At least I was standing up for my beliefs!”

“And nearly got yourself in a brawl over them! What the hell good would that’ve done? Even that perverted friend of yours had the sense to see that. Oh, hell, I’m sorry, Zach.”

The curses of a coachman cut off by traffic drowned out whatever reply Zach might have made. David glanced at him.

Zach stalked on in tight-lipped, fist-clenched silence.

David matched his stride in accompanying silence till they were forced to wait for traffic at the cross street. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t mean— I guess I let Brady’s photographs upset me.”

After a moment, Zach shrugged. “Perhaps so.”

David shoved his hands into his pockets and retreated into his thoughts. “How could it be worth it?” he muttered, as they reached the boardinghouse steps.

“What in tarnation are you mumbling about?” Zach asked, his voice still gruff with anger. “What’s not worth it? Arguing for what’s right?”

“All those men killed. Half of them no more than kids. How the hell could anything be worth it?”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The victory at Antietam seemed destined to be the last for Union troops. On November seventh, Lincoln removed McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac, replacing him with Ambrose Burnside. Two weeks later, Lee and Jackson repulsed Burnside’s troops, suffering 5,000 casualties to the Union’s 12,000. General Grant was stalemated in the West in his drive to take Vicksburg. With the coming of spring, the Confederates outmaneuvered Northern troops at Chancellorsville, driving them back across the Rappahannock River.

A discouraged Union electorate gave Democrats a gain of 32 House seats. Democratic denunciations of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation grew, New York’s governor, Horatio Seymour, terming it “bloody, barbarous, revolutionary.”

On May 1, 1863, Clement L. Vallandigham, campaigning for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Ohio, exhorted a Copperhead constituency to depose “King Lincoln” as the first step to a negotiated peace. Four days later Vallandigham was arrested and imprisoned by a military commission for his words.

“And no more than he deserves,” Zach told David, waving the latest issue of the
Tribune
triumphantly.