Songs of the Shenandoah (32 page)

“What brings you here, Clare?” Ben Jones flashed his familiar smirk, but it was filtered with the weariness of covering a long war. “Doing a story on Pennsylvania's summer squash harvest and stumbled into this little scuffle? I haven't seen you out in the field since that . . . picnic at Bull Run.”

Clare tried to think of some clever retort, but her soul was winded. Besides, Ben was right. She had only been to a few actual battle sites and this would be her last.

The two of them had peeled away from their vantage point above the battleground in order to take a respite from the unfolding drama below. But it didn't keep them away from the sound of the explosions and the distant screams of war in the background.

He took a draw on his hand-rolled cigarette, and for a moment she understood why one would take on such a vice.

“Why am I here?” Clare sat on a boulder. “I suppose we couldn't bear to be the only newspaper without a field correspondent anymore.”

“No, my dear. You should know you can't lie to a trained reporter.” He tapped off a cigarette ash.

Long before she arrived from New York days ago, and even as she watched the Pennsylvania farm countryside from train and carriage windows, she admitted to herself why she was here. Certainly part of it was to be able to confront the enemy face-to-face, with her pen if not the sword.

But her real desire was to see her brothers, perhaps for the last time. Clare had a bad feeling about this battle and was inexplicably drawn to being here.

Yet by the time she had arrived at Gettysburg, it was too late and perhaps all of this was a waste. The conflict had already begun, the troops were entrenched, and it was impossible for her to get close enough to see Davin, let alone even know where to find him amid the madness.

War appeared organized and simple when it was traced on a general's map, but she had learned that once the first shots were fired, chaos prevailed and the survivors and winners of the conflict were those who could rise above the panic.

And if her brother Seamus was out there fighting for the other side, he was only one of tens of thousands of faceless specks crawling up green hills in gray uniforms, through flashes of light and rising smoke to be hacked down and rendered lifeless. She could only hope and pray that Seamus was back home dragging a hoe on some farm in Virginia.

“How have you survived?” Clare asked.

“That would depend on your definition of survival.” He glanced upward. “I had thought the despair, the darkness, that it was all about the losses we've suffered. But here today, the generals are telling us this is the Union's greatest victory and all I can see are thousands of dead soldiers on both sides. And still, the shadows remain. Even in victory.”

Ben flicked his glowing cigarette on the soil, then pulled a watch out of his chest pocket. “I suppose I should get my story wired in. There is a telegraph booth for us, but a line is forming already. What about you?”

Clare flapped open her leather satchel and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “The northern front earns a rare Robert E. Lee defeat. But at what cost is victory? The quiet fields of harvest give way to a calamitous portrait of twisted bodies and ephemeral dreams.”

“Well stated. Shall I send it in for you?” He held out his hand.

She always liked Ben, but journalism was war as well. Her trip to Gettysburg came at a great cost and inconvenience to Andrew and the
Daily
, not to mention her children. So Clare felt obligated to write powerful and protected articles while she was here. “I should telegraph it in myself.”

He grinned, not as if he got caught, but as if he admired her professionalism. “I'll always have a heart for the
Daily
, you know. I don't believe in regrets in life, but . . . I wish I had stayed and fought it out with you and Andrew. What you are doing there is important.”

“Thank you, Ben. Your words will bring great encouragement to my husband.”

He made his way up the hill and then down the dirt road that led to the makeshift telegraph station the reporters collaborated on setting up as their link to New York.

Imagine if Cyrus had succeeded with his cable across the Atlantic? She would have been able to share news of this battle with Europe. Poor Cyrus. The continued failures of his efforts were under investigation by a committee, and the report was due out any day. Clare had already heard the news would be damning. Still, she believed he would somehow persevere.

Clare made her way back up to the hill, where other correspondents and artists seemed to be breaking down for the day, most certainly to jockey for telegraph time and to send their drawings off with couriers. The sun was descending, and the three-day battle seemed to be winding down as well.

The clouds had been darkening, and the first flashes of lightning filled the sky, although blending in with the occasional flashes of ordnance.

Suddenly a strange feeling overwhelmed her as she looked down on the smoldering and cadaverous rolling hills. An impending danger. Something terrible was about to happen.

She could sense it in every core of her being.

Chapter 35

The Retreat

These were to be Confederate skies—bold, bright, and destined to secure victory against the impossible odds.

But instead, the impending darkness crept over fields piled with bodies of so many sons of misfortune, their last movement, brief spasms, hands raised in flailing desperation and groans and wails to be unanswered, except for the thunder that played in harmony with the smattering of artillery rounds.

All was lost. And all that was left for the once-brilliant maneuvers of Southern generals was a retreat of haste.

The lightning cast illuminations on the land of the dying, and before him Seamus grieved with the agony in the face of Anders, who wrestled to free himself.

“Please, Chaplain Hanley. I ain't meaning no disrespect, but he's out there.” Anders pointed up the hill, to someone he believed was alive among the hideous and contorted pile of bodies. The rest of the Southern battalion had begun their hasty retreat. Amid orders and shouts, they limped off in pain and defeat.

Which left Seamus and Anders eerily alone.

Seamus glanced up at the peak of the hill. Inexplicably, the Union soldiers had not followed to finish the task of decimating Lee's army. At any moment, he expected the shadows to rise and the fury of the North to sweep down the hillside.

“I won't let you go out there, Anders. Your father, your mother, my daughter—they would never forgive me.” He looked at the boy's eyes, hardened by what they had seen. There was no longer any mission left for Seamus in this battle at Gettysburg. All that remained was to see to the promise he had made Fletch back home.

“It ain't a right thing. Leavin' my friend to die. I'm tellin' you, sir, he's just up a ways.”

“And so are snipers, all around us, my son. You are a brave lad, but the fight is done in us now. Come, let us go together.”

Another brilliant flash and the ghosts rose again, twisted bodies and faces, framed in a mist that was either fog or smoke. Seamus sensed the danger was impending. Step-by-step, rifles pointed, hundreds of Union soldiers would emerge over the hill.

The boy's body relaxed and he nodded at Seamus. One glance back up the hill, and then defeated he began to turn and they were walking side by side.

But it was only a feint, and in an instant Anders was racing through the open field stepping over bodies and slipping, then rising again and approaching the crest of the hill.

He moved with alacrity. “Anders!” It was all Seamus could do. The boy slipped from his grip.

Then just as the boy rose above the peak of the hill, a shot sounded, then another, and Seamus watched in horror as the boy's body jerked and fell backward, tumbling down.

“No!” Seamus closed his eyes. What was he to do now? He couldn't save them all. The battle was lost. He would fight another day.

He turned and his shoulders slumped. There was a voice in his head. It was Pastor Asa.
“What if all of our lives are spent with the purpose of saving one? Would it be worth it then?”

Seamus lowered his chin to his chest and turned back. Now the distance seemed so far, so impossible to survive a run. What about Ashlyn? His daughter, Grace? Should he not retreat for their benefit?

Then he heard Anders pleading, rife with pain. “Seamus!”

Surely the boy was dying and there was not much he could do. If he made his way up the hill after him, Seamus would only serve as an escort to gates out of this world. Was he ready to die? To leave his wife and daughter?

He glanced down to his side where his canteen hung. The water of life, as Chaplain Scripps once referred to it. If he could give the boy his last sip and hear his final petition to God, it was the least he could do for Fletch and Coralee. He suddenly knew his promise to Fletch was much deeper than the old moonshiner understood. There was no better way to care for the boy than to be there for him to make his peace with the Father.

Seamus prayed for protection and started his way forward, but he had only taken a few steps before he heard the pounding of hooves and the rattling of a bridle, followed by a neigh.

“Have you not heard the orders?”

Seamus spun, and in the foggy twilight was the confident figure of a man mounted on a horse, its front legs rising.

“The order was to retreat, soldier!”

The lighting flashed again. And though it only briefly illuminated, he clearly saw who was before him.

“Seamus Hanley!” The words came out with deliberation and vileness.

Seamus was speaking to a shadow again. “Colonel Percy Barlow.”

The thunder rocked through the valley, and it added to the tension of the moment. And if not for movement of the horse struggling against its reins, there wouldn't be any motion at all.

“And now I am just as David.” Percy shifted in his saddle, glancing around as if to see if they were alone.

“I am afraid, sir, I do not understand.”

“You are a preacher, are you not . . . Chaplain Hanley?”

Again, another burst of light flared, and now Seamus could see a revolver pointed at him.

“When God had delivered his enemy Saul to him in the cave,” Percy laughed, “David didn't have the courage to fulfill his destiny. But I do, Chaplain.”

“There is a man up there,” Seamus said. “He is dying. It is Fletch's boy. You know him as well.”

“Always hated that old coot.”

“I promised his parents I would care for the lad. And it is a promise I will be keeping.”

“The order was to retreat, Chaplain Hanley.”

“I don't believe you intend to allow me to retreat.”

“This is true. What's one more fallen soldier? Especially a traitor?”

Seamus turned. Then he heard the sound of the hammer being cocked and paused. “You going to shoot a man of the cloth in the back, Percy? Is that who you've become?”

With his life hanging from the thinnest of twine, taut and fraying, Seamus stepped forward. Then again. “Please, Father. I pray for Your protection.”

Then another. Should he run? No. If he moved quickly, it might startle Percy.

Now Seamus lumbered over bodies and his ankles buckled. And he soon would be in the sights of Union soldiers. His body tensed with each meticulous advance. The fear screamed through the pores of his skin but he continued. The drive to reach Anders prevailed.

Then he saw Ashlyn's face. Just as in her picture he had carried with him all of these years. “Oh, Lord, please let me see her again.”

In that very moment, he sensed his ministry of the tents was finished. As if God had just relieved him of his duty. It was time for him to go home. To be with Ashlyn and Grace. He stepped again. He just needed to reach Anders.

The clouds lit up again, revealing the tormented faces of death all around him. A loud clap rang out and Seamus felt a pressure against his back. He fell forward and landed into a pile of bodies. A pain ripped in his side and he lay still, terrified to let it be known he was still alive.

He heard the sound of reins, a whistle, and then the pounding of the ground. He was alone. Terribly, terribly alone. Accompanied only by the thunder and the groans of men.

Soon he would not need to feign death because it was coming upon him, and he cried at the thought of never seeing his wife and daughter again.

Then the agony grew. Until he succumbed to the darkness.

Chapter 36

The Visitor