The Sentinels of Andersonville (14 page)

It was a pleasant day, not as hot, and Emery and Dance enjoyed the drive.

“What are you fixin’ to do after the war’s over?” Emery asked.

“I’m studying to be a patent lawyer, University of Georgia. But do you know, I think I’ll do a bit of traveling before I go back, once this war is done. I’d like to go west. It doesn’t seem as frightening. Lawless men, Indians on the warpath . . . all just Sunday school, next to Andersonville. How about you?”

“Pennsylvania. That’s in my cards. I might take a look around before I do. See New York. All them little states. I’d like to see places where the Revolution was fought. My great-granddaddy fought at Kings Mountain.”

“Mine fought, too. Wish I knew where.”

“I will die for Jesus,” said the man under the hood in the back of the cart. “But if you touch my family, I will kill you.”

Dance grinned at Emery. He was starting to like this preacher.

“Your family’s in no harm,” Emery chuckled.

“What do you plan to do to me?”

“First, we will get you to recant your religion. Aw, I’m just teasin’. I like religion. The good kind. The truth is you need to see something, Rev’rend. We have arranged a tour for you.”

Dance nodded. “I’d say they could use the services of more clergy. So few go in. None from Americus.”

“I’m happy to serve whoever needs me, but is this necessary? Where are you taking me?”

“Belly of the whale, for you would not go to Nineveh.”

“I see. Does this make you God?”

“No,” said Emery. “I’m just mad.”

“What are you mad at?”

“Your Millard message,” said Dance.

“What message?”

“Did you or did you not advocate the change of date for the Millard dance?”

“I certainly did!”

“For the sole purpose of defeating the F.A.P. meeting?”

“Of course! I did my duty!”

Emery shook his head. “I despair.”

“What else should I have done? General Winder said it’s a front for a Yankee spy operation. Sent someone to talk to me personally. He said they have moved into Americus and are fomenting discord, a whole band of ’em. They are the forerunners of
 
— What is that smell?”

“You best get acquainted with it.”

“Smells like an overflowing privy. Where was I? Forerunners. Will you take this bag off my head? It’s itchy and humiliating. I see a bug. I think it is a weevil. It’s heading straight for
 
—oh, there it goes. Wonderful. It’s in my beard. It will nest and breed.”

“Why were you reluctant to make that announcement?”

“Because my board is not in accord. It makes me unhappy.”

“Why is it not in accord?”

The burlap sack went silent. Then, “Some said that meeting is for humanitarian purposes.”

“You didn’t believe them?”

“I didn’t know what to believe. I’ve got a general in the army telling me one thing, other folks telling me the opposite . . . so I went
privately to Henry and Josie to know their mind on the affair. They were the ones who convinced me, not General Winder and his men. The dance is to raise money for the war widows and orphans in Americus. This couple lost their beloved boy, but have taken pains to look to the distress of others. Pure religion is to take care of widows and orphans. I made my choice over a suspect and unproven organization, and I stand by it. Will you please take off this sack?”

Dance looked at Emery, who nodded.

“Much better. Thank you. Hello, Mr. Pickett. Thought it was you.” He looked at Emery. “Who is your friend?”

“Corporal Emery Jones, 22nd Alabama Volunteers.”

“How do.”

“How do.”

“You boys fixing to take me to that prison?”

“Yes, sir.”

“See for myself, I suppose? Hope I have an epiphany?”

Emery chuckled. “Yes, sir.”

“Well, why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Didn’t think you would come.”

“I might not have.” He looked at Dance. “But he made a fair case, a few weeks back. I have thought about stopping into the provost marshal’s office for a visiting pass.”

“That is exactly how nothing gets done,” Emery said. “Too much thinking, not enough doing. You are about to have a chance to rectify. We didn’t just get you a pass. We got you an identity. What’s the name, Dance?”

“Private Hinton A. Dayton, 7th Pennsylvania Artillery.”

“He died yesterday. I have spoken with Atwater, and he will hold off on recording his name for a day or so.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” the reverend said slowly.

“Oh, I think you do. Private Dayton.”

 
—

It wasn’t often a single prisoner entered the stockade. The pass-through door closed and locked behind Reverend Gillette, and a great wall of men stood before him, hundreds, thousands deep. All Yankees. All staring at him.

“19th Michigan?”

“A
NY WORD ON
R
EV’REND
G
ILLETTE?”

“Nothin’. They’re havin’ a prayer vigil at the Methodist church, and one at the Baptist, which is right ecumenical of ’em. There’s folks all over the telegraph office. They called in the militia, they telegrammed Gov’ner Brown. They believe it has to do with the Millard dance.”

“They never did!”

“Yup. They’re sayin’ it’s that faction called Friends. General Winder’s sent down a fellow from Andersonville. One of them detectives. He’ll smoke it out. He has a resolute cast.”

“I hear Dr. Stiles is in a fix.”

“Oh, he stepped in it this time.”

“I thought he was a good man. What a shame. Any ransom note on Gillette?”

“There was a note stuck up on the bulletin board at the depot!”

“There never was! Is it still there?”

“Nope. The detective took it.”

“What’d it say?”

“Oh, I worked it in so’s I could tell Bets. ‘Dear Americus. We have confiscated your reverend. We will return him hopefully unharmed. Don’t know exactly when. Yours in perpetuity, The Kidnappers.’”

“Perpetuity!”

“Ain’t it a handle?”

“I never heard it.”

“It means it goes on and on and on. Silas Runcorn told me. Told how to say it, too. I had to work it over to get it right.”

“They arrest Dr. Stiles?”

“No, but they run him down to the provost marshal for questionin’. Judge Tate had a fit on that, and ordered him released.”

“What’s gonna happen to him?”

“Don’t know. But one thing’s sure: if I look into the meanin’ of that note, the kidnappin’s ain’t done.
Perpetuity
, and all. Yours in
perpetuity
. Think on that and let it chill your innards.”

“What is this country comin’ to? Never took the doctor for a turncoat.”

 
—

He wasn’t as old as Lew expected. The man turned into the prison could not be above forty.

Lew had orders just like this reverend, who was to make a circuit of the entire prison, and then wait for Lew when he got back to the north gate. Lew, unknown to the reverend, was to follow behind and make sure no harm came to him. He was to have him back by ration time, when it would be easier to get him out. The hope was for this man to see enough that he should make an impression on a meeting tomorrow night at the home of some influential doctor in Americus, the town closest to Andersonville. The meeting had to do with raising help for the boys in here. Lew needed no convincing to do his part.

When he first saw Emery Jones on dead watch, Lew landed a
punch so solid that both went down, Emery from impact and Lew from follow-through.

“You stupid
 
—!”

“Do you know,” Emery had said, sitting in a dusty heap, “I had to do some talkin’ to get this detail?”

“You reenlisted!” Lew grabbed a handful of dust and threw it.

“I needed an address.”

“You
 
—what?”

Lew had stared at him dumbly from where he sat. Some men stopped, transfixed, to see if anything would come of this shocking squabble between a Confederate guard and an inmate, while others kept moving. They had to look through a line of shuffling legs to see each other.

“Your sister’s address. I forgot to ask for it. She live in Ezra too?”

“You stupid, crazy Reb.”

“I’ll tell you what gets me about her. You said she was in a fire to sign up after Fort Sumter.” Emery wiped his nose and checked to see if there was blood. “She made a fuss that here she was, a better shot than most men, but her job came down to the home front.” He waited for a denser line of men to pass so he could see Lew better. “You said she was so hollerin’ mad you could put lead in her mouth and she’d spit out bullets.”

Lew shrugged. “She took to the home front. Organized a league. Went and volunteered at Cooper’s.”

“
That’s
what I liked! Not just the mad but what she done with it. That is a quality girl.”

“Well, she doesn’t live in Ezra. Lives with my folks by Marsh Creek, in Adams. North and west of Gettysburg.”

“Much obliged.” He got up and dusted off his seat. He slipped his hands in the band of his trousers. “See you around, blue belly.” He walked off some, then came back and put out his hand.

The preacher had so far fended off men from Fetchner’s sutlery pretty well, and when it was apparent that he had no news, others left him alone. That left only folks determined to do a good turn for newcomers, and folks determined to do bad ones. As he had no tempting haversack or bulges, these mostly fell off too. It came down to just the man and one pesky individual who followed him south along the deadline until they came to the footbridge over the foul creek. Then the pesky man took his leave and attached himself to someone else.

Lew could almost pity the preacher. He had stopped a few times as if to vomit, but each time he got hold of himself pretty well until he came to the creek. He started for the footbridge, paused to empty his stomach, and started again, hand over his nose and mouth.

“I didn’t know what I was deliverin’ you up to,” Emery had said on their own tour. Emery had ‘conscripted’ Lew and they walked about on the hunt for dead bodies.

“No one could.”

“I wouldn’t have, had I known.”

“I know it, Em.”

“And you were all set to muster out.”

“Well, so were you.”

They walked for a time.

“You meet up with any of your boys?”

“Artie Van Slett and Harris Gill. Artie’s not doing so good. Harris’s got a bad infection in his lip. He’s getting feverish. Won’t go to the hospital.”

“I keep tryin’ to figure out how this hellhole came about.”

“You and us all. Before the war, I’d heard of battles where ditches ran with blood but didn’t believe such a thing as actual until Gettysburg, where you’d take a step and the ground would squish. We heard worrying things of Andersonville, but nothing short of being here can make you believe it. I wish Sherman knew.”

“They say he does.”

“That is not possible. He’d bust us out. He’d exchange. I don’t know why it seems exchange has shut down. You hear anything on it?”

Emery glanced about, then said quietly, “I’m working on a plan to get you out.”

Lew made sure Emery was looking in his eyes. “I heard they hanged a few who’d done that, back in June. You’ve done enough on my behalf. You do any more, I won’t forgive you.”

The preacher’s orders were to walk the circumference of the prison. He was not to stop until he made it all the way around. If the stockade was empty, such a walk would take an hour. With almost thirty thousand men, it would take the better part of the day. Longer, if the preacher kept stopping as he did. A man lay on the south bank of the creek next to the footbridge. The preacher helped him sit up. Not ten steps later, he helped another man carry his comrade to the sick call at the south gate. There, the preacher stayed for an hour. He first seemed overwhelmed at the sight of sick men numbering in the thousands, all lined up to see if they could gain admittance to the hospital. Then he went to a man lying near the gate, who apparently had called to him. He talked with him some, then sat beside him.

“You sit tight, Lew. I’m working out a plan,” Emery had assured him.

“I keep reaching for the name of Little Mite, but it has not found its way south,” Lew had said. “I should’ve bit my pride and asked Carrie when I could.”

“Can’t you write letters?”

“There’s a letter box at the south gate. One of the old-timers says don’t bother. He’s written home a dozen times since March, hasn’t heard back. Some do hear back, some don’t. A Negro from a colored troop told me his friend was taken as a slave to one of the head doctors.
From a warrior to a slave, can you beat that? I can’t even think of it, makes me so mad. Well, this man says lots of letters come in, but that head doctor’s wife and someone else goes through them. They take money and valuables and then burn the letters. Some get through, but not half as should. I will not have Carrie’s letter ransacked.”

“She can send it to me. I’ll get it to you.”

“That’s just one more thing to put attention on you. Emery, you vex me. I am in enemy territory but you are not. Do not make yourself an enemy among your own people.”

“They have me in with the 3rd Georgia Reserves. Half of ’em are boys, other half are grandpaps. They don’t notice nothing.”

The preacher was listening intently to the man he sat next to. He said some words and then bowed his head and prayed with the man.

A Catholic priest came in every day, Lew was told. He stayed somewhere on the grounds outside the stockade. He heard that this priest crawled into filthy hovels to minister to them of his kind first, them not of his kind next. Didn’t matter your insights, religious or not, this priest was on hand for you. Lew was told he ate whatever rations the men ate.

It did something to watch a man care for another.

 
—

Reverend William Gillette thought he had nothing left in his stomach, but even what was not there threatened to make a show. He wasn’t sure what was worse, crossing that filthy creek or coming upon this particular concentration of men.

The creek and its banks, a spongy area more marsh than solid land, was a living mass of putrefaction and filth. The assault on his senses was more than just smell; it seemed the whole of it would crawl down his throat. He saw a man covered in large gangrenous sores filled with flies and maggots, lying half in the water and half
out. He thought the man was a tree stump. He saw another man scoop a handful of the brown creek liquid, sort through the handful, and pluck something from it to eat.

“You try and stand up ’til you got to lay down. That’s how it works.”

The man he sat next to repeated this over and over until Reverend Gillette finally realized he was either sun touched or had gone past endurance in every way, mental and physical. The man had hailed him, and it was the first thing he said when Gillette bent to listen. It took some doing not to recoil from the fetid breath.

“You try and stand up ’til you got to lay down.”

“Why is that?” he asked politely.

“Bugs.” The man’s eyes tried to focus. “You try and stand up ’til you got to lay down. They eat you up at night.”

“Where you from, son?”

“Maine.” He thought a moment. “Presque Isle.”

The young man lay curled on his side, huddled against the earth as if poured upon it, as if afraid someone would move him. He was better clothed than some Gillette had seen, but was thinner than others. Except for his legs. From the knees down, his legs and feet were so swollen it was no wonder he didn’t stand. The legs of his trousers from the knees down had been split to accommodate.

“It’s not as bad as I thought it’d be,” he whispered.

“What is not?”

“Layin’ down. You can’t stand up all the time. You try and stand up ’til you got to lay down. That’s how it works.”

The boy’s face was blackened with smoke or grime. His light-brown eyes stood a sharp contrast. “Can you take off my shoes? I want Mickelson to have ’em.”

“Son . . . you don’t have any shoes on.”

“Oh.”

Gillette sat beside him, trying to contain what threatened to
overflow. This boy was one of thousands gathered at this gate. Some were in far worse condition. Some had gums so hideously swollen they couldn’t close their mouths. Some had filthy bandages wrapped around wounds from past battles, uncleaned and unchanged, weeks or months old. Some were so thin the mind had a difficult time assigning such thinness to a human being. It was not natural, and the mind didn’t want it to be.

“Are you waiting to get in the hospital?” Gillette asked the boy.

“There ain’t room. We got to wait for others to die. My friends brought me. I used to do the bringing.”

“You got a girl in Presque Isle?”

He smiled a little, turning his face shyly toward the ground.

Gillette smiled. “You do have a girl? What’s her name?” Whoever she was, she’d not see this boy again, not this side of heaven. “What’s her name, son?”

“Angelina,” he whispered against the ground.

“Is she
 
—” Gillette swallowed hard. “Is she pretty?”

But the boy did not answer.

Gillette laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder and hung his head.

 
—

Lew met up with Harris Gill on the east side of the stockade.

“How’s our preacher doing, boy-o?”

“Taking his time. He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.”

“Aye. He’s only halfway around. It’ll be way past rations when he makes it back. That him?”

“That’s him.”

“Why, he looks like Colonel Ford.”

“I’ve thought the same.”

“Remember the snowball fight? He jumped off his horse and pitched right in.”

Lew smiled. “Took cover behind it.”

Harris laughed. “He knew we’d never hit that horse.”

They watched the preacher.

“There goes his vest,” Lew observed.

“Och, the silly man. He’ll have no clothes left when he gets to the other side.”

“He gave his shoes to that man always sitting at the deadline by the sinks. What do they call him?”

“Prairie John.”

“Prairie John. He an Indian?”

“I think so. Artie may have consigned all Rebs to hell, but you know what, Lew? I’d like him to meet that one.” Harris’s face went blank. “The laddie’s not well today.”

“You don’t look so well yourself,” Lew said, finally noticing Harris’s flushed face.

“I’ll be fine. But that Artie. All the times I’ve told him to shut up, I’d give something pretty to hear him again.”

 
—

Dance started to look in earnest for Reverend Gillette.

What if something happened to the preacher? What if he ran afoul of one of the more militant Regulators? Six Union men called Raiders were hanged a few weeks back for the plunder and murder of their own men. Law and order was mostly restored through a policing crew called the Regulators. But some of these men used their power as unscrupulously as the Raiders.