Two Girls of Gettysburg (39 page)

The thought of two drunken rebels tangled in a muddy hole made me explode with laughter. Mama and Margaret and Amos and Noah Zimmer all joined in, and Ben sat there beaming at us all. I had a new respect for my little brother.

“Next thing I know this boy cuttin’ my hands free wif his knife,” said Amos. “While I set to work on my ankles, he stood at the door wif that shovel raised. ‘Ah busted myself!’ groaned one reb, an’ the other cursed, ‘My dang rifle’s all muddy!’ Once my feet was free, I grabbed the other soldier’s rifle an’ we jumped clean over that hole. The horse weren’t where we’d tied him to a tree. So we jus’ took off runnin.”

“Some folks have all the fun, while the rest of us get the sorry luck,” said Zimmer mournfully, rubbing his leg.

Amos related how they had gone several miles on foot before stopping to build a fire and dry off. Then on Hunterstown Road, they had come up behind Confederate troops on their way to Gettysburg. They had hidden in an old shack all day, hearing the distant, sporadic fighting. That had been Wednesday, the first of July.

“At night,” said Amos, “we tried to sneak home by moonlight but there was too many rebel patrols around, so we went back to our hidin’ place. We was mighty hungry, so Ben poached a knapsack right off a sleepin’ Johnnie, an’ we had ourselves a feast of rancid bacon and worm-eaten cornbread. We tried again las’ night and was able to sneak through without the rebs catchin’ us.”

I saw by the hollows under my brother’s eyes that despite his plucky storytelling, he had been desperate to find his way home again.
I put my arms around him to let him know I understood, and he did not pull away.

Then Mama had me come upstairs with her to put together some supper for the six of us. But I found she didn’t really need my help.

“You’re not telling me everything, Lizzie,” she said with a worried look. “We could hear the artillery fire, you know. I regretted sending you down there and never stopped praying.”

“I worried about you and Margaret, too. But I am home safe, and so is Ben.” I smiled, but I couldn’t fool Mama. She kept searching my face.

“Tell me, Lizzie,” she prompted again.

I could no longer hold everything inside. “Ginnie Wade,” I began, my voice breaking already. “She was killed by a stray bullet, standing in the kitchen of her sister’s house.”

Mama let out a moan and leaned on the sideboard. From the cellar came muffled voices and the sound of Margaret’s laugh.

“And Mr. Hartmann is dead. It’s a long story for some other time. I didn’t want Margaret to find out.”

“Not now anyway,” Mama agreed, her voice a hoarse whisper.

“But that’s not all. Mama, yesterday the reserves were called into battle. I saw their flag. Luke was at Little Round Top. I don’t know if anything happened to him.”

I had been so afraid to tell Mama this, but she did not react as I had expected.

“He’s that close by?” she said, her eyes wide. “Why, tomorrow we’ll ask at every hospital until we find out if he is hurt. If so, we will bring him home.”

Mama seemed buoyed by hope. After all, Ben and I had returned to her. But I knew that locating Luke would not be an easy task. There
were makeshift hospitals in barns, churches, and houses all over the county. To search them all would be impossible.

But I said, “Yes, Mama. That’s what we’ll do.”

I recalled my desperate search for Mr. Hartmann.

What if we don’t find Luke—alive?

Rosanna
Chapter 43

July 3, 8 p.m.

My pen is heavy with the weight of this tragic history. Writing is a struggle. But words are all I have to paint the horrors of this day.

The artillery barrage this afternoon lasted two hours but seemed endless. From time to time the guns stuttered into silence, only to roar again to life. My ears were deafened and my nerves frayed from the constant thunder. Even the horses were driven mad and broke from their tethers, plunging riderless through the fields until many were struck and killed. I watched a team of gunners struggle to reset their cannon as it sank into the soft ground with each recoil, sending missiles beyond their targets on the far ridge. A sudden blast threw the gunners to the ground, where they lay unmoving. I started forward with my satchel of medicine. Langan grabbed my skirt but I shook him off. Death was claiming good soldiers every minute, and my life was no more precious than theirs.

I ran through the knee-high grass toward the line of flame-belching cannons, stopping only to let a caisson loaded with ammunition roll by. Its driver gave me a startled look. Langan and the other fellow had followed me, and they quickly bore away the gunner with the worst wounds. I supported a second one as he hobbled back to the grove of trees, and the third was able to crawl to shelter. I treated their blistered
skin with tallow. Langan brought soldier after wounded soldier to my triage station, where I dispensed what aid I could, so intent upon my work that I barely flinched when a Yankee shell hit the ground nearby. It dislodged great clods of earth but fortunately did no further harm to my patients.

I looked up to see a man walking slowly toward me, a large piece of iron shrapnel protruding from his breastbone. To my astonishment, he was not even bleeding. His mouth opened and closed as if he were trying to speak, and he pointed to his chest. I thought of a statue of Christ holding his heart that I once saw in the Catholic church in Richmond. I touched the metal, but realized that if I tried to remove it, he would probably bleed to death. Langan had already gone, so I advised the man to take himself to the hospital. It pained me not to be able to help him.

It was about midafternoon, judging by the sun’s decline, when the situation on the field began to change. First the artillery fire sputtered. Officers and couriers galloped back and forth behind the guns with a sense of urgency. Langan asked to borrow my field glasses.

“I see Longstreet conferring with his artillery commander,” he reported. “We must be almost out of ammunition. If we don’t attack now, our men will be going forward without any covering fire!” He seemed very agitated.

“I don’t understand. If there is no more ammunition, how can the battle go on?”

Langan didn’t reply. He continuted to scan the field.

“The Union batteries are pulling back. They’ve stopped firing. By God, what is Longstreet waiting for?”

Just then General Pickett rode by on his black horse, shouting, “Up men, and to your posts! Don’t forget today that you are Virginians!” The infantry began to move forward from the woods. The standard bearers of every regiment and company raised their colors. Seeing the blue flag
of Virginia waving in the hot breeze, I joined my voice to the rising cheer. Then the thousands of men, forming an unbroken line almost a mile long, began their advance. The sun was at their backs, casting long shadows before them and glinting off their bayonets and rifle barrels. They advanced in silence. Their ranks parted as they approached a battery of guns or a dead horse, then closed up again, like a river flowing around a rock.

Long minutes passed before the artillery resumed their covering fire, and the men advanced with the sound of their own guns at their backs. They did not look back. I watched the inexorable tide flow down the grassy slope. The soldiers marched with steady, measured steps over the mile of open ground. No one cheered any longer, and my excitement at seeing their march commence turned to dread as they neared the enemy’s lines. I realized that the artillery bombardment had been only a prelude to this more deadly stage of battle.

When the leading column had traversed half the distance between the two lines, the Yankee guns opened their fire again, raining shot and shell upon our brave soldiers. Though they fell like ninepins, the line moved on. Those on the flanks lagged a little, and the straight line took the shape of a crescent. Like a blunted arrow our soldiers converged on the center of the Yankee line. Fire from Yankee guns raked them from the side, and dozens fell, disappearing in the tall grass. As the men slowed down to climb over the fences along Emmitsburg Road, Yankee sharpshooters picked them off. But the lines re-formed, and the men advanced at a doubled pace, uttering battle cries that floated back to us on the wind.

Then, as Pickett’s brave Virginians came within a hundred yards of the enemy’s breastworks, the Yankee rifles fired simultaneouly with a deafening crack, and the minié balls did their precise and deadly work. In the open fields, men fell like wheat cut with a scythe, but the remainder marched on, undaunted by the certainty of death.

I could no longer bear to watch, but laid down my field glasses, and the scene became a distant blur of movement and smoke. I busied myself treating wounds while for an hour the clash continued. Then the sounds of battle subtly changed, and peering through my glasses again, I saw our men stumbling, running, and crawling away away from the point of battle. Some held up handkerchiefs or caps as if they were surrendering. Yet others persevered, gaining the wall and fighting up the hill until they were driven back with bayonets. Soon I had little doubt that the valiant Virginians were in full retreat.

Alas, my disappointment was nothing compared to that of the soldiers who straggled back, their bodies broken and defeat written on their faces. Among them I looked for Tom, but in vain, for every man’s face was blackened with dirt and powder. Hiram Watt stopped, seeing that my aid station was overwhelmed, and helped Langan carry the wounded to ambulances. As I write, hundreds of bodies still lie on the field and the stretcher bearers pick their way among the fallen, seeking those who have a chance of living. The others, they leave to die.

July 3, 11 pm.

An hour ago I set out across the wide field to look for Tom. I carried my satchel of medicines, a canteen of water, and a lamp. Only a few crickets chirped feebly in the grass. All the other creatures of the field had fled, or were stunned into silence. Blood soaked the trampled earth, and bodies lay scattered and broken in death. Oh, the wastefulness of war!

As I came to the fence near Emmitsburg Road where so many brave Confederates fell, I heard a weak cry for help. It came from a slight fellow, no more than a boy, lying with his head on the chest of man with a graying beard. Crouching down, I determined that the bearded man was dead. The cap had fallen from the youth’s head, revealing curly
black hair and fine features. He opened his eyes, which were filled with tears. I asked him if he was hurt.

“It’s broken. Oh, my heart,” he murmured.

Thinking he had a chest injury, perhaps a fractured rib, I turned him on his back and unbuttoned his jacket. Amazed, I beheld—a woman! Blood from a wound to her chest smeared her breasts.

“Who are you?” I gasped. I had heard of women pretending to be men in order to fight, but I had never met one.

“Kate O’Neill,” she said, grimacing in pain.

“I must get you to a hospital. If you can stand, perhaps I can carry you.”

But she refused to leave the man, even after I gently informed her that he was gone. I asked if he were her dear father or an uncle.

“No, he was my husband,” she sobbed. “We were married two years ago. We came over from Ireland together. All my family is dead. I can’t live without him.”

The strain of talking and weeping caused her to bleed even more. I saw that her wound was mortal after all. Murmuring some words of comfort, I placed her on her side so that she could see her husband’s face and I held her hand. It was only a short time before she joined him in death. Alas, the sight of the lovers released my sorrow for John in great wracking moans and choking sobs. Anyone who heard me would have thought I was dying too.

Now Kate O’Neill’s brave sacrifice has moved me to write, which calms me though I sit amidst the dead. Most people consider dying for love to be a noble deed. And yet, how unnecessary it is! What, then, is worth dying for, if not love? Is freedom worth dying for? The reunion of our divided nation?

Whatever is good, let us live and work for it, not die in its name, for that

Lizzie
Chapter 44

Someone in the street was shouting, “The rebels are in retreat! They’re leaving!”

I jumped out of bed and threw on yesterday’s sweat-stained dress, hollered to Mama, and dashed outside in time to see a Union patrol escorting half a dozen rebels tied together by the waist. They halted in front of our house.

“One of these fellers were hiding in your shed back there,” the captain said to me. “We found this on him.” He held out a box I recognized. It was the family silver.

“I’ll take that, thank you.” Mama had come to the door. She opened the box and glanced at the contents. “There are three spoons missing.”

The captain grabbed the rebel who had stolen our silver and emptied his knapsack onto the ground. He made the man pull out his pockets, but the spoons were not there.

“Bates!” the captain shouted, staring directly at a fair-haired man in his own patrol. For a tense moment, no one moved or spoke. Then Bates dropped his arm and with tinkling sounds the spoons fell from his sleeve. He handed them to the captain, who handed them to Mama, then turned and cuffed Bates on the side of the head. For some reason, I felt sorry for Bates.