Two Girls of Gettysburg (9 page)

Suddenly Mama began to cry. “If only Albert were here! Lizzie, whatever shall we do now?”

“We’ll do what’s right, Mama,” I said, sounding braver than I felt.

A few days later, I asked Martin to come with me to Mr. Schmidt’s tavern.

“What is our business with Mr. Schmidt today?” he asked when he brought the cart around. It pleased me the way he said “our business” as if he were proud to be working with us.

“He owes us money,” I said. “I just need you to stand behind me while I do the talking.”

“You don’t want me to rough him up?” Martin said with a hint of a smile.

“Not unless he won’t pay,” I replied with a laugh. But I was nervous. I had no idea what I would say to Mr. Schmidt. When I came face-to-face with him, however, I found the words. I told him that we had, as always, the finest-quality meats in Gettysburg, expertly prepared by Mr. Amos Whitman, and that if he wished to continue receiving them, we expected a full settlement of his account. Then I handed him an invoice.

Mr. Schmidt looked surprised. He turned to Martin, saying, “Eh, son?”

Martin hooked his thumbs in his trouser pockets and nodded in my direction, indicating that Mr. Schmidt should address himself to me. Old Schmidt harrumphed and stomped away, coming back in a few minutes with a bank draft for twenty-two dollars.

With shaking fingers, I wrote out a receipt. I felt like I’d won a battle without even firing a gun.

“That was well done,” Martin said when we had left the tavern behind. His few words were enough to seal my small victory.

I soon discovered that the prejudices of Mr. Schmidt and Frieda Baumann were not lost on Amos. One spring night he asked Mama to let him make the trip to South Carolina to free Grace.

“You don’t need my permission, Amos,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am, but I wouldn’t leave if I thought you couldn’t manage. The livestock pens are all in good order, an’ the smokehouse is full. Martin’s a good worker; he’ll help you while I’m away.”

Mama nodded. “If we need any slaughtering done, we can ask Matthias Schupp. And when you return, Amos, your job will be here waiting for you.”

There was a long silence, while the sound of spring peepers filled the night air.

“P’raps it would be best, given what folks in town is sayin’, if I … if Grace an’ I didn’t come back. If we went somewheres else.”

A cry of protest escaped me.

Mama said, in brief but certain words, “Amos, I am not one to heed the opinions of my ignorant neighbors.”

Amos merely nodded and withdrew a map from his pocket and spread it on the table. With his finger he showed us the way he aimed to take.

“I don’t think that’s wise,” said Mama. “I’ve heard that both armies are gathered here in northern Virginia. Richmond may soon be under attack.” Using a pencil, she sketched a route that would take Amos westward, then south through the Shenandoah Valley to the gap in the
mountains near Roanoke. “You must keep clear of the armies around Richmond,” she cautioned.

Looking at the map, I saw that Amos would travel through Virginia and North Carolina and well into South Carolina before reaching the red
X
that marked the plantation where Grace was kept. It was more than five hundred miles, all in rebel territory

“You’re not going alone?” I had heard about free Negroes being seized by vigilantes and sold back into slavery.

“I have my papers sayin’ I’m a free man, an’ I bought me a good fast piece o’ horseflesh,” he replied with confidence.

“Amos, I just had a thought,” said Mama intently. “I know of a Massachusetts man who is an experienced scout. He was injured at Ball’s Bluff and has been recovering with an uncle here in town. He plans to reenlist, but I think he could be persuaded to a different kind of adventure. Shall I arrange for you to meet him?”

Amos said he would be obliged to her.

When Frederick Hartmann came to meet Amos a few days later, I thought I had never seen a man so dashing and handsome. He had light brown hair that fell to his shoulders in curls. His blue eyes twinkled as he twirled the ends of his mustache between his thumb and forefinger. When I served him coffee after dinner, I couldn’t meet his eyes without blushing. Ben, however, wasn’t at all shy.

“Can I see your scars, Mr. Hartmann?” he asked. “How did you get shot?”

“Don’t be rude, Ben,” I murmured.

Mr. Hartmann just laughed. He tugged his shirt aside so that we could see the purplish dent where a ball the size of a marble had torn through his shoulder. It made me a little queasy to look at it.

“It was my own darn fault,” he said, leaning back and lighting his pipe. “You see, one night a party of nervous scouts, green as spring twigs, reported a Confederate camp near Ball’s Bluff. So the next morning our raiding party crossed over the Potomac only to find out there wasn’t any camp, just a row of trees, their drooping branches looking like tents in the fog. Well there we were, with nothing to raid. So we poked around closer to Leesburg and ran into some rebels there.” He tapped his pipe, letting the burned tobacco flakes spill onto the step, then blew them away.

“And then you were shot?” prompted Ben.

“Not yet, son. They chased us back to the bluff, where we were trapped with our backs to the ravine and the Rebel army coming at us. We’d no idea there was so many of ‘em nearby. Men leaped off the cliff just to get away and others surrendered. I jumped into the river just as a minié ball hit me, but I kept swimming till a buddy fished me out and put me in an ambulance. Lots of men weren’t so lucky; they washed up downriver, near Washington, dead.” He shook his head sadly.

“Why do you think it was your fault?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of my shyness.

“Because if I had gone out with the scouts, I could have told a tent from a fir tree, and we never would have set out to raid a copse of trees! About half our men fell that day, nearly eight hundred casualties.”

“Eight hundred men died?” asked Ben, wide-eyed.

“No, son, casualties is killed, wounded, missing, or captured. They took five hundred prisoners alone.” He fell silent for a minute, then slapped his hands on his thighs. “Well, Miss Lizzie, how about another slice of that apple pie? I tell you, it’s the best I ever tasted.”

In an hour, everything was settled. Mr. Hartmann would travel as a
Carolina landholder, with Amos as his valet. Once they had freed Grace, she and Amos would pretend to be Hartmann’s slaves until they reached Pennsylvania again. Mr. Wills, a Gettysburg lawyer, had agreed to draw up the free papers for Grace and the false papers necessary for travel. The final matter was that of Mr. Hartmann’s fees.

“I already own a good horse, but I’ll require a dollar and fifty cents per day, plus food and such expenses. It could be a six-week journey,” said Mr. Hartmann. “A fair deal, I believe, given the considerable risks.”

Amos barely blinked, but I was stunned. That sum of money was more than Amos earned in three months. Mama offered him a loan against future wages, but Amos consulted his account book and said that wouldn’t be necessary.

At the end of May, Amos and Frederick Hartmann set out. They were fitted for the trip with a tent, oilcloths, extra clothing, and saddlebags full of bacon, beans, and bread. Hartmann had taught Amos how to use a rifle and revolver, in anticipation of trouble. As they rode off, Mama and I stood in the middle of York Street, waving.

“There they go, two more soldiers heading off to war. These ones have no army to back them up,” Mama said with a sigh.

“They can do it, Mama,” I said. “They will be back.”

But the well of emptiness that had opened in me when Papa and Luke left only deepened as the two figures grew smaller, then disappeared down Chambersburg Pike. I wondered if I would ever see Amos again.

Lizzie
Chapter 11

Every June the fields that soaked up the spring rains turned bright green with new corn and the trees swelled with young fruit. June had always seemed the most carefree month of the year. But June was also the month that Papa and Luke had gone to war a year ago. Now a feeling of dread settled over me, despite the green and promising landscape, for our volunteers were camped near Richmond, and any day they would begin fighting the rebels for control of the Confederate capital.

The battle commenced on June 26 at Mechanicsburg. A few days later, the
Sentinel
described how General Crawford’s division, which included the First Pennsylvania Reserves, Company K, had “rained an unceasing torrent of musket fire while the artillery discharged shells, canister and shrapnel, confounding and scattering the enemy, whose losses tripled those of our brave federals.” The reporter made it sound as if the end of the world, or at least the end of the war, was at hand. But it was only the beginning of the fighting, which went on for seven days. With grim forbearance, we waited for the casualty lists to come in. Mama barely slept, and gray circles deepened under her eyes. Ben did his chores silently, without complaining.

The dark news trickled in. General McClellan’s army had been
forced back toward Washington, and our Company K had suffered more than its share of casualties. When neither Papa nor Luke appeared among the names, we were weak with relief and gratitude. Then terrible news arrived. Mrs. Pierpont heard it first, for she was at the telegraph office when the message came in, and she told Margaret, who informed Rosanna: Henry Phelps had been killed.

The next day the whole town knew of it, and Henry Phelps’s name was on everyone’s tongue. When his poor widowed mother received the news, she felt a sharp pain in her chest and took to her bed. The next morning, she didn’t wake up. People said it was proof that grief could kill a person.

I went at once to see how Rosanna was taking the news and found her lying facedown on the settee in Margaret’s parlor, a pile of damp handkerchiefs on the floor beside her. I was afraid to say anything, lest it be the wrong thing. I had no idea what it would feel like to lose your beau in the war. So I imagined how sad I would feel if Papa or Luke died, and that was bad enough. I blinked back my tears and patted Rosanna’s back while she wept softly.

A week later I hurried to Rosanna’s again, clutching a letter from Luke. Its contents were already seared into my memory.

Dear sister,

I have seen enough of war and am ready to come home

When the battle started we played to keep up the fighting spirit but in all the confusion could not hear ourselves so gave up. Then a bullet struck Henrys drum from the side and smashed it to pieces right off his neck. Capt. Bailey ordered us behind the lines where we lay
down flat and I could feel the earth rumble and shake from the cannons roar. I could not see Pa along the line for all the smoke that drifted back around us like a stinky fog.

Then Henry and me were given a stretcher to get the wounded men to the hospital tents. We saved Matt Siplinger who fell behind the breastworks with a hole in his chest. Then we picked up someone with a blasted leg and a man whose face was bloody but swore his hurt was a small one.

It came as Henry stood up with his end of the stretcher, a high screaming sound. Down! I shouted but it was too late, the shell hit behind him and burst and he bore the brunt of it while only dirt and small rocks rained on my back. I carried him over my shoulder to the hospital and he made not a single groan but died most bravely. After a nurse said he was gone I started to weep most unsoldierlike. Dont tell anyone.