Gallant Boys of Gettysburg Read online

  Jeff wiped the sweat from his face. His hands were trembling, and his heart pounded. The thudding of his drum seemed to have entered his heart. As he glanced down the line, he saw the strained, bearded faces of his friends, and the hands that gripped their muskets were white. On Jeff went, and it was a strange feeling. Soon, he knew, the bullets would begin flying and the shells exploding.

  They’re just waiting, he thought, until we get closer, so that they can’t miss.

  Onward he marched. Looking down the slope, he saw Tom, clasping his musket in both hands. His face was pale, but he was encouraging his men to keep their lines straight.

  Far off to Jeff’s left he saw his father, wearing his best uniform of ash gray, his back straight, carrying a flashing saber. Fear struck him then. We could all be killed in a few minutes, he thought, and one of the drumsticks slipped from his hands. He halted, picked it up desperately, then caught up the steady drumming rhythm.

  And then the enemy opened up with sudden, terrible musket fire. Men began to fall on Jeff’s right and left. A flag went down but was picked up at once by another soldier. He stepped over the body of the fallen flag bearer, and the line moved onward, straight onward.

  Cannon began to roar. Grape and canister shot plunged and plowed through the ranks. Bullets whizzed thick as hailstones around Jeff, and he expected to fall to the ground any moment, shot through.

  General Pickett moved alongside his valorous troops, as if courting death. He waved his hat, and the black stallion snorted and tore the turf with his hooves.

  General Kemper, with hat in hand, cheered his men on. And General Armistead put his hat on his saber and held it high.

  Jeff noticed that rabbits, frightened by the guns, were fleeing everywhere. It was a small thing to notice, but he thought, I’m about as afraid as these rabbits are! They don’t know what’s happening—but I do!

  Just then a shell struck to his right. It killed men instantly. One man was down, holding his stomach. He was only a boy, and his sergeant and Tom had to restrain others who would stop to help him. “Close up! Close up!” they yelled.

  Jeff could see the Yankee batteries shooting. He could see the black cannonballs bouncing along like bowling balls. And sometimes, tumbling over and over in the air, were the men that had been struck by them.

  The Confederates reached the road that cut through the middle of the field. There they were forced to take down fence rails. Musket fire now was beginning to reach them, and men were dropping in a long, neat line of dead. Canister, millions of metal balls, whirled through the air. Everywhere men were falling.

  Still on they went. They were almost at the top now, and General Armistead was screaming for a charge. There was no strength left in Jeff, but he stumbled onward, close enough now to see the blue figures behind the fences at the summit.

  He noticed especially one young Union soldier who looked to be no older than Jeff was. He was drawing a bead, it seemed, right on Jeff, when suddenly a shot took him and drove him over backward.

  Then they were at the ridge-top fence line, and some of the company were over but fighting desperately hand to hand with their muskets or whatever else they could find. It was at this moment that Jeff glanced back and saw an exploding shell hurl Tom to the ground, where he rolled over and over.

  “Tom!” Jeff yelled and dropped his drum. He ran to Tom, who was holding his left leg. It was crimson.

  His brother’s eyes were filled with pain, and he gasped, “Go back, Jeff. Get out of this.”

  “No! I’m not going back without you!” Jeff stood there irresolutely. Then he ran back to his drum and ripped off the cording used to hold it over his shoulder. Blood was pouring from Tom’s leg just below the knee. Jeff formed a quick tourniquet with the cording, and the bleeding stopped at once.

  Jeff crouched beside Tom, holding him in the din of battle. The field about him seemed covered with the bodies of men. Some were crawling back towards their position at the foot of the hill. Others lay very still in an eloquence of death.

  Jeff knew then that it had all been in vain. Too few Confederates had reached the top of the ridge. Now they were being beaten back. He saw Henry Mapes, his face bloody, approaching with Jed Hawkins, and then behind them his father appeared.

  Nelson Majors saw his wounded son. “We’re retreating,” he said. He reached down and took Tom by the arms. Mapes took Tom’s feet, as Tom cried out with pain.

  “Let’s get down the hill,” the major gasped hoarsely. His uniform had been sliced at the shoulder by a bullet, but he seemed unharmed.

  Jeff followed helplessly, never expecting to make the foot of the slope, for bullets were still flying. Finally, however, they struggled along with others, who were either crawling or being carried, back to the safety of their own lines.

  When they reached the trees, Majors said, “We’ve got to get him to the field hospital. That leg looks bad.”

  Tom was gritting his teeth, his eyes shut. He opened them now, looked down at the leg, and said, “Pa, don’t let ’em take my leg off!”

  Nelson Majors stared at the mangled lower leg and said gently, “They’ll do the best they can for you, son.”

  Jeff took one look at his father’s face, then glanced at Tom’s leg, and knew that there was no hope.

  9

  Field Hospital

  Jeff stood in the shade of the trees, the cannons’ echoes still numbing his ears, and watched men stumble down the hill. Their faces were blank, and most had left their muskets behind—thrown them away. He was about to turn and leave the front line when he suddenly saw a man on a gray horse cross the open ground in front of the trees.

  “It’s General Lee!” The cry went up from the men, and there was a surge of movement toward the white-haired man. He had taken off his hat and was walking his horse slowly along the first rows of dead. He reined up, gazed for a moment at the troops, and was motionless as a statue.

  And then the men began coming to him. Some reached up to touch him, and he reached down to shake their hands. As he began talking to them, Jeff saw there were tears running down his cheeks.

  “It’s all my fault,” he said, his voice gentle and pain in his eyes.

  The men began shouting, “No! It’s not your fault, General Lee!” One of them said, “Let’s go back! We can do it! We can whip ’em!”

  But General Lee shook his head. “We will rest and try it again another day. Now, you must show good order. Never let them see you run.”

  Lee rode slowly forward. A hundred or more men gathered about his horse as it picked its way carefully through the crowd.

  Jeff turned away, somehow feeling lost and as if he wanted to cry. Many of the men were crying, but Jeff bit his lip and muttered, “No point in that now. I’ve got to go see about Tom.”

  He had not time to do so at the moment, however, for there was danger that the Union troops would charge. For the rest of the day General Longstreet and the other Confederate officers organized their guns, ready for an attack. They all stood looking across the field, and burial parties went out from time to time. But no attack came.

  Later that night Jeff’s father found him. “Are you all right, son?” he asked. His face was grimed with dirt and powder, and his uniform was torn, but he was not hurt.

  “I’m all right, but I’m worried about Tom.”

  “The Yankees won’t attack tonight. I don’t think they’ll attack at all,” the major said thoughtfully. “If General Grant was up there at the head of that army, they’d be on us right now. But General Meade’s not the attacking kind.” He stood thinking of what to do, then shrugged wearily. It was if he finally realized that the battle was over, and he said quietly, “Let’s go see about Tom.”

  Jeff followed his father as they threaded their way through the lines. The Confederates had lost an enormous number of men, some said as many as twenty thousand killed and wounded. Everywhere there were signs of the terrible battle.

  When they got to the field hospital
they saw the surgeons working by lantern light. Long lines of men lay on the ground, groaning, waiting their turn. There was little medicine, and the opium and other narcotics had been used up long ago. Amputations were being performed in the crudest way.

  Finding one doctor sitting and smoking a cigar between operations, the major said, “I’m Nelson Majors. My son was brought in.”

  The doctor puffed at his cigar. Its cherry-red light punctuated the darkness. He shook his head wearily. His voice was hoarse as he answered, “I am sorry, Major. I don’t remember any names. You’ll have to find him for yourself.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  Jeff and his father began to search. They found that those who had undergone surgery had been placed in an open space off to the right. Some lay on the ground with nothing under them. A few had blankets. The medical attendants moved wearily among the wounded. There were far too few of them.

  “I can’t see anything. We’ll have to get a light, Pa.” Jeff had forgotten completely about his father’s rank. It was as if the army were now far away from him. All he cared about was finding his brother.

  They found a battered lantern with a little oil, and Nelson Majors lit it. They went back and by its feeble yellow light began looking at the faces of the wounded men. Some soldiers begged for water. Some already were dead.

  The sight chilled Jeff’s heart, and he thought he’d seen nothing worse than this in the whole war. “How’re we gonna get all these men back home, Pa?” he whispered.

  “We’ll get ’em there,” Nelson Majors said grimly. He kept moving along the line of wounded. Then he stopped abruptly and fell to his knees. “Tom,” he whispered.

  Jeff went to the other side of the still form, and when his father lifted his brother’s head, he saw that Tom’s face was feverish, but his teeth were chattering.

  “I’ll get a blanket. He’s freezing to death, Pa.”

  Jeff knew that blankets would be at a premium, so he sprinted back as fast as he could to his own unit, where he gathered up the blankets of three men he knew had been killed in the charge. He ran back, gasping for breath, and helped his father arrange the wounded young man so that he would be more comfortable.

  Jeff looked at his father’s face. It was both stern and full of pain.

  Tom seemed to be unconscious. He was thrashing about, however, and muttering.

  “He’s not good.” Jeff had seen that the leg had been taken off below the knee. “But he’ll be all right, won’t he, Pa?”

  “These things are hard. Sometimes gangrene sets in. He needs lots of care. That bandage needs to be changed often.” There was tension in Nelson Majors’s voice. “He needs to be in a good hospital—but instead of that he’ll be thrown into a wagon with all these other men and bounced all the way back across the river.” He hesitated, then whispered, “A lot of them are not going to make it.”

  “Tom will.” Jeff reached out and touched his brother’s hair protectively, then looked back at his father. “He’s got to make it, Pa. He’s got to!”

  “We’ll pray—but he’s in poor condition. If he’s already got a fever, I’m afraid he’ll have infection.”

  Jeff sat in the darkness, holding his brother’s cold hand. Tom moaned most of the night, and Jeff finally lay down beside him to give him the warmth of his own body.

  Dawn came.

  Jeff could see at once that Tom was much worse. His father had gone somewhere. Jeff straightened up, his bones sore from sleeping on the ground. Far off he could hear gunfire, but it was not a major battle, he knew.

  As he looked at Tom, suddenly his brother’s eyes opened.

  “Are you all right, Tom?” Jeff whispered.

  Tom licked his lips. “Water …” he whispered. “Just some water … please.”

  Jeff headed for the farm close by. He found men lined up at the well, and it was almost dry, but he managed to get his canteen full and ran back to Tom.

  “Can you sit up, Tom?”

  “I think so.” He grasped the canteen and drank eagerly, coughing as some of the liquid ran down his chin. “That was good,” he said. Tom’s voice was thin.

  He looked down then and saw by the dim morning light that his leg was gone. The sight seemed to strike him dumb. He stared at the wounded member and then lay back slowly and covered his eyes with his arm.

  Jeff tried to encourage him. “You’re going to be all right, Tom. Don’t you worry.”

  Tom said nothing. There was a hopelessness about him that frightened Jeff, and he sat there not knowing what to say.

  Finally Tom removed his arm, and his mouth was tight with a bitter expression. “You’d better get back, Jeff. There’s nothing you can do for me here.”

  “Sure there is. We’re gonna retreat, and I’m gonna see that you get good care.”

  But Tom knew about retreats. He had seen them before. He knew that the wounded would be put into wagons with no springs and that some of the men would cry to be put out so that they could die without being jounced to death. “I wish it’d hit me in the head,” he said. “I’m going to die anyhow.”

  “Don’t say that!” Jeff cried. “You’ll be all right.”

  “I’ll never be all right.” Tom’s voice was flat and filled with bitterness. He muttered, “Go on, leave me, Jeff.”

  His fever was coming up again, and soon he was thrashing about. Jeff held him still to keep him from hurting his wounded leg.

  Finally their father came back. “How is he?” he asked, his eyes on the flushed face of his son.

  “Not good, Pa. Just like he’s lost all hope.”

  “He’s seen too much. He knows how many wounded men die of infection.” He stood silent a moment, then said, “I’ve got to leave, Jeff. I’ll be leading part of the retreat. You stay with Tom. Do the best you can for him.”

  “I’m not going to let them put him in a wagon with a whole bunch of men.”

  “You’ll have to. That’s the only way we’ve got to get him home.”

  “He’d never make it. He’d die, Pa!”

  His father appeared frustrated. The battle had drained him, and he was suffering the loss of many of his men. He’d already helped bury some of his fellow officers.

  “There’s no other way,” the major said. “He’ll have to take his chances.”

  Jeff shook his head stubbornly. “I won’t let him die,” he said. “I’ll take care of him.”

  The retreat was slow to form. Most everyone still expected that General Meade would lead the Federal troops in a counterattack.

  The Confederates couldn’t know, but President Abraham Lincoln was walking the floor of the White House crying out, “Why doesn’t Meade attack? He’s got the Army of Northern Virginia in his hand. All he has to do is take it!” He wrote a fiery letter to the general—and then did not mail it. He said to a friend, “How can I know what it’s like? I’m not on the battlefield, and General Meade is.” And so the letter was never mailed.

  The next day the Confederates collected wagons for the retreat. They would leave the following morning.

  Jeff stayed beside Tom constantly. There would be no fighting, he knew, so he did not have to be with his unit. All the time he was crying out to God to save his brother’s life.

  He knew how difficult things were. But somehow hope had come to him that God would help, and he knew that unless God did help, his brother would die. Already several men close to Tom had died, their wounds too severe to permit them to live. The burial parties came and took them away, and Tom watched all this bitterly when he was conscious.

  That night Jeff once again stayed close to Tom, seeing that he was covered and that he had water. He tried to get him to eat a little. Tom seemed to care for nothing at all. He would only talk when Jeff forced him to speak, and Jeff saw that he had indeed given up hope.

  Looking up at the stars, Jeff wondered at the magnitude of them—how many there were. “Thousands and millions, I guess,” he said, “and God made them every one.” He w
as always impressed that God could make so many stars. And then he thought, God made all those stars, but none of them has a soul like my brother. So God cares more for Tom than He does for any old stars!

  This somehow encouraged him, and he began to pray again, asking God what to do. He dozed off just before dawn and had several strange dreams.

  He was awakened by the sound of his father’s voice.

  Nelson Majors was kneeling beside Tom. “We’re moving out,” he said. “Time to put you in the wagon with the wounded, Tom.”

  “No!” Jeff said. His last dream had been so vivid that even now he could remember every detail of it. “I had a dream, and it gave me an idea. I know what to do with Tom—how we can get him taken care of.”

  “What are you talking about, Jeff?”

  “I’m talking about the Poteets.”

  “The Poteets?” Nelson Majors frowned. “What about them?”

  “We’ve got to get Tom to their house. They’ll take care of him.”

  “Why, we can’t do that, son!”

  “We can,” Jeff declared. “We can do it, Pa. I prayed last night,” he cried, and his eyes were bright with hope. “And I asked God to show us what to do, and then I had this dream. It was about the Poteets. They were standing at the front of their house, and they were calling to us. And Pa, they were saying, ‘Come to us. We’ll help you.’ “

  Nelson Majors stared at his son blankly. Jeff saw that his father was exhausted and could not think properly. There was the long retreat to be made back to Virginia, and he had no faith at all that Tom would survive. With the fever and the terrible mangled leg, he thought there was no hope. They would bury Tom somewhere along the line of retreat.

  Now he stood looking at Jeff and trying to put his thoughts together. “Jeff, it was just a dream.”

  “No, it wasn’t, Pa! I mean—it was more than a dream. Because I looked up at the stars last night and thought how God loves Tom better than any old star. And then I asked Him what to do, and then this dream made me think about the Poteets. We’ve got to do it, Pa!”