Blood Moon (31 page)

Chapter Fifty-Seven

The sun’s boiling rays beat down on the Confederate force advancing towards Mechanicsville. Their task was to clear the town of Union pickets in order for General Lee’s forces to press ahead to Beaver Dam Creek, at present being held by the Yankees. General Stonewall
Jackson, as the men now called him, was in command, and it had been his decision to use the Ninth Cavalry as the force’s vanguard.

Jacob led his long column of horsemen at a painstakingly slow pace behind Jackson’s foot soldiers, who were dragging their lethargic feet as though they had all the time in the world to reach the battlefield and join the fight. They had been marching for a good few hours, and as the midday sun began slanting to the west, Jacob wondered if they would reach their destination in time to reinforce the main Confederate lines or if some quirk of fate would see them sleeping another night on the road, wondering what this battle had looked like at close quarters.

By mid-afternoon, the sound of heavy volleys of small arms and artillery roaring into the air confirmed Jacob’s suspicions that a general advance by the Confederates had been ordered, without Jackson’s men. The horses had grown used to the noise of battle, but for the last mile or so, they had become jumpy and impatient with the languid walking pace of the soldiers.

General Jackson’s intention was to deal with the Union pickets, but he was still of a mind to join the major battle going on around Beaver Dam Creek when he had secured Mechanicsville. Thus he ordered a cavalry scouting party to find out where he could punch a hole in the Union lines and whether it was worthwhile joining the fight at this late hour. Jacob was relieved to be chosen for this reconnaissance duty.  

Jacob ordered rifle and sabre checks, took thirty cavalrymen from the column, and rode at a gallop’s pace towards the sound of conflict. He debated whether to take to the open fields that bordered the road or to stream into the dense woods far beyond the column’s left flank. The woods would mean a longer and less comfortable ride, he thought, but they were on a mission to observe the enemy, not engage with it. The trees would also give them good cover and diminish the sound of hooves.

A smoky veil hovering within a thick cluster of trees smelled of recently fired gunpowder. It settled above the undergrowth and licked its way around thick trunks and low-hanging tree limbs. The late afternoon sun slanted diagonally through branches, coating pine needles with a golden hue and turning the smoky air and dust particles into bright floating crystal specs.

The cavalrymen picked their way carefully through the dense undergrowth, mindful  of sharp splintered twigs which could rip a man’s face and arms to shreds. They listened with heightened senses for movement within the wood. It was difficult to tell if they were alone or not, for the batteries and guns beyond the treeline shook the ground beneath them, causing leaves to flutter gently downwards.

Jacob’s nervousness increased as thoughts of Williamsburg surfaced. He tried to squash the flashing images, but when he and his men remounted and climbed a steep embankment, they came flooding back to him. The cannon fire that they’d heard in the wood had abated, but the sound of cracking muskets had swelled. Jacob suspected that when they reached the top of the grassy bank, they would see one hell of a fight still going on right in front of them. He halted the men once again and tentatively looked over the ridge of the hilly bank before moving on.

Below, he saw a Confederate regiment. They held a field, thick with smoke and smouldering fires. Dead and wounded men from both armies lay side by side or partially on top of each other. Medical teams were assessing the living, and doctors were wasting no time in doing what was necessary to keep the injured bodies alive until they could get them to the field hospital.

A long line of Confederate infantrymen took a rear defensive position, with rifles at the ready. Confederate battle flags in the hands of the flag bearers hung limp in the still air. Above the noise of fire, Jacob heard the high-pitched rebel yell and then saw the forward rebel line chasing Union soldiers off the field. The Yankees were outnumbered, but as Jacob watched, he could feel the Confederate determination to kill every blue coat in sight. He thought,
That’s exactly what I would do if I were down there.
He lifted his hand, gestured his men forward, and sped down the bank into the field below.

“Cap’n, you got to go git them Yankees!” a lieutenant on the field shouted when Jacob’s cavalry approached. “We ran them off, but we don’t know if there’s more of them farther up the road, and I don’t reckon I should commit all my men to the chase till I find out.”

Jacob nodded. There were a couple of hundred men here. They were blind beyond this field. The lieutenant was right. He, Jacob, should look beyond the treeline up ahead before streaming in to God only knew what. “Lieutenant, take your men and injured to the embankment behind you. Keep cover until I get back with my men. I’ll let you know what you’re going into.”

The lieutenant nodded. “Much obliged, sir. We ain’t got no commanding officer. He was killed about an hour ago – blown to bits by cannon fire. I ain’t rightly sure where I’m supposed to be going now. We got cut off from the rest of the regiments. We were waiting for General Jackson to reinforce us, but then our major told us to advance – I figured that that weren’t such a good idea without General Stonewall’s men.”

Jacob gave the man a quick nod, looked once more at the casualties, and then silently cursed General Jackson’s lackadaisical stroll, which should have seen him here hours ago. “Be back soon,” he shouted as he rode off.

He kicked Thor’s flanks and waved his men onwards towards a second belt of woodland. The thirty horses kicked up dust and became hazy outlines as they disappeared into the fog they had produced. They thundered through the Confederate forward lines, swerving past the running men with masterful precision. Jacob screamed at the soldiers on the ground to stop firing and heard their cheering cries: “Go git them!” They swept through a line of trees and came out into another open cornfield beyond them.

The sight of blue coats running for their lives spurred Jacob’s men on to an even greater speed. They had just seen hundreds of dead Confederate comrades in the field behind them, and none of them were of a mind to let any of the Yankees escape. Jacob took the first shot at the retreating backs, signalling to his men to open fire.

The Union soldiers fell one by one as the gap between horses and enemy narrowed, but the Yankees were getting harder to find. Jacob, low-bodied in the saddle, glanced quickly to his left and right, up ahead, and finally behind him. In this field, the opaque corn stalks were taller than the field they had first been in. The Union soldiers were disappearing in front of the cavalry’s eyes.

The flat land stretched far into the distance, the setting sun making it look like a gold and orange blanket stretching towards the western horizon. Jacob’s heart was pounding as they raced deeper into a field that could hide a thousand crouching soldiers. They were putting distance between themselves and any other Confederate troops. They were the hunters, Jacob thought, but they might become the hunted should they ride onwards.

He slowed Thor, raised his gloved hand in the air, and brought the rest of the men and horses to a halt. He did not want to be out in the open like this. For all he knew, the retreating Yankees could be encircling them right at this
minute, and he and his men wouldn’t know a damn thing about it. “Men, we’re going back. There’s nothing here to see, and I ain’t taking the chance of getting entangled in a Yankee trap. It’ll be sundown soon, and General Jackson will probably want to bivouac us for the night. There’s no battle for his command today.”

Jacob pivoted Thor around and headed back in the direction of the Confederate regiment. There wouldn’t be another attack until morning, he thought. The sun was sinking rapidly. Visibility was decreasing, and judging from all the casualties he’d seen, both sides would be looking for a respite before they got to killing even more men in the morning.

Young George rode up from the rear to join Jacob at the front of the line. His face was flushed with energy and fervour. He grinned at Jacob and said, “Well, Capt’n, seems we’ve had ourselves a good day out today. I ain’t never felt nothin’ like this. I sure hope they’ve got some food for us when we git back to camp. I’m mighty hungry.”

“I’m sure we’ll have a feast, George. I heard tell Jackson’s men were some of the best looters around. They marched all the way from the Shenandoah Valley, and I’m betting they didn’t do it on an empty belly. Wouldn’t surprise me if they had a whole damn side of cow waiting for us when we get there.”

The cracking sound of a rifle shot echoed in the air for a fraction of a second. Jacob’s head snapped to his left and then back to George. He watched in horror as George’s bloodied face jerked backwards and then forwards again. His eyes were open, but he had a gaping hole on the bridge of his nose, which had detached from its socket and now hung loose and shredded.

Jacob’s face was red with George’s blood. It stuck to his eyelids and covered his lips and beard. His mind was filled with chaotic thoughts as a volley of gunfire struck his men from the front, left, and right sides of the field. “Get to the trees and don’t look back!” he screamed.

They galloped surrounded by a deafening noise that masked the thunder of hooves. Jacob concentrated on his front, but out of the corner of his eyes, he saw his men falling one by one. Horses were struck too and fell like bricks, with riders grimly clinging on to their backs.

Jacob whipped Thor’s neck with the reins. There was nowhere to dismount and take cover. There was nothing but the long open field of corn with stalks as high as a man’s shoulders. He rode on, his mind screaming with prayers. Some of them had to make it, he thought. They only had to get to the trees. Beyond that coppice, the Confederate infantry waited. “C’mon, men!” he screamed.

He felt his shoulder shudder and jerk forwards with the force of a bullet. His arm lost strength, his fingers lost feeling, and his rifle fell out of his hand. He turned to see some of his men also being struck, blood bursting through their grey coats and breeches. He fought the burning pain and tried to lift his arm onto the saddle, but the useless limb swung at his side as though it didn’t even belong to him.

He was still alive, and the trees were only a hundred and fifty yards away. He could still make it. He could get there and live to tell the tale. Another bullet hit him in the back. His eyes stared at the trees behind a veil of thin mist. He felt himself falling to the ground, and when he hit it, it was with a force that took his raspy breath away completely. He lifted his head and caught his last sight of Thor riding on without him. He looked up at the sky and felt no pain, other than that coming from his broken heart …

Chapter Fifty-Eight

The lethargic mood at Chimborazo hospital had transformed overnight into a frantic rush of activity involving every man and woman able and fit enough to ready the hospital for the wounded that were just about to arrive in droves. A great battle had begun in Richmond’s outer suburbs, involving tens of thousands of men, some of whom would be inflicted with terrible injuries caused by heavy weapons, the likes of which had never been seen before. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the war had finally started in earnest and that two colossal armies were at this very moment tearing each other limb from limb like rabid dogs, unwilling to stop until blood ran through Virginia’s rivers, brooks, and streams.

Mercy had deposited Mrs Bartlett at home the previous afternoon and, whilst there, had changed her clothes, packed a bag, and not wasted one second of her time listening to Mrs Bartlett’s protests about Mercy’s decision to ride Coal back to the hospital. Taking a carriage was a bad idea, Mercy had insisted, for it would make the journey twice as long would be far too tedious.

The first ambulances arrived just as the blood-red sun was setting. Mercy watched in horror as men were laid on the ground and left screaming in agony, and in those minutes, she regretted her decision to come back here. She had never seen or could have imagined the scale of carnage and utter despair that met her eyes. She was not equipped to deal with all these dying men. The only dead men she had ever seen were the men she had killed, and she’d hated them!

This was so different from anything she had witnessed in her lifetime. The smell of blood and sulphur, rotting flesh, and wounds that had been cauterised with burning iron assaulted her nostrils and left her gasping for breath. This was a living hell, she thought, and it had only just begun.

As one ambulance after another unloaded their wounded, Mercy turned her attention to the ambulance drivers. Their eyes held disbelief in faces that were the colour of cold white ash. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for them, risking their lives in battlefields filled with smoke from cannon and musket fire. They were just as brave as the soldiers they had pulled from the arms of death, she thought, but they were probably wishing, like her and everyone else here, that this bloody war had never come about in the first place.

Mercy assisted a doctor attending to soldiers outside the building. Men who were not deemed saveable were given opium to ease their suffering and to quieten them as they left the world. Other men with any chance of survival were taken to operating rooms. She kept her mind fixed on her tasks, yet she couldn’t stop the nausea from rising or the need to cry from abating as she watched one man after another die.

              She was beset with thoughts of Jacob. His last letter had arrived three days ago. He had been able to correspond with her at least once a week in the past month, but she doubted very much that he would have time or energy to let her know where he was now. She imagined him bloodied and dusty, pleading for help, just like all these poor souls in front of her. She followed every order, completed every chore, but she could not silence a voice in her mind, praying to God that he keep Jacob safe and away from this terrible place. Where was he?

              As midnight approached, more help arrived from Richmond. Women and men past fighting age, upon hearing about the mounting casualties, had not hesitated to offer their services. Mercy sighed with relief. She was dead on her feet, looked like a dead cat in a dustbin, and just couldn’t stay on her feet a moment longer. These new nurses could take over, she thought. She needed to sleep, even if it was just for an hour or two.

She left the main building and walked past an ambulance which was just about to leave. She hadn’t managed to speak to any of the drivers before now, but this, she thought, would be the perfect opportunity to ask these men if they knew where the Ninth Cavalry was. The men looked as filthy, bloodied, and worn out as she. The poor souls were staggering on their feet. She caught their attention just as the wagon pulled away. “Stop, stop, please. I know this might be a silly question, but do you know where the Ninth Cavalry is? Did you see them?” she asked.

The taller of the two men took off his cap and looked at her with impatience. “Lady, we had our heads down pickin’ up bodies all night, and come morning, we’ll be picking up some more. We ain’t got no time to wonder where a bunch of horsemen are. If they weren’t on the battlefield where we was at, they could be anywhere from here to the James River.”

Mercy felt the strain in his voice. She was sure she sounded vague and pesky, but there was no harm in asking again, was there? “Will you ask about the Ninth tomorrow? It would mean so much to me.” She quickly wrote
Captain Jacob Stone
on a scrap of paper which she had used to take wounded soldiers’ names. She rested her hand on the man’s sleeve and looked at him with eyes bright with tears. Lina would be proud of her, she thought, for if charm and vulnerability were needed here to get information, then charm and tears she would display in spades.

“I’m just worried to death. Here I am nursing these poor gallant men and all the time worrying about my beloved – I’m just filling up with misery. Please … I need to know where the cavalry was last seen. Surely someone must know. Won’t you take pity on me?” Mercy sighed with relief when she saw the tall man’s sympathetic nod. She might look like a pathetic woman, she thought, but acting like one occasionally certainly got things done.

“All right, lady, we’ll be back here tomorrow, I reckon, if the good Lord wills it. I’ll ask around, but you gotta know that it ain’t easy keeping up with the cavalry.”

Mercy smiled. “Oh, thank you! Thank you so much. You come find me and I’ll make sure you brave fellows get some coffee and cornbread. Ask for Mercy Carver.”