Faith of the Heart (10 page)

Five Years Earlier

Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, July 1863

             
Swatting at his cheek Cal
eb
missed yet another mosquito. He sat down and leaned back against a large tree
,
thankful for the shade on a sultry afternoon. Taking a swig of
lu
k
ewarm
water from his canteen
,
he felt a breeze barely
brush
his face. Carefully unfolding a two
-
week
-
old newspaper
he began to catch up on the war news.

             
The paper was from Philadelphia and its editor had written a blistering account of President Lincoln’s weak and ineffective generals. Since the war started in April 1861
more than two
hundred thousand soldiers were dead or missing. The end was nowhere in sight and the article warned that Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s army
might be victorious if Lincoln
’s
new general didn’t take some action fast.
It went on to praise Lincoln’s appointment of General George Meade and encouraged readers to support the Yankee efforts.

             
Two
hundred thousand,
why,
if I slipped away
maybe they’d not miss one more. Maybe…

             
Cal looked up from his
paper
when he heard voices raised in anger. In the canvas tent behind him two officers were arguing. He sighed and stood to stretch his legs
,
catching snatches of the conversation.

 
The men argued that while b
oth
armies were tired, hungry, and in desperate need of supplies
,
t
he C
o
nfederates were worse off than their Union counterparts
al
though
they continued to fight, fiercely protecting their homes.
Their clothing was in tatters and many men had no footwear. 
R
umor
s
were
circulat
ing
that there was a warehouse of boots in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
and they
might
be heading there.
One officer wanted to head into the town. The other proposed marching to
capture
Richmond, the Confederate capitol.

             
Walking closer to the tent Caleb raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his brow
and bent slightly to hear better
, hoping he wasn’t noticed.
Darn these officers,
can’t they see what a farce this all is? I just want to go home. I am so sick of all of this. They told us…they promised us this disagreement would only last a few months
and yet here we are two years later and no end in sight.
In disgust he turned and stomped away muttering to himself.

             
Hours later Cal
eb
’s company was on the move.
Out of nowhere
c
annons and r
ifles
started
firing
and men scrambl
ed
to get out of the road and under cover. Under a captain’s order Cal
eb
l
ed a troop down the road to town and
ran
right into a Rebel infantry unit.
Fighting hand to hand with
bayonets attached to the
ir
rifles
and standard Army-issue knives that they had tucked into their belts
,
men were
dropping
right and left. The air
was
thick
with gray
smoke and
the st
ench
of fear-driven sweat
and salty-sweet blood as soldiers stumbled over the fallen.
With d
usk
approach
ing
and the light fading fast
,
Cal
eb
, who’d been raised in Gettysburg,
l
ed the men to a line of hills called Cemetery Ridge where they could dig in for the night.
             

             
That
evening
Cal
eb
and his buddies tried to guess what would happen next. Meanwhile
,
more reinforcements arrived and Cal predicted a wide-scale catastrophe.
He argued that
Robert E. Lee
’s
best chance at victory was to strike at the Union Army before the reinforcements could get into place.
The
smartest
strategy
for Lee
was to attack both ends of the Yankee line. Meade’s army
would have
to hold the line.

             
Somehow on the second day Meade’s men did hold the line. Thousands of
men from both sides
lost their lives in the rocky fields and hilly mounds near tiny Gettysburg. 

             
The tide of the war was turning
to favor the north
,
but Cal
eb
no longer cared. His primeval instinct for survival had kicked in and he was determined to live no matter what the cost.
  No longer did it matter to him if the country was split apart.
He began to look for a way out of the fighting. Maybe if he
simply
walk
ed in the choas
away no one would notice
.
After all
,
thousands were dead or missing. 
        
             

It was late afternoon on July third when Cal
eb
’s life took a sudden and irrevocable turn. Standing on the back slope of Cemetery Ridge, Cal
eb
had turned to yell a command at his troops
and as he turned back felt
something red hot slam into his left leg.
He collapsed, his legs unable to hold his weight and
he looked down
in shock
to see a
gaping
hole clear through his calf.
It was as though he was looking at another man’s leg. He felt no pain at first, simply a surreal sensation that this could not be happening.
A nearby cannon roared
, and
he felt as though his head had exploded. Everything went black.

When he woke everything was fuzzy and there was a horrendous pounding in his head
. Gingerly feeling his head he found a gash on the top of his skull
accompanied by
a horrendous pounding in his head. He tried to stand
but
collapsed; his leg would not support him.
I
t was dusk and the battle
must have been over-no shots or cannons were being fired
. Wounded and dying men were crying, screaming and calling for help and for their mothers.
The stench of spilled blood
,
exploded shells
,
and
excrement
was
overpowering
.
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
Here and there he could make out the ambulance corps carrying the injured men to the field hospital.
Cal wanted no part of that. He’d seen those hospitals and the awful piles of limbs from amputations. He knew a wound like his would
make it impossible for the doctors to consider letting him keep the leg
.
T
he surgeons rarely even saved broken limbs, let alone those at high risk for infection and gangrene.
But there was no way he was letting someone cut off his leg with nothing more t
han chloroform to ease the pain.
Instead
h
e waited until it was dark. He began to drag himself inch by inch from the field.
R
each
ing
a stand of trees
,
he locate
d
a stout branch. Hauling himself upright, and using the branch as a cane, he
stumbled
into the woods. Cal
eb
had roamed these same woods as a child and so by the light of the moon found his way to
the
crude cabin
he remembered so fondly.
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             

The ramshackle
one-room hut
belonged to Cassie Bear, an elderly woman he had befriended
before
. Cassie was a widow
with
two wonderful traits
:
s
he knew how to heal with herbs and she knew how to keep her mouth shut. Caleb
was certain
he’d be safe with her.

             
While he was growing up,
Caleb, who was an only child, would play in the woods to amuse himself. Widow Bear preferred the company of deer and squirrels to that of humans, so she’d built the tiny
shack
and made a living by gathering herbs and raising chickens. Caleb had come upon her home when he was ten and the
odd,
lonely boy and solitary old lady began a long friendship. He’d bring her supplies from town and she’d bake him berry pies and teach him about the bounty of nature and how to survive on very little.
She didn’t mind his sometime
s
-
crabby nature and he could abide her old-fashioned notions of self-reliance and distrust of city folk.

             
Now Caleb needed Cassie to help him survive. He tapped on the door and whispered loudly, “Cassie, open up! Cassie, it’s Caleb, open up, please!”
He prayed she would still recognize him.
The door creaked open and the old woman peered into the dark.

             
“Land sakes
, boy!” Cassie took in the sight of the wounded soldier. She wrapped a bony arm around his waist and half carried Cal
eb
into the cabin’s
dark
room
, lit only by the moonlight shining through its one window.
She laid him down on the narrow bed and
lit a whale oil lamp before
examin
ing
his wounds. Caleb passed out
as soon as his head hit the pillow.

             
Two days later he woke to the pleasant sound of a crackling fire and the delicious aroma of hearty chicken soup. Struggling to sit up he was held back by
a gentle but firm hand on his chest.

             
“Whoa boy, you jest lay still. You been hurt powerful bad and you ain’t gonna mess up the nursing I done to ya.”            

             
Caleb stared into the watery eyes of the determined woman. He tried to speak
,
but the pounding of his head
prevented him from making any so
u
nd but a weary groan of pain and frustration.
Reaching
to feel his head injury,
he f
ound
a tidy bandage.
Pulling up the old horse blanket
,
he saw his leg was also wrapped in a clean cloth.

             
“My leg
,”
he croaked
, “h
ow bad is it?
”
He began to tremble.

             
“Not so bad, boy.
It was a big ‘un but t
hat there bullet went clean through. I made up a poultice of comfrey and thistle and drew out the poisons. Same as with yore head there. God willing you’ll keep the leg but them headaches is gonna bother you some fer awhile. Now you jest stay in that bed and I’ll bring you some soup. I kilt a fat pullet and made us some good broth. We’ll have you up and around
a
fore ya know it.”

             
A horrifying thought suddenly struck Caleb as he grasped the old lady’s arm.
“Cassie, Cassie, has anyone been around here looking for me?”