Soldier Boy's Discovery (11 page)

Leaving his team digging ditches and dragging fence posts into position, Tom made his way to the big firs that lifted their heads farther back from the creek. He found his father squatting beside Jeff, who was sitting with his back to one of the huge trees.

Tom saw at once that Jeff's face was pale and knew that he was very ill. “What's the matter, Jeff?” he asked. “Got a stomachache?”

Jeff's opened his eyes with an effort. “I wish it was just a stomachache,” he whispered. “That's what I thought it was myself at first.”

Tom looked at his father and saw that he was worried. “A lot of us got stomachaches from all those green apples we've been eating.”

“It's more than that, Tom,” Captain Majors said, then spoke to Jeff. “I wish I could send you back, son. You don't need to be anywhere near this fight.”

Jeff shook his head, his lips a thin white line. “Don't worry about me, Captain. I'll be all right.”

Captain Majors hesitated and then said, “Tom, you stay here with him. I've got to go have a meeting with the staff officers.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nelson Majors hurried to General Lee's headquarters. It was no more than a tent hastily thrown up, but a large group of officers was gathered.

General Lee moved about carefully, holding his hands away from his body. They were still sore from the fall he'd taken. To his left, Stonewall Jackson, with his cap pulled down over his eyes, watched every move Lee made; and to the right, the big, burly Longstreet did the same.

Lee had been speaking, but his eyes caught Majors as he came hurrying up. “Ah, glad to have you with us, Captain. We'll be needing all the engineers we can get. We need to throw up more reinforcements if possible.”

Stonewall said, “General, why don't we just charge across that creek? They won't be expecting us. We can catch them off guard.”

Lee smiled faintly. It was so much like Stonewall Jackson. They were here against a force twice as big as their own, and he wanted to charge!

“I hardly think that's the answer, General Jackson. We'll take the defensive ground this time.
Perhaps we'll be able to mount a charge later on.” He stepped forward and with the toe of his boot drew a crooked line. “This is the creek, gentlemen. We'll mount our defense like this. General Jackson, you will take the left. General Hill, you'll take the center, and General Longstreet the right.” He marked each spot on the ground with his toe and stood staring at it.

“Who do you think will be coming at us, sir?” Longstreet asked.

“Our scouts inform me that Hooker will be coming to our left. That will be for you, General Jackson. General Sumner will be coming at the middle, and Burnside will be coming to take us on the right.” He marked these positions with his toe, then looked up. “The Army of North Virginia will have to fight well in the morning.”

By the time night fell over the two armies, Jeff found himself so ill he couldn't even sit up. He was lying off to the side, Tom sitting beside him, and was barely aware as the men cooked their evening meal. They had obtained some beef for the first time since the march started. But the smell of it only made Jeff sicker.

“I don't know what's the matter with me,” he muttered. His lips were dry, and his skin felt hot enough to crack.

“You'll be all right. As soon as the battle's over, we'll get you out of here,” Tom said. In truth, he was worried about his younger brother. Dysentery and a host of other deadly ailments had killed men just as surely as if they'd been hit in the middle with a musket ball.

Tom moved over to sit beside Henry Mapes and said quietly, “I wish Jeff were back in Richmond. We've lost about as many to sickness like this as to men getting shot.”

The sergeant turned his dark eyes on Jeff and shook his head. “It's a bad time for it, Tom. We'd better move him back tonight. Those blue-bellies might come earlier than we think.”

“I'll take him back after the men eat.”

Jeff was vaguely aware of what was going on. He had fallen into a fitful sleep, and then he heard a voice that he knew belonged to Jed Hawkins. He was singing a song called “Tenting Tonight,” which was a favorite in his company. It had always been one of Jeff's favorites. He lay half conscious as the words drifted across his mind.

Finally the voice grew muted. Then Jeff felt hands on him and heard Tom's voice.

“Come on, Jeff. We have to move you back out of this a little bit. We wouldn't want you to get caught in the battle in the morning.”

Jeff was vaguely aware of struggling to his feet, and as he staggered from the field, he was lost in a fiery fever that seemed to scorch his very spirit.

B
oth the Carters and the Majorses would remember Wednesday, September 17, 1862, as the bloodiest day of the Civil War.

General McClellan with his overwhelming force could have won the battle if he had simply sent all of his men forward at once. The Confederate lines were so thin that they couldn't have held. If he had done so, the Army of Northern Virginia would have been destroyed, and the war would have ended shortly.

McClellan, however, did no such thing. He fed his men across the creek in small groups. This allowed General Lee to move the Confederates back and forth to meet these separate attacks.

The first assault came when General Hooker led his men through a thirty-acre cornfield.

Royal Carter was one of those men. He looked up as his company moved forward and saw that they were advancing into a line of guns.

“Look at those guns, Dave,” he said. “They're going to cut us to pieces.”

Dave Mellon's face grew pale. “They sure are, but there's no way out of it, Royal.”

The two had been friends since childhood. They had gone fox hunting together, had courted the same girl at one time, and had fought over her and later made up. They had joined the army on the
same day and had been together throughout the course of the war.

Now they marched together into battle. The muskets began to fire, and Dave said, “It sounds like giants breaking a bunch of sticks.”

Royal had no time to answer, for suddenly the air was filled with screaming, whizzing shells. He saw men of his company begin to fall. Corporal Matlock suddenly was driven backward, and he fell loosely to the ground. Corporal Anderson screamed, “Close up ranks! Forward!” stepping into the fallen corporal's place.

Royal gritted his teeth as they advanced across the cornfield. There was no one for him to shoot at, for the Confederates were well hidden. All he knew was the sound of bullets flying, of men screaming, and then he saw Dave Mellon drop his musket and grab his chest.

“Dave!” Royal ran to him. When he rolled the young man over, he saw that Dave's chest was red and his eyes were glazing.

“Got me this time. Tell Mama that I died believing in Jesus.”

Sergeant Ira Pickens was right behind Royal. He jerked him to his feet and said, “Come on, Royal. He's gone, and we're in trouble.”

They were in trouble indeed, and before they left the cornfield there were so many blue-clad corpses on it that one Confederate said, “I could have walked across it on bluecoated bodies and never have touched the ground.”

The battle raged on the left, and then General Sumner came roaring into the center. Some of the Stonewall Brigade had been moved to take the force
of that action. Tom Majors and his company were part of that group. They began firing as rapidly as they could load and unload.

“I've never seen so many bluecoats in all my life,” Curly Henson shouted. “There must be a million of them.”

Tom said, “Be sure you don't miss. They're not going to stop.” He loaded and fired and reloaded like a robot until the barrel was hot, but it was not enough. The overwhelming force of the Union attack kept coming.

He looked around to see his father, who was now firing from behind a log. There was no question of retreating. The Potomac River was behind them, so there was no place to go. Tom loaded his musket, his face black with powder, and fired again and again.

Far over on the right, General Burnside tried to drive his men across a narrow bridge. It was no more than twelve feet wide, and the Union troops who tried to fight their way across did not get far. Longstreet's men picked them off, and time after time the Northern soldiers had to retreat.

Then the Union troops gained a foothold, and finally it looked as though they would be able to win the battle. If they could take this position, they could swing around behind the rest of the long, crooked Rebel line.

“We're not going to be able to hold them!” a Confederate officer cried. At the same time a movement caught his eye. “Look! Who are those men? Are they ours or theirs?”

His fellow officer looked through his field glasses and then cried out, “It's A. P. Hill, here from Harper's Ferry!”

It was indeed General Hill of the Army of Northern Virginia. He'd marched his men hard, and now he threw them into the battle. It was this that saved the day for the Confederates. The breach was sealed, and the battle was over.

The sun went down, glowing blood red in the smoky twilight, and the light faded over the battlefield. Gradually the thunder of the guns died away. Then the musketry ceased too, and a silence came on, broken only by an occasional volley like the last drops of a shower. The bloodiest single day in all American history was finally over. Neither side knew exactly how many men it had lost. There was a truce to bury the dead and collect the wounded the next day.

The Army of Northern Virginia had never been in worse condition. The Federals held the cornfield and various river crossings, and Lee had lost a fourth of his army. His officers all urged him to retreat, but he remained in position all the next day.

McClellan, however, had had all the fighting he wanted. He had received fresh troops and now had enough men once again to win the battle, but such was beyond General McClellan.

Captain Nelson Majors was busy trying to pull together the shattered remnants of his company.

Jeff had been taken several hundred yards back, away from the line of battle. All day he heard the cannon roar and the crackle of muskets. But he was so ill he couldn't rise from the ground.

Finally, as the air cooled and the sun began to go down, his fever broke, and he gained some strength. Trembling in every nerve, he rose to his feet, his mind cloudy. He was determined to find his father
and brother, so he stumbled along through the thickets. Unfortunately, he took a wrong turn and wound his way through a scrub forest.

Perhaps that was fortunate instead. If he had found his way to the battle, in all likelihood he would have been shot down, helpless as he was.

Now he stumbled once more and fell full-length on his face. “Got to get up …” he whispered hoarsely. “Got to find Pa and Tom.” He struggled to his hands and knees, and as he rose the world seemed to go in a circle. He held onto a sapling until the dizziness passed and then staggered forward.

Jeff never knew how long he managed to keep on his feet, but the journey seemed unending. He fell more than once. His mind was so cloudy that he began speaking to his fellow soldiers as if they were there. “Curly, you're all right. Help me, will you? Sergeant Mapes, I can't find you. Where are you?” All this time he reeled forward, his face scratched from briars and low-hanging branches.

Finally he thought he heard voices, but he was too weak to walk toward them. Then his foot slipped under a root. He went crashing to the ground and with a sob tried to get up, but it was too much for him. As the thunder of the guns died away, Jeff Majors slipped into unconsciousness on the battlefield of Antietam.

“Tom, I can't find Jeff anywhere.”

Captain Majors stopped beside his son, who, along with Walter Beddows, was digging a grave. “What do you mean you can't find him, Pa?” Tom said, forgetting to use his father's proper title. His face was pale, and his hands were trembling. He stared at the captain, saying, “He's got to be there.”

“Well, he's not. Come on. Come with me. We'll have to find him.”

Tom tossed the shovel down and followed his father quickly. “You think the Yankees got him?”

“Oh, he was too far behind our lines for that. But he's gone somewhere. I should've left someone with him.”

“There really wasn't anyone to leave. But we'll find him—don't worry,” Tom replied.

They searched for the rest of the afternoon. Finally word came that there was going to be a retreat across the Potomac.

“We can't leave him here, Pa. He's got to be somewhere,” Tom cried.

“I know it. I'll see if I can get permission to stay.”

Stonewall Jackson was a busy man that day. But he put aside everything to listen to Captain Majors. His eyes were filled with sympathy, but he said, “We have to get across the river, Captain. If you stay here, you'll be gobbled up as a prisoner of war again. If the boy's hurt, even if they find him, he'll be a prisoner at the worst.”

“I don't want him to be in a prisoner of war camp, General Jackson!”

“Neither do I. But we'll have to trust God for this.” It was the best Nelson Majors could do. He returned to the camp, and when the retreat started there was nothing to do but go with his men.

The Army of Northern Virginia pulled up at the Potomac that night. The men struggled across, and one of the last groups to cross over was the Stonewall Brigade. As they moved wearily across the river, Tom looked back where the Union Army lay, still inactive.