The Face of Heaven (17 page)

“Hey, you! Hey, yup!”

A team of horses pulled up to the station, an ambulance rattling and bouncing behind it. Lyndel jumped down and ran through the darkness to where lanterns swung from the front and back of the ambulance wagon. The driver peered at her through the mist and she said softly, “Levi, it’s me.”

He sprang down from the driver’s seat and caught her up in his arms, lifting her feet off the ground.

“How I’ve missed you,” he said, almost too loudly.

“Shh, shh, the wounded are sleeping.” She smiled. “I’ve missed you too. It’s so good to see your face.”

“What on earth are you doing at Fairfax Station?”

“I’m helping nurse the soldiers from the Manassas battle. The nurse in charge was given a pass to permit her to bring us this far forward.”

“But it’s much too dangerous. Lee’s army is moving into Maryland. Some of his troops will come through here.”

Clara Barton walked up to them holding a lantern. “So is this your beau?”

Lyndel laughed quietly. “Oh, no—this is my brother. Levi, I would like to introduce to you the nurse in charge of our work here, Miss Clara Barton.”

Levi removed his rain-soaked cavalry Stetson with its wide brim. “Miss Barton. The soldiers speak well of you.”

“Do they? I’ve done little enough to deserve their praise.”

Levi looked quickly at Lyndel. “I must cut this short. I have several badly wounded men who need your attention.”

“Bring them on, then,” Miss Barton said.

Levi disappeared briefly to the back of his wagon and returned carrying the first of the injured and set him in a vacant spot under a tree that Miss Barton indicated. The two nurses bent over him immediately.

“Get water into him, if you can,” said Miss Barton to Lyndel, “and then some hot soup or coffee. After that wrap a cold compress to his temple. A train is due within an hour. I must assist your brother in laying out the other wounded. Where is Morganne?”

Lyndel lifted her head in the morning dark and scanned the lines of wounded on the grassy slope. “I know she didn’t sleep. She told me she could rest when we were back in Washington. There she is. Under that cluster of trees. Making a sling for someone, it looks like to me.”

Clara followed her gaze and nodded. “Very good. I knew I didn’t go wrong in asking my Pennsylvanians to join this little entourage.” She stood up and smoothed her apron as best she could—it was stiff with blood. “Come, Mr. Keim, let us remove your passengers to a softer bed than your wagon.”

Lyndel looked back to the man—no, the boy, for he could barely be more than sixteen—she was attending. He rose slightly to spit out the lukewarm water Lyndel put to his lips but then readily took in the hot coffee she offered him in small mouthfuls. Then she went to a small stream, soaked a cloth in it until it was ice cold, folded it, and wrapped the compress tightly over the injury on the side of his head. She began to pray over him in High German at the same time as a locomotive blew its whistle and creaked to a stop at the station.

The boy looked at Lyndel through still-dazed eyes and asked, “Where am I?”

“Fairfax, but we’re about to put you on a train for Washington.”

The boy’s green eyes now looked past her. “We were fighting in the dark. We never gave an inch to Johnny Reb. Never gave an inch.”

“Shh. Shh. I know.”

“Something knocked me down. Everything went white.”

“You will get better.”

“Will I? Will I really…my folks at home…they need me.”

“Yes, I’m sure they do. And we shall do our best to see that you return to them. What’s your name?”

“Les. Les Goodfellow.”

“The perfect name for you!” Lyndel said with a smile.

“Where will they take me?”

“I think you will be taken to Armory Square Hospital.”

“May I ask your name, ma’am?”

“My name is Lyndel Keim.”

“Would you remember me? Would you pray for me?”

“I’ve prayed for you already. I will continue to do so. I will pray God’s hand upon your young life.”

The boy nodded and closed his eyes. “I think I need to rest.”

“Miss Keim, you really must move on to the next man,” Miss Barton cautioned.

“Of course,” Lyndel replied. She patted the boy on his calf and said, “Here come the boys to put you on the train.”

Two soldiers approached and lifted the boy onto a stretcher and began to carry him toward the tracks.

The boy opened his eyes and said, “God bless you, Miss Keim.”

Lyndel stepped toward the stretcher and halted the soldiers while she bent over and gave the boy a soft kiss on the cheek.

“When I return to Armory Square, I’ll ask for you, Les Goodfellow.”

The men resumed their walk to the train and Lyndel returned to aid the next soldier with a prayer on her lips—for Les Goodfellow and for Nathaniel King.

10

“M
y dear Lyndel, I lost the last letter I was writing to you. I must have dropped it in that field of clover when they blew reveille. I have no idea what the grasshoppers or Rebels will make of it. Now it is about two weeks later, the 16th of September, a Tuesday. It is hard, very hard, to tell you we lost Corinth during our first fight back in August. I don’t even know what happened. We found him in the field by the farmhouse and I saw no sign that he was breathing. I swear I feel as low and dark as a deep cold well. The army retreated again and I had to leave his body behind. I could only pray over him. I asked God what was the point of his death. Our brigade held but the rest of the army broke so his sacrifice made no difference. The people have cheered us mightily here in Maryland, that is where we are marching now, but it does not matter to me. Corinth is gone and it seems to me that pretty soon the Union will be gone too. So much for our holy crusade to end slavery and preserve a nation of liberty for all.”

“Who are you talking to, Corporal?”

Nathaniel glanced to his right as the regiment trudged along a road of dust. It was Ham. “No one,” he responded.

“Were you praying?”

“No.”

“Speaking with your brother’s spirit?”

“I was not.”

“Well, you were talking to somebody and I’m the closest one to you and it weren’t me.”

“Never mind. I was only writing a letter out loud.”

There was the
pop-pop
of gunfire in the distance.

“What’s that, you reckon?” asked Ham.

“Skirmishers tangling. It won’t amount to anything.”

“South Mountain started with skirmishers and it amounted to something.”

“South Mountain wasn’t much of a battle. Just charging a stone fence.”

Ham snorted. “Ain’t you in the devil’s mood? Our fight at South Mountain the other day was no small affair. Those Georgia and Alabama boys wouldn’t give us that fence or that slope. We had to keep pushing and pushing to get them to appreciate it was our mountain now. And come morning that’s the way it was. We’d given Lee a spanking and he had to change his plans. The South pulled out and the brigade stayed. They should’ve renamed it North Mountain.”

Nathaniel grunted. “The boys had courage.”

“General McClellan didn’t retreat after South Mountain the way Pope had us skedaddle after the brawl at Brawner’s Farm. We had those secesh licked, high and mighty, at Brawner’s—we stopped Stonewall cold with six regiments. But Pope made us retreat. Good thing McClellan’s in charge of the army now. You ought to thank your God for that.”

Nathaniel grunted a second time, conceding another point to Ham. “I do.”

“McClellan saw us take on the secesh at South Mountain, you know. He was mightily impressed.”

Nathaniel looked over at Ham. “Who told you that?”

“The talk’s come down the line. Little Mac was there. Speaking to Hooker, the First Corps commander. We’re on the National Road, remember? Then it’s up the slope, moving the secesh off the mountain and away from that stone fence of yours. Shoving those gray bellies all the way back to Turner’s Gap. They’re blasting away at us but we never break.”

Nathaniel’s mind instantly filled with the smoke of thousands of
muskets firing and Rebel troops falling back inch by inch. He could even taste the sulfur of the powder on his tongue.

Ham went on. “So Little Mac asks Hooker,
Whose men are those fighting in the road?
Hooker tells him,
That’s General Gibbon’s brigade of Western men.
Little Mac says,
They must be made of iron.
”

Nathaniel snorted. “That’s a big story.”

“I got the Boston paper in my pack. I’ll show it to you when we bivouac. They’re calling us the ‘Iron Brigade’ now.”

“I don’t believe it.”

Ham shifted the nine pounds of his musket to his other shoulder. Nathaniel decided it was time to do the same.

“You’re a real ornery one these days, ain’t you, Corporal?” Ham grumbled. “All those pretty Maryland girls blowing us kisses and waving the flag. You even caught one of them bouquets they threw in Frederick—and the gal who tossed it looked better than a sweet sunrise over Indiana. Everyone else is feeling their oats again except you. We know your brother’s death has brought you down to your boot heels. But you’ll see. The big battle’s about to be fought. Bobby Lee’s run and hid in a barn in Sharpsburg and Little Mac is going to flush him out. The Iron Brigade will do its part and the rebellion will be over before Christmas. Corinth helped get us here.”

Nathaniel took some water from his canteen. “Will slaveholding be over before Christmas too?”

Ham nodded. “You bet.” He spied some chickens at the side of the road. “Your brother was always a great forager. We could use him now.” He changed shoulders with his Springfield again. “ ’Cept we’re not allowed to forage in Maryland. It’s a Union state.”

Gunfire swelled in the distance once again, dropped, then burst out with a fury before trickling away into occasional pops and bangs.

“South Mountain,” said Ham. “This time we send ’em farther back than Turner’s Gap.”

“Atlanta?” suggested Nathaniel.

“Atlanta. Richmond. Charleston. All them places. Hey, they can go all the way south to that Rio de Janeiro if they want. Just give us our country back.”

The afternoon became twilight and still they marched. The brigade moved along the Hagerstown Turnpike with the Potomac glinting and dark to their right. The town of Sharpsburg was just ahead of them. Nathaniel found he was beginning to drag his feet. The night before the 19th had been placed on picket duty and had guarded until reveille. Companies and platoons had taken their turn but no one had gotten enough sleep. He hoped they would have a chance to get a decent rest tonight. He even prayed for it.

Ten minutes later, near nine by Nathaniel’s pocket watch, Captain Langston told the company to retire on the east side of the turnpike. Clouds covered them and a light rain dampened their hats and frock coats and muskets. The 19th and the rest of the brigade—the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin—made camp all around. Nathaniel’s platoon brought out their blankets next to a barn.

“Another farm,” grunted Corporal Nicolson. “It’s always another farm. The farm boys must be getting sick of us peppering their out-buildings with lead and trampling their crops into the ground.”

“A good number of the crops should be harvested by now,” Private Jones told him, wrapping his Springfield in a large cloth. “I’d give the corn a couple more weeks though.”

“Well, I can’t see what this fellow’s got growing but I wish him the best with it when we start charging about in the morning.”

Sergeant Hanson was pulling a loaf of stale bread from his pack. “We won’t be fighting here, Corporal. Lee’s army is two miles farther ahead in Sharpsburg, sitting pretty and waiting for us. If there’s farms thataway it’s their crops you should be worried about. Not this gentleman’s—I think Lieutenant Davidson told me the map had it as a Joseph Poffenberger’s place.”

Nicolson also dug through his pack. “I’m not worried about anyone’s farm. If Joseph’s neighbor loses his corn instead of him I guess that’s Joseph’s good fortune and his neighbor’s bad luck. There. I knew I had some apples left from that orchard we marched through.” He bit into one and glanced at the sergeant’s bread. “How’s that loaf?”