The Face of Heaven (49 page)

“If you are thinking seriously of this,” Lyndel said to him one afternoon in early October when both children were napping, “bear in mind they are not likely to take a man with one arm.”

“I can drive a team better than most men with two hands!” Nathaniel said, his temper flaring.

“I know you can. But still they will not take you on.”

He got out of his chair and paced the kitchen. For a moment he glanced out at the trees changing color near their barn. Then he said, “I could train as a surgeon. I only need one arm to administer medicines or ply a saw.”

“I think you would be a wonderful surgeon. I am sure you could convince the teachers of your ability to do the tasks of a physician competently. But it will take you several years to complete medical training, Nathaniel. And then you would have another clash on your hands with my father and the ministers. The Amish do not become doctors.”

Nathaniel leaned against the wall on his fist. “So I do nothing to save lives or hasten the war’s end?”

“You and your men saved the country at Gettysburg. Sherman has captured Atlanta and Grant has Lee trapped in Richmond and
Petersburg. Everyone knows the conflict is coming to an end. Even Hiram writes that we are talking about months now and not years.”

“Still.”

Lyndel sat up in her chair. “Yes. Still. Lives are being lost that could be saved. And you can do nothing. But we are one flesh. I feel the same things you do. Only I am in a position to do something about them.”

Nathaniel turned away from the wall and stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“The Lord knows I love being a wife to you and I adore being a mother to my children. But they need nurses at Petersburg. I have been reading about the battles at Peebles Farm and New Market Heights and Darbytown. I can make a difference to Grant’s men.”

“But you haven’t nursed in over a year.”

“The skills will come back quickly. You don’t forget them any more than you forget how to bale hay or ride a horse.”

“What about your father? Do you think he will still feel the way he did after Gettysburg?”

“I have spoken to him about it. Remember how he helped the surgeons at the seminary? He has changed forever, he says. He sees binding up the wounds as an act of Christ now.”

“The children—”

“Lincoln and Corinth will miss me. I will pine after them. But their grandmothers will smother them in love. And they have a great father.”

Nathaniel thrust his hand in his pocket and gave a low whistle. “So you have been thinking about this for some time. And your mind is made up.”

She got out of her chair and came to him, resting both hands on his arm. “I think your mind is made up too. You want me to go, don’t you?”

“No. Not at all. I don’t want you to leave us.”

“But you are grateful that one of us is going to do something to ease the suffering.”

“You could be killed.”

She shook her head. “I will be behind the lines. The wounded will come to us in minutes at Petersburg, not hours. I will be all right, love.”

He narrowed his bright green eyes. “I could insist that you stay. The Keim and King families have seen enough war. I cannot bear to have you hurt.”

She squeezed his arm. “But you won’t insist. Because you know it is right we try to save the fallen. You know it is something holy, something sacred. Through me, we can do what so few others can—stop the flow of blood.”

Nathaniel breathed out noisily. “Ah, it is difficult to argue with you. I have mixed feelings about this.”

“You know it is right.”

“Do I?” He brushed her cheek with his hand. “Have you thought about how you will get to the front?”

“The 19th Indiana is still with the Iron Brigade, isn’t it? The Iron Brigade is at Petersburg. And I am a nurse of the 19th Indiana.” She patted a pocket on her dress. “I still have a pass from the president of the United States.”

Nathaniel cracked a smile. “You do beat all, Lyndel King. It’s so easy to love you. Why, it’s the easiest thing in the world.” His strong arm pulled her into his chest. “I think I want to kiss this woman.”

She tilted her head. “I think this woman wants you to go ahead.”

Lyndel took the train in January, right after the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations, with the blessings of her father and mother and the Amish community. The tears ran freely when she hugged Lincoln and Corinth but she turned quickly and stepped into the carriage driven by her brother Levi, who took her to the depot.

She had no trouble reaching the Union lines and was escorted with a military guard to a large field hospital. The 19th Indiana had amalgamated with the 20th Indiana in the fall and no one she asked knew where it was located on the line. Nor was the Iron Brigade anywhere in sight—but surgeons put her to work immediately regardless of the brigade’s whereabouts. Along with the other nurses and volunteers she made sure the wounded were warm and fed and had their dressings changed regularly.

For the first few weeks the front was quiet but she was busy enough
despite the lull in fighting. On February 5th and 6th Union cavalry and infantry clashed with Confederate forces at Hatcher’s Run and the Union troops had extended their siege works and stranglehold on Petersburg by the time that fight was over. The casualties came pouring in with the ambulances and it reminded Lyndel immediately of Gettysburg and Antietam, though on a much smaller scale. She cabled Nathaniel and her father about dealing with the battle’s wounded. They cabled back prayers and Bible verses and their love.

She wrote her friend, and Morganne came down to join her in March. She brought news from Hiram that with Sherman’s march through Georgia before Christmas, much of the South was about ready to give up the fight. More Union troops were converging on Petersburg and Richmond and Grant would soon have enough to overwhelm Lee’s dwindling army.

Morganne’s return to nursing was as quiet as Lyndel’s had been in January. They only dealt with a few soldiers who had been shot by snipers or who had come down with dysentery and other ailments. It gave them time to relax and talk. Hiram had asked Morganne to marry him as soon as the war was over and he was already planning on a spring wedding.

Lyndel laughed at that. “Oh, Hiram—always so confident about his predictions. Well, he has a lot riding on this one. The end of the war, a Union victory, and his marriage to Morganne David. Do you think the world will turn on the axis that Hiram plans?”

Morganne shrugged. “I’ve waited this long, Lyndy. Even if the war doesn’t end until Thanksgiving, I plan on getting that man to the altar. You will be my matron of honor, won’t you?”

“Matron. That makes me sound so old. But I’ll stand with you. I’ll be so happy to stand with you. So why isn’t Hiram hanging around the camp with you here?”

“Oh, I expect him to pop in and out. But he’s a big muckety-muck at the paper now—a lot of correspondents answer to him. He’s in Boston and New York as much as he’s here at the front.”

Three days later, on March 25th, Confederate troops tried to break out of the Union encirclement and capture Fort Stedman behind
Union lines. The skies broke open as artillery shells streaked back and forth and Federal forces counterattacked. Once again the two nurses were dealing with Rebel officers and men as well as Union troops. The battle only lasted one day but other fights and skirmishes soon followed as Grant began to press in on Lee and Petersburg.

Lyndel saw the general himself ride up to the field hospital on the last day of March with his retinue. It was raining heavily and the horses splashed and slipped through puddles of mud. She and Morganne were working on five Confederate prisoners as the rain pelted their backs and the soldiers’ faces. Grant called a captain to his side and pointed at the two nurses. The captain saluted, shouted for a number of his men nearby, and they went off at a brisk run, returning five minutes later with a tent, which they promptly began to erect right over the nurses and their patients, finally getting them out of the storm. When Lyndel realized what was happening she looked at Grant and lifted her hand in a small sign of thanks. He tugged on the brim of his hat and nodded and urged his horse forward. Lyndel wondered how he could keep his cigar lit in such weather but the trail of smoke he left behind him was obvious.

The next day a fierce fight at Five Forks between Philip Sheridan’s bluecoats and George Pickett’s men of butternut and gray kept the ambulances racing. From bits and pieces of information officers related to her and Morganne and the other nurses, Lyndel gathered that the South had suffered a severe blow when Sheridan led a charge that breached Pickett’s left flank and won the battle. The Union victory had cut Lee off from his supply lines in Richmond.

As she worked through half the night it became clear from what she was told that Grant would launch an assault along the entire Rebel line in the morning. Anticipating a great run of casualties, Lyndel forced herself back to her tent, where she slept for five hours. When Morganne woke her the battle she’d expected had begun and the surgeon’s probes and saws were already slick with flesh and blood. She lost track of all time, but she paused from bandaging a man’s eye that evening to watch a cluster of Union soldiers outside the tent toss their caps in the air and shout.

“What is it?” asked the corporal she was nursing.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Some sort of good news, I expect.”

He forced himself up on his elbows. “What sort of good news? We been almost a whole year in this stinking mud. Find out what good news, ma’am. Please God, let it be that this siege is over.”

Lyndel finished his bandage. “All right, Corporal. Sit here a moment.”

She stepped to the opening of the tent. “What’s is it, men?” she called out.

A young private grinned at her. “Why, Mrs. King, Lee is on the run west. The Army of Northern Virginia is whipped. Word is that tomorrow we will occupy Richmond and Petersburg.”

Lyndel turned back to the corporal. Tears were flowing from his good eye. “I thank the Lord. It’s over. It’s pretty much over. I thank God I’ve made it through. I can go home soon, ma’am. Home to Illinois.”

Lyndel wasn’t sure what to say. “The South hasn’t surrendered yet, soldier.”

He laughed with his happiness and gripped her arm. “You’ll see. Grant ain’t no Hooker or Burnside or Meade. He’ll go after Lee like a greyhound. It’s all gonna happen fast now.”

The next morning, April 3rd, with Lee’s army gone, Richmond and Petersburg surrendered. The camp was a mass of running bodies and plunging horses and rattling artillery pieces as Grant prepared to go in pursuit. The Army of Northern Virginia was marching toward Confederate forces in North Carolina as fast as it could.

General Grant came galloping by the hospital tent with his cluster of officers. He meant to go past but suddenly reined up. He peered into the tent for a long minute. Then he spoke to an officer next to him. A major general dismounted. Lyndel and Morganne were working on a man who’d been shot through both lungs and was dying painfully. Lyndel could feel the major general’s eyes on her and looked up. Grant and his attendants were only a few feet away, framed in the tent opening.

“Sir?” she asked, holding a bloody towel to her patient’s mouth.

The officer’s face and eyes were soft as he watched her nurse the
soldier. His voice was quiet. “General Grant’s compliments, ma’am. When you are finished with your patient, and the man is comfortable, he asks you both to attach yourself to one of the surgeons’ units traveling with his army. I have asked one of my men to see to the arrangements. We are following Lee and General Grant very much wants you two working with our casualties.”

“Of course, sir. I’m surprised the general could even think of the pair of us when so much is on his mind.”

Grant spoke up as he sat on his horse outside the tent, a cigar stub burning out between his fingers. “It was always niggling away at the back of other matters and concerns after I saw you treating the Confederate prisoners in that rainstorm. I wanted to satisfy my memory and locate you.”

“Thank you, General.”

“May I have the honor of your names?”

“Why, sir, I am Mrs. King, Mrs. Lyndel King, and my friend and colleague here is Miss Morganne David.”

Grant lifted his hat briefly. “Very good.”

Once the major general had returned to his mount, Grant quickly rode off followed by his men. The soldier the two nurses were treating died five minutes later. The two washed their faces and hands and went back to their tent to fetch their clothing and bags. A half hour later a lieutenant tapped on the canvas flap. He told them his name was Carson and he was their escort. Tall and slender with a boyish face and a gentle voice, they trusted him from the start.