I Shall Be Near to You(32)

Sully says, ‘I’ll help you keep Ross safe, like you said.’

There is a long moment before Sully laughs and gives me a shove.

‘I got you good! Don’t worry, I’m staying with Will,’ he says, and Will’s shoulders relax.

When we finally get to work setting up camp, white canvas tents go flapping in the wind and there’s the sound of pounding and swearing up and down our Company’s row. Jeremiah is all concentration, and the only words passing his lips are orders like, ‘Turn it this way,’ or, ‘Give that here.’ He is everywhere at once, hardly letting me do a thing.

Captain walks down our row, giving commands: ‘Make this line straighter! Tamp that stake in more firmly!’

It can’t be this way, not with Captain patrolling. I’ve got to do my share, but Jeremiah pounds the steel stakes to hold the edges of our tent down and won’t let go of our only mallet. He aims for me to move our knapsacks inside that tent and lay out our blankets and string up our lantern so come night we’ve got an easy time of it. Things fit for a woman, things a wife might do.

Soon, there ain’t a single boy who ain’t working. Sully and Will have practically got their whole tent up, while Henry is still spreading out the canvas pieces just so, looking over each one, and Jimmy pounding in the stakes laid out neat around the edges. Henry looks at our tent barely up and me doing nothing and shakes his head. Once even Will looks at me, standing there like he can’t figure me out somehow.




I SIT ON the wooden crate our tent came out of, feeling easier. Jeremiah sits on the ground beside me, poking at the fire with a stick. I want to curl up next to him and trace the new beard that’s clinging to his jaw and flatten myself against him. I want to feel like we are home, just the two of us in our Little House with the woods around it and the smell of earth plowed up for growing things. But instead there is the golden light of the fire bright on Jeremiah’s cheeks and no nice supper coming and no big bed. Instead there is the yelling and laughing and singing of the men all around us.

Jeremiah stands up and says, ‘I’m going to check on Sully and the O’Malleys, maybe see if we can find some more wood for cooking supper.’

‘That’s fine,’ I nod. ‘I’ve got a letter to write.’

‘To your folks?’

‘That’s right. Figure I ought to tell them where I’ve gone.’

‘Might be good they hear it from you.’

I watch him go down our aisle and then I sit down to tell my folks all the nice parts.

March 14, 1862

Dear Mama, Papa and Betsy,

I am writing to tell you I am Gone with Jeremiah, and Safe. I am sorry for not writing you sooner, or telling you my plans, but I could not see him go to fight this War and stay Home. I am cleaving to my husband, as the Bible says I ought. I aim to help as Best I can and Earn what money I may, even if it means soldiering. I will send what I can Home for you and for the Farm and will write to tell you where we have got to.

Don’t you worry none about me, I am Happy here with Friends all around, as you can see in the likeness I am sending. That Boy you don’t know is named Will. We are doing nothing but Drilling and learning to Shoot and building up the fort, and I am Pleased to say I can do All of it as Well as any man here.

For Betsy I am sending this Ribbon. Don’t you think it is a pretty Blue? You would be Amazed to see the Ribbons and Fine Things the ladies in Washington or even over in Utica wear.

When you write, you can direct letters to Pvt. Ross Stone, 97th Regiment, NYSV, Company H in care of Captain Chalmers via Washington D.C. The word all around camp is that we will be moving Soon now we shoot and march straight—maybe off into Virginia.

I am still,

Your Rosetta



Once I have got that letter written nice, I tuck it with the map inside my coat pocket. Putting it in Sergeant’s mailbag will have to wait for morning because there is Jeremiah coming back down the aisle with an armful of wood and the rest of the boys and it is a sure thing they are all hungry.


INSIDE OUR TENT, while Jeremiah does up the ties on the flap, I sit on my blankets and wonder how it is we are supposed to be husband and wife here where we still ain’t got real walls. Since leaving home I ain’t slept outside of my clothes even once, ain’t even washed, really. Not with Mama’s lavender water like I sometimes used to. But then Jeremiah turns to me.

‘We ain’t had time like this since we were back home,’ he whispers.

‘You think it’s okay here?’

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ Jeremiah asks.

All the nights we shared a tent with the O’Malleys, sometimes after Henry would get to snoring and Jimmy would start up with grinding his teeth, Jeremiah’s hands would find me, would find their way to places, sometimes I would find my way to him, our mouths bearing down on each other’s to keep from making sound.

‘If anybody hears …’ I say, wishing for our Little House away in the woods. ‘Or if there was action and we had to get up and we weren’t—’ It’s like we are sneaking and worrying, like before we were married.

‘You think too much,’ Jeremiah says, and as he sinks down in front of me, I know he is right.

He reaches to touch my hair and I remember rinsing it in vinegar to be nice for him.