Wild, Beautiful, and Free(75)

“Silas,” I began.

“No.” He said it quickly and glanced at me. “No, I wasn’t mad at you for leaving me in Philadelphia. You were right. Safer for us to be on our own.”

“And you’ve made your way pretty well since then?”

“Yeah. Being free? Nothing better. I thought it felt fine traveling with Massa Holloway. Thought that was a measure of freedom. But it wasn’t. Now that I know real freedom, I know that was nothing, nothing next to this. I’m my own man now.”

“How come you aren’t married?”

“Ain’t ready to set up house. Wanna go where I can buy some land. Be out in the open air. Much as I was grateful to be in a city like Philadelphia—and I seen New York, too—don’t seem a good way to live. Too many people.”

I thought of the hills winding down to the river in Dayton and the breeze blowing through the cane of Catalpa Valley. “Yes, I feel the same way.”

“When this fighting done, maybe I’ll find the right place. Maybe you can think about coming with me then.”

I nodded but said nothing. I couldn’t see my way into tomorrow, let alone after the war, whenever that might be. I thought of what Mr. Colchester had said—to just think about today. That was what I had, and my hands were full of it—today. In that moment I was sitting with my friend Silas, and a sliver of moon still hung in the morning sky. It was enough.

By April of 1862 we had gone as far south as Tennessee. We were supporting a division of the Army of the Ohio when we got word that we had to pack up quickly and march to aid Major General Grant’s regiment, which had been attacked by Confederates the day before. There would be a large counterattack, and Dr. Nelson feared great numbers of dead and wounded, maybe more than we’d ever had. While we were getting ready, I asked him a question.

“How far are we going, sir?”

Like Mother B., he had learned that I could read and write and also fire a musket. I would help clean the guns we used for our defense, and he would talk to me about the fighting while we cleaned the guns and fired them to make sure the cartridges were dry.

“Grant is based near Corinth, Mississippi. We will meet him near the Tennessee River.”

I gathered my things, but I was a little scared and confused. I hadn’t been in Mississippi since Silas and I had fled it. I ran about looking for him, hoping to ride with him. I figured I’d feel better if I were with him. But his wagon had already gone, and I had to pile into one carrying Mother B. and two other nurses, Carrie and Martha. The horses trotted fast down the road. Suddenly this thought came to me: I was going to Mississippi, but I would also be closer to home than I had been in years. Could the fighting take us as far as Louisiana? I didn’t know what battles, if any, were being fought there. I prayed for Calista and Dorinda, and I touched the stone I still carried in my pocket. It was a small hope. I let that be my comfort as we rushed toward the next battle.

We arrived in the evening and stayed up all night preparing for the incoming wounded. Silas and the men lined up cots. Mother B., Carrie, Martha, and I readied the supplies with the other nurses. Then, at about two in the morning, Mother B. urged us to sleep a little if we could.

“You’ll need your rest,” she said.

The musket barrage, thundering in the distance like kingdom come, began at daybreak. I pressed my hands over my ears, said a prayer, and got up and dressed as quickly as I could. I ran out to the pavilion tent and waited. Mother B. joined me. Times like this, I wished I had a place where I could see what was going on, like on a hill. The waiting was so hard. It would get to a point, before the first wounded came in, when I could trick myself into thinking that none would come. The Union had been so successful in the fight that none had been hurt and the rebels had all been taken prisoner. But this was nothing but a childish dream.

Silas and the other men soon came running with the stretchers cradling mangled bodies. He stayed to assist Dr. Nelson while the others returned for more. The doctors all did what they could. They extracted musket balls, sewed up bayonet wounds, and, in the worst cases, wielded the amputation saw and removed limbs. Martha and I were the best at bandaging, so once a doctor had completed an operation, like taking a musket ball from a man’s leg, she or I would step in and bind the wound while the doctor moved on to another soldier. And another. And another. The pace quickened as the sun rose high in the sky. Cannon fire exploded through the air. No one stopped. No one ate.

Around three o’clock a soldier came riding hard into the hospital area. I was at a table near the edge of the pavilion working on a soldier when I saw him come in. It was Colonel Eshton! His horse was swaying in a strange way. Silas saw what was happening and ran up and pulled Colonel Eshton off and got him on the ground. Turned out the horse had been shot. The ball had struck through the saddle. The colonel had been hit, too, in the leg. Silas had gotten to him just in time, because the horse fell over and died right after. Colonel Eshton would have been crushed under it.

My fingers went cold. Was Mr. Colchester out there in the field? I shut my eyes tight and said a quick prayer. Then I looked to see where they were taking the colonel, but he was past my sight line.

Slowly, as dusk fell, the sounds of the battle, which would be called Shiloh, died away. At dark the stretcher-bearers were sitting on the ground near the tents and eating hardtack. Mother B. went up to them and asked when they were going out again to search for more wounded.