BLOOD AND BLUE RIBBONS: Chp 11
A STORY OF THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG
Blood and Blue Ribbons
My Memories Of Events From The Great Battle Of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
June 30th – July 3rd, 1863
Abigail Daniels, Summer, 1865
A Novel
Copyright by Elyse Cregar
Wednesday, July 1st 1863
Evening
“We will leave you to your way of life, and we will resume ours.”
“Come on in, men. Looks like plenty of food for all of us,” Captain Kelly was saying as we returned to the sight of some twenty men crowding into our kitchen and parlor.
“Ma, look,” I whispered, nodding toward the parlor floor. “We don’t have to worry about the stains.”
There were so many filthy boots and bare feet tramping around that the sawdust and bloodstains had vanished from view.
“I’d feel better if you were upstairs, Abigail,” my mother whispered back. “Our wounded men must be kept absolutely quiet now.”
“I don’t think I should leave you alone, Ma,” I replied. But truth to tell, my curiosity was aroused at the sight of these rough soldiers from another world.
“Besides, I can cut the potatoes. They will cook more quickly.” I suddenly felt ravenous and picked up a scrap of bread crust from the cupboard shelf.
My mother shrugged. In that awful moment we avoided another argument.
As if in a strange dream, Ma and I moved deliberately about the crowded kitchen, trimming the ham, soaking beans and filling pots with water to boil. My hands shaking, I added wood scraps to the embers at the bottom of the stove and removed a bloody rag that had remained hanging on a drying rack.
Ma grabbed the rag from my hands and stuffed it into her apron pocket. She glanced around the room, observing that the soldiers were too involved in their own glory to take notice.
“Them Yankees shor’ threw up their lines against us, but we knocked a few down!” one soldier was saying. “They caught us jest as we was comin’ down from the north, an’ all of a sudden there they were. We didn’t even have no time to fix bayonets.”
“Yeah, but once them bluebellies decide to run, there’s no stopping ’em, right boys?” another soldier chimed in.
Laughter filled the kitchen. The rebels seemed to be in high spirits and gave no thought to our feelings.
I stood at the table, slicing a mountain of potatoes with the curved blade of my wooden handled chopping knife. I set aside a small pile of skins for our neighbors’ pigs. My nose wrinkled as unpleasant odors filled the room. The sickening smell of dried blood mingled with the fragrance of perspiring bodies. The soldiers’ clothes emitted a peculiar musty scent, which hung over the gathering like a sweat-soaked blanket.
Most of the soldiers were unkempt, with rough beards that sprouted from unshaved, unwashed faces. Their dark eyes stared at me as one or another caught my eye. Many of the men wore boots with large holes in them. The bare feet of some were covered with scabs. Now I understood what the Union captain had meant when he said the Confederates needed supplies.
A very tall, skinny man slouched against the front window sash; his eyes followed me from underneath a broad-brimmed straw hat.
“Did y’all hear them blue bones crunch when we was shellin’ ’em?” he asked his comrades. “It was ever’ man for himself. Point blank range. Ah couldn’t see nothin’ in front of me but smoke and flame. When we finally broke their line, they was droppin’ knapsacks, canteens. Got me a brand new kepi!”
The man pulled out a Union cap from under his arm and held his trophy high. The rebels grabbed the hat and passed it around. One man tossed it in the air, pulled a long knife from his belt and nailed the hat against the wall above the dry sink.
I nicked my finger with the chopping knife.
“Now, gal, y’all best keep your blood out of them taters. I believe we have had enough taste o’ blood today.” The tall man walked to the table and stood over me. I glanced up at a gaunt face black with grime. My stomach heaved at the smell of him.
The man grinned and turned away, winking at his comrades. My fingers shook like pine needles in a windstorm. I felt my face grow hot. Concentrating on the potatoes, I tried not to look anymore at these awful men.
“You know, Luke,” said Captain Kelly. “I saw the colors they were running with. We were up against regiments in the Union First Corps. If the First Corps is here, we may be facing the whole Union Army tomorrow.”
The Captain sat down next to the growing pile of potatoes. “Our jaunt into this here town for supplies may turn into something a whole lot more than we expected.” He turned to face me.
“You men best eat well,” he continued. “We’ll be setting up camp near town tonight, but I hope our meals will come from good citizens like these. These folks here are working hard to fix y’all a hearty supper.”
Captain Kelly’s face relaxed as he smiled at me while he reached for Grandmother’s hourglass where it stood on the middle of the table. He picked it up and turned it, watching the white sand trickle back down through its narrow portal.
“How many times will this sand run out before we lick the Yankees?” he wondered aloud.
He handed the ornament to me.
“Here, Miss Abigail, you take our measure with this glass. It will not be too long before the war is over. The South will prevail. You and your ma can sleep peacefully again.”
He paused, staring at me for several seconds, as if he were trying to read my mind. “We will leave you to your way of life, and we will resume ours.”
As I took the glass from his outstretched hand, my heart pounded at a full gallop. I heard the throbbing in my ears; surely, he could hear it as well. Ma had watched this threatening exchange, and taking the hourglass from my hands, she placed it on a shelf in the kitchen corner.
“Miz Daniels”, he turned to face my mother. “We do ‘preciate your kindness, don’t we men?”
The soldiers gathered in the kitchen nodded, though most were unsmiling.
“But we are under orders to find any Yankees who might be hiding in town.” He paused. “Contraband as well. If you know of any niggras hiding in cellars or those houses where they, ah, live in Gettysburg, you are obliged to tell me.”
He pointed to the front window. “We got us some young black bucks already tethered to a post. We hope to return them to their rightful owners. Go have a look-see, Miss Abigail.”
Ezra’s words of the previous evening came back to me: “Safe, Miss Abigail? Safe? There’s a pound of trouble brewing outside these doors. Them Union horsemen don’t be galloping round so’s they can play blind man’s buff out in the woods! Safe!”
Speechless, I shook my head at the captain, while my gaze flew to my mother’s face. I could no longer carry on this charade.
“Ma, is the water boiling yet? The potatoes are ready. I need to get some fresh air.”
I walked briskly to the back door, opening it to the quickening evening breeze. As I closed the door behind me and stepped out into the garden, I took several deep breaths. My courage was faltering even as my mother upheld her own brave demeanor.
After using the privy and splashing water on my face at the well, I took my next hesitant steps to the alley. Peering around the side of the house I decided to take the “look-see” Captain Kelly had suggested.
Across the road, I saw three black figures sitting in the rising dust. Confederate troops, some mounted on furiously sweating horses, passed by, kicking up whirling tornadoes, portents of the fear and destruction to come. The remaining sunlight flashed on chains that bound the men to a hitching post. The men turned toward me and raised their arms as high as they could, loudly clanging the iron links. I felt instant shame at my relief that these prisoners were not my neighbors, that perhaps they had been captured in a nearby town. I did not know them.
Turning away from the nightmarish vision, one I had only imagined from the stories the Freemans had told me, I sat down on the back steps and stared at our colorful vegetable patches. How often had I delayed the task of maintaining our bountiful garden? From the far corner the silky tassels of budding corn beckoned me with their saucy dance. Now all I wanted was to tie my sun bonnet under my chin and kneel between the lush rows of beets, beans, carrot tops and vining peas. Now all I wanted was to plough my fingers into the dirt and toss the invading weeds into my basket.
Perhaps I could wait on the porch until the Confederates left our house. But the clamor inside continued for uncounted minutes. If I closed my eyes I could see the upraised arms of the black men chained together. I would never forget their desperate appeals. Where had they come from? Where were they being taken?
I remembered my mission to bring Joe Pye to my friends earlier in the day. Ezra and Lilly knew what was awaiting them if they had stayed only moments longer.
When the smoky smell of the hams wafted from the kitchen, the grunts of these half-starved rebels grew louder.
I finally stood up and walked back into the kitchen. I curled my shaking hands into my apron and focused on the floorboards as I tried to remain invisible.
Rebels continued to hack at the steaming ham bones, the meat barely released from our oven. They continued to voice their raucous boasts, continued to exhibit their bravery with knife contests as they attacked the food Ma and I had prepared.
My eyes sought my mother’s as I nodded silently to the hallway. “Thank you, Ma. I’m sorry.” I shrugged at the upheaval in our kitchen.
“Go, then,” she said, as she walked over to me. Her gaze was steady and calming. She lowered her voice. “Get some rest. You will need it later.”
With no small effort, I kept my head up as I entered the center hallway. Several Confederates sat leaning against the walls discussing rattlesnakes while they drank from their canteens, most likely filled at our well.
“That was in Virginee, wasn’t it, Lee, when we camped next to a whole den o’ rattlers? I believe you shot six o’ the rascals that night.”
A blond-haired young man gazed at me for several seconds. He finally nodded and answered his comrade. “Aye, I did shoot six of the reptiles. The colonel’s tent was practically sitting on top of the whole den.”
The young man kept his blue eyes fixed on mine; his smile followed. I felt my face grow hot and was furious with my body’s unwelcome reaction. But despite my flutters, I stopped halfway up the steps to turn and listen.
“Ah found one in my sleepin’ bag,” another man added. “Hey, Leonidas, how big was that last rattler?”
The blond-haired soldier reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the snake’s tail, making a great show of counting the rattles.
“Why, seems he had sixteen rattles.”
The soldier handed the serpent’s tail to the man next to him. I could not guess the blond-haired boy’s age, though he looked to be twenty or twenty-two perhaps. His accent was different from the other men. He did not sound at all like a Southerner, more like someone I had met once from the British Isles. Maybe Scotland. I tried to remember my geography, transported out of the strange circumstance of hosting this Confederate company in my family home.
“That’s what killin’ them Yankees puts me in mind of,” a third soldier added. “Killin’ snakes. Reptiles!” He spat out the word as he tossed the rattles back to the blond-haired young man.
My shivering, shuddering response must have been seen by all those men leaning against the hallway walls. Why I did not rush up the rest of the stairs at that moment, I cannot say.
The tail landed in a dark corner below the newel post. The blond-haired soldier reached along the molding for the snake’s tail, then paused. As he lifted the appendage, he glanced up, again locking his eyes with my own. Drops of fresh blood dripped from the rattles; I could see a scrap of my blue ribbon wrapped around the rattles as if the ribbon had become the snake. There were spatters of blood on the newel post, Union blood that had escaped my rag in the earlier flurry of cleaning.
The young man stared hard at me. He lowered his eyelids partway. His veiled expression felt like a warning to me, and with some ceremony, he wiped the blood from the snake’s extensive tail on his jacket. He pulled the scrap of cloth from the rattles and enfolded the blood smeared ribbon into his left fist.
The soldier’s dramatic performance was not over, Using the rattles as a comb he brushed his long hair off his forehead. The intensity of his stare continued to challenge me, to what I did not know. I felt my face flush as though a hot draft had blown through the hall.
Forcing myself to regain my composure, I turned stiffly from the scrutiny of the blond-haired fellow and made my way up the rest of the hall stairs, wondering if the soldier would question my mother about the blood; perhaps the Union soldier’s blood from the bucket I had thrown hours earlier, an amount that would have been slow to congeal in that dark corner. I berated myself for not cleaning more thoroughly. Would this rebel tell his captain? Would these invaders search our house for wounded Union soldiers?
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Hal Jespersen volunteered his time and expertise in creating the accompanying map of Gettysburg. You may see more of Hal’s carefully drawn and extensive collection of maps at his website cwmaps.com
The FREE chapters to follow will post on my Substack Section: Blood and Blue Ribbons, generally on Saturdays and Wednesdays. This novel appears as a Section on my Substack site: MORE CATS, PLEASE!
Post for Wednesday, April 16: Chapter 12
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Thank you for reading my historical novel of 60,000 words. I have been inspired by a very rewarding career as a public school librarian, a career filled with books and young people, and by sharing historical events with visitors to the Gettysburg Battlefield, where I led guided tours for several years.
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