In the tiny space between Sergeant’s order and the hell blast of muskets, Henry yells, ‘For Jimmy!’
I aim careful in the dying light and fire two rounds and I can do it if I think on Jimmy, if I let myself think on what I’ve got to protect, not just me and Jeremiah, but all of our future balled up inside me. The first don’t hit a thing, but the second shot makes a space in the line advancing. Something heavy settles into my belly when the stain blooms on that soldier’s chest, the hole in the line, the tear in the fabric of some other family.
Yells of, ‘Cease Fire! Cease Fire!’ come down the line. ‘Those are our own men!’
It is a worse sick panic, thinking I’ve shot one of our own, but the men across the field keep coming. Only our artillery fires and still they are coming and they let out the same shrill howl we heard at the embankment and charge into the flank of the Companies to the right of us. Then men are running everywhere and bullets are hitting bodies again and all through the ranks is confusion and yelling, and it ain’t right, but in that moment a small bit of peace comes over me that at least it weren’t someone friendly I shot down, that at least I kept some of those bullets from ever coming this way.
IT AIN’T LONG before that peaceful feeling is gone. Men start bellowing ‘Retreat!’ and our flag streams off into the trees. I yank Jeremiah’s sleeve and run.
We run until we put a low hill between us and them, until Captain reins his horse to a stop before us, nothing about him looking so sharp as the first time I saw him.
‘Boys,’ he says, his horse jigging back and forth in front of us, its breath as labored as ours, its eyes as white, ‘I know we’ve had losses and we have scores that want settling. But you have seen—we cannot move forward. We cannot fight this ground and win. For the protection of our Capital and for the continuance of this Army, we’re falling back to Centreville to resupply.’
After he says those words, he wheels his horse around and trots away, so he don’t hear the grumbling. Maybe I am the only one wanting to leave this place, wanting to be somewhere safe.
‘This ain’t how to end a war,’ Thomas says, shaking his head. ‘I never should’ve told my wife it’d be over by Christmas.’
‘The womenfolk knew. My wife knew none of it would come to good. She tried to keep Frank home—but I was supposed to look after—’ John Morgan says, his eyes glassy.
‘All this Army does is retreat!’ Sully says.
Henry sits on the ground, refusing to move. ‘All for nothing,’ he says. ‘All of it for nothing.’
‘It’s not for nothing,’ Will says.
‘How ain’t it?’ Henry goes almost to yelling. ‘How ain’t it for nothing when my brother is buried in that field and we ain’t a step closer to beating that enemy out there? What thing did he die for? He ain’t even got all the money we was promised.’
‘We’re still fighting for our country,’ Will says, ‘even if we don’t win. We’ve still got the idea of it, the idea a Republic can work. We can still fight, even if we lose, and that doesn’t make it a thing unworthy of the fight.’
‘He never was fighting for his country,’ Henry spits.
He don’t say what we all know, that Jimmy was only here because of Henry. I have been fighting for my place by Jeremiah’s side, for a place to put my dreams, and maybe that is something like what Will is saying, maybe that is part of what Will was trying under that dogwood tree. Maybe he and Jennie and people like them who feel the principle behind this war are fighting for a place they want to live, for a country where they can do what feels right to them, a country they can feel good calling home. But what good is that place if there ain’t none of our friends left to share in it?
NIGHT FALLS, THE sky clouded so thick there ain’t a single star shining through. It’s only fitting when the drizzling starts and the whole of us, already low spirited, get rained on too.
There ain’t no talking as we march. Someone, Will probably, or else Thomas, starts humming the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ but no one catches hold of the tune. I keep my feelings to myself, everyone does, and as we get farther away from the field, the only talking is lone men, calling for their Regiments by number, Second Michigan or Nineteenth Indiana or Fifty-sixth Pennsylvania, their voices coming out of the gloom like lost souls. Only when volleys of firing come from behind us does my heart get to pumping, but there is only a few rounds and then it is quiet again, except for the tramp of feet and the rattle of the artillery caissons over the rough road.