Jana sat cross-legged on the western bank of the Susquehanna River where it meets the Chesapeake Bay, in no mood to write her second letter home since leaving Elmira on Christmas Eve as a trooper with the Tenth New York Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. For the past three months, she’d been shuffled from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to Perryville, Maryland, to her present station. And her regiment had yet to receive their arms, equipment, and horses—her only hope of joining the fight. If, however, she were going to be stuck anywhere, she’d take her current post over the previous one, where she swore she was buried up to her neck in mud. Not to mention, here there were comfortable barracks; every man had his own bunk and no one had to sleep in tents. Havre De Grace represented one step closer to war, but neither that nor the sunshine and invigorating salty air could revive her from her misery.
Noting Jana’s scowl, Leanne said, “What’s got in yer craw today?”
Jana scratched her midsection, then looked around to make sure none of the troopers throwing away their pay on poker or making bracelets out of horse-tail strands were within earshot when she said to Leanne, “I hate this itchy corset. You’re lucky you’re flat-chested and don’t have to wear one.” Sweat trickled down her back. “And you’re lucky you can take off your coat to cool down without giving away your gender.” She was careful not to call Leanne a girl, given her testiness to it.
Pausing in polishing her musket’s barrel, Leanne waggled her oiled rag about and said, “Would you rather be wearing it here or at home, Johnnie?”
Jana knew she should be grateful to her corset for thus far helping her to fit right in with the young men, especially those who had yet to sprout an Adam’s apples or facial hair and were shy about bathing or emptying themselves in public.
“How ’bout I scout out a looser shirt and jacket for ya. Even if I find ’em, you’ll probably still have to wear that darn corset, but maybe ya can loosen it a little. And if you’d like to take yer coat off now for a spell, I’ll shoot whoever comes pokin’ ’round,” Leanne said.
“I’d be mighty grateful to you,” Jana said. She’d seen how Leanne acted tough to most everyone, yet showed a soft side to those she liked. She was glad Leanne was in her corner. Feeling refreshed by the gentle breeze sifting between the threads of her shirt, Jana picked up her pencil, rested her stationery on the canvas-covered wood slats of the lap desk that she’d bought in a Gettysburg book shop, and wrote:
April 5, 1862, Baltimore, Maryland
Dear Ma and Pa,
Things didn’t develop as I had hoped in Washington. However, the regimental surgeons aren’t as picky as Miss Dix and are grateful for any help they can get in the field hospitals. I’m glad for any chance to serve my country. I hope you’re glad too. I’ve been transferred to Baltimore but will be moved whenever and wherever I’m needed. I’ll write as often as I can. Please send my love to my sisters and Commodore.
Your loving daughter,
Jana
Again, Jana kept her words vague to avoid lying too much to Ma and Pa. She stuck a reddish-brown, three-cent stamp profiling George Washington to the envelope in which she sealed her letter. Then she stashed the mail in the tube of her lap desk, which she rolled up into its attached canvas-covered slats. Later she’d pass her note off to a courier to post from nearby Baltimore. While stationed in Gettysburg, Jana had seized the chance to make Ma and Pa think she was in Washington. A few of the regiment’s officers had been sent to the Union capital to see the then-Secretary of War Simon Cameron about building barracks for the men, housed in private homes, shops, and warehouses all over town. She had one of them post her letter from there.
Lying down in the grass, Jana felt its prickly spires stabbing the nape of her neck. She stared up at the cloudless, indigo sky and got to thinking about home. Right about now, Ma was taking down the laundry she’d hung outside to dry. Pa was sharpening his plow blades, readying for the planting season. Rachel and Rebecca were sewing new dresses, anxious to show them off at some spring picnic. Eliza might’ve given up dolls for slingshots. Molly was most likely taking a few steps on legs wobblier than a newborn foal’s. She missed them all and was mulling over if they missed her when a duck’s honk stole her away from her ponderings. She sat up.
Quack! Quack! A mallard with its green neckband glistening in the sun flew overhead. With a splash, it skidded its webbed feet across the bay’s glassy water.
Leanne grabbed her musket and shot to her feet. “I’m gonna git us a Rebel duck for supper tonight, Johnnie.” In quick time, she poured powder and dropped a ball into her muzzle and packed them both down with her ramrod.
“About the only thing that rusty Revolutionary-War piece is good for,” Jana groused, thinking back on how she and the other troopers had almost mutinied when compelled to shoulder them. They were superstitious about President Lincoln turning them into foot soldiers if they took up these longer-barreled, infantrymen’s muskets over the shorter-barreled carbines cavalrymen needed for maneuvering in the saddle—a fate that had happened to other units first formed as cavalry. But the Tenth finally caved in to their use; they needed something for drilling and guarding. Now, she and the Porter Guards, as did all other cavalrymen who passed through here without their proper arms, grumbled about training these antique muskets on the president and his cabinet for continuing to relegate cavalrymen to sending messages between generals, scouting enemy positions, and guarding railroads and bridges. Jana wished to know what blinded this administration to the cavalry’s fighting importance, especially after Confederate cavalry had routed the Union army at Bull Run ten months before. She prayed for Rebels to head toward Washington and try burning the bridges that she guarded between here and Baltimore. Maybe then she’d get off at least one shot before the war ended, even if with her outdated musket.
Leanne pointed her musket and pulled its trigger. Crack! Her musket’s butt bucked like an angry mule, flinging her backward.
Drawn to the spray of the ball as it splashed into the water, Jana squirmed uncomfortably. It had hit wide of its mark, awfully close to the Porter Guards guarding the Maryland, a wooden ferry that carried the cars of the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Baltimore Railroad the short distance over the river between Perryville and Havre De Grace.
The mallard flew away, honking with fright.
The gunfire lured the attention of the guards, walking the ferry’s deck and dock and the gaggle of privates loafing about. They all howled with laughter when they saw Leanne laid out.
Someone hollered, “Better to let a man give you a whipping than a gun, son.”
Altering from the red of embarrassment, Leanne’s cheeks purpled to her anger. She scrambled to her feet and retorted, “Come on out, and I’ll show ya a real whippin’.”
Jana sensed something fouler on the rise than the stale gunpowder wafting up from Leanne’s gun barrel. Ironically, sick of being kept out of the fight brought the men to fighting each other almost daily. Jana detested such foolishness, and she was especially disgusted with how, during their seventy-two-day encampment at Gettysburg, the regiment had recruited the lovely townsfolk into taking sides over which one of their officers was more competent to lead them. Leanne wound up in the middle of that squabble and a good many others. Though she only took on bullies, Jana was baffled as to why she went around picking fights when she lost every time. Maybe she needed to take her pa’s bullying out on other bullies. So long as she didn’t pick on the innocent or get badly hurt, Jana figured: Why crush her spirit for the real fight? The really bad bullies deserved a licking, if only Leanne could give it to them.
Billy Martin, a towering mass of muscle and one of the regiment’s biggest bullies, rose up from amongst the other troopers down by the river fishing for shad. Tossing aside his flimsy, hand-carved pole, he came lumbering toward Leanne.
Bound to wind up with the rest of the rotting fish on the riverbank by the time Billy got through with her, Jana feared for Leanne. She might be wiry and muscular for a girl—probably from all the pounding of hot metal she did in her pa’s blacksmith shop—but, still, her size and muscles were no match for Billy’s. She’d have to find his weak spot to defeat him, just as the mythological Paris of Troy had done in the Trojan War when he shot a poisoned arrow into the vulnerable heel of the Greek demigod Achilles and killed him.
The loafers formed a ring around the bickerers while the guards egged on a brawl from their post.
Unruffled by Billy’s size and strength, even as he flexed his brawny biceps over her, Leanne stood her ground.
With a sneer, Billy said, “Why I can’t fight a house mouse.”
Leanne raised her fists. “And I ain’t afraid of no big ugly louse!”
Holding Leanne and Billy apart at arm’s length, a private gave everyone a chance to write their bets on torn pieces of paper. A second private finished collecting the chits before the first private dropped his arms and backed away. The crowd began cheering with Billy’s backers outdoing Leanne’s.
“Time to settle it, mouse,” Billy said and threw a punch.
With lightning speed, Leanne ducked, swung her leg, and swept Billy off his feet. She pounced on his stomach and socked him good on the jaw.
A musket crack caught Leanne’s fist midair and silenced the crowd.
Jana prayed the instigator of the shot came to end the scuffle before Billy could retaliate.
Parting the crowd like Moses did the Red Sea, Keeley Cassidy came marching in. He shouldered his musket, its barrel still smoking, and he carried his six-foot-high build with confidence, giving the impression that if you tussled with him, you’d lose.
Jana exhaled with relief—the fight was over. She’d once heard Keeley say he hated fighting amongst men who were supposed to stand together. And she’d seen him put stops to scraps with a mere scowl.
Scampering behind Keeley, twelve-year-old Charlie Watson struggled to hold up uniform trousers two sizes too big for his scrawny frame. He tripped on his pant cuffs, sailing past Keeley and into the inner circle. His spectacles and kepi flew off, both landing farther away from where he himself came down face first with a thud.
The crowd hooted and hollered over Charlie’s mishap.
With his cheeks flaming the same coppery-red as his hair, Keeley glared at the crowd. It shamed the merriment from them for finding fun in another man’s woes.
Jana brought Charlie his glasses and squashed floppy-crowned hat. “Are you hurt?” she asked him.
“Nah”—Charlie squinted up at her through his sapphire eyes—“just embarrassed.” He settled his spectacles onto the bridge of his button nose and around his ears, which were elephant in size compared to his small head. Holding his oversized hat by its visor, he punched out the inside to reshape it before returning it to his head. His ears, which stuck up over the rim, helped to pin it in place.
Aiding Charlie up, Jana brushed grass blades from his pants and tried to ease his humiliation by saying, “We can’t have you struggling to free your boots from your pant cuffs instead of fighting the Rebels all war. I’ll tuck and hem them later.”
“What would I do without you, Johnnie? You make sure my guns are spit-shined for inspection, share your rations with me when I’m still hungry, and sew my buttons. You’re a true friend.”
Jana was as overly protective of Charlie as she was her sisters. She deemed it disgraceful that the army signed up young boys, barely able to push a plow, as soldiers, not just drummer boys.
By her shirt collar, Keeley dragged Leanne off of her opponent and then offered a hand up to Billy, who momentarily stopped rubbing his jaw to accept it. Stepping between the combatants, Keeley removed a roll of bills from his pocket, which he held up for all to see. He grinned devilishly when he said, “I’ll bet all o’ me money there’s not a lad about meself who knows where I hail from.”
“If you’ll shake on it, I’ll bet my whole war’s pay,” someone called out.
Laughter rippled around the crowd; everyone knew by his brogue that Keeley came from Ireland.
Sobering, Keeley pocketed his money and said, “As a wee lad, I survived hunger from the potato blight in me homeland. But it took me mam, da, and sisters.”
The crowd released a collective moan.
“I’m not looking for sympathy, lads.” Keeley paused before continuing, “In a rat-infested hull o’ a cargo ship, I fought dying from disease when I stole meself to this country. And on the streets o’ New York City, I fought dying at the hands o’ homelessness, gangs, and prejudice against Irishmen.”
Jana witnessed a remarkable stillness as each trooper clung to Keeley’s words like those of a minister’s at a spiritual gathering. She wondered if the noncommissioned officers had secretly assigned Keeley their peacekeeper because they were too chicken to discipline their friends, neighbors, and kin who’d elected them to their rank.
“Now, I’m betting all o’ ye here can say ye’ve had to fight something to keep from dying.” Keeley singled out an older private. “Tom, tell the lads what ye’ve fought.”
“Mexicans for two years,” he said loud and proud.
“Sam, what was yar fight?”
“Cattle thieves.”
“Yar fight, Lyman?”
“A near drowning in Lake Erie.”
Keeley turned to Billy. “Before Leander here, what was yar fight?”
Everyone laughed.
Shamefaced, Billy mumbled, “Typhoid fever.”
Keeley waved a hand around. “Share yar fight with yar fellow man.” He waited for the chatter to wane before saying, “The point o’ this drill is to know yar enemy, lads. Ours is Johnnie Reb.”
Amidst a great hurrah, someone cried, “Keeley for colonel!” to which a greater hurrah erupted.
Keeley raised a hand to hush them. “I don’t aspire to high places, but I believe in fighting to earn me pay.”
As was etched into everyone’s faces, Jana felt the same steadfast respect for Keeley gripping hers. At twenty-one years old, his life’s trials made him more battle hardened than the regiment’s commissioned and noncommissioned officers combined, many of whom had no fighting experience. She bet if he countermanded an officer’s order, the men would follow him. He had the kind of grit Ma and Pa would admire, and a rising adoration for him began to bud within Jana.
Peering admonishingly especially at Leanne and Billy, Keeley shouted out to all, “We’re a family, lads. We don’t go around beating each other up.”
Leanne winced hard at his words.
Jana sensed some deeper meaning behind her reaction than any mortification she might feel over fighting other bullies.
“We’re family,” Keeley repeated, “and we watch each other’s backs.”
Another cheer.
“Ain’t gonna have to worry a hoot ’bout watchin’ each other’s backs ’cause we ain’t ever gonna join the fight,” Leanne said.
Reaching into another pocket, Keeley removed a paper that he waved about. “Our lads downriver wrote this petition, demanding the secretary o’ war mount or disband us. I’m to secure yar signatures.”
Bands of worry streaked across Charlie’s forehead. He tilted his soft, boyish face toward Jana. “Does this mean we’ll join the fight for sure, Johnnie?”
“It’s no guarantee,” she said.
Charlie drew a long breath, expelling it hard. “How am I ever going to kill somebody when I can barely kill a chicken or pig?” Everyone knew he’d enlisted for the soldier’s pay, caring nothing about any gripes with the South. Ever since his pa had died from a fall off a barn roof, Charlie was determined to provide for his ma and younger brother.
A gruff voice said, “With all the diseases, desertions, and discharges, won’t rightly be enough of us left to make a regiment soon.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Leanne said, “I ain’t signin’ it. Lincoln’ll only use that paper to git rid of us as troublemakers.”
Keeley nudged Leanne with his elbow. “Aye, now that’s the pot calling the kettle black.”
Leanne bowed her head in disgrace.
With a pat on Leanne’s back, Keeley said, “Let’s stick together, lad.”
Leanne nodded, but kept her head bowed.
Jana’s mouth fell agape. She’d never seen her friend concede anything to anyone before. Keeley seemed able to cast a magical spell over everyone.
Turning back to the crowd, Keeley said, “We won’t be getting a piece o’ the action sitting around talking. This appeal’s some kind o’ action. If we’re disbanded, we’ll be getting a fighting chance elsewhere, even if as infantry. If ye enlisted just to ride around on horses, go back to yar homesteads.” He stared every man down. “I meself’ll be signing the petition.”
The crowd roared.
Jana wholeheartedly agreed with signing the plea. The Porter Guards had to act in some way, just like this country’s forefathers had done when they signed the Declaration of Independence and risked their lives. She unrolled her lap desk, onto which Keeley placed and smoothed out the crackly paper, wrinkled by water marks, and then she offered him her pencil.
Keeley autographed it, followed by Charlie and all else present, including Leanne. Finally, he turned to Jana and traded pencil for lap desk to give her a chance to sign. He wore a great big smile, which showed perfectly chiseled teeth, until his expression abruptly changed to one that appeared lost in a maze of confusion. Leaning in close to Jana, his eyes raked over her face.
Fixing her gaze toward the parchment to avoid his unnerving scrutiny, Jana could see Keeley shaking his head as though he was trying to expel some ridiculous notion. When she got the courage to look up, he was smiling again. She couldn’t tell whether it was because he was pleased to have his petition signed or because he’d found her out. Either way, she couldn’t help being drawn to his smile. It produced the most dazzling dimples and sparkling emerald eyes she’d ever seen. It sent butterflies fluttering all through her as nothing had ever done before. She believed Keeley could lure her into the bloodiest of battles by his radiant features alone.
