The moans of the wounded soldiers inside the sanctuary of Grace Episcopal Church struck Katherine Wilkes like a punch to the gut.
There would be no turning back now.
She straightened her spine and climbed down from the wagon to stand next to Horace, her faithful old donkey, giving him a vigorous scratch. Discarded pews littered the front yard of the church, and the army’s mules were sharpening their teeth on them. The nearest mule, a shaggy gray and smaller than the others, pricked its long ears and brayed an enthusiastic welcome.
Dear Lord, what had she gotten herself into?
Her heart thrummed like a bee in a bottle as she walked toward the wooden church, commandeered by the Union Army for use as a hospital after the recent battle to retake Fort Henry. A foul miasma of old blood and unwashed bodies escaped when she opened the door, and she wrinkled her nose. A raised platform stood at the far end of the rectangular room, and on the sanctuary floor about thirty men lay on cots crowded close together. Muted light filtered through the diamond-shaped panes of colored glass in the windows, throwing jeweled bands of blue, purple, and green across their pallets. She slowly walked the narrow aisles between them. All were dirty, bloodstained, many missing arms or legs, some with their pitiful faces still blackened with soot from cannon discharges. Most were sleeping or semiconscious, but one grizzled soldier noted her presence.
“Howdy do, ma’am,” he said, reaching out a bruised and bloodstained hand.
She took it and pressed his fingers gently. “Good morning, sir. How are you?”
He shook his head, and moisture came into his eyes. “To be honest, ma’am, I’m feelin’ almighty blue today.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. Is there anything I can do?”
“No, ma’am.” He lifted the grimy wool blanket and gestured to the empty place where his leg should have been. “Cannonball.” He dropped the blanket and smiled lopsidedly. “The doc says I’m lucky to be alive.” He sat up straighter on the cot. “What’s a fine lady like you doing in this place?”
She smiled. “I’ve come to see what I can do to help you boys.”
A grin cracked through the grime on his face, and the years fell away from him. “Jumpin’ Jehosophat, ma’am, just the sight of you’s done chirked me up good. We need a woman’s hand around here. Look at this.” From the crate that served as a bedside table he plucked a tin plate that held the congealed remains of some previous dinner.
She lifted it to her nose, recoiled, and hastily dropped it back onto the table. “I shall do my best to bring it, Mr. …”
“Private Benjamin Norton, Ninth Illinois Cavalry Volunteers.”
“Thank you, Private Norton. I must see if I can find someone in charge.”
“Out that door, ma’am.” He pointed to a door off the side of the dais at the back of the former sanctuary.
Two tiny rooms off the main building comprised the rectory, and in one of them, a door led outside. Neat lines of canvas tents populated the grassy field, and farther off a larger tent flying a red flag nestled in a grove of crepe myrtle bushes. Close to the back door stood another tent with a makeshift cookstove, with provisions and foodstuffs stocked on rough board shelves. Near it a lanky soldier in a stained apron lay sprawled under a tarp, clutching a long spoon in his hand and snoring with his mouth open. She touched the stove, stone cold, and nothing else for dinner in the works. Kate frowned and nudged the soldier rather hard with the toe of her boot, whereupon he promptly sprang up, sputtering.
“Are you the cook?” she asked.
The soldier blinked several times. “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes.
“Then put some kindling into that stove and heat it up. Fetch the chickens in the wagon out front and wring their necks. Then turn my mule loose with the others.” She pointed to an iron pot. “Fill that with water, and heat it quick as you can. Then unload the wagon.” She paused. “What’s your name, soldier?”
He looked at her sideways and took a step back, no doubt wondering where on earth she had appeared from to torment him. “Private Cletus Bennett, ma’am.”
“Are you the only help available?”
“I work in the kitchen, ma’am.”
“Who takes care of the injured men?”
“There be some orderlies, ma’am, but they ain’t here right now. They’s helping the sawbones with the amputations in the medical tent.”
He pointed to the red-flagged tent a quarter-mile away. A shudder rippled through Kate at the memory of Henry’s leg, amputated above the knee.
Private Bennett frowned and pursed his lower lip. “Ma’am?”
Kate swallowed. “It’s nothing.” She filled her lungs with fresh air to dissipate the memory. “I’m here to help. I’m fixin’ to make soup. You can help me feed the men when it’s done.”
Thirty minutes later, five chickens stewed in a huge cauldron with the onions and carrots she had brought. She found the water firkin and one by one gave each man a good draught of clean water.
Armed with a bucket of hot water and some soft flannel cloths, she returned to the sanctuary. Most of the sleeping or moaning men looked devastatingly young. One soldier in the far corner wept, his face turned to the wall. She poured some water into a pan and chose him first. She dragged a stool to the edge of the bed and gently touched his shoulder.
“There, now. Are you in pain?”
The young man turned and gaped at her, his mouth open. A bloody bandage covered his left eye. He couldn’t be more than eighteen. His beard had barely come in.
“Am I dreaming, ma’am? Are you an angel?”
She smiled wryly. “No, indeed. Far from it. I’m going to wash your face and try to make you more comfortable.”
She dipped the rag into the warm water and gently sponged his face. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“William Thornton, ma’am. But everybody calls me Billy.”
“Where are you from, Billy?”
“Virginia, ma’am.”
The water in the pan soon turned black and Kate changed it several times until Billy’s face, arms and chest were clean. She dropped the sodden mass of his filthy shirt into an empty bucket and covered him with a clean sheet. Then she moved on to the next man.
Late afternoon sun slanted through the west windows when she had finished bathing each wounded man. In the kitchen tent, she boned the chicken and returned it to the broth.
“Have you any crackers? Or rusks?”
Private Bennett shook his head. Kate sighed and pointed to a large metal box holding the bread she had baked early that morning. “Bring that.”
After the men had been fed, Kate raised the windows a few inches to let the fresh air wash away the fetid odors in the makeshift ward. It was a start. She rubbed her aching back.
A mournful whistle pierced the air, and the hiss of steam announced a train’s arrival two blocks away at the station near the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. Kate winced. Six months ago, Henry had returned on the same train, but she couldn’t think about him right now, couldn’t think about his last days, even though she was here because of him. Her Union views had ostracized her from most of her friends and neighbors, and with Henry dead, she had decided to offer her services as a nurse, so that no man would have to go through what her husband had suffered alone. After collecting a wagonload of food and supplies for the soldiers from the few Union sympathizers in Paducah, she had shut up their tiny farmhouse on the outskirts of town, hidden the key in the well, and driven her wagon to the temporary Union hospital. There was nothing to go back to.
She pulled a gold locket out from her bodice and ran a finger over the glass covering the curl of blond hair. “Henry,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
Chief Surgeon Major James Logan mopped blood and sweat from his face as he stepped out of the surgical tent. Groaning, he straightened his back and stretched his tired muscles, first one shoulder and then the other, feeling the joints pop. The effort of bending over the operating table all day had taken its toll. The rain had stopped, and after the hellish scene in the tent, the cool air washed over him like a soothing balm. But his work wasn’t finished. The wounded men in the sanctuary needed to be seen. His left leg, or what was left of it, had pained him all day, and his limp was decidedly more pronounced this evening. Cursed Confederate minié ball. Inevitably it crushed the tissues and shattered the bones of any unfortunate arm or leg it entered during battle. He’d lost his leg to one at Bull Run and now sported a crude wooden prosthesis attached to his thigh with buckles and braces.
He passed the cook tent and paused. A huge pot of soup simmered on the stove, and his empty stomach reminded him with subterranean growls that he hadn’t eaten all day.
“Hmm,” he muttered, “when did Bennett start cooking like this?” He found a bowl and ladled out rich golden broth, full of tender chicken, rice, and carrots. “Well, I’ll be hanged if it’s not delicious!” After another large bowlful he entered the ward, replete. Someone hummed nearby, and then he blinked, astonished. A petite redheaded woman moved among the men on the cots, adjusting a pillow there, arranging a leg more comfortably here, and offering sips of water.
What in Sam Hill?
He strode toward the woman, who gave him a wary glance as he approached. “What in the world do you think you’re doing here?”
She calmly smoothed her apron. “Ministering to these men.”
“By whose orders?” he demanded. “Women aren’t allowed in here.”
“The Lord God Almighty has given me my orders,” she said with a challenging glare. “Have you anything that ranks higher than that?”
“Madam, that…that is sacrilegious,” Major Logan stammered.
“I hardly think so.” She turned away and offered water to the next man.
He noticed her wedding ring and the black armband. A widow then.
“Madam,” he barked, “I demand you leave immediately—” He stopped. Several of the men were gazing at her with unquestionable thankfulness on their faces. Then he realized their faces were clean and they were covered with fresh linen. Tin bowls at every bedside stood empty, and the foul odor had noticeably dissipated.
“Who are you, madam?”
She turned to face him. Her hair had been tightly constrained into a bun, but along her hairline tiny russet curls had escaped. Her eyes were a clear gray, and she barely reached his shoulder.
“Why, you’re no bigger than a minute,” he said. “What can you do here?”
“I’ll thank you to kindly refrain from comments about my person, sir,” she said acidly. “I am Mrs. Katherine Wilkes,” she said. “And I’ve already done it.”
Shortly before midnight, Kate made a pallet for herself in a corner of the ward. She could be useful here if Major Logan would allow her to stay. In better days he would be considered a handsome man with that square jaw and shock of black hair, but exhaustion had aged him, his face lined, his eyes heavy-lidded and bloodshot. He had quite a noticeable limp as well.
There was no reason he shouldn’t allow her to stay. The secretary of war had appointed Dorothea Dix as superintendent over the female nurses assigned to the US Army. Miss Dix had established strict criteria for any woman who desired to serve. She had to be above thirty years of age, wear only plain dark colors, and have no “ribbons, curls, bows, or hoops” about her person.
Kate laughed quietly. She fit all the criteria except one. Her father had always said she had curls so tight even God couldn’t straighten them.
She had nursed both her parents before their deaths from consumption and influenza, so she had plenty of experience. And Henry. She gritted her teeth, powerless to stop the surge of memories that arose unexpectedly day and night at the most unexpected times—a young soldier with a smile like Henry’s or a certain manner of walking. A drift of pipe tobacco.
For three days she had nursed him, more dead than alive after being furloughed from the Confederate prison camp and sent home to die. When she shaved off his matted beard, his face was so gaunt she’d barely recognized the dashing soldier she had sent off to war twelve months earlier.
Now he lay with the other two tiny graves in the pine grove at the back of the farm, forever silent and cold.
Major Logan removed his wooden leg, blew his candle out, and lay back on the cot, staring into the darkness. He’d heard about women nursing injured soldiers at other camps, but he’d never thought to actually see one. He would send her packing tomorrow. She didn’t belong here.
His calf ached, and he automatically reached down to rub it but found only empty space. Even after a year he hadn’t completely realized his leg was gone, and through some cruel trick of nature, he could still feel his toes.
He groaned, sat up, and reached to relight his candle. Slowly he pulled the crumpled letter from his haversack. Even though he’d already memorized every line, he couldn’t stop himself from reading it again, if only to see the letters and words she had formed with her own hand on the paper:
Buffalo, New York
October 2, 1861
Dearest James,
It is with much trepidation that I write to you now. I have spent much time pondering our future since your terrible injury. I thought I should be able to accept your limitations, and that it would have no impact on our life together, but I was wrong. I’m weak, James. I’ve always had an aversion to blood and illness, and after much prayer and contemplation I have come to the conclusion that I must break our engagement. I am sorry to do this now while the war still rages but thought it much crueler to have you believe I am waiting for you here at home, only to return and find that we cannot marry.
I hope in time you will come to forgive me. I will pray for God’s richest blessings on your life.
Sorrowfully,
Beth
A fresh ache pierced his heart. He pictured himself traveling home to Buffalo after the bloody war ended, going straight to Niagara Falls and throwing himself over the brink like Sam Patch, the “Yankee Leaper.” Then he laughed grimly. With his luck he’d probably survive.
He had to stop torturing himself.
He groped for a lucifer, struck it against the table, and lit a corner of the pale blue letter. The flame burned through the elegant script and consumed the paper. Only when his fingers scorched did he fling it to the grass and stamp on it.
It was over. Finished.
Done.