MAKING PEACE
South of Winchester, Virginia
June 14, 1863
The roads were familiar to Wes. How many times had they marched along them before? Fifteen? Twenty? As they neared the town, all was quiet. The farms were empty, the crops unplanted. A ghost town with ghostly fields. Such a waste. Such a dismal way to live.
Wes heard the men discussing the Federal troops who were awaiting them in Winchester. Three young boys nearby, as ignorant as they were innocent, talked excitedly about getting into their first battle. Where they had come from Wes could not imagine. He thought the Confederacy had exhausted its resource of men, that all those not presently in uniform were either too old or too crippled to be of service. But here were three young boys, untouched as yet by the hell of war. They still believed in what they were fighting for.
As they marched, the three boys kept looking at Wes, their expressions carrying a wide-eyed look that Wes finally recognized as awe. These boys, walking next to him, saw Wes as a wise and experienced veteran. He nearly laughed out loud at the thought. Being a veteran meant knowing something these boys had yet to learn, if they lived long enough. As a veteran, he knew that each battle you survived, each bullet that missed your head by a hair, was one battle closer to the one that would take you away forever. Wes no longer seemed to care; he had lost his fear of death, and that, more than anything, made him a veteran.
Winchester came into sight as the army moved over a hill, appearing as it had after so many other marches. They had captured it time after time, but it never seemed to stay captured. Someone told him that the town had changed hands over sixty times, that on one memorable day alone it had switched sides thirteen times. All he knew was that he had lost count. Now, they had been ordered to take it again. Looking around, Wes saw no sign of the Yankees. He strolled on, pretending to ignore his admirers.
Suddenly, they heard a deep thud in the distance followed by a high whine that grew rapidly louder. Wes instinctively jumped into a ditch by the side of the road, landing hard in the mud. The explosion ripped the air around him, slamming him further down into the ground. His back was singed by blazing heat that flared for a moment, then subsided. Waiting until the rocks and dirt quit raining down, he crawled back up onto the road. Without emotion, he glanced momentarily at the bloody remains of three boys who had never before heard a shell coming toward them, and who would never hear one again. The area was strewn with torn flesh that bore no resemblance to the naïve faces he had seen a few seconds ago. His only thought was: that’s one more shell that missed me; now I’m one shell closer to the big one.
The battle did not last long. Wes and the others reformed and attacked. They fired at the lead group of Yankees and watched as they turned and ran. Running in pursuit down the same streets in which they had fought so many times before, Wes dove behind a rail fence for protection. Waiting out a volley from up front, he rose quickly to fire, then ducked again to reload. His arms worked rapidly and without conscious thought, his body becoming an extension of his weapon, efficient, cold, impersonal, firing every thirty seconds or so. Others lying near him were firing rapidly at any target that presented itself. Wes could hear the Yankee bullets whizzing past him, smacking the brick building a few feet away. Wood splinters from the rail in front of him peppered his face as the enemy fire increased.
Suddenly, Wes realized that their line was being flanked, that he was in danger of being trapped. He looked around, searching for the best route by which to escape. Waiting for the right moment to retreat, he fired steadily over the fence rail at the blue-coated men approaching down the road. He reloaded again and laid the barrel of his gun back on the fence rail. Raising his head, he could just make out a thin line of blue clad Federals directly to his front. Behind this row and to the right, Wes saw a man yelling orders, his chevrons marking him as the company sergeant. Wes carefully drew a bead on the man, waiting for the smoke to lift enough to give him a clear shot. Bullets slammed into the fence with new intensity as his head attracted the attention of enemy sharpshooters.
He looked at the Federal sergeant, caught in his sights, realizing that the slow movement of his trigger finger was measuring the final seconds of this man’s life. He waited, waited, for the right moment. But his finger would not move that last fraction of an inch. The hairs slowly rose on Wes’ neck. He stared at the man, pulling his eye away from the gunsight to study him more carefully. In a split second of clarity, amid the utter chaos of the battle, he realized that it was his brother, Will.
He started to stand, forgetting where he was, when a bullet smashed the post in front of him, shooting jagged pieces of wood into his face. He fell to the ground, wiping frantically at the wounds. When he looked at his hand, it was covered with blood, his blood. He waited for the intense pain to hit. But it did not come.
A yell went up from beyond the fence and Wes stood to see a large group of rebels crashing into the flank of the Yankees who had, until that moment, been firing at him. Now they were running, fleeing so fast that they were stumbling over one another. Wes looked for Will, but could see only a few Yankees running for the woods beyond the road.
Then they were gone. Wes wiped at his face again. This time there was less blood and only a little pain. His fingertips felt for the splinters of wood embedded in his cheek and, gingerly, he pulled them free.
Moving down the street which was now filled with Confederates, Wes thought about the man who resembled Will. There had been several times in the past when Wes was certain he had seen his older brother, but the chance of actually running across him in battle was very slim. It made him chuckle, now, to think how he had been fooled again, and how his momentary confusion had bought some northern sergeant a few more days of life.
Wes walked over to look at a group of captured Federals being led back through the town. There seemed to be hundreds of them and they badly outnumbered their guards.
A frantic Confederate officer rode up to Wes. “Well, boy, don’t just stand there. Help with the escort here. We need every man.” He galloped off to search for more men. Wes despised guard duty which was usually assigned to the dregs of the regiment, those too frightened to do anything else. But today he was tired of fighting. He had survived again. With a grimace, he fell into line beside the beaten bluecoats.
Most of the men marched with their heads slumped, exhausted, frightened. The rebel guards marched beside them every ten paces or so. Ahead of Wes, a wounded Yankee stumbled over a rock and landed heavily on the road. The guard nearest the fallen soldier kicked the man in the ribs, yelling, “Get up!” Too exhausted to move, the Federal simply curled into a ball, driving the guard to kick him again and again.
Images flashed through Wes’ mind, memories of the way he had been treated as a prisoner. Suddenly, he could not bear to see this man abused, Yankee or no. He shoved the guard away, using the barrel of his musket as a lever against the man’s chest. The rebel lost his balance and fell, his face a mask of rage. Wes stood over the Yankee, his musket at the ready, prepared to fend off another attack by the irate guard. At that moment, however, the mounted officer returned and quieted the outburst. The Confederate guard glowered at Wes, then moved to catch up with the prisoners.
Wes knelt to help the Yankee. The man uncoiled painfully, allowing Wes to assist him to his feet. Looking at Wes for a moment, his filthy face softened into a smile. “Thanks,” he said. Then, gasping, he peered at him more closely. “Culp?”
Wes squinted at the man, trying to place him. The stranger’s face gradually transformed itself into one from his childhood. “Billy Holtzworth? Is it you?” The man nodded. He bore only the slightest resemblance to the boy Wes had known in Gettysburg. The two stood grinning at each other in amazement. Back in Gettysburg, Wes had despised Billy. Now, all of that seemed distant and childish. The surprise of seeing someone from his other life made him wonder who else might be here. What about the officer who looked like Will?
“The others?” Wes asked, searching Billy’s face.
“Warren got away. And I saw your brother running off just before the line caved in.” Wes drew a sudden breath, realizing how near he had come to killing his own brother. Billy continued, unaware of Wes’ inner turmoil. “Jack Skelly and I tried to run, but they got him in the shoulder and I stayed by him until they dragged me off.”
“Skelly? Where is he?” Wes said carefully.
“I left him with some other wounded men back up the road, under a clump of trees off to the right. Wes, do me one favor, will ya?”
Wes’ mind was in a whirl, thinking about his brother and Skelly both being here. But Billy grabbed his arm. “Look after Jack, will you? I think he’s hurt pretty bad. Maybe you can find a doctor for him.”
Wes stared at Billy for a moment, frowning in an effort to comprehend all of this. He had suddenly been pulled back among people he thought were out of his life forever. Billy, Jack, Will had been mere shadowy memories until a moment ago, until this quirk of fate had thrown them together again.
Billy thought he understood Wes’ hesitation. “Listen, I don’t care much for this war and I’ll wager you don’t either. What matters now is getting home. Jack needs help. Please.”
“Yeah, o’ course I’ll look after him,” Wes mumbled. Billy nodded his thanks, then put out his hand. Wes took it and, for a long moment, held it warmly. Billy was pushed back into line by a guard and, with a final look over his shoulder, disappeared into the distance.
Wes left the guard detail and set off in search of Jack, feeling oddly light-headed. He had expected hatred and rejection from his former friends but, instead, Billy had seemed glad to see him. He wondered whether the present course of the war would change the feelings of some of the others, too. The South seemed to be winning. The rebels had shown such persistence that it was only a matter of time before the politicians put a stop to all the killing.
At the top of the hill, he saw a clump of trees with a group of wounded soldiers lying beneath it, just as Billy had said. Wes walked closer, looking at each face. Then a voice broke the quiet. “Culp!”
Away from the others, Jack Skelly lay against a tree, a bloody bandage wrapped around his right shoulder. Wes steeled himself for a hostile confrontation, expecting to feel a rush of anger against this man who had taken so much from him. But Wes saw only another sorry bluecoat, wounded and hurting. It could well have been his brother.
He walked slowly toward him, kneeling so that their faces were on the same level. “Hey, Jack.”
“I sure never expected to see you again.” Jack’s pained voice was filled with amazement.
Wes tried to think of something to say. “It’s been a long time.”
“Yeah. You’ve changed. You look older. I hardly recognized you. But you’re still short, aren’t you?”
Wes laughed in spite of himself. In that other life, he might have lost his temper and punched someone for saying as much. But here, surrounded on all sides by the enormous issues which drove the war, the matter of his stature seemed laughable. Rather, it was more like a joke that now linked them. “How’s that arm?” he asked Jack.
“It hurts pretty bad, but I think I got most of the bleeding stopped.”
“We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”
Jack nodded, the movement making him wince in pain. Wes stood, looking back toward the town, and searched for the red banner which would signify a hospital. He saw one on the far side of the road three or four hundred yards distant. Turning back to Skelly he asked, “Can you walk?”
“I don’t know.”
Wes bent, lifted under Jack’s good arm, and helped him to his feet. Jack, obviously in great pain, sagged against Wes’ body, his usable arm around Wes’ shoulder. Wes led him off toward the hospital.
It seemed to take forever. Several Union prisoners stared at this unlikely duo, a man in gray assisting one in blue. Several times they had to stop when Jack fainted, and Wes ended by practically carrying him. Still, it was the better part of twenty minutes before they arrived at the hospital. The sound and the stench inside were nearly overpowering, and Jack, suddenly terrified, pulled back and tried to get away.
“Don’t take me in there,” he begged, his eyes wild, pleading. “I’ve seen what they do to you. I don’t want to go in there.”
Wes tried to soothe him. “They can help you. You have to see them. You’ll die if they don’t take care of you.” In the end, it was only faintness and loss of blood that kept Jack from fleeing. He sagged limply against Wes as his legs gave out.
Sitting him against the wall outside the front door, Wes hurried inside to find a doctor. Two men were hunched over a table on which lay a young officer, writhing in pain. They were examining his left leg. It was obvious, even in the dimly lit room, that the man had caught a minie ball in the knee. The pulpy red flesh was peeled back to reveal white bone and ligament. Wes was used to seeing all manner of ghastly wounds on the battlefield, but his skin crawled as he looked at the man’s knee. The doctor straightened, nodding to his companion. As the assistant took the officer’s shoulders to hold him down, the man began to panic, yelling for heavenly intervention. He screamed at the doctors to leave him alone, to let him die rather than put him through this torture. But the doctor grabbed a bloody rag and, after soaking it with the solution from a brown bottle, placed the rag over the man’s mouth. He quieted almost immediately.
The doctor turned and took a knife from a nearby table. Lifting the officer’s leg, he sliced quickly through the flesh, circling the leg above the knee as Wes watched, horrified. Leaving a flap of skin to cover the stump, he picked up a large silver saw. Quickly – he had obviously done the same thing many times before – he lined up the teeth of the saw in the cut he had just made and yanked back firmly. Wes winced at the sound of metal against bone, turning away as his stomach started to rebel at the sight.
When the sawing stopped, he watched the assistant take the man’s lower leg and toss it deftly over several occupied cots onto a pile of severed limbs in a corner of the room. The doctor was busy probing into the bloody stump with a needle and thread. When he was finished, the doctor straightened up, massaging his cramped back with bloody hands. Two men stepped up to the table and carried the officer away.
Catching sight of Wes he asked, “Well, what is it, boy? You’ve been standing there for too long to be hurt very badly. Come over and let me look at you.”
“I’m not here for me,” Wes informed him quickly. “I have a friend who needs help. He’s hit in the shoulder. Can you take care of him?”
The doctor approached, and Wes got a good look at his face. He was tall with sandy brown hair and a huge mustache that hung boldly on either side of his lip. He peered down impatiently at Wes through wire rim spectacles. Exhaling dramatically, he blew the hair around his lips sideways. “Such a loyal friend, indeed,” he said with a hint of sarcasm. “Anything to get you out of the battle, I suppose.” Wes bristled at the man’s tone, but held his tongue. “Well, lead on, then.”
Wes led the way back to Jack who had slumped sideways to the ground. He was only partly conscious and looked up hazily as the doctor knelt to examine his wound. After a moment, the doctor glanced up at Wes. “This boy’s a Yankee, you know.”
Wes smiled wryly at him. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“I’ve got lots of wounded Confederates worse off than this one,” he grumbled, starting to get to his feet.
Wes was startled by the man’s coldness. “But, he’s a friend,” Wes blurted before he could think. “We grew up together.” The two stared at each other for a moment. Wes, wondering what the doctor’s next move would be, said in a small voice, “Please.”
The doctor turned back impatiently to Jack. “Well, I suppose a wound’s a wound. Peter, fetch me my bag.”
The assistant returned carrying a black medical bag. The doctor reached inside and pulled out a bottle. Wes, thinking it was something to help heal the wound, was shocked when the doctor took a long swig from it. Replacing the bottle, he pulled out another, pouring the contents liberally onto a rag which he pressed against Jack’s shoulder. The reaction was electric; Jack straightened up and screamed in pain. “Stings a little, no?” said the doctor without emotion.
The shock of the pain seemed to leave Jack senseless, allowing the doctor to probe the wound in his shoulder. Wes leaned in to get a better view, but a scowl from the doctor made him back away. The doctor muttered to himself for a bit, then turned to Wes. “Done.”
“Done?” Wes asked, trying to mask his incredulity.
“Well, there’s not much to be done. Looks like the bullet hit the collar bone at an angle, tore up the shoulder and lodged inside somewhere. I could open him up, but he’ll probably be better off if I don’t go exploring. Either he’ll get better or he’ll die.” Jack gasped. He had apparently been conscious enough to hear this cold assessment of his condition. Then the doctor was gone without another word to either the patient or his friend.
Wes sat wearily beside Jack, leaning against the front of the building. They stared off together into the falling night, and Jack’s mind seemed to clear. He smiled at some thought and Wes looked at him, waiting for him to speak. “I was just thinking,” Jack said, “about the time we tossed you into the creek when we were kids. It’s like we were both somebody else back then.” He paused, struggling to overcome a fresh wave of pain. Then his face relaxed again. “You’re the last person I would have expected to come to my rescue.”
Wes nodded. “I’ve hated you for a long time. I thought I still did. I expected it would give me pleasure to shoot you.”
“I suppose I deserve that. You and I have had a lot of bad blood.” Jack’s voice was a whisper. “War changes you, whether you think it will or not.” He looked Wes in the eye, sizing him up. Finally, he said, “I’m not going to make it back, Wes.”
Wes started to argue with him, but was silenced by Jack’s intensity. “No. You know when it’s gonna happen. I’ve had this feeling for a couple of days now. I’m not gonna get back home.”
Wes stifled the urge to talk Jack out of his mood. He had heard others go on like this before, and had been surprised to find that they were often right. There must be some kind of warning, some inner voice that never speaks until the final moment is near. Since he couldn’t argue with him, Wes listened.
“I need you to do something for me,” Jack said. He paused a moment, then searched Wes’ face again. “Will you do something for me?” Wes nodded. “I don’t know if you’ll ever get back to Gettysburg. But you’re headed north. Hell, the way things are going, you may just win this damn war.” He winced in pain for a moment. “Anyway,” he said, gasping, “if you ever do get back, I want you to get a message to Ginnie for me. I wanted to write her a letter, but...” – he motioned toward his useless arm.
Jack was silent for so long that Wes thought that he had fainted again. He leaned over to check him, and saw that his eyes were open. Deciding that he was trying to think of what to say, Wes waited. At length, Jack said, “We were supposed to get married in the fall. On my anniversary leave. But, I guess now....”
“Jack,” Wes protested, “you still might make it.”
Shaking his head Jack said, “If I do, I’ll just be in some prison camp down south. Hell, I’ll probably starve to death. I’ve heard stories about your prison camps. Anyway, I want you to write a letter for me. I haven’t treated her real well. I want to straighten things out between us. So she’ll know what happened.”
Wes got pencil and paper and, for the next ten minutes, wrote while Jack poured out his heart to Ginnie. It was an eerie experience, writing a letter from his former worst enemy to his former best girl. The words could almost have been his own although, he noticed with annoyance, Jack was much more polished at using them than he was.
As he wrote Jack’s apologetic words to Ginnie, he felt his own love resurrected, born afresh out of the place that was left blackened by her rejection a year ago. Jack’s wound, while ending Jack’s hopes for the future, had rekindled his own. He tried to concentrate on his task so that Jack would not notice his rising joy. After Jack had explained about the wound, and the possibility of death or prison camp, he paused, unable to go on.
They sat in silence for a time, watching others hurry past the door. Then Jack looked at Wes. “You know, it’s strange. I never held much faith in God. But just before you came up, I was praying that I would find somebody to take a message to Ginnie. I can’t believe it’s you. But I guess, in a way, you’re the perfect one. It’s funny, sometimes, how God answers prayers.” After a pause he added, “She could never put you out of her mind. Even though I wanted her to.”
The sun was setting, and they each were lost in their own thoughts. Wes could see tension in Jack’s face, a pain that did not seem to come from his wound. At length, Jack spoke, choosing his words carefully. “Wes, there’s more,” he said, suddenly on the verge of tears. He opened his fist for the first time and Wes saw a scrap of paper, crumpled and bloody. “You have to know about it….There’s going to be a baby. Ginnie’s and my baby.”
Wes was struck dumb, completely unable to move or think. After an eternity, he whispered in disbelief, “A baby?”
“In the winter, sometime,” Jack said, his lip quivering. “She wanted to get married sooner than September, because of the baby. But that’s all changed now. I can’t get back to make a home for her or to give the baby a name. She’s scared, Wes. If I don’t get there to marry her, I don’t know what she’ll do. She’ll be ruined. You’ll look after her, won’t you?”
Wes hesitated again, thunderstruck. He felt torn in two. Ginnie had given herself to someone else, and now she was in desperate trouble. But perhaps he was the one person who could save her. The irony of the request astounded him. He fought off anger, joy, pain; what was left was a vacuum, a place where he felt nothing. He looked at Jack who was caving in to his pain, and said quietly, “Tell her I’ll do it. Tell her I love her, and I know about her problem. Tell her I’ll take care of her.” Wes picked up his pencil again. “Tell her that. In the letter.”
When Jack finished his dictation, he succumbed to his exhaustion and pain, fainting into sleep. Wes pocketed the letter and leaned back, closing his eyes and shutting down his mind before his emotions completely tore him apart.
He awoke the next morning still sitting beside Jack. He shook him gently but was unable to rouse him. Leaning closer, he saw that Jack’s face was a pasty white, and for a moment he thought he had died in the night. But his chest was still moving, although very slightly, and it was apparent to Wes that Jack had only a short time. Knowing that he could not just leave him, he looked around for help.
A wagon train of wounded soldiers and northern prisoners was moving south on the road in front of them, so Wes had Jack loaded aboard. A doctor looked briefly at him and said to Wes, “He’s not going to last long.”
Wes merely nodded. He walked alongside the wagon for a few minutes, then stopped and watched the train disappear into the distance. Unconsciously, he put his hand into his pocket to make sure that Jack’s letter was really there. Finally, he turned away to search for his company, to begin the northward march toward home, back to Ginnie.