General Wild split the African Brigade into three battalions, and each column headed out on separate routes to Currituck Courthouse, a rallying point some five or so miles below the Virginia state line. Major Wright and Companies A, B, and D, about 150 men, were paddle-wheeled down to Powells Point, at the tip of the peninsula overtop of the Sand Banks, from where they would march north through the hamlets of Grandy and Coinjock and Barco, canvassing along their route. There weren’t but so many farms out there, so Wild estimated that Wright’s number should be plenty sufficient for taking in the bondmen of that region, and also for countering any of the few irregulars thereabouts, should they be set upon. Wild himself led another battalion, much larger at 500, Companies C, E, H, J, and K. They were taking the more direct course, up the Sligo road, leading the wagon train of contrabands. Colonel Draper, with F, G, and I, was to wend his way alongside the pocosin that bordered the North River, where the main guerrilla camps were said to be located.
It was us who would engage the bushwhackers. We marched four abreast on the Old Trap road at a rhythmed pace and awesome to see—250 men, a dusky legion. Colonel Draper rode up and back along our line, a silent and tall presence in the saddle. Me, I marched aside Backuss at the head of F, which was at the head of the whole of the battalion. No need for calling cadence. Our phalanx was of a single mind, one unified beast. We meant solemn business.
The bushwhackers of the surrounding neighborhoods were spread out into various bands. Should they unify, they would outnumber us significantly. No matter. We, Draper’s battalion, were to be the next dose of Wild’s vicious medicine. The colonel had made this clear to us before quitting River Bridge.
He’d stood on the back of a buckboard on the bank of the rippling Pasquotank, Bright’s body still visible in the distance, over his shoulder. “We will be in the enemy’s country, men, so look sharp and bring pride on the African Brigade.” He was a sight calmer than Wild in his speechifying but no less inspiring, with a fire in his face and a charge in his voice. “We will engage in a more vigorous style of warfare, and they will know that we are here. We’ll picket every crossroads and every stand of trees till we catch the guerrillas. And we will catch them. Of this there can be no doubt.”
Draper then gathered his command staff—one captain, two lieutenants, and nine of us sergeants—to inform us that we aimed for the hamlet of Shiloh by nightfall. We recognized this as a daunting task. Setting a large body of men on an eleven-mile march after a noontime hanging was getting a late start. We would arrive after dark, that seemed certain.
We were all right with it. This was serving as soldiers true—finally! Not parade and drills nor court-martialing and summary executions, but action in the field with the likelihood of Minié balls tendered, which we would return in kind.
Who among us knew what to expect?
None seemed the least distressed by our shared ignorance.
Me personally, I was most glad for our column’s tasking. I had something to prove. Revere had called me unfit to lead in front of my men. It was an insult that had deserved violent rebuttal on the spot. Having let slip the chance then, I would show my mettle now, to my men as well as to myself, for I regretted not having defended my honor.
Skirmishers in small, detached groups snaked in and out of the surrounding trees, protecting our flanks and probing the woods for the enemy. Revere and his swamp men, they were out there, too. Colonel Draper called me to his side early on in the march. Leaning down over the pommel of his saddle, he said, “You’ll need to do double duty, Etheridge, leading F alongside Backuss and also seconding me. I still require your services.”
“Yessir,” said I, the one-word way.
It wasn’t a promotion. In fact, sort of the opposite—twice the work, twice the responsibility. It felt like getting ranked all the same, a testament of Colonel Draper’s belief in my worth and indispensability.
Double-timing to my place back atop the column, I spied Fields, marching along with his squad. Though this was the sort of thing I would have typically hurried to share with him, I did not. The absent insignia left discolored stripes on his sleeves that were a humiliation to him and evidence of perfidy to me, with me the Judas. Because of the weather, we wore our greatcoats overtop our shell jackets nearly all the time. Thusly was I spared bearing constant witness to my shame.
He’d rarely met my eyes since his demotion, only by accident, it seemed. I understood why. I’d failed him, and he’d suffered as a consequence and suffered yet. Riley and Lawrence were lost in bondage worse than what we’d suffered when bondmen ourselves, and here he was, roving the countryside freeing others, doing nary a thing for them. My raised position in the battalion did aught to alter this.
Being down a corporal and recognizing the possible consequences of it out here in the field, I found Miles Hews and pulled him from the line. “I do not have the authority to rank you a corporal,” said I, “but know that I rely on you like one.”
“Yessir,” said he. He couldn’t hide his smile.
And on down the road our battalion advanced, brogans beating over packed dirt, the air sere and the sunlight sharp. Each farm we passed was already empty of colored, many emptied of livestock and conveniences, too, and no one stepped out onto his porch to observe our passing, as had been the case the week before, upon our emergence from the Great Dismal Swamp.
Revere and his band sat awaiting us at Areneuse Creek, a mile or so above Shiloh. We’d beat the sun’s set to our destination, an improbable feat, but I hadn’t anticipated the swamp men to be our greeting party. Backuss and I each raised a hand, and the order “Relief, halt!” was barked down the line. Draper rode forward, and he and Revere conferred.
Where before, the swamp men had been bedecked of homespun blankets or strange hide wraps, I noted that now many wore more proper attire, if somewhat improperly—layers of waistcoats and sack coats of fine cut, most with abundant wool scarves and one with a new-fashioned Derby hat. Some carried bulging sacks hooked over the pommels of their saddles. These men were looting, this was certain, but Draper did not notice or did not care. He remained in intense negotiation with Revere. I would have liked to know what it was that was being exchanged, for the colonel looked pensive and grave. Yet I kept my place, some fifty yards back, as he didn’t call me forward.
Watching the trees, I saw sudden movement but quickly realized it to be our own skirmishers. The sudden rush of fire in my veins got me thinking on Fanny. I knew her to be relatively safer in Wild’s larger column than if she’d been out here with us, as she’d desired. Still, this did not feel nearly safe enough.
Before leaving River Bridge, I’d sought out Adkins. “My girl is in the wagon train,” I’d told him, as serious as I knew how. “Make sure that she arrives at Freedom.”
He’d replied, “If she doesn’t, it will be because Heaven has rained hellfire down on Earth and none of us could get back there.”
I trusted I could hold Adkins to this.
When Draper had finished with him, Revere returned to his swamp men, and they heeled their mounts and moved off into the woods. Draper rejoined the column, keeping his own counsel, offering nothing on the recent proceedings.
“Forward, march!” echoed down the line.
We entered Shiloh at day’s first dusking, and it looked as abandoned as the other villages we’d passed on our route, with shuttered windows at its twenty-odd domiciles and little apparent movement within. On the northern edge was Shiloh Church, which was famous hereabouts, for it was the first Baptist church in the state, 150 years old, it was said. She was a sturdy, white batten-board building, little adorned, with a row of four tall windows along the east and west walls, and a modest steeple at her foretop.
We sergeants called, “At ease, at ease,” and the men fell out of line, squatting on their hunkers and leaning against trees. The colonel went to the small dwelling house beyond, which by its proximity must have been the home of the preacher, and banged on the door. There was no response. He banged again, then went to a window and looked inside. No light nor sign of life within. He returned, calling for his command staff to gather inside the church.
Men sat in the choir section and the colonel stood afore them, with me standing aside him. Revere had made his way into camp; he leaned against a windowsill off to the right and refused to even edge his face my way. Colonel Draper advised us that the guerrillas were near. He nodded toward Revere as the source of this intelligence.
“They’re rogues and sneaks,” said he, “so we must dictate the field of battle, not them. We will greet them according to their own custom, as bushwhackers.”
He laid out his plan. With the remaining light, we were to pitch tents and set up camp around the church, as would be expected. But at full dark, each company would move stealthy-like out into the surrounding woods, F to the west, G and I to the north, in a sort of upside-down L. Draper gamed that the bushwhackers would approach the camp from the east, which was thick-wooded and closest to the pocosin. To draw them in, a small group would be holed up inside the church, making noises such as a large body of men at ease in camp would make. When the bushwhackers opened up on them, revealing their position, the rest of the battalion would respond, catching them in a crossfire.
It was a sharp plan, and plain that all of us were pleased by it.
Revere rose and addressed us. “Be sure to demand strict discipline of your men. No bugle calls, no talking or smoking. Anything that might clang or jangle must be tied down tight.”
“Excellent point, Sergeant,” said Draper. “Meanwhile, you keep your horsemen on the perimeter, but within easy gallop to the scene. Once they’ve shown themselves, circle around and attempt to force the guerrillas toward our fire.”
The colonel turned to me.
“Etheridge, you’ll take charge of the unit inside the church.”
“Yes, sir,” said I.
It remained as dandy a plan as before, only my assigned role in it took a bit of the luster off. Just common scad, baitfish on a hook.
Colonel Draper dismissed us.
Tynes was every bit as good as I at prompting proper soldiering of poor soldiers. But in the middle of a fight with irregulars, in the pitch of night, was not the best time to have to do it. In consequence of this, I picked my group of fifteen from among the men I judged lesser, so as to keep their defects from encumbering the rest of the company. Paps Prentiss, on account of his advanced age; Simon Gaylord, who tended toward hesitancy—men of this ilk. I needed two or three good ones to take up the slack for the second-rates and considered Fields, but then thought better of it. Being chosen for this particular assignment would not be read as a gesture of conciliation, but the opposite. I enlisted Miles Hews instead.
None of the chosen looked particularly happy at having been selected.
The companies outside went about preparing a campsite around the church as the colonel had instructed, expecting that watchful eyes were all about. Meanwhile, I slipped my men inside. Where her outward look was plain, this church was a shiny gem and contained unsuspected treasures. Alongside the various paintings of the Trinity and the Crucifixion, the walls featured portraits of the succession of preachers. The first in line looked the model of a Plymouth Rock Pilgrim like you see in books, with a sugarloaf hat in the crook of his arm and a dour expression veiling his face. The plaque inscription below the painting read: PAUL PALMER, ABOLITIONIST WHO ORGANIZED THE SHILOH BAPTIST CHURCH, MOTHER CHURCH OF NORTH CAROLINA. And I thought, I’ll be! An anti-slavery preacher, and one who was well thought of hereabouts, to boot.
Paps Prentiss, who was probing the wall shelves, came upon a Bible as big as a strongbox, with the date September 27, 1729, inscribed inside the front cover in a fancy and flowing script. I read it at him, and he replied, eyes agog at his discovery: “This place was raised well before the war for freedom from the king!”
It pained me some to have to blaspheme a site such as this. I didn’t tell the men to be gentle—wasn’t no place for gentle in war and soldiering. We pulled down the purple velvet draping that lined the walls behind the pulpit and cut it to usable size, to fashion curtains that would obscure the view of whoever might be attempting to spy inside. We then upset the pews and constructed a rectangular redoubt in one corner of the nave, behind which we might find cover from the onslaught of Minié balls that, if all went as Draper hoped, were likely to rain in upon us.
Once that was done, we turned up the lanterns so that they burned bright, then positioned ourselves inside the makeshift fortress of overturned pews. It was quiet beyond the walls of the church. Our task was to make the opposite within, to create a ruckus like more than was actually our number and thus give the impression of being the bulk of the battalion. My task, as commander, was to keep us alive once the ruse had had its effect and the shooting began. Hews had found two long sticks, used for cleaning the upper reaches of the windows. He took one and I the other, and at regular intervals, each of us reached out to rustle the curtains and create the semblance of movement. Past this, the men sat hunched up, largely silent.
I asked Zach Gregory, “How are your feet?” He’d complained to Corporal Mitchell of painful blisters.
“We are blessed for having shoes,” said Gregory. “But two weeks marching in them! Lordy, Sergeant. Mine just rub me raw.”
Paps said, “It’s the constant water. Damp makes the leather go tight.”
“It give me foot-swell such as I ain’t ever had,” said Gregory. “And believe you me, Mass made sure my feet had plenty of occasion for puffing.”
I took up the long stick and gave the window curtains a shake. “Have you got socks?”
“Replaced my holed ones in Elizabeth City, but it don’t seem to make a difference.”
“Raise them up,” said Gaylord. “Raise them such that they are overhigh of your heartbeat. It’s good against the swelling.”
He spoke it with an assuredness that I was not used to hearing of him. Nor was anyone else, for that matter, judging by the general silence that followed.
Gregory readjusted himself and kicked his feet up onto a laid-over pew.
Paps looked slyly toward me then and slipped a small home-crafted clay jar from his haversack. “This here help the swelling a mite bit as well.”
The others turned to see my response.
Paps was a good man, but too old for soldiering such as we were doing. He marched well and fired a musket better than many, but his old-uncle ways made him over-wary and slow to react. Yet in this mission, he was proving a benefit.
I reached out my hand, and when he placed the jar there, I uncorked it and turned myself up a sip. It felt of fire but tasted of grape. I passed it to Gregory.
“But only the once and not too deep a pull,” I cautioned. To the others, I added: “Just enough to help keep out the cold.”
They all laughed.
Around our circle the clay jar went, working its way back to Paps. He took his turn and replaced it in his haver.
The old man then produced a deck of cards. “I ain’t one to push idolatrous diversions on true believers, but my specie don’t spend out here in Jeff Davis country and my change purse is getting awful heavy to tote.”
The men seemed to perk up at this, but I quashed their keenness right away. “We may be but decoys in this operation,” said I, “but let us be attentive ones all the same, lest some sign or signal be overlooked, to our detriment.”
The group fell still. I reached out and gave the curtains another shake.
Single Phillips said, kind of smirkly, “This’d be a fine site to meet your Maker, eh, Hews? That would show her good.”
Others sniggered.
“What’s this?” asked I.
Hews dropped his face and said, “Barbery, Sergeant.”
I knew not of what he spoke.
“His wife,” explained Zach Gregory.
“His was-wife,” Single Phillips corrected, and the sniggering was general then and grew to outright laughter.
“I thought it known about the company,” said Hews, more angry than embarrassed, though a bit of both. He had at the curtains with the second stick. “She was owned by Judge Winston, over to the next farm beyond the one where I was worked. By and by, she took up with another boy, from her own farm, and she would not have me visit no more. It’s what spurred my running off to join up—to be fully shed of her.” He gave the curtains another vigorous shake, and he smiled broad. “But I have met Miss Anna Lipscomb, over in Norfolk, and we will be married in the church there upon our return to Freedom.”
I looked about the group. “And youall find this funny?”
There was silence.
Phillips said, “Well, a mite, sir. The Anna Lipscomb part—that this nigger would be such a damn fool all over anew!”
And all yawped and chortled. Me, too.
Zach Gregory said, “This task we on, Sergeant . . .”
His pause stretched overmuch.
“Go on, speak up,” said I.
“It ain’t the best of tasks. The colonel has us as targets for Rebby rifle practice.”
“Who would you have do it?” said I. “Fields Midgett? Josh Land? Them brothers Ephraim and Leon Bember?”
“Well, maybe Leon Bember,” said Paps. “I ain’t heard a worser mouth than the one that boy has got on him.”
Hooting and titters broke the tightness that had befallen our group.
But I wasn’t done. “This here is soldiering, son,” said I, insistent, “what we signed up for. Someone has to stand elbow-to-elbow in the front row of a battle line and take the enemy’s volley. There is no victory without that some of us do this. And without victory, we are all of us for certain doomed to worse than what it was we fled in the first place.”
Their silence seemed different now, anxious still, yet glowing of the honorable feeling of self-sacrifice. It was my duty to instill this in them, either by fear, as Revere would do, or by a shaming logic, as was more my wont. All the same, I hoped to pull each and every one of them through to the other side of it.
Paps seemed as despising of silence as he was of passing two seconds without beaming that coon-show smile of his. “I was a shantyman before joining up,” he said. “Did youall know this?”
We all did, for he had on many and many an occasion told it. Hews gave the curtains to one side a shake, and I those to the other.
“Shantymen the most hardy men they is,” Paps said, and the others offered piqued protestation.
“You boys care to know the reason?” He spoke overtop them. “Because of our beauteous voices and not just our foredaunting brawn.”
He kicked into song then before anyone might retort:
“Hey, Capt’n, Capt’n, you must be blind.
Look at your watch, it’s quitting time.”
His lyrics were met with chuckles, but the old man indeed had the harp in his mouth, his singing voice full and bright in a way that his speaking voice was not. It was a joy to hear.
I likewise recognized another usefulness to his song. Though we were but fifteen, to the darkness outside, our back-and-forth booming would sound like an army.
“Hey, Capt’n, Capt’n, how can it be? . . .” sang Paps.
The others called back: “Hey, Capt’n, Capt’n, how can it be?”
“Whistle keep a-blowing, you keep a-working me . . .”
“Whistle keep a-blowing, you keep a-working me!”
Then began the banging—just thunderous!—so many guns popping off at once, firing in from what seemed all sides.
“Get down, men! Get down!” I cried. “Bellies to the floorboards, flat as snakes!”
Windows shattering and the makeshift curtains come down, splinters of glass and batten wood zinging just over our barricade or thudding into it. Minié balls ripping all around. And outside, yipping and Rebel-yelling.
This was my first test under fire, and I did not feel fear like I’d thought I might. My heart raced, but my head was calm, steady.
The volley of musketry of a sudden worsened, but not the spray of glass and wood. In fact, inside the church went still.
Outside, there was higgledy-piggledy commotion and roars instead of the yipping. Another volley, sounding from another direction. It went on for several minutes. Then echoed a command to cease fire, and there was huzzahing.
I rose up, cautious at first. Took a hasty count of my men coming uncrouched around me. “Phillips, Gregory,” said I, “is everybody okay? Paps?”
“Yes” and “Yessir, Sergeant” came back.
Many of the lanterns had been shot out, but in the shimmering penumbra that remained, Hews appeared, silent, his face streaked red. The wetness coursed from beneath his forage cap. Paps, the others, agitated toward him, and me likewise. This caused him to reach for the wound, his facets gone from dazed and blank to of-a-sudden distressed. He ran a hand through his crop of hair.
“Aw, it ain’t nothing, youall,” said he, slapping away the others’ reaching hands, though he was clearly relieved himself. “Ain’t but a nick.”
We all settled, laughing now.
“Dang, Miles!” said Single Phillips. “I thought you trying to chagrin your old Barbery after all.”
“By my own death!” said Hews. “Getting shot just to shame her treachery? Naw, son. I will live long for Miss Anna Lipscomb.”
We laughed some more.
My men were all accounted for. We’d made it through the skirmish at Shiloh, though the church had not. She was shot up something terrible, with every window destroyed and chips and holes peppering the walls.
The great front door burst open and in strode Colonel Draper. “Etheridge, are you and your men all right?”
“Oh, Mass Colonel, sir!” said Paps, forestalling my reply. “Lawdy, our hearts is gladdened to see you!”
I added, for official confirmation, “We’re all fine, sir.”
Draper, his smile a-beaming, clapped me on the back—not very colonel-like. He turned in the doorway and faced the night, bellowing at the top of his lungs. “Run, you poltroon Elliott! We know your tactics better than you. Run, boy, for we are coming!”
All of us broke into huzzahs now, inside the church and out, then took to singing “Babylon Is Fallen!” We were 250 strong—less the skirmishers, and Revere and the swamp men, still out on our flanks—and we crowded around the church’s front door. After twice belting “John Brown,” Paps led the men in ribald shanties that cursed Johnny Reb and the cowardly bushwhackers. Colonel Draper did not discourage it. The opposite. He removed his hat and, standing between Paps and Robinson Tynes, caterwauled to beat the band. I even saw Backuss’s lips moving heartily, his voice lost among the rest. We sang and sang, shanty after shanty, deep into the night.