Chapter 4

JUNE 9, 1861

NEAR WASHINGTON, DC

Cassie slogged through the thick mud turning the road into a quagmire of glue. Sweat stung her eyes and ran in rivulets down her back, pasting her grimy shirt to her skin. She squinted through the rain and grimaced against the fifty-pound pack strapped to her back. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but mud and a snaking trail of exhausted, blue-backed soldiers weaving through the woods.

The June day was sweltering. Unbearably so. Shifting the soggy pack on her aching back, she stomped through the mire, her belly cramping with hunger. How long had they been marching? Hours? Days? One day seemed to bleed into another as they moved toward their destination, a place only the general knew.

She could show no weakness. None. As of yet, no one had guessed she was a female. She was quiet and mostly kept to herself. The men assumed Thomas Turner was an aloof fellow. Proficient in his duties but quiet. Caked as she was in sweat and dirt day after day, she’d certainly lost whatever female softness she’d had before enlisting . . . if she’d ever possessed any at all. Her sisters had always teased her about her lack of interest in the feminine graces.

Father had always wanted a boy. His vocal disappointment and irritation with four girls was continual until his wife grew round with her fifth child . . . the long-awaited male he’d bitterly grieved over not having.

A boy he’d finally had, but the child had not lived. Father’s grief had been all-consuming. Cassie came along not long after, but she could not replace the boy he’d lost.

She wiped away beads of sweat and rain from her eyes with the back of her grimy hand. If Father could only see her now, even he might mistake her for a boy.

“Halt!”

The command stopped the soldiers like a braking train. The shout filtered through the weary ranks . . . a short rest that would be followed by a push to build fortifications. This was the spot, then. The land where they would likely face the full force of the fiery rebellion.

Since enlisting, the skirmishes she’d engaged in had been few. Nothing more than short-lived fights by small companies unwilling to face the full arsenal of the Union without a large contingent of soldiers backing them up.

This would be different. Even through the drizzling rain, the air was charged with some kind of intangible spark. An anticipation as if the world were holding its breath.

It made the monotonous weeks of drilling for endless hours seem a luxury. Early morning reveille, marching in columns, dressing the line . . . all of it sounded blessedly restful now, despite its tedium.

Too much excitement was hard on the body.

“Turner! You mind giving me a hand?”

Cassie whirled to see George Hanover looking at her with desperate need. The cannon he had been pulling for miles was stuck, sinking into the muck of the road.

Dropping her own pack, she slogged toward him and grasped the filthy rope encircling the cannon’s bearings.

She counted, “One, two, three . . .”

The two of them yanked and pulled in the incessant drizzle, muscles taut and screaming as they tugged it free, inch by inch. George’s neck was mottled red with the effort as they slowly made headway.

Cassie hadn’t had much trouble adjusting to the rigors of military life. Born and raised on a farm, she had already earned her muscles. Upon joining the regiment, she was shocked so many of the city boys who had enlisted did not even know how to load their cartridges. When she had taught a handful of them how to load and care for their guns, the irony was not lost on her.

A female teaching males how to fight. What a strange turn of events.

Maintaining her disguise hadn’t been as difficult as she’d feared, especially since the soldiers went weeks without bathing and slept in the same grimy clothes they marched in day after day. If she was careful with her speech and mannerisms, perhaps no one would ever know.

They lugged the cumbersome load to a drier spot and stopped, panting against their burning lungs. George looked up, narrowing his gaze to something at the rear of the snaking line of soldiers.

“What is that?”

Cassie followed his line of vision and frowned at the sight of an odd wagon ambling along behind the regiment. Its shape was peculiar. Much more boxlike than the average covered wagon. Smaller as well.

She squinted. Though far away, she could tell the man perched atop the driver’s seat was not wearing a blue uniform, nor was he dressed in the garish red trousers of the Zouaves. The senators and congressmen who occasionally visited to boost morale would never have stooped to hauling a contraption like that through miles of slimy mud.

“You think he’s one of those journalists from Washington?”

Cassie frowned. “In that odd wagon? Seems like a fool’s errand if he is. Report on the war by trailing troops into battle and risk getting his head blown off?”

George shrugged. “We’re risking the same.”

The thought slammed hard. “True enough.” Sometimes she couldn’t help wondering if there was another way to escape marriage to that no-account snake.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she almost shook her head. No. She was no longer Cassie Kendrick. She was Thomas Turner. If she had any hope of surviving the charade, she must erase, irrevocably and completely, all memories of the person she was before.

George turned away from the approaching wagon and lifted the brim of his kepi, wiping a streak of mud across his forehead. “Come on. Let’s finish getting this Rebel chaser into place. Besides, I’m hungry.” The freckled fellow grinned. “A chunk of hardtack is calling my name.”

Cassie chuckled under her breath. “Just remember you need enough teeth to tear open your powder cartridges. Hardtack does its best to make you lose the teeth you’ve got.”

Thumping her on the back, George laughed. “I only need three. Two on top and one on bottom. I’ve still got plenty to spare.”

Gabe scanned the soggy land stretched before him and attempted to squelch his frustration. The infernal drizzle was dampening his excitement.

He could not risk damaging his camera in the rain, nor would the light prove sufficient for exposing the plates.

“Patience, Gabriel. The Almighty has a hard time using those who keep running ahead o’ him. . . .”

He smiled to himself. He could still hear his mother’s soft admonition murmured so many times when he’d been a squirmy, bursting, impatient mess of a child. In some ways, he still was.

Surveying the scene, he could scarcely believe the tract of land had been transformed so thoroughly in the span of a day. The thick woods bordering the green pasture had been thinned. Felled oaks, maples, and pines had been turned into a fence of sorts, bracing cannons in place for the fight. A long, snaking trench had been dug, perfect for reloading cartridges while under fire. The entire place smelled of churned earth and loam.

Where should he set up his camera on the morrow? He eyed the swell of a hill to his left that would provide an ideal view of the Union camp.

He longed for a crisp photograph of the encampment . . . especially considering it would likely look much different after battle.

The thought saddened him more than he’d anticipated.

“Care for another cup?”

Gabe smiled at the jovial man across the campfire. “Nah, any more and I’ll not be able to sleep a wink.”

The other soldiers chuckled as they stared at the crackling flames dancing in the night’s stillness. Their chatter was light, but the sober reality of what lay in wait tomorrow smothered their spirits like a blanket. No one had dared utter their dark thoughts out loud.

A bearded soldier named Briggs nodded toward Gabe. “I’m glad to know your purpose here. When I saw that contraption you were driving, I confess I was a bit worried.”

Gabe fingered the rim of his empty tin cup. “What did you think my purpose was?”

Briggs shrugged. “Don’t know. Anything I’m uneasy about, I tend to shoot first and ask questions later.”

The men laughed and Gabe’s nervousness faded. This troop was a friendly sort.

“Nothing but photographic equipment, I assure you.”

Weeks grinned and scratched his thatch of straw-colored hair. “Me and some of the others have taken to calling your wagon the Whatsit—’cause not a blamed one of us knew what it was!”

Gabe threw back his head and laughed at the good-natured ribbing. “The traveling darkroom is an oddity, to be sure. Despite its boxy shape, Mr. Brady spared no expense. The shelves even have locks to keep the chemicals from spilling.”

Weeks leaned forward. “So you can take photographs of us?”

“Certainly. Mr. Brady’s idea is to get a thorough and complete rendering of all aspects of the war.”

The taste of coffee soured on Gabe’s tongue as he remembered Mr. Brady’s admonition before he’d left New York. “Capture the truth, Mr. Avery, in all its stark nakedness. The truth is often shocking, but its honesty is needed if we are to ensure a fracture in our glorious Union is never repeated.”

The order seemed confining. Truth was important, naturally, but so was heroism and beauty. Why could he not also capture the gallant acts of the soldiers? Images that might blot out the ugliness of war?

The men’s excited voices yanked him away from the turbulent thought.

Weeks’s eyes brightened. “Could you take a small photo of me? For my sweetheart back home?”

The others sitting close to him snickered and elbowed him in the ribs. His cheeks reddened. “At least I got myself a sweetheart, unlike some of you poor sods.”

Gabe grinned. “I don’t mind doing that at all.”

Soft crackles of the fire soothed the air as the men quieted.

“Say, could I get one of those photographs too?”

“Me too?”

Gabe stretched his legs out before him. “Of course. Mr. Brady allowed some extra supplies for such things. The photos will be small, but I’ll be happy to take them. Perhaps the weather will permit it tomorrow morning.”

The men smiled, light gleaming in their expressions as they sipped their bitter coffee. Some chattered about what their sweethearts would say to receiving their likenesses.

Weeks motioned to another soldier sitting farther back than the rest. “What about you, Turner? You want your likeness made for anyone?”

The slim, quiet fellow continued cleaning his gun with a rag, barely looking up. “Nah. Ain’t got no sweetheart.”

Briggs guffawed. “You should meet O’Keefe’s sister then. Homely little thing, but she sure can cook.”

O’Keefe glared at Briggs, his eyes narrowed into slits. “Don’t say my sister is homely.”

“Why not?”

“Because she looks just like me!”

Gabe studied the quiet fellow ignoring the group of unruly men. Turner, was it? “You have a family member who would treasure your photograph? Your mother, perhaps?”

Turner lifted his head, his face shadowed by the brim of his navy kepi, and studied Gabe for a long moment before dropping his eyes back to his gun. “Nope.”

George laughed. “Trying to get Turner to talk is like trying to get blood from a turnip. He’s a man of few words.”

Briggs grunted. “True enough. And the best sharpshooter in our troop.”

Gabe glanced back to the somber Turner. “Is that so? I want to be on your good side, then.”

The ghost of a smile curved the soldier’s mouth.

“How did you get so good at shooting?”

Turner’s eyes twinkled. “I don’t spend all my time jawin’.”

At the men’s howls, Gabe joined in. Warmth filled his chest. For the first time in years, he felt as if he belonged.

What a strange, amiable sensation.

Cassie threw the remains of the bitter chicory coffee into the grass and wiped out her cup with the cuff of her coat sleeve while watching the stranger with a wary eye. He moved among the men with ease, sticking out like a sore thumb in his brown trousers and white shirt. No kepi, either.

What were the generals thinking allowing some untrained novice to follow them straight into battle? And a photographer at that? War was no place for sweet pictures of lovesick soldiers. He was going to slow them down . . . or get them all killed.

Irked, she turned away as his low baritone drifted through the air. Briggs, Weeks, Meade, even George had cottoned to him as if they were long-lost friends.

Squelching the irritation blooming in her chest, she stood and, grabbing her rifle, walked to her tent, determined to get a few hours of sleep. The Rebels might engage them tomorrow and she needed to rest up.

Especially if her job entailed protecting not only her comrades, but a talkative photographer as well.