Kary, Elizabeth (26 page)

In
the course of the battle, the other ironclads suffered similar fates, and the
ships withdrew to Cairo for repairs while Hayes and Travis stayed with Grant's
forces to observe the land battle that ensued. For two days the Yankee and
Confederate troops fought at both ends of the Union line: the Confederates
determined to keep the route to the south open for escape toward Nashville and
the Federal troops equally determined to tighten the deadly noose around the
fort.

Hayes
and Nathan Travis had been little more than observers of the military drama
being played out on the swampy stretch of land between two of the South's major
rivers. They had witnessed the charge up the slope to the outermost bastions of
the fort and heard the wounded crying for help afterward as they were burned to
death where they lay when the grass ignited from cannon fire. They had ridden
with Grant on the second morning of the battle to the westernmost edge of the
Union line and heard him exhort his men to recapture positions lost just after
dawn. They were in the farmhouse General Grant had made his headquarters when
General Bruckner's note demanding terms of surrender was received. In the end,
several of the ranking Confederate officers did manage to slip off into the
night, but Grant's demand for the unconditional surrender of Fort Donelson
gained him a reputation as a stern officer and set the tone for future battles
he would fight throughout the war.

Now
Hayes lay reliving the horrors and triumphs of the last days, while outside his
tent he could hear the barren trees creaking in the wind and the muted voices
of those who had been no more able to sleep than he. Banister had spent his day
trying to offer what aid he could to the overworked orderlies, helping to carry
the injured from where they had fallen during the two days of bitter fighting
to the inadequate, ill-equipped hospitals that had sprung up behind the lines.
The weather had turned cold and wet the first night of the campaign, and the
swampy ground where the wounded lay had hardened around them, encasing them in
ice and their own frozen blood. Today had been filled with things that angered
and appalled Hayes, and those, as well as the incidents on the ironclads and
during the fighting, had combined to rob him of his rest.

Groaning,
he hauled himself to his feet, giving up the attempt to sleep in favor of
searching out a pot of coffee and some companionship to dull the edge of his
memories. Travis had gone off into the swamps shortly after noon, and Hayes
doubted that he would see the other man until his scouting was done.

As
Hayes left the confines of the tent and the snoring officer beside him, he
noticed a glimmer of light moving across one of the fields where the battle had
taken place. As he watched the eerie glow, tracking slow and close to the
ground, he was reminded of the stories he had heard of scavengers who prowled
the scene of a battle under the cover of darkness to loot the bodies of the
dead. The grisly thought preyed on his mind until he gave up any attempt at
finding a fire and a pot of coffee and went to investigate.

The
earth was hard as macadam beneath his booted feet as he moved across the rutted
field, and he set a course to intercept the light, noting how it fluttered and
disappeared into the dips and gullies that scored the uneven terrain. He moved
quietly and with deliberate stealth until he topped a slight rise and came upon
the intruder.

"Halt!
Who goes there?" he called out.

To
his surprise it was a woman who turned to face him: a tall, gray-haired woman
wrapped in nothing more than a worn woolen shawl to protect her from the
penetrating cold.

"Who
are you, and what are you doing on the battlefield at this hour of the
night?" Hayes demanded.

As
she raised her lantern higher, he could see the concern and pain written in her
features, and he knew instinctively that she had come to help and not to
plunder.

"I
came
to search the fields myself," she told him in a rough, gravely voice.
"I know the stretcher bearers are not always as careful as they might be
in seeking out the wounded, especially as exhausted as they are after these
last two days. I couldn't sleep for fear that there might be a few, poor,
living boys remaining out here with the frozen dead."

Hayes
was moved by her simple declaration and offered her his help. Together they
crossed the roughened battlefield as the wind tore at their clothing and
rattled the brush that grew along the sides of the gullies. They stopped to
raise the lantern beside corpse after corpse to check for signs of life: for
warmth among the stone-cold bodies, for the thready beat of life in a soldier's
chest. It was nightmarish work, but no worse than the battle the day before had
been. The bodies of the slain lay where they had fallen in stiff, twisted
poses, frozen into the earth, some covered with a dusting of snow. Some had
lain unattended for two days in favor of the living, and would eventually be
collected in wagons and prepared for burial.

It
seemed to Hayes as if they had been crossing and recrossing the windswept field
for hours when they came to one wiry corporal whose chest rose and fell with
shallow breathing. The shawled woman knelt beside him and spoke low, trying to
force a bit of the tea she had brought between his pale, cracked lips. After a
few minutes of care he moaned slightly and opened his eyes. "Mother,"
he whispered.

As
color began to return to the corporal's ashen cheeks, Hayes felt as if he were
watching a miracle unfold. This woman, with her determination and compassion,
was breathing life back into a man who was all but dead. Unexpectedly Hayes's
throat closed up.

"I'll
go for a wagon to transport him back to the hospital tents," he offered
and, without waiting for affirmation, strode off into the darkness. It was some
time later when he returned to where he had left the woman, and beside her the
man was stirring, shivering with the cold after being chopped out of his icy
prison, but very much alive. Making him as comfortable as possible on the floor
of the dray Hayes had commandeered, they continued their search, finding more
than half a dozen of the living trapped by the ice or under long-dead comrades.

By
the time the sun had crested the trees to the east to herald the start of a new
day, the men had been delivered to one of the makeshift hospitals to await
their turn with the few nurses available or one of the even fewer field
surgeons. While the last of the men were being taken into the hospital tent,
Hayes stood beside the tall, rough-hewn woman. As they had searched the
battlefield for those who lived, Hayes worked with calm dispatch, but his mind
had not fully accepted the desperately important work they did. Now, as that
realization washed over him, Hayes was filled with thoughts of Leigh and the
mission she had undertaken at the outset of the war. If she had been here, it
would have been her beside this woman offering what comfort she could,
undaunted by the cold, the horror, or by the weariness she saw in this woman's
face.

As
he watched this compassionate stranger, a new understanding of the woman he
loved blossomed within him. It was an understanding filled with equal parts
pride and fear. Leigh knew what it was she had to do, and she would fulfill her
duty with a determination that would not stop short of exhaustion. Hayes
suddenly realized, as he had not before, how desperately important the course
Leigh had chosen to follow really was. He could not help fearing for the
hardships and heartbreak she would see in her chosen calling or the dangers she
would face. But now he saw the strength and courage it took to follow her
convictions.

"Who
are you?" Hayes whispered as the woman turned toward the tent and the
never-ending demands for help and succor. "Why are you here?"

The
woman faced him with a smile on her narrow, determined mouth. "I'm here
because I'm needed," she answered. "And most of the men just call me
'Mother.' "

***

February 21, 1862—En route to St. Louis,
Missouri

Hayes
Banister leaned against the balustrade on the promenade deck of the
Ben
Franklin
and stared out across the river. On the far bank the fields were
beginning to turn from lifeless winter brown to a promising shade of green.
Spring was coming to the Mississippi Valley, but this year, instead of life and
bounty, it would mean death and destruction. Still, the river itself seemed
unchanged, either by the war or the passage of time, and, to a man who had once
made his living plying its unpredictable course, that offered a strange kind of
comfort. The Mississippi was enduring, its ceaseless flow the one constant in
the changing world. In the past few days he had seen too many of man's
endeavors go awry not to appreciate clear evidence of nature's superiority.

Hayes
drew a long breath as he took his pipe and tobacco from the pocket of his
jacket and stared moodily out across the water. From its familiar swirls and
eddies, from its mysterious green-brown depths came thoughts of days gone by.
They were days best put behind him, but in spite of his best intentions, the
memories engulfed him. It had been on early spring days like this one when the
trees were just beginning to leaf and the wild flowers to blossom, when the sky
was this same spectral shade of blue and the wind was warm and fresh, that he
and Monica would meet at his cabin in the woods outside Vicksburg to revel in
the earth's reawakening. More than once they had made love on the ground like
two wild things: with the loamy smell of soil in their nostrils; the heat of
the sun on their bare limbs; and the soft, new grass crushed beneath their
straining bodies. Those were strong, poignant memories, painful yet bittersweet.
And though Hayes knew he no longer loved Monica, he could not deny that she was
with him still, an inextricable part of his past.

As
the sun-washed breeze brushed his cheek like a remembered caress, Hayes
wondered what this year would bring to Monica and her son. Were she and Charles
still in Vicksburg? Would they stay on if the fighting moved closer? Were they
sheltered and getting enough to eat? How was the war affecting the women and
children in the South? Monica's husband was too old for soldiering, so he must
be there to see to the welfare of his family, at least. Hayes was thankful for
that. But what would happen to them as the war moved farther and farther
downriver? Was there anywhere they could flee to remain untouched by battle?
Dear God, if only there were some way to be sure they were safe! For a long
time Hayes stood staring sightlessly into the water, lost in thought.

At
last he stretched, filled his pipe from the pouch of tobacco, and struck a
match, shielding the flame with his hands until the bowl glowed orange. From
the stern of the steamboat came the rhythmic rush of the paddles churning
through the water, and Hayes could hear the hum of the boilers on the deck
below. He had been extremely lucky to get passage on the
Ben Franklin,
he reflected. It
was only the fact that he had made himself useful to the contingent from the
Western Sanitary Commission that enabled him to travel from Fort Donelson to
St. Louis with this boatload of wounded. The troop transport, loaned to the
Commission by General Grant's chief surgeon, was filled to the gunnels with men
on their way to the city's hospitals, and though it was totally unsuited for
their care, the wounded had been brought aboard by the score. The Commission
had sent a load of sanitary stores to Fort Donelson shortly after the fighting
began, and the men who had brought them had stayed on to offer their help at
the hospitals. It had quickly become apparent that there were too many wounded
for the facilities the Army had provided, and both the supplies and the
volunteers from St. Louis were welcome. The worst was now over: the dead
buried, the more than seven hundred prisoners of war dispatched to Camp Douglas
near Chicago, and the wounded on their way north to various hospitals along the
river. But the days after the battle had been a damned grim time, a time that
would haunt him all the days of his life.

Hayes
was just finished his pipe when two men came out of the salon to stand by the
rail. They were deep in conversation, and their words drifted across the deck
to where Hayes stood.

"I
think it's an inspired idea, Mr. Yeatman," one man was saying, "to
convert a riverboat to a floating hospital."

"Yes,
it is, isn't it?" Yeatman agreed, sounding very pleased. "I can't
imagine why it didn't occur to us before." Hayes knew the speaker was
James Yeatman, president of the Western Sanitary Commission, Dorothea Dix's
representative in certifying nursing volunteers, and a citizen well-known
throughout St. Louis for his good deeds.

"We
could outfit the ship," he was saying, "with beds, a dispensary, and
a large galley for preparing food. A ship
like that could have a permanent staff
to look after the injured and carry extra supplies as well. It's a brilliant
idea, and we must put it into action immediately."

Hayes
turned to face the man, a plan forming in his mind, one that would aid both
their cause and his own. "Please, gentlemen, forgive me for eavesdropping,
but I think designing and building a hospital ship is a fine goal, one I'd be
delighted to help you achieve."

"It's
Mr. Banister, isn't it?" Yeatman acknowledged him. "You've been
working with James Eads on building those splendid ironclads. Do you know Mr.
Forman?"