The March (36 page)

General? Sherman said.

Yessir, Kilpatrick said in a hoarse voice. He almost snapped to attention.

I asked you if you are shoeing up your cavalry.

Absolutely, General. The mounts will be fresh shod and ready to ride.

Because I will depend on you to seal off the roads west, and hold there until my columns come round, Sherman said.

THE CONFERENCE OVER,
the generals relaxed, enjoying one another’s company and sipping their coffee from tiny china cups with all the elegance they could muster. The sun shone into the room like the promise of final victory. Every one of them had reason to feel competitive, as officers inevitably do in military bureaucracies, but the long campaign behind them and what they knew so well of it—the terrain they had trod, the rivers crossed, the obstacles surmounted, the organization they maintained, each in his own realm but in the grand cooperative adventure of a noble cause—made them companionable and appreciative of one another’s qualities. The daring swamp-wading Mower, when not in battle, was soft-spoken and diffident. Slocum, in firm command of the left wing, had the droopy eyelids and prim, calculating mind of an actuary. Howard, of the right wing, was a truly paternal presence, a large thoughtful man, given to talking of his family and inquiring with genuine interest of the families of the others. And, moving among them, in a better mood than he had been in for days, Sherman laughed and joked, and felt their admiration as he expressed, in slantwise remarks, grunts, and nods, his appreciation of them.

This is an important part of leadership, noted Colonel Teack, who was in attendance and standing by one of the windows. Knowing when to be human, knowing how, without embarrassing yourself or your men, to represent your faith in them. So that, when the time comes, if necessary, they will die for you.

In the midst of these reflections, Teack happened to glance out the window. One of those U.S. photography outfits had pulled up in the street and a man in a long coat and derby was standing with his hands on his hips and looking up at him. Sherman, passing by Teack and lighting a cigar, caught sight of the fellow down in the street and, understanding instantly the opportunity this afforded, turned to the room. Gentlemen, he said, the world is calling. Let us go and get our picture took. We’ll sit for it out there in the sun, with the flag of these United States flying above the city of Goldsboro, so the citizenry will, ever after, know the glorious brotherhood of the Army of the West.

AS THEY HAD
approached the courthouse, with the guards standing about, Arly said to Calvin, All right, he is in there, son, and now we are going to make history. I am going to shoot Gen’ral Sherman’s picture. But if you do anything to make it harder for me—

Why would I do that? Calvin said.

Because you are a wily free nigger. Tell me, was you ever not free?

No.

More’s the pity. ’Cause then you don’t know the things that can happen to your kind when they don’t do right.

I think I do know.

I hope you do. God has looked down upon this war and in his usual mysterious manner he has put us to the test. He is testing our mettle, burning us out and shooting us down and setting our black folks to thinking they better than they are. But none of that means your Pres’dent Lincoln is going to win his war. All it means is that we are consumed by fire so as we can rise from the ashes, new and reborn. All it means! Amn’t I right, Will? Why else would God put you in jail for desertion and me for sleeping on duty except greater and grander things were intended for us out of our disgrace?

ALL TOGETHER THERE
were eleven generals. Chairs were brought out and set in the plaza in front of the courthouse steps. One grand armchair for Sherman, four straight-backed chairs for the two generals seated on either side of him. The rest stood in a row behind the chairs. Sherman, of course, directed who should sit and who should stand and where.

As the preparations were being made, a crowd of passersby began to collect. Colonel Teack added to the guard detail and troops, with their arms at the ready, stood between the generals and the street.

A light breeze was blowing and the morning air was cool. The Colonel was the person to talk to. But how? Calvin needed time. He fussed with the equipment, running back and forth to the wagon to get this or that, whatever he could think of. He kept changing the position of the camera, moving it closer or farther back, slightly to the right or left. He knew that eventually the generals would become impatient. Sherman sat with his legs crossed and his arms folded, assuming the pose he wanted to be recorded for posterity and waiting for the photographers to do their job.

Arly muttered, Any time Calvin, any time at all—it’s just all the generals of the Yew-nited States waitin on you. For answer, Calvin dropped the photographic plate he was carrying. It shattered on the ground. Then he had to pick up the pieces and run back to the wagon for another. This caused Arly the same embarrassment as it would have Mr. Culp. He responded by deciding the generals needed instruction on their various poses. He indicated who among the standees should show his profile and who was to face forward. He pulled down the corners of his mouth to indicate that there should be no smiling. How did he know that? Calvin wondered.

Anyway, Calvin thought, if Arly intended to do harm, he would have done so by now. He’d certainly had the chance, being this near to Sherman. Calvin glanced at the generals posed in their solemnity, with the white columns of the courthouse rising behind them, and he thought it would make a fine historic photo if it were actually going to be taken. But he had done some things. The plate he slipped into the camera was not coated—it would not record the image. To make doubly sure, the lens he screwed into the box was the wrong one for the distance between the camera and the subject. He felt peculiar, subverting his own craft, denying history its rights. But he was determined. Whatever was going to happen, whatever this crazy Reb intended, no picture would be taken by him.

As the generals obeyed his instructions, Arly began to enjoy himself. His coattails flapping, he strode back and forth, yanking Mr. Culp’s derby down on his ears and praising the sight before him. This is a moment for the ages, he announced, and the Josiah Culp U.S. Photography Salon is honored to take its picture.

Sherman was becoming impatient now, turning his head to mutter something, scratching his beard, changing which leg to cross over the other. Now, gen’men, Arly said, you know at the time the camera is exposing you cannot move a muscle, lest the photo be spoiled. He seemed only then to notice something not right with General Sherman. Sir, he said, would you consider accustoming yourself to a temporary head brace? For with all this preparation you may become restless in your chair, and without absolute stillness your image will not be clearly drawn. Sherman frowned but nodded in agreement, and Arly sent Calvin back to the wagon for the brace, a calipered bar attached to a stand. Calvin knew that in this morning sunlight, which required only ten seconds of exposure, no head brace was necessary. But this was his opportunity. He stood behind Sherman and affixed it and whispered, hardly able to catch his breath, Sir, that man is not a U.S. photographer. He is a crazy Rebel. And he ran off. Sherman couldn’t turn his head. What? he said. What’s that the Negro said?

Seeing Arly diverting himself with the camera, Calvin moved quickly to Colonel Teack, who stood in the shade at the side of the terrace. Sir, he said, Mr. Josiah Culp is dead. This man in his clothes is a crazy Rebel soldier.

What are you talking about, Teack said. What Rebel soldier?

The Colonel grabbed him by the shoulder, but at this moment Calvin was stunned to see Arly unscrewing the lens from the box. Did Arly know it was the wrong lens? But how could he? Tearing himself from the Colonel’s grasp, Calvin ran toward his camera with a sense that something terribly wrong was being done to it. Arly had ducked his head under the black cloth. His muffled voice was heard. Hold still now, Gen’ral Sherman, the moment of exposure has come! Then Arly’s face rose into view contorted to a rapturous expression that Calvin would remember for the rest of his life. Poking through the socket where a lens should have been, and what Calvin did not in time realize, was the barrel of Mr. Culp’s pistol. The first shot, like a bolt of heat, tore past Calvin’s eyes and blinded him. But he had lunged at the camera, tilting it awry, and the second shot had found Colonel Teack in the chest, knocking him to the ground, though Calvin could not have known it. He was down on his knees, bright lights flashing through his head, and when he put his hand to his eyes they were wet. He didn’t know what the wetness was until he found himself swallowing it. All around him men were shouting. He heard running footsteps, he heard Bert the mule braying. On his hands and knees, and with blood coursing down his throat, he felt the sharp point of a bayonet at his back.

AFTER ARLY PULLED
the trigger for the second time, jumping out of the way to avoid the toppling camera, he cursed at Calvin, stood back and, as several troopers advanced on him, threw off Mr. Culp’s coat and hat and stood waiting for his capture in a neatly buttoned gray tunic taken from Mr. Culp’s store of uniforms. He was knocked down with the butt of a rifle, pressed to the ground under someone’s boot, and then dragged roughly to his feet, while complaining loudly of the ill treatment: Damn, that ain’t right, you near to have broken my shoulder! As he was being hustled away he demanded to be imprisoned with his fellow soldiers of the C.S. of A. This was a honorable act of war, he shouted. I am a soldier!

In the excitement and confusion a guard detail had quickly formed around the eleven generals. Sherman, somewhat shaken, ordered Teack carried back into the conference room. The generals, after determining that Sherman was unhurt, were all asking one another if they were hurt. It turned out none of them were. But they agreed it would be best to go back inside the courthouse and settle themselves with more brandy and coffee. Maybe forget the coffee, Kilpatrick said, loping up the steps. The others followed in dignified fashion, careful to avoid unseemly haste, though one or two looked back at the crowd standing beyond the plaza, lest anyone else was out there pointing a gun. Isn’t it odd, one of them said, that accustomed as we are to being under fire we should find this situation unnatural.

Sherman stood on the steps for a moment and looked out at the crowd that had appeared in the street. How did the damn fool get so close? he said to no one in particular.

THE COFFEE CUPS
were swept away and the Colonel was laid upon the table with Sherman’s own tunic folded up for pillow. Though white with pain, Teack was more concerned about the damage to his uniform. And it seemed to him unfitting that he should lie there in the presence of general officers. He tried to get up. Nonsense, Teack, Sherman said, and pressed him to the table.

Wrede Sartorius was one of three surgeons to arrive. He was immediately deferred to by the others. He offered the Colonel an anesthetic. It was refused. The bullet had cracked a rib but lay shallow enough to be extracted without complication. Bone splinters were removed. Two small bleeding arteries were ligated. Wrede percussed the chest and was satisfied the lung had not collapsed. He sutured and put lint over the wound but did not bandage it. He called for orderlies and a stretcher, and told Colonel Teack that he would be required to rest in a regimental hospital tent.

All the while, the generals had stood watching like students in a medical college. General Sherman kept asking questions—what is this for? why do you do that?—and Wrede kept not answering, which impressed Sherman greatly.

Wrede gave postoperative instructions to his assistant surgeon and left to attend to the black man who still lay outside in the courthouse plaza. Sherman turned to one of his staff and said, Who is that colonel? What’s his name? He carries himself like a soldier, unlike most of the Medical Department.

AT DAWN THE
next morning Arly Wilcox was executed by firing squad, a ceremonial event complete with mounted officers, a military band, a pine coffin, and a detachment of Confederate prisoners taken at Bentonville who were present for purposes of instruction. Arly, having argued he was a bona fide prisoner of war, had been assured by his amused guards that that was why he was going to be shot rather than hanged. Well, Will, he said to the picture in his pocket, so we’re back where we were there in Milledgeville. But leastwise it’s the damn Unions doing the executin rather than my own army, which suggests to me God’s continued mercy and maybe future recognition of my martyrdom.

Required to dig his own grave, Arly had squared off the sides with the shovel’s edge. This gonna be my new home I want it nice, he had said.

CALVIN HAD NOT
been executed along with Arly Wilcox because of his injury and because the extent of his complicity was not clear. There was some question as to why a Negro would assist in such an enterprise. Wrede Sartorius was to decide when Calvin Harper would be fit to appear for the administrative hearing that would determine his fate.

But now orders were delivered to Wrede assigning him provisionally to General Sherman’s staff. He was to accompany Sherman to the Army of the Potomac headquarters at City Point, Virginia. He could not imagine for what purpose, or how he could be more useful to the army than as a regimental surgeon.

Not knowing the duration of his provisional transfer, he believed it likely that he would be back before the Negro’s recovery could be vouchsafed. The nose was broken at the bridge and both corneas had been seared. The blindness might be partial or total. It was too early to tell. He left instructions regarding the patient’s care, packed a few things, picked up his field-instrument case, and left without advising his staff where he was going.

Wrede was still angry about the loss of Albion Simms. The brown child should never have been left alone with him. Of course, it is my own fault for having taken on people who have no medical training, he thought. Stephen Walsh and his Miss Jameson are children themselves. They are well meaning, but look what I have lost. When I return, I will send Walsh back to his regiment. The girl will have to fend for herself.