The March (8 page)

Well, you are back on your own side even so. That was what you wanted—you never did cotton to the blue coat you was wearing.

Captain, I should have said, I am as much secesh as you. I am Private Will B. Kirkland from the Twenty-ninth Infantry Regiment out of North Carolina. I don’t need no pistol to my head.

And that would have been that.

That’s right. And a grand welcome and good duty.

He wouldn’t have asked any questions such as traced you right into the Milledgeville prison for deserting your Twenty-ninth Regiment. Or that found me for sleeping on guard duty in a combat situation.

We was pardoned by that general.

Sure, and you had the papers to prove it. Can you hear me in this rain, God? I am standing with this boy here who thinks an army at war is a reasonable thing. He thinks a soldier is something more than the uniform he is wearing. He thinks we live in a sane life and time, which you know as well as I is not what you designed for us sinners.

Well, anyways, you said God had his intentions for us, and it don’t seem like this is what they were.

We are alive, Will my boy. And why? Because we didn’t claim to be but what we appeared to be. We didn’t stretch some dumb Reb captain’s brain all out of shape. We didn’t tell no story to get him so fussed he would shoot us for lyin dogs. We looked like Union, and that’s what he understood. And that’s what we were. And what we ain’t anymore.

I’ll vouch for that.

Yes, we are wet and cold and hungry on this dark November night, but alive, which is a sight better than the dead falling to the ground every minute in every state of the Confederacy. And that we are alive by shifting our way about from one side t’other as the situation demands shows we already have something gifted about us. I feel the intention, all right, and I am sorry you don’t. And I will pray He don’t task you for being ungrateful. Or take it out on me.

THEIR DUTY WAS
two on and four off, but with the first paling of the sky they still hadn’t been relieved. The rain let up and the wind blew as if that was what was bringing up the light. Below them the camp appeared, sodden and bare of any vegetation, and with rivulets of swamp water trickling through the stockade walls. Prisoners who had no huts for their shelter stood up from the watery holes in the ground where they had slept. With the first rays of a cold sun, everyone was up and out on the grounds, hunched over shivering, or dancing up and down. The hacks and coughs crackling from this mass of men sounded to Will like rifle fire. Everyone turned toward the kitchen sheds, but there was no smoke from the chimneys.

Beyond the far walls of the stockade and through the pine trees, he could see the river flowing high and fast from the heavy rains.

The smell was particularly bad this morning, the open latrines brackish and the burial trench just under their guard post having lost topsoil in the rains. Here and there, a body had emerged. Will turned his back on the sight and tried to draw in some scent of the surrounding pine forest. It was then that he saw the guards running along with their bloodhounds and torches.

Not long after that, the Union prisoners—wet, bedraggled, skeletal—were being herded down the road through the village of Millen to the railroad yard. There were more than a thousand of them still, and few had the spirit or the strength to question why they were leaving the pens at Millen. Every twenty yards on either side of the prisoner column, guards with rifles at the ready, and some with guard dogs, policed the march. Arly drifted back till he was abreast of Will. We will not be riding any damn railroad, he said. Can you hear me?

I hear you.

There’s even less grub where they’re going. Watch me and do what I do, Arly said.

I should have known, Will said.

At the depot a long train of boxcars was attached to two engines, smokestacks chuffing black, boilers hissing. As each car was filled, the door was slid shut and bolted. Some of the prisoners, who could no longer walk, were carried on the backs of their companions. Arly, with Will following, walked backward as if to double the guard at each car as it was loaded. Will noticed how conscientious Arly looked, his rifle at the ready, his eyes alert to any escape attempt. In this manner, they reached the last car, and at the moment when nearby officers had dismounted and were conferring over their maps, Arly and Will slipped around the last car and took cover behind the depot.

Here they had another view of the Ogeechee River. On the far banks a line of Union cavalry watched helplessly as the whistles blew and the train jerked into motion.

Someday, Will said, I am going to see one of them head doctors—what d’ye call them?

Phreenologists, Arly said.

That’s it. And I will ask him—I mean, if by some strange chance I am still alive—what was wrong with my head that I went along no matter what misery you thought up for us.

Nothing wrong with your head, Arly said. You recognize good sense and artful cunning when it is explained properly to you.

They were back in the pens, empty now but for a few dying prisoners in the stocks and several more who had died during the night. Arly stripped, tied the wet Confederate uniform into a ball and threw it in the latrine trench. In a kind of instructional performance for Will, he rolled his naked body in the mud and slopped handfuls of mud in his hair. Then he dressed himself in the rags he had taken from one of the corpses. Then he jumped up and down, and raced around whooping and hollering.

What’s that for? Will said.

I’m cold, you damned idiot! Arly shouted.

An hour later Union infantry were everywhere in Millen. In the stockade, a detachment of black pioneers set about burying the dead and shoveling mounds of earth into the open burial trench. Officers inspected the kitchen and hospital sheds, and the wooden stocks. Peering from the back of an ambulance wagon, Will saw how angry these Union men were. They made fists and cursed and swore. They walked around shaking their heads. He shivered under the thick wool blanket given to him. Arly’s teeth were chattering, but the expression on his face was one of serene satisfaction.

Preparations were made to burn everything in sight. Men ran along the stockade walls putting them to the torch. Soon the sheds were burning with a heavy black smoke and fitful licks of flame. As the ambulance rode off and came up over a knoll, Will and Arly looked back and saw smoke rising from the village, too. The Yankees were burning down everything with the name of Millen.

As they rode along at a good mule trot, Arly noted how soft the ride was. These ambulance wagons are fitted with springs, he said. Damn, we got to get us one of these. They were taken to a hospital tent in the pine grove where the army camped. They lay on cots under wool blankets and with real pillows under their heads. After a while the flap lifted and Will was stunned to see a woman in a white frock coat. She wore a Union cap pinned to her hair. Good morning, gentlemen, she said, and at that moment the tent walls lit up with the rising sun. She knelt beside Will’s cot and lifted his head and held a cup of broth to his lips. He looked into her blue eyes and she smiled at him. He had never seen a more beautiful girl in his entire life. He felt her warm hand on the back of his neck. Tears of gratitude brimmed in his eyes just as if he had really been a prisoner at the infamous camp.

On the adjoining cot, Arly leaned on his elbow to observe the scene, a big grin on his face.

IX

W
ILMA JONES WAS SO USED TO TAKING CARE OF PEO
ple that even on the march to freedom she found herself being useful. The old man who called her Daughter was stone deaf and shouted everything at her. A cane held him up on his right side, and she propped him up on his left. He had on a threadbare coat with no sleeves, and his skinny old arm was all muscle, long and stringy. His hand clutched hers with the strength of ten. He limped badly, this old slave, but there was no getting away from him. He was bald, all skull under his wool cap, and toothless, and with an ancient brand burned into his cheek. But he was going! He would not falter! And like so many old people he would not care who saw him do his business. She had to shake her head and smile. Old Uncle here reminded her of the Judge. He’d been just as demanding, expecting everything of her as if she had no life of her own. Only Judge Thompson never called her Daughter, having Miss Emily for that.

The people had stopped singing and the women held the children to them tightly. The causeway was narrow and on both sides swamp water lay thick and still, with trees poking up every which way from the muck. The air was fetid, and wisps of fog blew across their path.

When they came to the creek they were ordered to move aside along the bank while the soldiers trotted past them and crossed over on the pontoon bridge. Wilma looked around: more and more of the freed slaves were arriving to be kept waiting while the army moved through. From the far side, several officers on horses watched the maneuver. They sat astride their horses, unmoving. There was a general among them, because he wore a lot of gold braid such as the high and mighty affect. Wilma had a premonition. She had heard the stories. The Rebs were always behind them. They overran Negro stragglers and shot them or took them back into slavery.

The creek was at high water and running fast. It was a whole army going across. Division after division ran and rode past them, pulling their gun carriages and whipping their mules. Daughter, the old man shouted, why ain’t we crossing! Wilma ran to the side of the causeway and stopped an officer. Mammy, he said, we are fighting a damn war for you. Alls we ask is you don’t get in the way.

Some of the women and children were crying now. It was clear something had changed, as if with the sky, which had gotten darker. Fewer and fewer soldiers were coming along now, and finally the last of them were on the bridge. Wilma took the old man’s arm as the crowd surged forward. And then she couldn’t see over their heads, but a great wail went up among them: the ropes had been cut and the pontoon bridge swung away from the bank. Soldiers across the river were pulling it up behind them.

People didn’t know what to do. Someone shouted that the Rebs were coming. Wilma tried to hold her ground but the old man was pulling her down the bank. Ise a free man! he shouted. Ise a free man! And then she couldn’t hold him any longer and he jumped into the stream. Around her people were screaming, praying, importuning God. They slid into the water and started swimming across. She saw on the other bank that some black pioneer soldiers were throwing logs and brush into the water for people to hold on to. But the old man couldn’t swim. He was waving his cane in the air and twisting around in the current and going under and coming up with the cane waving in the air.

Women holding their babies over their heads tried to breast the current. Somehow the men tied a raft together out of some logs and strips of tarpaulin, and women’s skirts and blankets. The pioneers threw a line over, and a semblance of order set in as people were pulled across four and five at a time on the raft. But those huddled on the bank looked behind them with fear. They thought they heard Rebs coming down the causeway and couldn’t wait their turn. Holding their bundles and satchels, they jumped into the river.

Wilma found herself on the raft. Almost across, it dipped under the current and capsized. She came up sputtering and felt a hand holding her by the arm. She was lifted onto the bank, water streaming from her. A strong black man had lifted her entirely out of the water with one hand. She sat on the ground shivering. Those who had gotten across were running after the army. And, back on the other shore, there were maybe a hundred or more folks still crowding the bank, afraid to move. Women and crying children. She heard gunshots and thought she saw some men on horses coming down the causeway.

Here, missy, the man who had rescued her said. He put a blanket around her. Best not to linger. God will give those folks their freedom, jes not now is all. Come on. He was tall and wore a uniform tunic unbuttoned and ragged trousers and he was shoeless. He took Wilma’s hand and got her standing, and led her down the road. She kept turning, looking back, until she couldn’t see the creek anymore. But the cries came across the water and seemed to float above her in the trees.

X

P
EARL COULD NOT FORGET THAT NIGHT OF THE MUR
dered soldiers. They lay about on the hard ground lit blue by the moonlight. Twelve of them like fallen statues. And Lieutenant Clarke staring up at nothing and so surprised, so surprised. She hid at the edge of the field and watched townsfolk come out with their wagon. Some white men, and two Negroes to do the work. They slung the bodies onto the wagon as if they were handling sides of beef. She followed them to the cemetery and watched from the underbrush as they took up their spades. Often they looked up to see if they were being observed. It was near dawn before they got them all buried.

Pearl couldn’t stop her shivering. Her teeth chattered. She looked at her hand and saw that she was holding his letter. It was now that first light had dimmed the moon and shown its own gray self up over the field, and she knew she’d better get away from there. She skirted the town, going through the woods to the road they came on and to the tree beside the road where she had hidden her tunic and cap. And so, once again, she hiked her frock up and tucked it under the waist of her trousers and put her drummer-boy uniform back on. And then she had a pocket in which to keep his letter.

Not knowing what else to do, Pearl slid down with her back against the tree and waited.

She awakened to the lowing of cows. It was broad daylight and the army was going by, men driving cattle and goats, teamsters crying out to their mule teams, soldiers with rifles on their shoulders marching in file along the side of the road, and a great rising of dust from all the clamor.

She stood up and made herself visible. Sometimes they grinned and said something as they went by, the men, or occasionally an officer on his horse would glance down at her, but nobody seemed inclined to stop. She kept looking for the wagon driver from her company who had turned back when the shooting started. Two bummers all decked out in claw-hammer coats and stovepipe hats came along in a four-wheeler filled with their pillage. But they were not anyone she recognized. They were laughing. They saw her, and one of them reached into a sack and tossed her a sweet potato.