The Union Quilters (20 page)

At last, Jonathan was directed from the corral into the tent. When prompted, he offered his name and rank, and then quickly added, “When we were rounded up, the medical personnel were told that we could be paroled and then returned to care for our patients. How soon will that be accomplished?”

The lieutenant, a gray-eyed Virginian a few years younger than himself, with a face tanned red-brown, shook his head. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

“What do you mean? Those men need care. There are international and humanitarian laws regarding the treatment of doctors captured while acting in our professional capacity—”

“I regret you were misinformed.” The lieutenant passed Jonathan a sheet of paper from the top of the pile. “Please read this and sign your name on the line.”

Jonathan snatched up the pen, dipped it in the inkwell, and skimmed the document, already preparing the argument he would unleash to this man’s superiors. A phrase caught his attention; he read it a second time, then returned to the top of the page and reread every word, carefully. “I am to swear ‘Not to bear arms against the Confederate government until I am released from the obligation I am about to assume.’ It would be disingenuous for me to sign this, as I have never borne arms against the Confederate government. I am a surgeon.”

The lieutenant looked weary. “Then you should have no trouble signing it.”

“But if I were attacked, or if I were required to defend the lives of the patients in my care, I may be morally obligated to take up arms against the aggressor.” He scanned the page, shaking his head at one foreboding phrase after another. “What assurances can you provide me that the United States government will recognize these arrangements?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” returned the lieutenant. “Do your generals not care about the safety and comfort of their officers and men?”

“I can’t sign this.” Shaking his head, Jonathan held out the document to the lieutenant, who folded his hands on the table and regarded him steadily. When he did not take the paper, Jonathan returned it to the top of the pile and set the pen on the desk. “I cannot in good conscience sign a pledge that I cannot be sure I will follow in order to participate in a prisoner exchange I’m not sure you’re authorized to offer.”

“This pledge was good enough for many of your fellow surgeons,” said the lieutenant. “I assure you, Dr. Granger, your stubbornness will not see you returned to your patients any sooner.”

“From what you’ve said,” Jonathan retorted, “if I sign or if I do
not
sign, I won’t be permitted to return to my patients in any case. At least this way I will leave this tent with my loyalty and integrity intact.”

The lieutenant sighed and motioned to the guards, and as Jonathan was escorted from the back of the tent under armed guard and led off to the left, he at last understood the method behind the sorting he had observed from within the corral. The Union men sorted themselves, each according to his conscience.

He was taken to a barn on a hillside where hundreds of other men waited without water or other provisions. Feeling dazed and slightly ill, he took stock of his surroundings, his heart gladdening when he spotted several colleagues from the hospital. A few others soon joined them, but some who should have been there did not appear, and Jonathan could only assume that they had agreed to the conditions of parole.

There were a few injured but mobile men among the prisoners held in the barn, and Jonathan and the other medical personnel tended to their needs as best they could without instruments, medicine, or a drop of water. Later they were given a bit of food and drink, and as night fell, they were offered civilian blankets that Jonathan guessed had been taken from Gettysburg merchants, paid for in Confederate bills.

Restless, uncomfortable, with only the blanket and a thin layer of straw between himself and the hard earth floor, he thought of his patients. He hoped the more able-bodied wounded had managed, somehow, to tend to those worse off or that Confederate surgeons had taken over the hospital and treated the Union wounded as he had treated theirs, or that more brave citizens of Gettysburg like the dark-haired young woman who had smuggled her father’s medical bag to the seminary had come to their aid. What he would not give to have that cracked leather case of instruments with him now. He thought of lovely Charlotte, his dear son, and the precious infant daughter he had never held. He thought of Gerda, and knew she would have told him he had made the right choice in refusing to sign away his conscience to win his parole. He thought of them both in the sewing circle at his sister’s house, receiving word that he had been captured.

He must have drifted off to sleep thinking of the women he loved, for then he was being shaken awake. Bleary-eyed, he nonetheless recognized one of the musicians in the I Corps ambulance crew, who had somehow managed to retain his drumsticks and had tucked them into his belt, although his snare drum was nowhere to be seen.

“They’re giving us a bit of bread and coffee. Not real coffee,” the musician amended before Jonathan had even a moment to look forward to the unexpected delicacy. “Rumor is we’ll be marching today.”

Jonathan sat up and scrubbed the dust from his eyes with the back of his hand. His head throbbed and his back ached. “Marching where?”

The musician shrugged grimly. “A Confederate prison, I expect. Where that might be or how far . . .”

He shook his head and said nothing more. There was nothing else to say. Only God knew what would become of them now.

B
ecause her position with the
Register
frequently took her to the telegraph office, Mary Schultz Currier was the first of the Union Quilters to hear of Governor Curtin’s call for emergency troops to defend the state as the Army of Northern Virginia approached the Potomac. She was also the first of them to learn of his appeal to all citizens to guard and maintain the free institutions of their country and to defend their homes, firesides, and property in that hour of imminent peril. A day later, Harrisburg was in uproar as residents burdened with luggage crowded aboard trains, desperate to flee the city. In the capital, staff frantically packed books, papers, artwork, and other valuables for the evacuation. Throughout south central Pennsylvania, farmers and bankers and businessmen loaded wagons and boxcars and raced to transport belongings and cash and livestock across the Susquehanna River, determined to preserve their lives and keep their worldly goods out of Rebel hands.

Throughout the Elm Creek Valley, men who had been too young, too old, too badly needed at home, too essential in their occupations, or too ambivalent about the war to enlist earlier now responded to the threat against their own homes and families. As they prepared to depart for Harrisburg, the Union Quilters hastened to supply them with all the necessary provisions. On an evening at the end of June, Anneke sat on the front porch, racing to sew a dozen haversacks in the last of the summer daylight, but she glanced up from her seat on the front porch when Hans came in from the stables. “I could make one for you as well,” she offered, indicating the pile of sewing by her side.

Hans leaned against the porch post and scraped the mud from his boots with a stick. “I have no need of a haversack.”

“You would if you answered the governor’s call.”

Hans sighed wearily. “Anneke, I’m tired of explaining my position to you over and over again.”

“But this is different. This is an emergency,” she persisted. “The enemy is at our front door.”

“The enemy is on the other side of the Potomac River in Maryland,” he corrected her. “That is hardly our front door. A few Rebel companies may cross to raid and skirmish in southern Pennsylvania before the Union Army drives them out, but I need claim no special insight into the mind of General Lee to say with all confidence that Waterʹs Ford is not his target.”

“You don’t know that,” snapped Anneke. “We have great resources in the valley—food, boots, horses, money in our banks. Those Rebels would love to seize all that we have, just as they did in Chambersburg last fall. And if they want horses, where do you think they’ll come first? Why, to Bergstrom’s horse farm, that’s where.”

He grinned, but his eyes were hard. “I don’t flatter myself that I’m that famous. They’d probably stop by the livery stable in town first.”

“That’s not half as amusing as you seem to think it is.”

“My love, if you believe any part of this conversation amuses me, then you are greatly mistaken. The Elm Creek Valley has no railroad running through it, no major cities. We are on no major supply routes, we mine no coal, and we have no heavy industry. Yes, we have food and goods and livestock, but even that is not reason enough to force an army through that difficult southern pass, not when other towns with the same blessings lie outside that natural defense.”

“So you would have other towns raided and other men sent to defend them, just so long as
you
don’t have to fight and
your
property lies safely protected by mountains and difficult roads.”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “You profoundly misunderstand me. I would have no one raided. I would have every man lay down his weapons this minute and go home to his farm and family before another life is lost.”

His voice carried a warning to say no more, so Anneke pursed her lips to hold back a sharp retort and returned her attention to her work. Hans sat on the second step, tugged off his boots, and made his way into the house, where Gerda was preparing supper. Not even Gerda could talk sense into her brother, not that she had tried. She didn’t need to, Anneke thought bitterly. Perhaps Jonathan wasn’t Gerda’s, but he was serving his country instead of hiding behind optimistic predictions of the enemy’s reach. Gerda could take pride in the man she loved in a way Anneke could not.

Soon Anneke learned that the same natural defenses Hans claimed would protect them from invasion beckoned citizens from Harrisburg and beyond to seek refuge within the valley. The Barrows Inn filled to capacity within two days of Governor Curtin’s call for emergency militia, and soon every room in every boardinghouse was taken. As more and more frightened Pennsylvanians spilled into town, the Union Quilters called an emergency meeting at Two Bears Farm to discuss what to do. They quickly agreed to open Union Hall as temporary housing for these unfortunates until the crisis passed, and to urge local churches to do the same. They would need to prepare bedding, food, necessary items—the list went on and on, and Anneke promptly volunteered to direct the effort.

“Are you sure?” Dorothea asked. “You’ve already taken on so much, and you have three young children at home.”

Anneke assured Dorothea she could do all she volunteered to do, and more. If that meant she would have less time to devote to Hans, and that she would be obliged to spend more of his money on the Union cause, it would be a small price to pay to redeem the Bergstrom family in the eyes of the community.

When their plans were in order, Mrs. Barrows read a letter that had recently arrived from her youngest and only remaining son, David. At the time he wrote it, the 49th had been in Virginia preparing to cross the Rappahannock River near Deep Run Ravine, although they had surely moved on in the meantime.

“If only the mail could come faster,” sighed Mary. “Letters take so long to reach us, we never know where our men are, only where they’ve been.”

“We must prepare ourselves for lengthier delays,” cautioned Dorothea. “The Confederate invasion will surely disrupt mail service for however long the crisis endures.”

It was a disquieting thought, and Mrs. Barrows sighed as she resumed reading her son’s letter. ʹʺMother I know you and the good ladies of your quilting bee are as patriotic as any Union soldier but I wonder about many people back home, for their support seems to have weakened of late. The newspapers ask why we have not thrashed Lee yet and to that I say if they would but come out here and fight with us they would understand soon enough. I shake my head Mother to read that the same people who cried out in horror when Negro soldiers were talked of now exclaim, ‘Why not send the Negroes to fight?’ That would suit me fine. I would rather have an honest brave colored man at my side than a dozen Copperheads who will neither fight for their country nor openly stand against it. I can respect a good secesh soldier who dares fight for what he calls his state’s rights but I scorn those cowardly traitors who will choose neither one side nor the other.ʹʺ

“From his mouth to Mr. Lincoln’s ears,” said Constance. As the Union Quilters chimed in their agreement, Anneke felt her face flush hot with shame. She held perfectly still, not daring to look up from a knothole on the floor and find her friends’ eyes upon her. Though David’s commentary on colored soldiers had drawn their attention, thanks to Constance, surely they had not missed the similarities between the Copperheads David so despised and Anneke’s husband.

ʺʹThree of our officers have been ordered home to bring out conscripts and to recruit,ʹʺ Mrs. Barrows continued. ʺʹI fear they will bring us back few indeed as some will scrape together the three hundred dollars to buy their way out and still more will run away from the draft.ʹʺ

“I wonder which officers will be sent home,” said Mary. “Not my Abner. He’s only a private.”

“Nor my Thomas,” said Dorothea ruefully.

“Jonathan is a captain,” said Charlotte. “I pray they will send him.”

“As do I,” said Gerda fervently.

Anneke tore her gaze from the floor, dismayed by her sister-in-law’s indiscretion. Charlotte was glaring darkly at Gerda, clutching the armrests of her chair and gathering herself as if preparing to unleash a torrent of vitriol upon her rival for Jonathan’s affections. For that was what Gerda was. Even if none of them talked of it, they all knew it.

But before Charlotte could utter a word, Dorothea spoke. “As do I. I miss my brother terribly, and I know he longs to see his beautiful baby girl. He is also respected and admired throughout the valley. The Union Army needs recruits, and Jonathan can be very persuasive.”