The Better Angels of Our Nature Page 2

  “Damn you, Lieutenant, don’t just stand there, lend a hand, sir, lend a hand!”

  “Yes sir.” The transfixed lieutenant came instantly to life, doing what he could to disentangle boy from blankets, knapsacks, straps, and cartridge boxes. He then watched in curiosity tinged with envy as the young soldier followed the general into his tent.

  “Have you had your supper?” Sherman wanted to know.

  The young soldier hesitated.

  “Well?” said the general sharply. “When was the last time you ate? Was it so long ago you can’t recall?” Sherman puffed at his cigar and laughed. “Well, it’s no wonder you can’t carry an infantryman’s load!”

  The young soldier sat on a cracker box before the folding table and ate the chicken and sweet corn that the general had ordered his cook, Horatio, to dig out of the stores. Although prodded into wakefulness from what might have been a sweet dream of freedom, the talkative old Negro, with tufts of white hair on the back of his head like cotton balls, displayed none of the resentment of the quartermaster sergeant, but simply shuffled back to his blanket with the young soldier’s hearty thanks still ringing in his ears. Now the boy tasted the thick dark liquid in the cup and wrinkled up his rather shapeless child’s nose.

  “I never imagined it would taste so bitter,” he said.

  “Imagined? Have you never tasted coffee before?”

  “No sir, never—” the boy replied, his mouth full of chicken and sweet corn.

  “Well, don’t take too much sugar in your coffee. You’ll get dysentery.”

  Sherman was lighting a fresh cigar. Again, his mind was elsewhere. His bony, thickly veined hand had grabbed up a letter from the table and his deep-set, piercing eyes were now traveling wildly across the pages as the nails of his other hand made a scratching sound across his coarse beard. He stood up suddenly and started to march the short distance between table and tent flap and back again, puffing away noisily at his cigar, rubbing his beard the wrong way and murmuring to himself in a manner that made the boy guess that the contents of the letter irritated him. This man was easily irritated, prone to excitations, temper swings, and prompt changes of mood that could raise him as high as the heavens and cast him down to the depths of despair. The boy drew in a deep breath, inhaling cigar smoke and whiskey, the smell of sweat, stale and manly, and the aroma of physical and moral courage that hung in the air and clung to the general’s crumpled uniform.

  When the boy opened his eyes, the Ohioan had stopped pacing and was watching him.

  The boy cleared his throat. “Please, sir, may I ask what it is I am eating?”

  “Why, it’s chicken! Have you never eaten chicken before either? No coffee and no chicken? You haven’t lived.” The Ohioan was laughing at him.

  “I think it very fine.”

  “I’m sure Horatio would be gratified.”

  “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

  “What? What did you say?” After having briefly resumed his marching, he now stopped again and fixed the boy with those glittering eyes. “You know Hamlet? Well, knowing it is one thing, understanding it, that, my boy, is another thing.”

  “I think I would understand it far more if I saw it performed on a stage.”

  Evidently, Sherman approved this reply, since he made a noise that sounded like approval.

  “Here, here, how can you hold your knife and fork that way—?” He grabbed up the boy’s hands one after the other and turned back the sleeves with a roughness that belied the compassion behind the gesture.

  “Thank you, sir.” The boy looked up at him gratefully.

  “Watching you laden down with all that equipment just now reminded me of the recruits I saw in Washington when I was there in June last year. Their uniforms were as various as the states and cities from which they came. Their arms were also of every pattern and caliber and they too were so loaded down with coats, haversacks, knapsacks, tents, baggage, and cooking utensils that it took from twenty-five to fifty wagons to move the camp of a regiment from one place to another.” Sherman puffed and reflected. “Some of the camps had their own bakeries and cooking establishments that would have done credit to Delmonico’s!” He was still laughing that strange hiccupping laughter as he sat on a camp chair on the other side of the small table, his frock coat hanging open by the side of his narrow thighs, cigar ash falling onto his already dusty vest. His old-fashioned “sideboard”-collar shirt was ringed in grime and his dickey bow had gone awry, hanging limply, as though it had given up any effort to look military. “Where do you come from, my boy?”

  “Far from here, sir.”

  “We all come far from here. Where does your mother live?”

  “I have no mother, sir, only a Father in heaven.”

  The boy stared at the general and the general, who had lost his own father at nine and his mother when still a young man, thought he understood.

  “An orphan. Well, there are worse things.”

  “Such as politicians and newspapermen?” the boy suggested, knowing the general’s loathing for both professions.

  “Quite so,” the general confirmed, smoking his cigar and laughing again. “Where were you educated?”

  “I hope, sir, to learn about soldiering from you.”

  “We’ll see, we’ll see.”

  “Sir, I am an excellent reader, and can read to you at night when you are too weary even to hold a book. I can read to you from all your favorite writers, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Dickens. I can even read to you from your book of Shakespeare, sir, if you wish it.”

  “How do you know my favorite writers?” The general looked at his footlocker stacked high with books. “Ah—very observant. A good soldier must be observant.”

  “I’ll rise before dawn and bring you coffee. I only want to serve you, sir.”

  “You can serve me best by serving your country.”

  “I want to ride into battle beside you, sir.” For emphasis, as though it were a saber, not a bent eating utensil, the boy waved the fork in the air and a piece of chicken that had been hanging there precariously finally dropped into his lap. The boy retrieved it hastily and returned it to his tin plate.

  “To ride into battle beside a general you must first be an officer. Have you ever fired a gun?”

  “No sir, but I’m a very fast learner. Anything you teach me I will retain forever.”

  “‘An excellent reader’ and a ‘fast learner’ are you? You don’t lack for confidence, that’s a fact.” The commander seemed to make up his mind about something, since he got abruptly to his feet and, calling over his shoulder, “Wait here,” left the tent.

  The young soldier looked around the interior, so plain, so practical, the absolute barest of necessities, cot, campstools, small folding table, the battered wooden footlocker with his name stenciled on the lid, and the books. Well-thumbed copies of Robert Burns’s collected poems, Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and Hamlet, and on the table, Scott’s Rob Roy, from which several paper markers protruded. Beside that an inkwell, a pen, and some sheets of paper, covered with his bold, assertive hand, a candleholder with the stub of a candle, the flame fluttering in a draft, by which the young soldier read several lines of the unfinished letter:

  Dearest Ellen—Let what occur you may rest assured that the devotion and affection you have exhibited in the past winter has endeared you more than ever, and that if it should so happen that I can regain my position and self respect and should Peace ever be restored I will labor hard for you and our children.

  “Now we’ll see just how fast you learn!” Sherman burst in, a musket in one hand, a cartridge box in the other.

  “The first question is, do you know which end out of which to shoot?”

  The boy grinned, screwed up his freckled nose. “Oh yes, sir.”

  “Then we are indeed on the way to making you a soldier. Now listen well, for your very life may depend upon it. This is a Springfield model 1861 rifled and sighted musket, which takes a .58-caliber minié ball. Do you know what a minié ball is? The men call them ‘minnie’ balls. Invented by Claude Minié, a Frenchman, the ball and musket, or shoulder arm, is deadly at any range up to five hundred yards. Are you listening carefully—for there will be no time for revision.”

  The boy repeated all he had heard so far, not at all like a parrot, so much so that his excitable, enthusiastic instructor said, “Splendid, splendid,” and clapped him on his narrow back.

  Without preliminaries the general swept up papers and pen, threw them onto the cot and laid cartridge, percussion cap, bullet, ramrod, on the table, identifying them one by one, as the young soldier repeated each name. He took the boy through the procedure for loading the musket. He showed him how to tear the cartridge at the corner of his mouth, pour the powder into the barrel, and ram a bullet down on top of it.

  “Then,” Sherman gravely instructed, “it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to put a percussion cap under the hammer. Unless you do this, you can pull the trigger until kingdom come without discharging your piece.”

  As Sherman spoke, the young soldier’s gaze moved back and forth from the gun to the man’s grim features. At forty-two, his dark red hair was already in retreat from the domed brow and his gaunt cheeks bore the early ravages of past failures and present anxieties. It was a face of such strength and character that the boy thought it like a canvas upon which fate would etch every moment of passion and pain that was to come, finally turning it into a flesh-and-blood monument to integrity, courage, and patriotism. The boy thought that into that suffering face every man, woman, and child in America would one day be able to gaze and know the pain of a nation at war with itself.

  “At the command ‘load’ you will
stand your rifle upright between your feet, the muzzle end in your left hand held eight inches from your body, at the same time moving the right hand to your cartridge box on your belt. There”—he indicated just about where the boy would locate it—“at ‘handle cartridge’ you will bring the paper-wrapped powder and bullet from the box and place the powder into the muzzle, like so, and the minié ball into the bore. Are you following every movement?” he demanded sharply, showing the boy the ball.

  The boy said he was, an alert look in his eye confirming that truth.

  “Then draw the rammer, which will send the bullet down the bore to sit on the powder charge. Replace the rammer and prime!” The general brought the weapon up and extended it outward from his spare frame with his left hand while with his right he pulled back the hammer to the half-cock position, explaining all as he proceeded. Then he reached into the cap pouch, removed a cap and placed it onto the nipple. “Now comes the moment of truth—Shoulder!” he cried loudly, took the appropriate foot stance and brought the rifle up to a vertical position at his right side, his right hand on the lock, his thumb pulling the hammer back to full cock. “Aim!” Up went the rifle to his right shoulder, his cheek to the butt so that he could sight between the opened V at the rear and over the muzzle. His finger hovered against the trigger and his hoarse voice bellowed “Fire!”

  It was at this very moment that the tent flap was thrown aside and a well-built individual appeared, brandishing an army Colt .44, followed in close order by as many of the headquarters guard and their muskets that could squeeze into the tent. Bringing up the rear was the bemused Lieutenant Lewis.

  “What in blue blazes—Gen’al—?” The tall, imposing-looking man with the pistol halted in his tracks as the commander of the Fifth Division stood there pointing a rifle at him.

  Immediately Sherman brought the piece carefully to his side.

  “Gall darn it, Gen’al, I thought you were being dragged outa here by Rebs.”

  This officer was wearing a large brown felt hat with a wide brim and a high crown of the type cowpokes wore to shield them from rain and sun. He looked as though he had just arrived from a cattle drive, only instead of leather chaps and a dust coat, he was wearing Union blue and the shoulder straps of a captain. Under the hat, his strong features had been burned permanently brown.

  “Relax, Captain Jackson, there’s no one here but me and this raw recruit, whom I am instructing on the loading and discharging of a firearm. We’re enjoying ourselves enormously, aren’t we, my boy?”

  The boy, who was now standing rigidly to attention, smiled saucily at the captain and saluted. “Yes sir, enormously.”

  The officer nodded. He had known the commander too long to be surprised or alarmed by any eccentric behavior, or his fits of anxiety and rage. But it didn’t stop the captain from staring suspiciously at the boy out of small, deep-set gray eyes buried beneath thick gray brows. “Darn it, Gen’al,” said he tearing off that large hat, “I thought you were bein’ hauled outa here by Rebs.” The man had a deep, manly voice; both this and his demeanor gave the impression of someone accustomed to being obeyed without the need to raise his voice or his hand.

  “Yes, yes.” Sherman placed a placating hand on the taller man’s arm. “So you said, Andy, so you said, sir.” He turned to the headquarters guard: “Good night, gentlemen, and thank you for your vigilance.”

  As Sherman let the tent flap down, the lasting vision in the boy’s brain was of six open-mouthed enlisted men and one incredulous lieutenant.

  “Well—just so long as yer okay, Gen’al—” said Captain Jackson, still looking distrustfully at the boy out of those gray, wrinkled eyes. He tugged on his thick Western mustache, a truly impressive affair, iron-gray like his brows and his eyes and his thick collar-length hair.

  “Jesse Davis,” the boy said, introducing himself, though he hadn’t been asked.

  “Boy?” Although it seemed impossible to Jesse Davis, one small gray eye got even smaller as the captain inclined that impressive head. “Did you say Jeff Davis?”

  “No sir.” The boy laughed. “Jesse Davis, sir.”

  “Private Davis?” Jackson wanted to know.

  The boy did something strange then. He glanced at his sleeve, devoid of any rank, as if, it seemed to Jackson, he needed to check, and said, “Yes sir, Private Davis.”

  The Hoosier then mumbled something that sounded like “Awell—” He slipped his Colt back into its worn leather holster and said good night to the general. He shot a final warning glance at the boy that made it crystal clear he wasn’t going far and could be back, pistol drawn, should this Jesse Davis, who didn’t seem to know if he was a private, turn out to be a young Rebel bushwhacker.

  “Come along, Private, now it’s your turn, load and fire!” Sherman said excitedly.

  The boy now took the general through the entire exercise, repeating word for word the exact instructions, and doing it in a bright and lively manner that showed he had understood the reason for every action and had not merely learned the procedure by rote. Even then, the Ohioan could not be silent but had to interpose excitedly every few minutes with a wave of the cigar, as though he thought, or perhaps hoped, the boy needed a refresher. How long was it since he had had a room filled with eager young faces hungry for instruction? Too damn long.

  “Splendid! Splendid! You are a fine student. You will make corporal in no time, no time at all.”

  “Do you really think so, sir?”

  “No question, no question. You will rise swiftly through the ranks. I myself will keep an eye on your progress.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The boy spoke and saluted so seriously that Sherman laughed his hoarse, crackling laughter that was so much a match to his snapping, croaky speech that the boy marveled and started to laugh himself, uncertainly, nervously.

  “Never mind, never mind,” said Sherman patting the boy on the shoulder. “I’m not laughing at you, my boy. Your enthusiasm is admirable, admirable, though a good soldier needs more than enthusiasm to survive. It’s the knowledge of little details of camp life that keeps men alive. I’ve always believed that distributing the raw recruits, like you, among the older men, the veterans of even one battle, those already familiar with the rigors of camp life and campaigning, will give the youngsters a better chance of survival. You can learn from your older, more experienced comrades the mechanics of drill, the care and use of arms, and all the necessary scraps of information it would otherwise take months to pick up, and in the meantime it would be too late for the raw recruit, he’d be dead. For instance, there’s a habit you might care to adopt when you go into battle. Take a piece of paper, write your name, company and regiment, and the address of your family, someone you wish to have notified should you be wounded or killed, then pin it to your coat so that the surgeon will be able to identify you.”

  The boy thought for a moment and then said, “Sir, since I have no family, would it be acceptable for me to write your name on the paper?”

  Sherman stared at the boy. The youth had a black mark at the corner of his full mouth where he had torn open the cartridge as instructed. The commander turned away, made a great fuss of finding something in his footlocker, was bent over it with his back to the boy for a full minute before he turned again and said in a voice both emotional and overbrisk,

  “Read this, it will help you master drill and bayonet exercise.”

  The well-worn, blue soft-cover book was entitled Patten’s Infantry Tactics, published in 1861. On the cover, the boy noted, was a personal endorsement by George McClellan. Knowing that general’s unimpressive reputation thus far in the conflict, the boy wondered if this was in the book’s favor or not. Though McClellan was indeed highly thought-of for making that unruly mob of independent-minded citizens called the Potomac Army into real soldiers, he didn’t appear very eager to march them off to fight anyone.

  “Thank you very much, sir, I’ll take good care of the book and return it to you.”

  “I know you will. I know you will. Yes, read it and I’ll loan you another. Wait!” Again, he was gone.