Anyway, I wrote this short story as a fun exercise, and it's moderately based on that courthouse skirmish, though is mostly fiction. Check 'er ouuut.
Home Again
by Kevin Walsh
On the
occasion of I find myself here on this besparkled floor of the formerly Fairfax
County Courthouse turned battalion headquarters, here with my fine brother who
may soon bleed to death.
Well
the first thing we did was disobey Pa, who has this terrifying way of getting
angry only in short bursts of the most intense fury. Reminds me of like the
time me an’ Gilly forgot whose turn it was to milk Henrietta, for like a week,
then there was that awful mess. Anyway Pa made it perfectly clear enlistment
was not an option of viable character, owing to there was so much to be done
around the farm anyway what with us forgetting milking as it is, and so forth;
and furthermore we weren’t even technically old enough to be enlisting. But we
did anyway.
The
Rebs aren’t exactly bursting at the gullet on a banquet of able-bodied boys,
but it’s early yet. Both sides still hanging back at the barndance, too scared
to mingle more than a few whoops and hollers. Of course you got the seriously
better funded Union boys yonder ‘cross the river with actual ammunition fer
their guns, which is what one might call Essential.
So no way the Johnnie Rebs were about to turn down a couple able-bodied farm boys
with finely tuned arms and legs.
So
Gilly and I we sneaked out with Pa’s rifles and ended up being I think two of
about twelve fellers with ammo. The rest were getting themselves orientated in
the art of rattling a saber or bayonet loud enough to scare away a seriously better
equipped Union boy should one come riding over yonder. And but they stole our
Minies anyway for so-called ‘professional marksmen’, who in reality couldn’t
hit a cows behind with a shovel if it
walked right in front of ‘em.
That
night we got hiked off to picket duty, which actually wasn’t so bad. Me and
Gilly stationed all clandestine-like, which was just like we used to pretend
play. They gave us a bullet each for emergency recourse and said when all else
fails to fire that Minie then holler n run like a whipped mule. They hiked us
up Little River Turnpike, maybe a quarter-mile up thinking that’d be the road
the Union boys might venture, on the so-called ‘lowest of low chances’ that
there’d be any barnstorming that night. Normally you got a couple dozen or so
on picket duty, but nobody figgered any attack was imminent.
Well
let me tell you it was a god-damned ambush and by all rights should have been a
complete massacre except owing to the fact of the Union boys can’t shoot
neither. Me an’ Gilly were dug in playing Spit when Gilly tells me to shush and
did you hear that. And what we hear sounds like a god-damned stampede of
Savages, I ‘member Pa telling us about the War of the Indians and how you’d
hear ‘em whooping it up from miles away, sounding like they was already all
around you and ready to turn yer noggin into a gruesome headdress. But well
informed of the knowledge that our forbearers had brutally removed most of the Savages
already, Gilly and me figured this was the big Union line finally making a
first push toward Richmond on nearly the eve of Independence Day. A symbolic push to flatten us dissenters. And it
was.
Well
sort of. Gilly yelled a ‘Halt!’ but the words stuck in his barely post-pubic
throat at too high a register, and something went ZING right past his ear, then
little pockets of dirt danced all around us. The hollering got to an unkind
decibel of great proportions and, well, I am ashamed to say I fired my one shot
and then high-tailed it down the Turnpike back to the courthouse as was
strongly suggested. Unfortunately my brother of blood Gilly did not make it
back with me, to which I was unawares until my pulse stopped ringing in my ears
after sufficient time. Before collapsing I squeaked out ‘the enemy is upon us!’
and Capt. Marr, who commanded the Warrenton Rifles, tried to rouse his boys, on
whom you could smell the stench of true fear.
What I
did then was climb the highest tower I could find, of which there was only one
in the courthouse, so as to survey the scene. Except owing to a blanket
covering the stars and moon there was very little light other than the flashes
of rifles and the oily streak of a lantern or two. What I could see was all
chaos punctuated by Capt. Marr’s prodigious yelling, until the yelling
ominously stopped and boys in gray coats started in to flailing about like a
herd of sheep given chase by a coyote. What saved us were the good folk of
Fairfax City, taking battle into their own hands and firing volleys out
darkened windows at the lunatic band of Union boys, whom I have no proof but I
know what a man looks like when he’s riding a horse completely wallpapered, and
these Union boys were drunker than all get out. It’s a wonder they didn’t
slaughter each other with their own wayward volleys.
I want
to say the Union boys made three charges and were repelled each time by the aforementioned superbly pinpointed locals.
Though what they were after I couldn’t clearly tell. There couldn’t have been
more than 20 of ‘em, but they certainly kept the locals busier than a
one-legged man in a butt kicking contest for a few hours. At some point I
collapsed once again in the tower and only woke up when the sun’s rays peeked
over the maples across the Turnpike. What I felt was not pleasure or
gratefulness at being alive. There was no metaphorical attributation of the
sun’s rays being the Lord Himself’s fingers tickling the feeble consciousness
of my mind, or what not.
No, I just felt like a coward.
Plain and simple.
I went down with the other privates
to search the area for Capt. Marr. It took an hour of scourin but we found him
face up in a delicate patch of clover, honey bees buzzin round his ears. His
eyes were still open, absent of that special light and staring off into
whatever awaited him in the middle of the night. His hands were locked stiff
across his breast covering a horrific purpley bloom, but no open wound the eyes
could see. One of the privates speculated an indirect hit, probably even
friendly fire in the chaos of the Union boys’ drunken assault.
I wanted Home and I wanted it bad
but all I could think of was my lost brother and what a coward I’d been the
night before. I took another search party out by our picket station and
searched all up and down without finding any trace of poor Gilly.
You know how the old stories of war
and battle talk about things happening so fast that even with horrific events
there isn’t time sit and let the sadness wash over you? Well that’s a goddamned
lie I’m here to tell you. There is nuthin
but time to sit and reason why; there is also time to do and die, as the poem
goes. Please let it sink in that battle is hour upon hour of boredom punctuated
by the flashes of rifles in the dark and barely time to act at all. It’s all
instinct, and yours truly’s instinct was to cut and run. Then you get nothing
but nightfall to ponder your cowardice.
I volunteered for picket duty this
time, determined to prove some amount of worth to myself at the very least. And
maybe there would be the slim chance of Gilly’s reappearing from behind enemy lines. I had the slimmest of
hopes he was hiding until the cover of dark. So I got out there with my new
pardner, who didn’t have much to say, which is fine by me. I’d rather a silent
sentry pardner than somebody chatterin on and on about their miserable life til
the rooster calls.
In the quiet you got all sorts of
time to have yerself a good think. I thought about how we had disobeyed Pa and
what a wreck he and Ma must have been back at home. I thought about the time
Gilly came back from farmer Payne’s lot with this practically sparkling herb he
called True Divination, and we mixed it into our pipe tobacco then I promptly
went and got Pa’s wagon stuck in Woody’s Creek. Gilly heard me hollerin Help!
Help! due to figurin I’d broken many a bone, the fear catchin me like wild.
Turned out not a thing was wrong with my body and Gilly pulled both me and the
wagon out of the creek like it was nothin.
He always kept his head cool no
matter what was going on, and no matter what might have been churning inside
him. This here is real sad and he never much chattered about it, but he had a
little love fever for farmer Payne’s daughter Millicent for a real long time.
Always took over fresh herbs and vegetables for their family when we had extra
(which was often), but I know it was under the guise of seeing her. Farmer
Payne was always trying to set her up with some needle-nosed suck-up at the
church he ran up the hill, so half the time Gilly went over there some Catholic
numb-nuts was sparkin her up a storm. Then last winter Millie took to a raging
fever and went so quickly it’s like the Lord Himself scrubbed her from life’s
record. Gilly didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye, went over one night to
an empty bed haloed in her fever-sweat.
After that, there was something a little
more tired about Gilly. Like he was there physically but his moorings weren’t
tied so tight anymore. I wish I’d been able to parlez with him but talking
things out was never my strong suit. Things like that’d get me so
uncomfortable, I’d just laugh in a way that isn’t funny and say something like
“Well ‘least now you don’t have to worry about folks givin you guff for being
Millie and Gilly.” Wasn’t too long after that that Gilly, known our whole lives
to hold a skeptical and unpopular brain between his ears on the subject of
religion, started in on joining up the Rebel cause mainly as a way to get a
glimpse of, Gilly’s words, ‘the Lord Almighty Incarnate Himself Gen. Robert E.
Lee.’ Which sounded exactly like the kind of balderdash that farmer Payne would
spout and Gilly would make fun of behind his back.
But love fever is a gravitational
force of its own and puts a man through the mill, especially on account of the
object of your fever practically evaporating before anyone knows what’s going
on. And I’d never been one to question Gilly before and certainly wasn’t about
to in his time of low spirits. Now Gilly was in serious trouble and I needed to
stuff all my courage together and help him.
It was at this point that my silent
sentry pardner gave me a tap on the shoulder and a little “Did you hear that?”
nod of the head in the direction of some woods up the Turnpike. I had in fact
heard a rustling, so the two of us quickly fixed bayonets to go clandestinely
investigate. Odds were it was some type of small animal, or a deer, but my body
was filling with adrenaline hoping I’d get my hands on a Union boy for some old
fashioned redemption.
We plopped down behind some thick
brush and heard the noise again, but this night the moonlight was just strong
enough to make out several figures against the tree line maybe 20 yards away.
My pardner and I gave each other a look and held our ground. This was it, the
second ambush, and one of us needed to warn the camp, except on account of what
happened last night neither of us wanted to leave the other alone. One of the
figures was slowly moving this way while the others seemed to lag back where
they stood. When it got to about 10 yards away I gathered up my courage and
aimed my rifle, shouting, “Halt there! Identify yourself or we’ll open the
ball!” Normally you’d have 30 or 40 guys running a picket so I added a little
bluff to my call-out, “We got a whole line of muskets trained on yer position,
identify yerself!”
But nothing happened. The figure
looked a little unsteady, but was moving even closer despite my warnings. I
didn’t actually have any ammunition, though my pardner did. I told him to cover
me and I went out from my position and started sneakin to where the figure was
moving. I got close enough to where in the moonlight I could see the figure’s
blue coat and kepi hat (ours were rag-tag forage caps). I didn’t know what the
hell this Union muggins was doing but he was just about on my pardner’s
position when the phenomenal crack of
a rifle shattered the night silence and sent me into a momentary conniption. I
charged at the Union boy with the whoop of a savage and got him right in the
bread basket with my pig sticker. A couple more shots rang out as me and the
Union boy sank to the ground. I felt a terrific rush, then terror at the
reality of my actions, that I had actually just charged this countryman of mine
with animalistic fury with the simple aim of ending his life. I felt quite
peaked.
On top of the boy with my bayonet
still lodged under his breast bone, a familiar scent hit me and I immediately
recoiled stronger than any rifle. I dragged the boy over into a little clearing
where the moonlight showed what my heart already knew.
It was Gilly, blindfolded, gagged
and dressed up in a Yankee uniform.
Now they say we’re moving out, that
the actual General Lee everyone seems to believe is some kind of walking deity
is taking us down to Manassas where he’s staging a real build up of Confederate
men with an actual battle plan. Only it’s a bit hard to know if either side
really knows what it is they’re fighting for. Only time’s fullness can tell if
there is something here truly worth fighting for; but right now there’s all
this anguish for what seems like dumb macho pride more than anything else.
All I know now is poor Gilly here,
dying of wounds committed by my hand, just wants a glimpse of the General before
he passes on to wherever it is his girl Millie went. And I’ll be damned if he
slips under before seeing him, even if it strikes me as a notion of insane
proportions. But at least he believed in something before the end.
You hear that, Gilly? Stay with us
just a bit longer, hold on tight brother, the General's comin to take you home again.
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