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Read Ebook: Gettysburg: Stories of the Red Harvest and the Aftermath by Singmaster Elsie
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Ebook has 684 lines and 32329 words, and 14 pages
"Here?" said Mary Bowman stupidly.
"Get out!" said Hannah Casey. "There ain't nobody here to fight with!"
The soldier rode his horse to Hannah Casey's door, and began to pound with his sword.
"I live there!" screamed Hannah. "You dare to bang that door!"
Mary Bowman crossed the street and looked up at him as he sat on his great horse.
"I do."
"In Gettysburg?" Hannah Casey could scarcely speak for rage.
"In Gettysburg."
"Where there are women and children?" screamed Hannah. "And gardens planted? I'd like to see them in my garden, I--"
"Get into your cellars," commanded the soldier. "You'll be safe there."
"Sir!" Mary Bowman went still a little closer. The crisis in the Deemer house was not yet passed, even at the best it was doubtful whether Agnes Wilson could survive the hour of her trial, and Grandma McAtee was dying. "Sir!" said Mary Bowman, earnestly, ignorant of the sublime ridiculousness of her reminder, "there are women and children here whom it might kill."
The man laughed a short laugh.
"Oh, my God!" He leaned a little from his saddle. "Listen to me, sister! I have lost my father and two brothers in this war. Get into your cellars."
With that he rode down the street.
"He's a liar," cried Hannah Casey. She started to run after him. "Go out to Peterson's field to do your fighting," she shouted furiously. "Nothing will grow there! Go out there!"
Then she stopped, panting.
The soldier took time to turn and grin and wave his hand.
"He's a liar," declared Hannah Casey once more. "Early's went. There ain't nothing to fight with."
Still scolding, she joined Mary Bowman on her porch. Mary Bowman stood looking through the house at her children, playing in the little field. They still played quietly; it seemed to her that they had never ceased to miss their father.
Then Mary Bowman looked down the street. In the Diamond the movement was more rapid, the crowd was thicker. Women had come out to the doorsteps, men were hurrying about. It seemed to Mary that she heard Mrs. Deemer scream. Suddenly there was a clatter of hoofs; a dozen soldiers, riding from the town, halted and began to question her. Their horses were covered with foam; they had come at a wild gallop from Seminary Ridge.
"This is the road to Baltimore?"
"Yes."
"Straight ahead?"
"Yes."
Gauntleted hands lifted the dusty reins.
"You'd better protect yourself! There is going to be a battle."
"Here?" asked Mary Bowman again stupidly.
"Right here."
Hannah Casey thrust herself between them.
"Who are you goin' to fight with, say?"
The soldiers grinned at her. They were already riding away.
"With the Turks," answered one over his shoulder.
Another was kinder, or more cruel.
"Sister!" he explained, "it is likely that two hundred thousand men will be engaged on this spot. The whole Army of Northern Virginia is advancing from the north, the whole Army of the Potomac is advancing from the south, you--"
The soldier did not finish. His galloping comrades had left him, he hastened to join them. After him floated another accusation of lying from the lips of Hannah Casey. Hannah was irritated because the Bateses were right.
"Hannah!" said Mary Bowman thickly. "I told you how I dreamed I heard them marching. It was as though they came in every road, Hannah, from Baltimore and Taneytown and Harrisburg and York. The roads were full of them, they were shoulder against shoulder, and their faces were like death!"
Hannah Casey grew ghastly white. Superstition did what common sense and word of man could not do.
"So you did!" she whispered; "so you did!"
Mary Bowman clasped her hands and looked about her, down the street, out toward the Seminary, back at the grim trees. The little sounds had died away; there was now a mighty stillness.
"He said the whole Army of the Potomac," she repeated. "John is in the Army of the Potomac."
"That is what he said," answered the Irishwoman.
"What will the Deemers do?" cried Mary Bowman. "And the Wilsons?"
"God knows!" said Hannah Casey.
Suddenly Mary Bowman lifted her hands above her head.
"Look!" she screamed.
"What?" cried Hannah Casey. "What is it?"
Mary Bowman went backwards toward the door, her eyes still fixed on the distant ridge, as though they could not be torn away. It was nine o'clock; a shrill little clock in the house struck the hour.
"Children!" called Mary Bowman. "Come! See!"
The children dropped the little sticks with which they played and ran to her.
"What is it?" whined Hannah Casey.
Mary Bowman lifted the little boy to her shoulder. A strange, unaccountable excitement possessed her, she hardly knew what she was doing. She wondered what a battle would be like. She did not think of wounds, or of blood or of groans, but of great sounds, of martial music, of streaming flags carried aloft. She sometimes dreamed that her husband, though he had so unimportant a place, might perform some great deed of valor, might snatch the colors from a wounded bearer, and lead his regiment to victory upon the field of battle. And now, besides, this moment, he was marching home! She never thought that he might die, that he might be lost, swallowed up in the yawning mouth of some great battle-trench; she never dreamed that she would never see him again, would hunt for him among thousands of dead bodies, would have her eyes filled with sights intolerable, with wretchedness unspeakable, would be tortured by a thousand agonies which she could not assuage, torn by a thousand griefs beside her own. She could not foresee that all the dear woods and fields which she loved, where she had played as a child, where she had picnicked as a girl, where she had walked with her lover as a young woman, would become, from Round Top to the Seminary, from the Seminary to Culp's Hill, a great shambles, then a great charnel-house. She lifted the little boy to her shoulder and held him aloft.
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