The Better Angels of Our Nature (21 page)

“Enough!” he suddenly bellowed, staring at Jesse with piercing bloodshot eyes as she started to apply the cotton dressing. “Stop bandaging me up like a goddamn Egyptian mummy. By the time you’re finished, Beauregard will be across the Ohio and we’ll all be whistling Dixie.” The narrowed eyes twinkled with amusement, though the tension at the corners of his firm mouth showed he was in pain. He extended the finished article for Grant and McPherson to see, cleaned, probed, and dressed. However, Jesse wasn’t finished yet. She was trying to unbutton his blouse. “What in hell—?” She explained that he had taken a second wound, in his shoulder. He looked to the right shoulder and then to the left. To his amazement, the strap was severed and the bloodied flesh exposed. “Another scratch,” he said, covering it up with the piece of cloth that now hung loose.

“The wound needs to be cleaned and dressed, sir, otherwise it’ll become inflamed.”

“I told you, it’s a scratch,” his hoarse voice declared as his eyes glared at her.

“Sorry. The
scratch
on your shoulder needs to be cleaned and dressed, otherwise it’ll become inflamed,” Jesse said again, holding his gaze with arched red brows.

“Damn
you,
Corporal, I can’t decide if you’re insolent, obsequious, or dim-witted, but when I have decided you may be sure you’ll receive the appropriate punishment. Get on with it.” He jammed the cigar into his mouth.

He was now sitting on the edge of the hardtack box, his hat far down over narrowed eyes, a cigar in his mouth, stripped to the waist, looking like a bad-tempered comical old bird stripped of his feathers and perched on a branch. His skin was very white, with nothing to relieve the pallor but a patch of red hair on his narrow chest. His shoulders and arms were spare, the sinews stood out in his neck like cords. He was truly a bony man, with an almost feminine slenderness, but by no means lacking in physical strength.

As Jesse poured a little fresh water onto a piece of lint and used it to clean the wound on his shoulder she gazed up to see James McPherson watching her with a queer, inquisitive, even puzzled expression in those kindly brown eyes. What he could see was a look of utterly rapt devotion. She smiled at him and he looked away, almost uncomfortably. She placed a fresh wad of lint on the wound and used two strips of adhesive tape to keep it in place.

“Very professional,” Sherman said, putting on his frock coat and wincing. “Now get away before
you
need the attentions of a surgeon.”

Unfazed, Jesse made a sling from some rag she had in the bottom of her haversack and before he knew what was happening she’d drawn his arm through. Words of loud and angry protest formed on his lips, but it was Grant who forestalled them.

“You should keep the arm rested overnight, Sherman.”

Sherman’s response would have made a seasoned sailor blush.

For a while, the two men discussed what had transpired on other parts of the battlefield. Then Grant said, “We can afford to be optimistic, time is on our side. The enemy has done all he can today. Tomorrow morning, with Lew Wallace’s division and fresh troops of the Ohio Army, we’ll soon finish him up.” He laid a hand on the Ohioan’s arm. “Be ready to assume the offensive in the morning.”

“Corporal Davis, you did a splendid job on my hand, splendid.” Sherman half-flexed his fingers and winced, winking at McPherson. “Don’t hurt a bit, not a bit.”

She had wiped and replaced her instruments in their little plush-lined case and packed her haversack. Now she asked, “Sir, may I have some time to deal with a personal matter?”

“Of course, my boy,” he said, leaning over to squeeze her shoulder, “you earned it.” As she prepared to leave, Sherman called her name, then in a loud voice so that all standing by could hear he said, “You acquitted yourself with much personal courage today, you stood your ground when many others, older than you, and far more experienced, broke and ran. Here,” He tossed her a “segar,” which she caught easily with one hand. “Despite the fact you appear unable to grow a beard, you’re no longer a boy, but a man.”

For the second time that day Jesse found herself staring at the endless rows of dead and wounded, laid out along the Landing.

“
The City of Memphis
is the only hospital boat,” the orderly replied in response to her inquiry, as he paused to squeeze the blood from a piece of rag he was using to dampen the bandages on the stump of an amputated leg. “She’s been up to Savannah a’ready. Got seven hundred wounded onboard this trip. Them three,” he pointed at the transports still hugging the shore at the lower end of the Landing while several more sat motionless in midriver, “they got plenty a wounded on there, end to end wounded you might say. Not a inch of space between them. I was on there earlier. Your wounded officer might a been taken there, or the others. No tellin’ which. I heard tell they got every buildin’ upriver filled with wounded, every schoolhouse, hotel, church, and residence. There ain’t no room for no more. See them boats there, they might look like wooden tubs floatin’ in the water all peaceful like but when it gets real dark they’re gonna wake up those Rebels who are sleepin’ mighty peaceful in our old camps. Have yer taken a look at them laid out here fer yer colonel?”

A young cavalry lieutenant walked by and ripped off one of the blankets, revealing a body without a head.

“Goddamn it,” said the medical orderly, “ain’t yer got no respect?”

“To hell with you, I lost my horse, lost my outfit, near lost my life.
He
don’t need it no more and
I’m
getting wet.” With that, he wrapped the blanket around his shoulders Indian-style, clasped his carbine to his chest, and strode away.

Jesse gazed up to heaven. It had started to rain. Many of the wounded left under the blazing sun since early morning had become dehydrated, and were groaning for water; their dressings, or rather the makeshift bandages that had been applied, were already filthy and blood-soaked. There were few medical attendants and still fewer surgeons. “I’m sorry to keep asking you—” she began, crouching beside the orderly.

“Ain’t your fault if’in yer lookin’ fer a friend. Hey, Jamie?” he called down the row of prostrate men. “Eleventh Illinoise? Seen any?”

“Boy over there,” Jamie shouted back immediately, “the one nursin’ his hand, I think he’s Eleventh.”

Jesse looked across the crowded wood landing to the boy with straw-colored hair sitting up against a barrel cupping a blood-soaked hand against his chest like a child protecting a bird with a broken wing.

“Water—” said the boy on the next litter. “—Please—”

“I’m comin’, old friend,” said the orderly. “—Hold yer horses, I’m comin’.”

But Jesse had already gone to him with her canteen.

“Much ’bliged,” said the orderly, “we ain’t got much a anythin’ here ’cept wounded. No beddin’, no tents, no hay for beddin’, no salves nor stimulants. A lot a the regiments lost their medical supplies in the attack. Left ’em behind in the old camps. Rebs got ’em now, I reckon.”

He watched with interest as Jesse opened her haversack and proceeded to clean the exposed wound on the boy’s left shoulder. “You dun this afore, I can tell.” She gave the boy another drink, then pushed the stopper back into the neck.

“I’d leave you the canteen and my haversack,” she told the orderly, “but if I find the colonel he may need my help.”

“That’s okay, we got plenty a water. Water we got, it’s willin’ hands we need. I hope yer find yer officer.”

“Mama—” cried the boy whose shoulder Jesse had dressed, “mama—I want ma mama—”

“Well, I ain’t yer mama, boy, that’s for damn sure, but I guess I’ll have to do.”

Jesse went to the soldier with the mangled hand. When he lifted his blood-besmirched face, she was amazed to recognize one of the two enlisted men who had carried Thomas Ransom from the field that afternoon. “Private?” she said gently, “I’m sorry to bother you. Colonel Ransom, where did you take him?”

He stared at her, eyes half-closed with pain and fatigue. “Company K,” he said. “Private Martin Baker, Company K. Captain Carter’s gone. Shot through the head—I saw his brains spurting out, just as the battle commenced, saw them spurting out all over the ground.”

“I’m sorry,” Jesse said, “I’m sorry about Captain Carter, but do you remember where you took Colonel Ransom?”

“Oh my Lord—they say Colonel Wallace is gone. I heard the officers talking. Is that true, do you reckon? Colonel Wallace used ter command the Eleventh afore they made him a gen’al. He used to be our commanding officer afore Colonel Ransom.” The boy stared into her eyes blankly. “Now they’re all gone—all gone, Captain Carter—General Wallace—”

“Please, try and remember, this afternoon you carried Colonel Ransom from Jones Field.” She gave Private Baker a little shake as his eyes drooped closed.
“Where did you take him?”

“Colonel Ransom?” His eyes opened again and showed recognition. “We took him to the commissary ship. There was no room on the
Memphis.
”

“Let me look at your hand,” she said removing the blood-soaked piece of torn shirt he had wrapped around the wound. A minié ball had gone clean through the center of the palm. She applied a clean bandage, putting as much pressure as she dared to stem the flow of blood, for she couldn’t trust this boy to remain conscious enough to loosen a tourniquet and there was no one else to do it. The orderlies already had enough on their plate. She slipped the hand into his shirt, made him as comfortable as she could, gave him a little morphine, and held the bottle as he swallowed a mouthful of the whiskey she brought from her haversack. When the shock wore off he would be in great pain, but for now, she could delay the inevitable. Seeing the young soldier’s dazed smile surface above the dirt- and blood-besmirched features she silently blessed Dr. Cartwright and Jacob for taking the trouble to teach her these basic skills. It was impossible to offer comfort and solace to all, but to be unable to help just one of these suffering men would have been intolerable.

The scene that greeted Jesse on the commissary ship
Continental
was shocking. She moved up the side of the gangway so as not to take up too much space as the wounded were littered from the Landing to the hurricane deck, already crammed to capacity. Straw and hay had been scattered around to absorb the blood. Wounded men, forced to remain on their feet because there was nowhere to sit, let alone lie down, were swaying with exhaustion, loss of blood, and pain. As she passed, searching every haggard face for those admired features, hands stretched out begging weakly for water. Others merely stood and stared into nothingness. Here and there, she stopped when a moan, a sigh, became too much for her to bear. She gave water, words of comfort, but with a pang of desperation and guilt she realized she would never find the colonel if she stopped every few seconds to help.

Her clumsy brogues slipped on the blood-soaked stairway as she went below. Here the chaos was compounded by the smell. In the close confines, the stench was almost overpowering. Every inch of space had been taken with the wounded, cabin, stairs, gangways, some with the most ghastly wounds, faces mangled, stomachs torn open, arms or legs gone, joints splintered and shattered, vile testimony to the devastating power of Captain Claude Minié’s conical ball. Horrified she watched as the few medical orderlies trampled helplessly over the wounded in their efforts to reach those furthest away.

“Sir—” She stopped a man in midflight, spotting the caduceus on his sleeve. “—Please—I’m looking for—”

“See the orderlies!” he barked and ran on, a distracted look on his face, a severed foot just visible in the scrap of blanket he held in his arms.

“No time!” an elderly man in a civilian suit stained with blood shouted into her face, when she spoke to him, and then “If you’re not here to help, for pity’s sake get out of the way. Get out of the way, you little fool!” He ran off responding to the cry of “Surgeon! Surgeon needed here!”

As she stepped carefully over the wounded, cold, bloodless hands clutched at her. Looking down she noticed for the first time that the bottoms of her trousers were soaked in blood and hanging heavy about her ankles.

She entered a large area that had been stripped of furniture. Here the wounded were laid side by side with barely a breath between them. There were no cots, just coarse feed sacks loosely stuffed with hay, no thicker than a blanket, called bed-sacks.

Standing in the midst of this suffering humanity she suddenly, miraculously, saw him, third bed-sack from the end, covered with an army blanket that was moth-eaten and dirty. The pillow beneath his head, if a filthy linen envelope no wider than a handkerchief stuffed with a few hay stalks could be termed as such, was stained with blood.

The colonel came to himself, his eyelids fluttering open as she knelt beside him. He stared at her with those big, deep-set eyes, soft now in pain, without any hint of the murderous steeliness she had seen that afternoon in Jones Field. “Water—” he murmured.

She lifted his head and put the canteen to his thin sculptured lips. He drank thirstily, his bewildered gaze on her face.

“It’s Jesse, sir,” she told him, tears starting to her eyes, “Jesse—Corporal Davis. Do you know me?”

His bewilderment turned to incredulity. “Corporal Davis? What…what are…you doing…here?”

“I came to find out how badly you’d been injured—” Before she finished speaking, he had faded again with a feeble moan.

She laid his head carefully on the pillow and dripped a little water on the piece of shirt she had wrapped around his head; dried blood had stuck it fast to his scalp. Then she used a clean piece of cloth to bind the wound. It would do the trick until he reached the hospital; at least the wound had stopped bleeding. She wished she could find a clean blanket and a proper pillow. She stared at the colonel’s face. Lying there helpless, drawn and pale from loss of blood, he looked younger than his twenty-eight years, not the same man who had sliced away the top of a man’s head with his saber, albeit one that had just plunged his bayonet into Old Bob’s side.