Chapter XXVIII In Field and Camp
When the First Nebraska Volunteers embarked at Omaha under the command of Colonel John M. Thayer, on July twenty-first, Joe and Elijah Peniman and Herbert James went with it.
The troops were raw and undisciplined, the equipment poor, food scanty and hard to get.
The Peniman boys, neither of whom had ever been away from home before, were desperately homesick, and seeing the sordidness of war, its meanness, its dirtiness and its horrors at close range, and losing some of their high vision in the daily muck and grind, came gradually almost to believe that their father was right, and that they had gone against his will, violated the faith of their childhood, and broken their mother’s heart to follow a chimera that could only end in utter defeat.
For weeks they got no nearer to war than a hot, dirty, disorderly, unsanitary camp, where they were drilled from morning till night with aching shoulders and blistered feet, marched and countermarched under a broiling sun, eating hard-tack and sow-belly, and drinking water from foul ponds and muddy streams, and sleeping in fever-ridden swamps under rain that poured down upon them continually.
For a long time Joe avoided his brother. The sight of Lige, so big and handsome in his uniform, with his bright brown eyes, his rich color, the dark curly hair that fell over his forehead under the vizor of his soldier-cap, roused in him a bitterness that he could not overcome.
The knowledge that had come upon him so suddenly was a well-established fact in his mind now. He knew that he loved Nina. Knew that he loved her with all the power and strength and passion of his young manhood. Not as a brother loves a sister, but as a man loves the one woman in all the world for him.
He could not banish her from his mind. In camp, in field, on march, standing guard in the rain at night, waiting for the signal to go into battle, her face was always before him.
It angered him to see that Lige was not suffering as he suffered. He did not appear to be eating out his heart for her. He larked and sang with the other boys (for they were boys—mere boys—these defenders of the nation’s integrity), and before many weeks had passed had become one of the most popular men in the regiment.
Joe could not tell his trouble to Herbert—of whom he had grown very fond. That there had come an estrangement in his heart toward Lige, that brother who had always been almost like another self, was a thing of which he could not speak.
But Lige did not seem to notice. So far as Joe could see he treated him as he always had, with his jolly, careless affection. As soon as their drilling days were over and they were moved forward into action he seemed to become possessed with the spirit of war. The excitement, the danger, the fighting, the constant sense of adventure appealed to his spirited, adventuresome nature, and he threw himself into action with an ardor that raised him from a private to a corporal in a short time. Whatever his thoughts, whatever his emotions, Joe could see that he found no time to put them on paper or to dwell much upon them in his own mind.
Transportation was poor and the distance great, and they heard from home only at rare intervals. They had been gone two months when Joe received a small package one day, which, when he tore it open eagerly, he found to contain a daguerreotype of Nina.
Poor as was the early effort at photography, the face that smiled up at him from the shiny glass was so lovely that it caught his heart like a vise and left him gasping.
She was eighteen now—a woman! And in the proudly poised little head, the small oval face, the great violet eyes and the shining nimbus of golden hair there was that distinction that had always marked her as different from all others.
He was curious to know if she had sent a picture to Lige, but could not bring himself to ask. The letter, which reached him at the same time, was like all her letters, clever, witty, affectionate, sisterly letters, such as Ruth or Sara might have written, and did write on occasion.
The daguerreotype was in a little hinged case, which he carried in the pocket of his tunic over his heart for the remainder of the war.
Throughout the years of ’61 and ’62 the cause of the Union suffered many disasters. The defeat and rout of the battle of Bull Run had a most demoralizing effect on the Federal army. It demonstrated the fact that the soldiers needed more drilling and the army better organization before success on the field of battle was possible. General McClellan, in charge of the Grand Army of the Potomac, dallied and delayed, while the South pushed on winning victory after victory. In spite of the victories which the Northern arms had gained in the West the winter was a gloomy one. But the campaign of 1863 brought new hope to the nation. The battle of Shiloh was fought and won, Lee was beaten back at Antietam, and the news of the proclamation of emancipation went flashing over the world.
At the beginning of 1863 the army in the West under General Rosecrans was near Chattanooga. Vicksburg and the whole Southwest was in danger, and the whole Union army was being pushed vigorously forward. The division of which Joe and Elijah Peniman and Herbert James were a part were rushed north to check Lee, who, after victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, was pushing north, even as far as southern Pennsylvania. The opposing forces met at Gettysburg, and the three boys were hurled into one of the most stubborn and bloody battles of the war. The battalion with which they were connected had to cross a valley several hundred yards in width. On the left rose a hill which was being riddled with shot and shell. Joe, who was now a sergeant, was on the extreme left of the advance, his platoon being the supporting platoon of the left assault company. Along the steep slope of the hill facing them not thirty yards away was a cannon. They swung their guns around and opened a fusillade on the attackers. Joe, who was commanding the platoon, was ordered to advance with his men and cover the left flank. Suddenly as they pushed forward the valley became a shrieking Bedlam. A company of Confederates on a hill far to the rear of the Union men sensed a new menace in the advance and opened up wildly against their position. The air was filled with howling bullets and shrieking shells. Some of the men dropped flat on their stomachs, many of them were killed. It was a clear day. There had been mists in the valley in the morning which shrouded the hills, but as the sun rose they lifted so that the movements of the Union men were perfectly visible to the enemy along the ridges. They went stumbling upward through the leafy jungle, bullets whipping and snipping off the leaves and branches about them.
Finally they debouched upon a path veering to the left in order to get behind the enemy. Joe’s detachment made preparations to charge. But before they could move it seemed to them that all hell broke loose. Joe caught a glimpse of Lige, who was now a corporal, leading his men, his cap gone, his hair blown back from his forehead, his eyes filled with the lust of battle. The next moment he saw him fall.
In that one second all the love that he had ever had for his brother came sweeping back in a great overwhelming flood. He rushed toward him, but the demands upon him were too great, his responsibility too terrible for him to stop even for his brother. Officer after officer was falling around him. Colonel Baker went down with a shot through the lungs, Captain Young was shot in the stomach, Sergeant Ellton had three bullets through his left arm, Private James, who fought beside him, had a wound in his shoulder. He caught a wild glimpse of him, fighting with his left arm, while a huge Confederate with clubbed musket rushed at him. Then Joe was swept on and saw him no more.
They fought madly, blindly, desperately. At last but seven of his platoon were left; yet he must cover his position. The little band drew grimly together, and the strain was so great, the excitement so terrible, that Joe had no time to feel even a thrill of surprise or joy when he found Lige fighting beside him. As in a dream he saw him crouch in the grass. Then he became aware that his rifle was cracking as regularly as the crack of a whip. For a brief instant he turned and looked down. Crouched low in the tall grass, with his rifle at his shoulder, Lige sighting as carefully as he was wont to do at home when he shot the heads off wild turkeys, he was potting the Confederates who manned the gun, dropping them one by one with the regularity and precision of clockwork.
Suddenly an officer rose up near one of the guns, and with perhaps a dozen men behind him came charging down the hill. The young sergeant had no time to count his men, to see how many were left of that platoon that started out so gayly. Fixing his bayonet, he dashed at them. When the skirmish that ensued was over and he had time to look about him he and Lige stood alone on the hill. The lieutenant with all his men lay scattered about them.
It was not until the mad hell that raged about them was over and the battle won that the two boys realized that they had done anything out of the ordinary. Then they learned that they had cleaned out a position, routed the enemy, and left open the channel through which the Union troops rushed in and saved the day.
It was a desperate battle, desperately fought and gallantly won. The Confederate army was defeated and beaten back, and Lee never tried the invasion of the Northern States again. That battle, bloody and terrific as it was, was really the turning-point of the war. From that time the Confederate army began to languish. The end of slavery was at hand.
Then came victories, victories, and more victories for the North. Grant was made Lieutenant-General and entered upon his “hammering campaign” at Vicksburg. Sheridan was in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman was marching through Georgia. His telegram, “Atlanta is ours and fairly won,” gave a new courage to the whole country. Lincoln was reëlected by a large majority.
Through it all Joe fought his battle with himself as silently and bravely as he fought the battle with his country’s foes.
When a moment of leisure came and the two brothers could be together for a few uninterrupted moments he sought Lige’s society, talked with him of home and parents and brothers and sisters, spoke lovingly and tenderly of Nina, and gave him every opportunity and encouragement to tell his secret. But Lige did not speak. After many trials Joe, hurt to the quick, gave up the attempt and kept his own counsel.
Sharper and fiercer grew the fighting. Lige was captured, made a brilliant and spectacular escape, was wounded once in the leg and twice in the shoulder, and came out a Colonel, the most adored man in the regiment.
At last it was over. The long, bitter, bloody struggle was ended. The South, impoverished, exhausted, beaten, was obliged to surrender, and Lee handed his sword to Grant at Appomattox, on a day which the United States will never forget.
When the troops were mustered out the Peniman boys, men now, with the stain and smirch of battle upon them, laid down their arms and returned to the homestead on the prairies, where anxious hearts, loving and weary hearts, were waiting to welcome them home.