After
lunch I noticed several large, rough-edged wooden crates being lined up on the
ground across the road from the garden. The crates were roughly two feet wide
and six feet long. I recognized immediately what they were for.
“No tellin’ how soon I’ll be put in
one of those,” a young sergeant joked as he walked by.
“I will consider myself very lucky if
I even get one,” said another soldier.
“Lucky?” I asked as I handed him a tin
cup filled with water. “Why would you be lucky to get a coffin?”
“Because it means they at least found
my body, miss.” He finished his water with a loud gulp. “Some boys out there
are blown to bits so bad, there ain’t nothin’ left when the guns are done with
‘em. They simply disappear.”
“Get up, you damn coward!”
I was jarred from the frightful
thoughts of battle when I heard the voice of a Union officer down the road. He
was yelling at one of the young soldiers. The soldier had been marching along
with the rest of his regiment heading towards the front when apparently he had
lost his nerve. The sounds of guns booming in the distance and the sights of
the bloodied and wounded being transported past him must have been too much for
him to handle. He was crawling along the side of the road on his hands and
knees. Tears were streaming down his face.
“Get up and march, you worthless
coward!” the officer yelled again.
“I . . . I can’t, sir,” said the quivering
soldier. “My legs w-won’t move.” My
heart ached for him. He looked like a homesick teenager.
By that time Tillie had run up beside me
to see what was happening. “Oh, that poor boy,” she said.
We watched as the officer kicked the
soldier in the ribs knocking him flat into the dirt. “Get up now, or I will
beat you to death!” yelled the officer. He kicked the soldier again. He grabbed
a rifle from another passing infantryman and used the butt of the gun to hit
the poor soldier three or four time on his shoulders and the back of his head.
The soldier appeared to be unconscious so the officer simply left him where he
lay.
A couple of the other men ran over and
picked him up and carried him up to the house. It would be several hours until
the young man revived. In addition to the blows on the back of his head he had
also been suffering from sunstroke received during the long march.
“We will mark that officer for this,”
said one of the soldiers who had brought the injured man inside.
“What do you mean?” asked Tillie.
“It means that in the midst of battle,
that officer will have more guns than those of the enemy to worry about,” said
the soldier. I was later told that some of the most cruel and inhuman officers
fell in battle that way, from being shot “accidentally” by their own side.
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4
--from Time Trip #4: Killing for Country
KILLING FOR COUNTRY
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2
A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3
WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING
