With Great Sorrow

Emmett

September 1862

Chapter Ten

We had been waiting for eight hours now. More, I suppose, if one counted our whole time in the Union Army. It had been nine months since the 28th was mustered into service.

Not all that time had been idle waiting of course, though it often felt that way. Some of it had been spent truly fighting. Killing Confederates. Pulling the trigger of my musket and watching them crumple to the ground. More men than I could count bleeding to their deaths before me.

Some of that time had been spent doing grueling labor by the cover of darkness on a suffocating island. An island that ended some of the waiting for some of the men. They groaned all day and night from diseases that reminded me of those we contracted during the famine. The same fevers. Same delusions. It frightened me in a way that the fighting never had.

Still, some of that waiting had been dull. Painfully lonely. And still other times were some of the best of my life. Even now as we waited to die by shell or ball, listening to Quinn tell us stories of drunken gamblers and whores he had arrested, we laughed until tears squeezed from our eyes.

“Stop,” Pat gasped between wheezes. “Stop or I’ll piss mehself.”

I shook my head. My cheeks hurt from smiling. Thinking of Quinn finding men in alleyways with their trousers around their ankles took me far away from the mosquitoes biting at my neck and wrists. South Carolina was hot, but the Maryland humidity, even as we inched toward the Autumn season, was unexpected. I swatted at one on my hand.

The insects liked to stay close to the water I had learned, and we were waiting in the woods right by the Antietam creek. Waiting for orders to cross it now that hundreds of men had died so we could do so. They had died on the bridge, mostly, shot down as soon as the Confederate sharp shooters had them in their sights. But there weren’t enough sharp shooters to get us all, even shooting as they were from high ground, and eventually, our soldiers had succeeded in crossing the creek. We were pushing them back now, the rebel troops that were meant to hold the south side of the creek. That’s what someone had been told. And the news had been passed among us as we anxiously waited for our own orders.

My group of mates had gone quiet again as we did after a good story. We were all there, in Quinn’s story, instead of here. It would be easy to picture the same scene in whatever town or city these men came from. Most from Massachusetts. Some from Canada. All had alleyways. All had drunks and gamblers and whores and watchmen. We imagined we were there instead of here.

But when the orders came, we would turn once again from men into soldiers. We would do our duty, but our hearts were not in it as they would have been had we been fighting under Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher. Even now, as the Irish Brigade was being shot down while trying to overtake the rebels who were tucked into the relative safety of a sunken road, we wished we were there. Meagher’s men were seeing the fear in the enemy’s eyes as the enemy realized the folly he had believed. He was not, in fact, safe in the sunken road. Union troops were driving them out, and the Irish were there to meet them. Meagher liked his men to have their bayonets fixed and ready. The boys of the Irish Brigade plunged their bayonets into the hearts of those trapped Confederates. Our hands itched to do the same. Instead, we waited.

Quinn’s mate from the police force had become a signal officer, which was how we often found ourselves more informed about the battle than other privates. Quinn would sneak away when he had the chance and bring back news straight from the messenger’s mouth. I looked over at Quinn now, who was still smiling faintly, although his gaze had a faraway look to it. I hoped he was thinking of the drunks and not of Nessa and his baby girl who would be turning one any day now. There was a time for thinking about families and that time was yesterday. Thinking about that now could make you too cowardly to fight. Though sometimes the memory of their faces couldn’t be ignored.

We all had our last letters to them securely tucked inside our jacket pockets. Before each battle, some men would open theirs, read it again, and add a line or two. There were scribbles along the sides now and at the top. Small sentiments that couldn’t be missed. We pinned our names to the inside of our collars in hopes that after the battle, if we died, our letters would be received by our beloved. All of that had been done yesterday. Now it was time to fight. If the orders would ever come.

I patted my jacket where my letter was to reassure myself that it was still there. There was also the most recent issue of The Commonwealth newspaper tucked there as well. My throat tightened when I thought of the Paddy letter. Of my pride in my wife. I shook my head in an attempt to follow my own advice. Now is not the time.

Then, orders were being shouted from up ahead. The men began to fall in line, myself included. The wait had been embarrassing for General Burnside, I imagined. Nothing had gone as planned that morning. This time it was as simple as a bottleneck jamming up the near side of the bridge. He hadn’t known that further down the creek the water was shallow enough to walk across. I tried not to think of the sad state of the men leading us in this war. Even those in our own regiment. They spent their days with the bottle and were ignorant of the ways of war. Not that I wasn’t. But at least I wasn’t a drunk.

I heard the voice of our company commander. Captain Lawler had been injured in South Carolina and was still recovering. It was a shame because he was one of the few who was widely respected among the men. Lieutenant Dwyer was left in charge.

“Attention!” he shouted. We lined up shoulder to shoulder, our muskets at our sides. He eyed us with a slight hesitation.

“The bridge is cleared and it’s the 28th’s turn to cross. We’ll be moving north once we cross the bridge. The enemy’s artillery is positioned on the high ground behind the farm and the skirmishers are posted all around. Keep your eyes up.”

He took a pause to scan the company and then shouted, “Right face! Shoulder shift! 28th Massachusetts!”

“Huh!” we yelled in return.

“Forward march!”

***

With Great Sorrow

Copyright © 2022 by Lisa Boyle. All rights reserved.