When Johnny Came Marching Home Read online

  "Don't ya go gettin' any ideas 'bout blowin' it up yerself," Johnny whispered.

  "Can't," I said.

  "Why's that?" Abel asked.

  "Didn't bring any dynamite."

  "Well, that's sure the first smart thing I heard ya say today," Johnny said.

  "Amen to that," Abel added.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later we saw a group of six officers exit the farmhouse and stand briefly under the side lamps that illuminated the front door. I fixed my glass on them, moving from one face to the other. Three of the men had generals' stars on the collars of their tunics. The others wore the insignias of a colonel and two majors. The general who stood in the center of the group bidding farewell to the others was a short man with a white beard who I recognized from newspaper photos as Robert E. Lee. The second general had a long black beard, and from descriptions I'd read I guessed him to be Stonewall Jackson. The third general stood in the shadows and I couldn't even guess at his identity.

  I drew a deep breath, and then told Abel and Johnny what I was seeing through the glass.

  "Damn," Johnny said. "We had us a howitzer and a canister of grapeshot we could pretty much end this damned war right here."

  "Yes, indeedy do," Abel said.

  I laughed softly and nudged Abel in the ribs. "I can't believe what I'm hearing. First you guys say thank you Lord that I haven't got any dynamite. Now you want a howitzer so you can blow Robert E. Lee to kingdom come."

  Abel and Johnny both started laughing.

  "Seems like a good idea ta me," Abel said.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1865

  I was back in the Harris's barn by seven the next morning, searching for the bag of clothing Suggs had claimed he was looking for the previous night, as well as anything else I might have overlooked during my initial search. Suggs's story just didn't make sense. If he had needed another wool shirt, or a jacket to cut the chill up on Lucie's woodlot, certainly he could have borrowed one from another logger, or even Lucie himself, then come into town on Sunday when Reverend Harris was most likely to be at home, and collect his missing bag. Foregoing that, Suggs could have purchased a new wool shirt at the Johnsons' store. The more I thought about it the more it annoyed me. His story, patently a lie, was one he'd thought I was gullible enough to swallow. I was new to the job my father had handed me, and certainly feeling my way, but the idea that Bobby Suggs considered me stupid to boot . . . I paused in my musings, forcing my anger aside. Suggs was looking for something, and he had come late at night because he wanted to do it secretly. Had he hidden something in the barn? Something he had used to kill Johnny?

  "Find anything?"

  It was my father. He had stopped just inside the barn entrance.

  "Not a thing. I've even looked up in the rafters, and behind the troughs and feed boxes."

  "You have breakfast?"

  "No."

  "I did. I had a big slice of apple pie. But don't ya worry, I left ya the last piece. It's a touch small," he said with a smile.

  "It's good pie."

  "Oh, yes. Ya need ta find ya a woman who kin cook like that."

  "You already told me that."

  "I just wanted ta make sure ya heard me." He paused. "So whaddaya think that sumbitch was lookin' fer? A weapon he used to kill Johnny and left behind?"

  "It could be that simple, I suppose. What bothers me is why he came up here to Vermont in the first place."

  "Said he came here lookin' fer work. He could be tellin' true on that one. From what I read in the newspapers there ain't a lotta jobs aroun' now that the war's over."

  "Well, Vermont is a long way from Pennsylvania, a long way to come for a job chopping down trees."

  "Probably was lookin' fer somethin' better, but this was all he could get," my father said. "Was him an' Johnny big-time friends durin' the war?"

  "They became friends toward the end . . . I'm not sure friends is the right word. Johnny spent a lot of time with Suggs before they were captured." I wanted to tell my father exactly what had happened as the war reached its final stage for Johnny and Abel and me, the vicious depravity that enveloped both sides, a depravity that had crippled me and cost Abel his life and that seemed to swallow Johnny whole. But to do so would rob my father of what he had. The memory of three boys who had grown up in our small Vermont village, one his own son, the others children of men and women he had known most of his life.

  "Could be Johnny had somethin' Suggs wanted an' wouldn't give it up, an' he's still looking fer it," my father suggested.

  I tried to get my thoughts around that. "What could Johnny have had? Both he and Suggs were in a Confederate prison for almost a year. When Johnny was freed he was in such poor health the army discharged him and sent him home. I have no idea what happened with Suggs."

  "Ain't likely the Rebs let Johnny keep anythin' a value in that prison."

  "All right for me to come in?"

  My father and I turned and found Doc standing in the doorway.

  "Come ahead," my father called. "We ain't doin' no good. Maybe you'll bring us some luck."

  "How'd that turn out last night?" Doc asked as he came over to us. "I saw from my window that you found some fellow in here. Saw you let him ride off, so I figured it wasn't anything serious."

  My father took off his hat and waved away a fly that was buzzing around his face. "Yeah, it was that Suggs fella that came up here a week or so back ta visit Johnny. Said he was lookin' fer a satchel with some clothes in it that he'd left here. Jubal thinks it's a cock-'n'-bull story, an' I'm kinda leanin' toward that idea myself."

  "I never met this Suggs, but I saw him with Johnny one time. He looked a bit rough around the edges."

  "Did you notice them arguing?" I asked. "Walter Johnson said he saw Suggs getting a bit hot under the collar while he and Johnny were outside his store, but that Johnny just laughed at him and walked away."

  Doc shook his head. "Nothin' like that. I only saw him that one time, and I didn't know who Suggs was until Edgar Billingsley told me he had stopped by his farm asking where Johnny lived. That one time I saw him, Suggs seemed to be following Johnny around, but Johnny didn't seem to be paying him much mind."

  "And that was right around the time Johnny was killed," I said.

  Doc nodded. "About a week before."

  * * *

  Centreville, Virginia, 1862

  General John Pope stormed back and forth in front of his tent, raging at his subordinate officers, while Lieutenant Lewis and I stood off to one side. The lieutenant had brought me to the general's tent to report what I had seen at Brawner's farmhouse. The gathering of Lee and Jackson and the others seemed to hold little interest for Pope. What he ranted about now was the advanced state of the new rail line and bridge construction over Bull Run.

  "The fact that I wasn't told about this immediately after our last battle is tantamount to treason!" he shouted. "We had troops in the area under Fitz John Porter's command, and yet they found no reason to report back that this bridge had been completed. It is obviously Lee's intention to connect this new rail line with the Manassas Gap Railroad, which if successful will give him a steady supply of munitions for his advance on Washington."

  I watched Pope bark at his men who all stiffened under his tirade. One general, Brigadier Alpheus Williams, stood glaring at Pope, who as a major general outranked him. Finally Williams seemed unable to stand Pope's words any longer and stepped forward.

  "If you recall, General Pope, the men in the vicinity of that bridge construction were under heavy bombardment by enemy artillery at the time. With grapeshot flying about, decimating their ranks by the hundreds, I doubt that any had time to note the level of bridge construction that had been achieved."

  Pope stopped in his tracks and turned slowly to face General Williams. Pope was a thick-bodied man with a heavy black beard and piercing eyes that seemed as black as his hair. Williams, by contrast, was shorter and less physi
cally intimidating, his light-brown hair and matching beard bearing a somewhat foppish mustache that extended a good four inches from his cheeks. Yet Williams stood his ground as if ready to do battle with his superior officer.

  "If you recall, General Williams, troops under my command were able to blow Stone Bridge on the Warrenton Pike."

  "I do recall that, sir," Williams said. "I believe it prevented Rebel troops from pursuing your retreat here to Centreville." He had spoken the word retreat with a note of contempt.

  A major came up to Pope before the snapping and growling could continue and handed him a communiqué. Pope read it and leveled his gaze at the others. "It appears that Jackson's army is attempting a flanking move to interpose his troops between our forces and Washington."

  He walked over to a map set on a table in front of his tent. He jabbed a finger into the center of it. "If we move quickly we can engage him here at Chantilly and stop him." He stared across the map at Williams. "We will finish this discussion later. Now you must get your troops ready to march."

  Lieutenant Lewis grabbed my arm and steered me away from Pope's command post.

  "Is it always like that?" I asked as we hurried away. "Do they always snarl at each other?"

  "It is with Pope," Lewis said. "His officers hate him, but don't you go and let the men know that, Foster. It wouldn't be good for morale."

  * * *

  The rain began shortly after we formed up to march, a heavy, beating downpour that quickly drenched our tunics and turned the road to mud. My unit had been assigned to General Edwin Sumner's brigade, which was being sent to reconnoiter the movement of Stonewall Jackson's troops. Our squad would be the point unit and move forward until we encountered Jackson's lines, then send back intelligence to the brigade.

  "Why the hell ain't they usin' cavalry for this like they always do?" Johnny asked as he huddled in his wet clothes.

  "The lieutenant said the cavalry is too exhausted," I explained. "Their horses are near broken-down. So we're taking their place."

  "I'm damn well near broken-down too," Abel said. "We fought like wild animals at Manassas and then beat a retreat back here ta Centreville. Then they sent us out ta Brawner's Farm ta see what them Rebs was up ta an' how close that new railroad was ta bein' ready. Now we got this. Well, damnit, I'm tired an' I'm soakin' wet. An' I'm also hungry as hell. I bet those cavalry horses got their oat buckets hangin' off their noses right now. So where the hell's our food?"

  I agreed with everything Abel had said, but it didn't matter. My job was to shut them all up and get them moving. "You'll eat when we make camp," I said. "Now we gotta move, so stow the complaints and let's get on up and join the column."

  Abel stared at me with a look of disbelief. "Damnit, Jubal, I liked it better when ya was jus' a private an' bitched along wit the rest of us."

  I liked it better too, I thought, but kept it to myself. "Let's move!" I shouted.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1865

  Walter Johnson, as church deacon, was conducting the Sunday service for Reverend Harris, who had taken his grieving wife to visit relatives in New Hampshire. The minister was due back at the end of the week, but as my father explained, it was likely his wife would remain with the comfort of her family.

  I glanced across the aisle where Rebecca sat with her stepmother Mary. I knew Rebecca would prefer to be seated elsewhere, and had her father not been at the pulpit, she would be with her friends. But to have left her father's new wife alone in the pew would be taken as an insult by our neighbors­—an insult to her father as well as his new wife—and that was something Rebecca would never do.

  Walter Johnson was a clumsy speaker and it was painful to listen to him, but he was wise enough to recognize his limitations and had kept his sermon short and given the bulk of the program over to the choir.

  At the end of the service church members greeted each other in the aisles, sharing the gossip of the week, then moved outside to the front lawn. I found Rebecca and guided her to a spot under a shaded tree. All about us, younger children played games of tag, or keep-away with someone's cap, and it reminded me when she and I, together with Johnny and Abel, had done the same. It was not all that long ago, but to me it seemed a lifetime.

  "I need your advice," I said at length.

  Rebecca's eyes widened. "I'm shocked, but delighted. What can I do?"

  "I need to speak to your father's wife about . . . well, about her relationship with Johnny, as well as anything she knows about Bobby Suggs."

  "I thought she already told you she didn't know anything about Suggs."

  I nodded slowly.

  "You don't believe her," Rebecca said.

  "No, I don't. Not if she was as involved with Johnny as you say. She would have asked him about Suggs, and I believe he would have told her something."

  She licked her lips nervously. "Could you do it when my father isn't there? I don't want him hurt, and if he knew why you were talking to her, and what you were asking after, it would be more than he could bear."

  "I can't promise you he'll never know. I can only promise that I'll do my best not to cause him pain."

  Rebecca looked away, then turned back to me. "Did you see him in church today, Jubal? The way he would peek down at her while he was conducting the service, his eyes searching for her approval? He loves her so much. If he ever learned what she did with Johnny, it would break his heart."

  "I'll be as discreet as possible," I said. "And I promise I'll do everything I can to keep him from finding out about their . . . relationship." I studied her face, noting the doubt I found there. "When would I find her alone?"

  "Mondays are best," Rebecca said. "Every Monday morning my father takes the buckboard up to Richmond to meet the train and collect the store goods we've ordered. Then he does his banking and heads on home."

  "So he'll be gone tomorrow?"

  "Yes. He usually leaves right after breakfast. Mary runs the store while he's away. If you want, I'll be sure to be in the store tomorrow morning so she'll have no excuse not to step outside and speak to you."

  "That would be a great help," I said. "I'll come to the store at eight."

  * * *

  My father and I left the church and headed for Billy Lucie's woodlot. It was eleven o'clock and the air was crisp and cool, and most of the leaves had lost their color and begun falling to the ground. Within the next few weeks winter would be upon us and moving about the countryside would become more difficult. When snow came the village would be isolated until teams of horses pushed wide, wooden wheels along the roads. The wheels were filled with water to give them weight and they compressed the snow into a hard-packed layer that allowed travelers to move about again in wagons and on horseback.

  We turned onto the Gorge Road and off to our right the river began to pick up speed as it headed to the first series of waterfalls that would send it crashing down into the gorge.

  "It's good to be home, to be back in the places I knew as a boy," I said.

  My father smiled. "It's good ta have ya home. I have ta admit, it scared me pretty bad when I heard 'bout Abel. I jus' sat there an' wondered what had happened ta ya, if they'd be writin' ta me next. You'd tol' me in yer letters how ya all was in the same unit and was always together. I jus' had this awful feelin' 'bout it. Then when the letter come sayin' ya'd been wounded, I got Doc ta write our own letter tryin' ta get them to ship ya home ta the hospital in Burlington where Doc was workin'." He drew a long breath. "An army doctor wrote back ta Doc tellin' 'bout yer arm an' sayin' ya was too bad off ta be moved, an' that scared the hell outta me all over agin."

  "It worked out. I'm back now."

  We rode for a bit before my father spoke again. "Ya don' talk much 'bout the war. Sometimes I wanna ask ya 'bout it, but I don' wanna press ya."

  Nearly a minute passed in silence. "I guess I don't really know what to say about it. It was a terrible thing to be part of, an ugly, senseless thing. Oh, I knew a
ll the reasons we were fighting. I knew we had to preserve the Union and end slavery, all of it. But the thing was it was never about that during the battles we fought. It was about keeping the other side from overrunning us and killing us. When we were fighting in those battles I'd see a soldier from the other side and he looked like any boy or man I might have known here in Vermont. And he was the same. He wasn't shouting out things about keeping the Negroes in chains, or about ending the Union. He'd seen the same things I had. He'd seen his friends blown apart by artillery fire or dropped by minie balls or stabbed by a bayonet or saber, and the only thing he wanted was to stay alive and go home to his family just like me."

  "Did ever'body feel that way?"

  "Everybody I ever talked to; all the decent ones. There were some on both sides who wanted to kill every enemy soldier they could, just like there were some who wanted to raid every house they passed, kill any civilian who got in the way. But they would have been like that war or no war. Armies aren't too particular about who they hand a gun to."

  "What about yer officers?" my father asked.

  "The officers . . ." I paused to think about that. "I guess the lower-ranking ones were just like the rest of us. Those higher up, the ones who decided where and when we fought and with how many men, well, they kind of seemed to have their eyes on the history books. How history would view them, how the people would think of them, and how they'd be rewarded for what they did. And did they ever snipe at each other."

  "How so?"

  I told him about the confrontation I'd witnessed between Generals Pope and Williams just before the battle at Chantilly Plantation.

  "Well, Pope lost his army after that battle. It was merged into the Army of the Potomac under General George McClellan, and Pope was shipped out west and pretty much forgotten."

  "What'd ya think of General Pope?" he asked.

  "I didn't see him but that one time," I answered. "But what I saw of him I didn't like."