The Face of Heaven (14 page)

“General Gibbon has sent the 2nd Wisconsin up the slope to the farmhouse!” he shouted. “They’ll put a stop to Johnny Reb’s artillery! Just stand at the ready!”

Corinth said softly, “Listen. I can hear the skirmishers.”

The
crack-crack-crack
of musket fire came to them through the trees.

“Just like a few Fourth of July whizbangs going off,” responded Nathaniel, also speaking as if it were important he keep his voice low.

Suddenly the musket fire broke open into one loud roar. A few
moments later there was another explosion of massed firing. Half a minute later another thunderous crash of gunfire.

“That’s volley fire,” hissed Sergeant Hanson who was nearby. “The 2nd Wisconsin has run into something more than a few cannoneers with popguns.”

The volley firing continued without letup. Nathaniel found his mind was split into three parts: one part focused on the fighting going on up the hill, another worried about a blister that had developed on his left heel, the third part lingering on thoughts of Lyndel, who was smiling at him and offering him a bowl of corn on the cob. He ignored the thoughts about the blister and went back and forth between Lyndel and the musket fire.

“Steady, men, steady!” It was Lieutenant Davidson yet again. “Our regiment is ordered forward to support the 2nd Wisconsin on its left! Colonel Meredith wants every man to do his duty by the Union and in honor of the great state of Indiana!” He drew his sword and pointed up the hill through the forest. “Form line of battle! Advance!”

“Corporal Nicolson! Corporal King!” shouted Sergeant Hanson. “Shake out the platoon into line of battle! Shoulder to shoulder with our company and our regiment!”

“Line of battle!” yelled Nicolson and Nathaniel at the same time. “Let’s go, boys! Advance with the regiment!”

They went about three hundred yards through the trees, Corinth on Nathaniel’s right, Nip on his left. The smell of burnt powder became stronger and stronger. Once the regiment broke into the open the grass sloped up to a house and several farm buildings and clouds of white and gray smoke, where the 2nd Wisconsin was holding their ground and firing into another bank of smoke lit yellow by the flashes from Rebel muskets.

“Double quick! Let’s go!” came Lieutenant Davidson’s voice. “Up the hill to the left of the brave Wisconsin boys! Go, go!”

Nathaniel moved out ahead. “Up to the fence on the crest, platoon! Heads down! Move, move!”

Corinth raced out ahead, taking the lead. The regiment half-ran up the field after him and clambered over the gray fence, re-formed,
and began to advance toward the Brawner farmhouse. Corinth was still at the front. Nathaniel felt an odd sensation that made him look twice at a fence and some haystacks less than a hundred yards ahead. One moment it was just the haystacks and the long fence. Then it was a crowd of men in gray uniforms raising hundreds of muskets, the barrels pointed at the 19th Indiana.

“My boys!” Nathaniel cried out. “Corinth!”

But the volley fire came before hardly anyone saw what was happening. Nathaniel heard the zip-zip of the balls tearing past and saw his men fall, some with short, startled cries of pain and surprise, others dropping in silence. The Rebels had their ramrods out and were quickly reloading, one eye on what the Indiana regiment was going to do.

“Platoons, steady! Company, steady!” they heard Lieutenant Davidson’s shout. “Aim low! Aim low or your shots will go over their heads!”

Nathaniel lifted his musket without thinking and aimed at the men staring at him across the grass.

But they are Americans too,
came a quick thought.

“Fire!” yelled Davidson.

On Nathaniel’s right and on his left the Springfields cracked and spewed smoke and sparks. The noise deafened him and closed up his ears. Men in gray dropped like sacks. A few of the faces looked surprised. Then the Rebel muskets were pointing at him again. The gray line burst with smoke and flame and the zinging sound of near misses made Nathaniel’s ears pop open once more.

“Indiana will respond!” Davidson thundered. “Reload!”

Nathaniel was still not thinking, only reacting. Nothing seemed real or normal to him, though far back in his mind an image of Lyndel still flitted, and that image seemed more actual to him than the muskets and the firing and the rip of the balls over his head.

He placed the hammer on his Springfield at half-cock. Dug a paper cartridge from a leather cartridge holder on his hip and bit off the twisted end. Poured black powder down the barrel of his musket. Tore the ball free of the paper wrapping and pushed it point up into the muzzle. Took the metal ramrod from its slot under the barrel and shoved the bullet all the way down until he felt it was seated firmly on
the powder charge. Slid the ramrod back into place. Cocked back the hammer all the way on his weapon. Plucked a percussion cap from a box in a pouch on his other hip. Jabbed the cap onto the nipple underneath the musket’s hammer. Imagined the hammer striking the cap and making it burst, shooting a small streak of flame into the barrel and the powder. Imagined the explosion and the ball being thrust forward at high speed at the men facing him—some young, some old, some bearded, some clean-shaven.

Then he pulled the trigger and the cap spat, the barrel boomed, the musket stock kicked back sharply into his shoulder, and smoke blocked his sight. When he could see clearly a moment later a tall youth in a farmer’s broad-brimmed hat, directly in front of him 60 or 70 yards away, clapped a hand to his head, dropped his musket, and fell backward without a cry. The gray men raised their barrels at him again and he saw the black holes of the muzzles while he half-cocked his own, pulled another cartridge from his holder, bit off the end, and shook in the powder.

“What secesh regiment is that?” he heard Ham shout.

“See their colors?” Sergeant Hanson was ramming a bullet into his musket. “Them’s not just any old johnnycakes we’re fighting. That’s the Stonewall Brigade itself. You see those flags, Corporal Nicolson?”

“I see them, Sergeant.”

“I guess we found our way to Stonewall’s kitchen sooner than I thought.”

“I’m still on my feet, Sergeant.”

“You can thank God and Tippecanoe County coffee for that.”

Gunfire drowned the men out. Nathaniel glanced at his brother while he was reloading. “You all right?”

Corinth’s face was going gray from powder residue. He bit off the end of a cartridge and spat out the paper. “Hot work. Just like harvest and Daddy in a mood. Only I’m praying now too. Don’t pray much at harvest time.”

Corinth knelt and fired. Then reloaded again. A Confederate soldier seemed to scream directly at him and waved a flag, taunting. Corinth stood up, aimed, and shot the flag staff in two. The Confederate’s
mouth opened wide. Then he dropped to his knees and gathered the flag up in his hands, quickly tying it to the longest of the broken pieces of the staff. Scrambling back to his feet, he howled and shook the flag at Corinth a second time. The young man shot the flag off the top of the pole. The soldier dove out of sight.

“Private King!”

“Yes, Sergeant Hanson!”

“I admire your marksmanship. But I need Stonewall’s men out of the fight. Not their flags and banners.”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Corinth glanced over at his brother. “I prefer shooting the flags to shooting the men.”

“I know.”

“I wish to God we and the Southern boys could settle this some other way.”

The balls of lead continued to zing past their heads. Nathaniel looked up and down the line at the other men. Several were sprawled in the grass, clutching wounds but still trying to reload their muskets and fire back at the Stonewall Brigade.

“You men who are wounded, get back down the hill to the field stations!” he called to them. “Go on—you’ll fight another day—get your wounds tended to so’s we don’t lose you!” He saw a figure that was not moving. “Is that Stewart?” But no one replied as muskets were lifted and flames stabbed through the billows of smoke.

“They’re charging!” Ham was pointing through the haze that reeked of rotten eggs. “They’re coming at us!”

“Steady!” Nathaniel heard himself shouting. “Reload! Aim low! Turn them back! Fire at will and turn them back!”

The Stonewall Brigade was scrambling over the fence they had been hiding behind at the beginning of the battle, all of them yelling and screeching and starting to run at the 19th Indiana over the short stretch of grass. But Nathaniel’s platoon never fell back and neither did the rest of the company or regiment. They held firm and fired and Nathaniel experienced a strange mix of emotions that included relief no one in his platoon had turned tail, pride that the regiment was going toe-to-toe with the Stonewall Brigade, fear that something could still go
wrong and the army would retreat, as well as a cold sickness that men and boys were falling and dying and he could do nothing to stop the killing—he was part of it now.

The Stonewall Brigade drew back to the shelter of the fence under heavy fire from the 19th but Nathaniel could see the Rebel officers and sergeants and corporals calling to their men and whipping them up to make another charge. Once more the gray men swarmed over the fence, once more Nathaniel shouted himself hoarse, once more the accuracy and intensity of the Indiana fire made the Rebel troops stop and turn and melt back.

“Think if this was our farm,” said Corinth. He was on his knees and digging his extra rounds of ammunition out of his pack while the balls threw dirt into the air all around him. “Daddy’d be fit to be tied. Bullet holes in the new siding on the house. The barn looking like a colander. Horses and cows hollering and running off into the countryside never to be seen again.”

“It could still happen, brother.”

Corinth shook his head. “The war will never come to Pennsylvania.”

It was ten minutes after seven and the sun was dropping in the sky, when Davidson rode past and told them the whole brigade was engaged. Gibbon had sent the 6th and 7th Wisconsin in on the right and the 76th New York and 56th Pennsylvania had filled in a gap in the battle line. No Union regiment was yielding an inch.

“Stonewall’s a good Presbyterian,” Davidson said before he moved off, “but he must be wondering whose side God is on tonight.”

The sky turned from blue to copper to red. The firing never stopped, guns flickering through the smoke and sunset like lightning flashes in a thundercloud. Men’s muskets were fouled with burnt powder—some soldiers were jamming the ramrods into their barrels and then banging the rods against Brawner’s barn or house or a tree or rock to seat the bullet. Others just picked up Springfields left in the grass by the wounded or dead and used them if their barrels were clear.

“I’m getting low on ammo, brother,” Corinth said, the sunlight red on his young face.

Nathaniel grunted. “Get it off the wounded. Get it off the men who have fallen. How much more do you need?”

“A heap. I don’t plan on going anywhere soon.”

“There’s a pile of packs right behind you. Dig through them and see what you come up with. What happened to your extra rounds?”

Corinth smiled in the sunset. “I gave ’em all to Stonewall. Fast as I could.”

Nathaniel gave a sharp laugh. “I’m sure he’s thanking God you’re here today to lend him a hand.”

Rebel cannon began blasting at the Indiana regiment but Company B and Company G turned their musket barrels on the artillerymen and silenced the guns. As Stonewall poured more troops into the fight, Colonel Meredith pulled the regiment back to the shelter of the rail fence they had climbed over when they first arrived at the Brawner farmhouse. Seeing an opportunity, the Rebels leaped their own fence a third time with fixed bayonets and charged the Indiana line, screaming, Nathaniel thought, like a spring twister.

Now Captain Langston pounded up on his black gelding Nighthawk and began to bellow lines from a song called “Hail, Columbia.” Nathaniel recognized the tune, though it was never sung among the Amish for it was a patriotic song of warfare and bloodshed. It was America’s anthem and he listened while the men in his company picked up the melody and shouted out some of the lines.