They Met at Shiloh (5 page)

The spring chill still clung to the thick, musty air. Humidity from the rains caused the men’s breath to billow out in cloudy exhalations. The sun slowly poked its beams over the eastern horizon, turning the clouds pinkish. Smoke from company cook fires wafted lazily into the air, and the smell of brewing coffee greeted the men’s nostrils. Robert Mitchell stood in his place in the formation as Hammel called down his list. It was a place he had stood countless mornings.

“Dismissed!” shouted Hammel, and the company formation dissolved as the men broke ranks. Robert rubbed the dried matter from the corners of his eyes and coughed before stuffing his hands into his pockets and walking back to his tent to retrieve his washcloth and soap. Ducking under the flap and stepping over bed rolls littering the floor of the circular tent, he tended to his own bed materials. The Sibley was a tent large enough to sleep fifteen to twenty men arrayed like the spokes of a wheel around the central pole and stove. Robert’s bed consisted of his rubberized gum blanket for a ground sheet, his blanket, and his overcoat. His knapsack sat at the end, along with his leather accouterments, or traps, as they were called.

He rolled his gum and blanket together and tied them to the top of his knapsack. He found his soap and cloth after rummaging through one of the compartments. By now, the tent began to fill with its other occupants going about similar activities.

“Ach! Another day of drill!” complained Hildebrande when he entered with Gustavson.

“Drill is drill; something vee has to do,” Gustavson chided.

“Oh, der Alte Hasse, the old hand Gustav is going to teach us the importance of drill!” Hildebrande said and smirked.

“Ach, visdom is vasted on die jungen.” Gustavson waved his hand at Hildebrande , a man only five years his junior, and rolled his bed.

Robert ducked out of the tent and headed for the sinks. The stench of urine and dung affronted his nostrils long before he came in sight of the common refuse pit. Quickly taking care of his business and a brief wash from the water barrel, he made his way to the company cook fire where he found an open spot among the men. Sullen, half-asleep faces stared into the fire and awaited the completion of the coffee. The coffee boiler suspended above the fire steamed slightly, circled by men with their mugs held out like patients waiting for their quinine dose.

Robert watched as the flames flickered upward. One man sat cross-legged opposite him and poked at the coals with a stick, while others just stood comatose.

“Isn’t that thing boiling yet?” the company cook asked.

Silent nods answered him.

“Well, have a go at it. You waitin’ fer me to pour it for ya?”

One by one the mugs were filled with steamy liquid. Once-vacuous faces showed signs of life.

Robert slowly stirred a chunk of hard tack in his coffee and nibbled on the corners. Hildebrande and Gustavson eagerly consumed their crackers and coffee, engaging in a lively debate about who made better women, Tennessee or Missouri. Robert listened in amusement as Hildebrande got the worst of the argument.

“Light marching order for drill,” First Sergeant Hammel muttered when he walked past the fire watchers.

Robert reached for his time piece and noted how much time he had remaining before formation. He worked on his hardtack, gnawing at the end softened by soaking in coffee.

“Feels like it going to be another hot one, ja?” Hildebrande asked. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead as he gulped his coffee.

The air was thick with the aroma of cantonment, the gathering of thousands in a long-term camp. Fires billowed at the ends of company streets, and the living dead gathered around them, waiting for the coffee to re-awaken their stiff bodies. In quiet comradeship soldiers gathered, watching flames lick the air and avoiding serpentine smoke trails. This was the part of army life Robert loved—the silent togetherness. Soon, though, the relaxation would be broken by the exertion of drill. But for now, it was peaceful.

The other characters of the camp, personalities that could be found around any fire, were busy with their peculiar pursuits. Robert was solidly in the camp of the fire watchers whose only enjoyment in the morning was to crawl out of blankets and seek the flames like insects sought light. Little conversation occurred, merely the uttering of some baleful line or exclamation followed by grunts and nods of agreement. Occasionally, the company wag, those men gifted with a sense of occasional comic brilliance, became inspired and started up a tale or waxed philosophic on favorite topics. Otherwise, it was each man to his own thoughts.

Then there would be the dutiful. Always in motion, always cleaning or prepping something or attending to their hygiene, these men were as lively when they awoke as they were before they slept. They were always the first to be in formation, always the first to have their traps prepared, and always ready fifteen minutes before they were needed. They rolled their blankets and stowed their personal items before taking any coffee or breakfast, ensuring that their equipment was ready. Theirs was a cheerful countenance around the fire once the morning chores were completed, adding an edge to any conversation or offending the ear with inane talk. They were conservatively scattered about by chance amid the company camps and were always to be relied upon in a crisis.

Last of all, and to the relief of all, were the company Jonahs—a term as mysterious as referring to one’s mess mates as “pards.” All agreed that the biblical Jonah played no small part in describing the hapless, clumsy individuals that inhabited every camp and wrought destruction upon many a fire. They were neither hated for their obtuse nature nor loved for their innocent carelessness. They were the ones whose intelligence was enough to allow them to pass muster and sign their own names but not enough to keep from making nuisances of themselves. They were the dread of the first sergeants and the bane of their mess mates.

Robert pulled his attention away from the mesmerizing dance of the flames to catch sight of private Huebner making his way toward them. Instinctively, he reached for his coffee mug and scooted back a foot from the fire. One by one, the others performed similar acts of coffee preservation as their company Jonah innocently stumbled to a halt.

As if by cue, and as a direct refutation of the old adage that smoke follows beauty, the waft of smoke drifted in Huebner’s direction, causing those standing next to him to clear a path. Choked by the smoke but committed to pouring from the coffee dangling over the flame, Huebner closed his eyes and held his breath. Teetering back and forth with his cheeks puffed out, aim hampered by tightly closed eyes, he poured most of the precious liquid onto the fire. With a billow and a hiss, a white cloud issued forth, causing a fine layer of ash to spread over everyone slow enough not to retreat before disaster struck. Withstanding the chorus of curses, he attempted to gauge the weight of his mucket to know when to stop pouring until his need for breath competed with his desire to get a full dose of “pick-me-up”. Finally, unable to hold his breath longer and having gotten enough into his mucket to satiate his desire, Huebner unsteadily backed away, still clenching his eyes tightly shut and gasping for air. A path had been cleared of obstacles by alert pards so as to minimize Huebner’s chances of making the simple chore of coffee any more event-filled. Once he was clear of the smoke trail and able to breathe normally, he opened his eyes, made a smile of triumph at having beaten the smoke, and took a gulp.

Robert’s coffee and clothes were covered with a fine layer of ash. The fire, or what was left of it, continued to billow thick white smoke. He used a piece of hard tack to work the ash out of his mucket and continued to sip as if nothing had occurred. Used to the daily fumbling of their Jonah, his pards resumed their own breakfasts.

“Huebner! You goober-brained Dunkopf!” Hildebrande shouted. “Ach, meine Kaffe ist fertig!” He upended his cup, dumping the ashen liquid to the ground. Following a quick glare in Huebner’s direction, he snatched up his haversack and turned quickly toward the Sibley tent, cursing to himself.

With the fire prematurely extinguished, the fire watchers slowly dispersed to attend to their traps. The Nervous Nellies had already put their traps on and were huddled in small groups in front of the company street in anticipation of morning formation. Hoisting himself up, Robert felt his knees creak and blood rush back into his feet.

Huebner stood where he had backed up from the smoke, with a piece of hardtack in his mouth and coffee still steaming in his other hand. An expression of blissful ignorance contorted his face as he mechanically chewed the cracker. Robert felt sorry for the waif, but at the same time felt a revulsion that told him the man was a menace. What was worse, Huebner was part of his Comrades in Battle, along with Hildebrande and Gustavson. Together, they made the four-man team who marched and fought next to one another in formation.

Robert walked slowly past Huebner. Huebner smiled at him as he passed, an idiotic grimace marred by chunks of hardtack and glistening moisture. Robert stared straight ahead of him and passed Huebner, hoping that Huebner wouldn’t take eye contact as an invitation to follow. When he ducked into the Sibley, he gathered his traps and exited quickly, escaping the quickly warming and stuffy atmosphere of the tent. Huebner was still in the same spot, totally lost in his breakfast.

Robert brushed the grass from his sack coat and donned it, proceeding to sling his cartridge box and haversack before securing his belt about his waist and adding his canteen. Robert’s haversack held everything that he might need during the day. It held his daily rations, his pipe and tobacco, his plate and fork, and anything else he considered indispensable. His mucket, that fire-blackened tin cup, dangled from the strap of the haversack. Fully accoutered now, he reluctantly walked behind Huebner.

“Hube, get your traps, or you’re going to be late for formation.”

Huebner turned and smiled at him. “Ja, get traps, right, get traps.” Huebner started to run for the Sibley but sloshed coffee from his mucket down his hand and kerseys. Trying to maintain his pace, yet holding his upper body motionless while cradling the coffee, only made him start and stop in comic fashion, neither hurrying his pace nor holding coffee in the cup. Robert watched him disappear into the Sibley and waited. The company street began to fill with privates completing their kit and lining up in order. Robert glanced back at the Sibley, noting the absence of his erstwhile charge.

“Hube!” he shouted toward the tent, “double quick!”

Huebner burst from the tent, cradling his traps and coffee with his sack coat flapping from behind and only secured by one arm. Hurrying, he tripped and sprawled upon the grass, his coffee and armload of leathers spilling outward, his mucket coming to rest at Robert’s feet. Robert glared in Huebner’s direction and bent down to pick up the mucket. Huebner managed to push himself up from his prone position and sheepishly grinned at Robert.

“I fell,” he said. He tried to scramble for his equipment on all fours but became caught in the haversack strap coiled about his legs.

“Hube! Hube! Stop, just stop, will you? Here, just stop, and I’ll untangle you.” Huebner lay on his belly and tried to reach his mucket that was half an arm length away while Robert unwound the haversack strap from his legs. Finally freed, Huebner stood and finished putting on his sack coat and equipment as Robert handed it to him.

“C’mon, Hube, they’re waiting!”

Robert took Huebner’s arm and hustled over to the company formation, where he shoved him into his spot. Gustavson rolled his eyes and shook his head. Hammel looked at his time piece and then at the company lined up in front of him.

“In one rank, count twos!” Hammel’s command echoed off the wall of neatly ordered Sibley tents that demarked D Company’s street. The ordered routine of army life marched on. Robert scarce could remember a moment without it.

He had lived a childhood mixed between the decidedly unique American culture and that of the German enclaves of St. Louis—dual tongued and European. His father was a merchant and community figure whose father before him moved the family to the bustling trade town connecting the East with the West along the Santa Fe Trail. The elder Mitchell chose early on to cultivate his business and social ties to the growing population of Dutchman. The term was a misnomer and accidental mangling of the German tongue from Deutsch to Dutch.

This decision to associate with the growing community of German expatriates afforded Robert a unique childhood. His father, Edward Mitchell, saw within the small but fiercely independent community an opportunity to expand his own business interests into Europe and avail himself of the industrious nature of these new “Americans.” Many who crossed the Atlantic to touch down in the New World were fresh from the violence of the constant in-fighting of the confederation of German states. The states of Saxony and Thuringia fought to free themselves of Prussian domination; the failure to do so brought to America’s shores an influx of the disaffected, well-to-do, and ex-military men. They migrated to the interior to St. Louis and brought with them a culture and a business sense that intrigued the elder Mitchell.

Robert’s father enrolled him in a parochial school run by the Lutheran Brotherhood, which expatriate German businessmen and clergy formed to care for the spiritual and cultural needs of St. Louis’s burgeoning German population. Here, Robert found himself immersed in the foreign culture of its German charges. Although English was the principal language taught, German was still the unofficial language used by both students and teachers.

Purposefully exposing his children to German culture, the elder Mitchell hoped to pass on his own business efforts and alliances to his sons once he was too old to maintain the imports and shipping empire he hoped to build. Going so far as to instruct them to speak German whenever possible at home and at the dinner table, Robert’s father gave him a childhood with the same mixture of American ideals and German culture that had gained him entrance to one of the German societies as an associate member. The societies became an extension of the public life the members did not have in the old country, eventually coming to control the political and social life of the neighborhoods. Shaped after the Turnverein Society started in Berlin in 1840, the Turners provided both a gymnastic education and sport and an intellectual grounding from the old country. Chess clubs, debate clubs, rifle teams, and political networking allowed the Mitchells to solidify business and social ties that would otherwise have been denied them.