Chapter 2
“Allorian… Allie?”
The youth looked deep into the locket, his eyes lingering over the picture of the one who rested within. As Lewis called for him once more he slowly closed it, letting his mother’s image sit in his mind’s eye as he slowly pressed it back inside his sack coat.
“Allie,” Lewis asked again, nervousness pouring out of him with each word, “why do you suppose we’re sittin’ here? The other brigade’s been fightin’ up there for a fair bit, and we ain’t gone in yet. Why do ya’ think the general ain’t put us in yet? Are we gonna go in?”
The youth looked up to the tree above them. Through them came a constant pitter-patter, much like the way that the rains of the night before had, drenching them as they marched up from Keedysville.
Though the grey haze still lingered over them it was no storm cloud that tormented the leaves. It was bullets.
“Damn sharp skirmishing to the front, lads!” lifted the voice of an older soldier down the line. The youth recognized it as the voice of Horace Thomas, a joker and a family man. The soldiers laughed nervously, and the youth joined them even as stray shots continued to whiz through the low branches.
If that many shots were coming at them now, just random ones, how many would meet them when they advanced? How much closer would they…
“Well, Lewis, I suppose that if I knew that,” answered the youth, reaching again for the locket that held the picture of his mother, “I’d be a general, too.”
Down the slope of the wooded hill the rattle of musketry sounded. The cries of Gorman’s brigade wafted out of the woods, the deep rumble of the cheers of the men from Massachusetts, New York, and Minnesota mixing with the high shrieks of wounded men.
At once a horrible sound rose up, and all of the eyes and ears of the men if the Fifty-Ninth New York turned to face it from where they sat.
The rebel yell lifted through the woods, terrifying in its resonance. The sound came to them, filling them with a special sort of dread. Their ears and eyes followed it as it rose through the woods… coming from the left, from the wrong direction, from what they knew must be the exposed flank of Gorman’s brigade.
At once the drums and trumpets of Dana’s brigade came to life, at once whole battalions and companies lifted to their feet.
The youth drew his ramrod, dropped it once more down the barrel of his rifle even as he stepped into line. The ball and powder still sat there. He hadn’t imagined loading the rifle.
“Shoulder… arms,” came the voice of Lieutenant Roosa once more, “dress left, Bassett, there’s a smart lad.”
“Yes sir,” answered the youth, swallowing hard.
“Forward!” rose the distant voice of Colonel Tidball. “Forward!” answered Stetson.
“March!”
The whole of the Fifty-Ninth New York went forward in one long line, the rest of the regiments of the brigade stepping with them, and with that the whole of General Dana’s brigade went down the slope of the wooded hill.
The youth could feel Howard’s brigade move behind them, feel them close. Why were they so close?
The regiment descended into a pall of smoke, the sulfuric acidity of it burning at the youth’s eyes and throat. His eyes stayed open though, and his breathing did not slow, and before him figures began to emerge from along the smoke-shrouded trees.
The wounded poured out of the woods and climbed past them, the men parting so that forlorn figures could drift through the ranks like ghosts. Impromptu bandages covered arms and clung to the sides of heads. To his right the youth saw one man resting against a tree in an absurd pose, his arm through a crux of branches.
It was only after the line had passed that the youth could see that he was already dead, his wounds having claimed him in such a stark stance.
The smoke crept over them, and as the brigade halted red flashes erupted in front of them, illuminating the grey mist. Musket balls flew around them, whistling past them.
There was a loud, gurgling scream, and the youth’s head spun to the left. With that Horace Thomas fell out of line, clenched at where his windpipe had once stood, and then lay still upon the ground.
The youth had watched his first man die.
“First rank!” came Stetson’s voice, “Ready!”
The youth lifted his Springfield and looked into the distance. There before him shapes moved in the mist, and his eyes panned back and forth as more flashes broke through the grey.
“Aim!” called the lieutenant colonel.
Aim? Aim at what? What kind of fool order…
“Fire!”
The youth squeezed the trigger. With a “ka-kang” the volley lurched out into smoke. The youth took deep breaths as his shoulder throbbed at the recoil.
For the first time, the youth had fired a weapon in anger.
“Recover! Reload!”
The drill lurched back into his mind. The youth reached into his cartridge box, withdrew another round, and bit hard at the end. The nine steps flew through him. Months of training and drilling took over his mind.
The sight of Lewis’s rifle crossing over his shoulder startled him. As the second rank fired the youth felt a small amount of pride that he was able to keep loading, that even as he put the percussion cap on the cone and made his rifle ready to fire once more that he actually felt like a soldier…
General Sumner came pelting out of the mist, and as he did his curses drew any sense of competence out of the youth.
“Damn fools!” called the major general, “Cease fire! Cease fire! You’re firing into the Fifteenth Massachusetts! You’re firing into Gorman’s brigade!”
All along the line shocked expressions fell through the ranks. As a small breeze parted the smoke the youth could clearly see that the lines had overlapped, that the incensed faces of New Englanders turned to face them even as they struggled against the rebels in front of them. At their feet lay their wounded and dead comrades…
Oh God! Had he shot one? Had he killed another Union boy?
The youth had not long to ponder the act. To his left the call of rebel soldiers once more went up, and even as he watched the Massachusetts boys seemed to waver, their line falling apart as they took fire from their front and their left.
More calls of pain came out over the din of the musketry, and as the youth prepared to fire again a rough hand pushed his rifle into the air, nearly knocking him over.
The Forty-Second New York and the Seventh Michigan, the regiments on their left… they were breaking, running!
“Back into line you cowards!” came the judgmental voices of his own battalion, “Where’s that Tammany courage gone, eh?”
“You’ll not be so brave in a few minutes, ya’ damn River Rat!” said one of the soldiers of the Forty-Second, stopping to answer the calls. “The damn woods are thick with rebs! Yer’ gonna be flanked, just as we were!”
Roosa called to them, made the Fifty-Ninth wheel to the left. “Independent fire, boyos! Fire away lads! Keep it hot!”
The youth joined the wheel, Company E just at the crux of the line, and he once more dressed tight to the others in line. As he moved his feet slipped across the leaves, slick with blood as they were, stepping over the wounded men.
“Boys… men, rally on your colors,” came a deflated voice over the din of the battle. To his right the youth caught a figure in the smoke, laying with his head upon a ledge of rock. As the youth moved past he saw it was Stetson, the lieutenant colonel mouthing the phrase over and over as blood poured from his chest, every beat of his heart pushing the blood through the very fabric of his shirt.
“Men, rally on your colors,” he repeated, and then was gone.
The youth lingered his eyes across the man for a second, as though expecting him to simply sit up and clear himself off. As the musket fire continued around him the youth looked away and forced himself to concentrate on reloading his Springfield.
There was a ping to his left, and the youth heard the soldier next to him call out in pain. “Damnation!” the man swore as he threw his rifle to the ground. As he turned to walk away the youth saw him holding the shattered remains of his left hand in the air, the white of the bones evident against the red that poured from where the fingers had been severed.
“Damnation!” the youth heard him swear again as he walked to the rear, cursing and swearing as though he had simply been inconvenienced.
“Lewis,” the youth said, “did you see that? Wasn’t that just the damnedest…”
Lewis was not behind him. Lewis was on the ground, crawling… crawling away and sobbing. The youth saw Lewis tear at his pants, open them up all the way to his drawers. The youth saw them painted with red, and at once he went to help the Kingston boy.
“Bassett! Into line!” came Roosa’s voice, “We’re hard up for it, lad!”
He saw shapes moving in the smoke, red and orange flashed leaping from them. He reached back into his cartridge box as he stepped over more wounded men. He was shocked by how few he found there. How many had he fired?
He bit at the cartridge again, choking a bit on the powder. His throat was so dry. He drew the rammer as a volley ripped through the line, sending more men on his left and right down to the ground with cries of pain. To his surprise it stopped short. There were already rounds in the barrel. He had lost his pace, his training and drilling faltering as he trembled through the steps.
He thumbed through the cap pouch, his body quaking as he searched for a percussion cap.
He went to place it on the cone, but it dropped from his shaking hand. He scooped it up from the blood-soaked leaves and raised the rifle.
Even as he did a shrieking, piercing call sounded out, and men in brown, grey, and butternut emerged from the smoke-filled woods. The high staccato call of men from Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, and North Carolina draped over them.
The rebels were upon them, murderously close.
The youth pulled the trigger.
Fluttershy and Angel had stood there, together in the garden, for a great long while after the pops and rattles had caught in their ears.
Nearby a few birds settled in the trees once more. They too had heard the unfamiliar sound, and as it had echoed across the landscape and around the cottage they had taken to flight, lifting into the air in a single rush of surprise.
“It’s alright,” Fluttershy said, speaking to the few that had returned. She turned her eyes up to the sky. There more of her little friends still wheeled about in confusion.
“Oh, please, do come back down,” she called. With a few firm flaps of her wings she was up and among them, painting cheer and certainty back into her features as she tried to calm them.
“I-I’m sure it was nothing… it was nothing to be afraid of,” she said as she guided herself down to the earth. As they settled she sang her song, and as she did even the animals that had scampered away at the unfamiliar sounds re-emerged from their little warrens and scrapes.
“I-it’s okay. It’s okay,” she said, “whatever it was, I’m sure that it can’t hurt you.”
Moments passed as Fluttershy went from one to another, checking on each and settling the most fearful. Soon a resemblance of normalcy had returned to the little cottage besides the stream.
But it was ethereal, and as Fluttershy returned to her garden she re-adjusted her sun hat and gave small, trembling sighs. The sound had been real. It had been so close… it had been the sound from her dream.
She looked down to the garden once more, caught up in her thoughts. What did it mean? How, how could it have been here? Was… could she just be mistaking some other sound for the ones that had come to her in the night?
Fluttershy lifted her eyes to the sky, turning in a small circle as she did. Another sky escaped her lips as another bright, beautiful day revealed only a few puffy clouds, none of which seemed able to produce thunder.
With that ruled out she panned the horizon. Nothing there seemed amiss, and nothing which could have made the pops and the rattle seemed to present itself.
“Oh, my,” she said aloud, her eyes falling back across her garden. As she pondered the squash and the single large pumpkin her mind flit back to the scene that her dreams set in her mind. The colors… earthy colors or grey, brown, butternuts, and the vivid blues, like the colors of the sea and the sky. The colors that moved and swirled in a misty...
Something brushed her leg. With a small “Eeeeppp!” Fluttershy startled, lifted into the air, and dove down into the azalea bushes.
After a moment a set of cyan eyes appeared among the leaves. After darting back and forth for an instant they found themselves looking into the eyes of the rabbit once more.
Angel was at first distant, the rabbit standing in his usual position of disapproval. But, as her eyes became more worried, the rabbit dropped his condemning glance and hopped forward into the bushes.
He found her cowering there, looking down at him. He had thought that she’d gotten beyond this. He had so very much hoped that her fear had diminished. She had been doing so well…
“Oh, Angel,” she said, "it was just you! You gave me such a start,” she said, gathering him up for a hug. As they sat there among the azaleas Angel had an odd sensation come over him. As he looked up to Fluttershy he realized that what he had at first mistaken for fear had indeed actually been something else entirely.
Fluttershy was staring off into the distance again. Even as little patches of light fell over her through the branches and yellowing leaves of the bush he saw that her mind was still set on the noise… not fear but, well, what? Bewilderment? Puzzlement… concern?
“Ang… oh, Angel,” she said, “You heard it too, didn’t you? You head the rattly, poppy sound, right?”
The rabbit could only look up to her and nod.
“It was just like the s-sound from my dream… just like it,” she spoke, her voice dropping and her eyes finding the ground as the words drifted over them.
After a long moment he realized he’d been running his paw over her foreleg. He smirked to himself, and with that he began to poke at her, force her back to the world of immediate concerns.
With that he lead her out of the bush.
Life in the garden seemed to return to normal. As her voice once more lifted into the sunlight the animals and birds all seemed to catch her spirit, their own fears lifting as hers seemed to dissipate.
She hadn’t always kept a garden, but after the unpleasantness in the market it seemed a good idea. That Cretan had brought a part of herself to the surface that she had not liked, and it seemed far easier (and less stressful) to grow her own asparagus than fight and scream for it.
No, this way was better. She enjoyed her garden. In it she felt so… happy. Here she was surrounded by her animal friends, and in her garden she could feel herself supplying their needs as well as her own.
Yes, keeping a garden had been a good idea. She had enjoyed watching the shoots come up, watching the light of Celestia’s sun give them strength and life. As the garden grew new plants came up and each revealed their bounty. As the plants came up she had watched in wonder as each had transformed into something different, as each had become an amazing new vegetable or herb.
Yes, she liked her garden…
… such interesting things were always popping up.
Fluttershy stopped to ponder her little cottage, to look upon it and the grassy expanse of her lawn. Nearby her chickens clucked happily, the yard birds fluffing their feathers and chasing after insects. Above, her bird friends sat in the sun and chirped small songs, and nearby animals came and went up and down her garden path.
There was the slightest hint of movement, and to her surprise Fluttershy felt something brush across the stifle of her rear leg. Though momentarily surprised, she did not call out, and her azalea bushes went undisturbed. She was very proud of herself, proud that she had not jumped or had been alarmed.
“Oh, yes?” she said, turning and looking to discover which of her little friends had brushed beside her, hoping to catch her attention. “H-how can I help… help…”
Fluttershy’s eyes panned left and right, looked down the sweep of her yard from the garden, henhouse, and path all the way back to the table beside the house itself.
No creature was near her.
She lifted her sun hat and scratched at her forehead. “An-Angel?” she asked, “Did, did any of our little friends…”
The movement came again, and Fluttershy felt it, heard it. Some creature had come running unseen up through her garden. Its progress had been utterly invisible.
Her mouth hung open, shock washing over her. Some large creature had run right through her cottage, invisibly, and had pelted right past her!
Her legs began to tremble. To her horror more sounds reached her, more movement.
“An-Anngeelll!” she breathed, and at once the rabbit had leapt to her. She looked down to see him clutched to her foreleg, he too sensing that something was transpiring here in the sunny space of their yard.
Above her, even as the sounds and the movement continued, her bird friends seemed to pan their heads back and forth in alarm and then take to the air, reacting to the unseen presences that were now thundering across her yard.
Her animal friends scampered away, some even darting back in forth in confusion as the sounds, feelings, and movement only grew.
Fluttershy trembled, shook. Unseen creatures, seemingly dozens, were racing through her yard. At once an alien, freezing sensation drifted through her…
One, one of… whatever these were, had run right through her.
The very feeling of it weakened her knees, sent her crawling to the protection of the distant table. Angel had gripped hard at her leg, and even as the rabbit was half-bounced and half-dragged Fluttershy sought out the shelter she hoped, begged it would provide against… these…
Smoke. Smoke, a grey mist just like in her dream! It hung close to the ground, filled her nose with a sulfuric, acidic stink.
Her eyes went wider as the smoke rose up around her, and in it she could see the creatures running, their shape visible in outline… unlike anything she’d ever seen.
Some ran. Others hobbled, as though they were… hurt.
As she sat there quaking more of the presences flit past, and to her horror she felt one… crawling, one crawling past her. At once the feeling changed, and inside Fluttershy a different feeling arose. Sounds were reaching her now, ones that a very different part of the pegasus than her trademark fears responded to. The only part of her greater than her fear rose up in her…
Her compassion.
Voices. There were voices. Voices were coming from these… poor creatures, calls of pain. They were calling for help… sobbing…
“H-hello?” she called from beneath the table, pulling her sun hat down over her eyes. Even as she trembled and shook she extended her hoof, reaching for whatever may be beyond the safety of the table, her tea set chiming out above her as her own trembles shook the legs.
At once the sound… the invisible forms, and the feeling of movement they brought with them, they all seemed to drift away. As the last of them seemed to pelt past she extended her head, peeked out from behind the legs of the table.
“H-hello?” she called again, crawling forward a few steps. “Is… is there anypony, a-anything, t-there that needs… help?”
Carefully, tentatively, she crawled out from under the table. Even as she still trembled she tried to lift her voice again. At once horrible sounds rose around her cottage, stealing her words from her. Fluttershy bolted in place. Shock went through her as new calls met her ears. Before she had even known what she had done she had jumped back beneath the table.
Yet, this time, the sounds did not end.
Even as she wrapped Angel closer to her she panned her eyes towards the garden, towards where the sounds came in unhappy waves, as they flowed over and over.
As she watched something seemed to bounce, roll around in pain that reached her as shrieks and wails, the movement rippling through her garden. As she watched the cornstalks bounced, and a single gourd rolled into the yard. She caught sight of the movement… whatever was thrashing about was real, had a physical, visible presence.
There was something in her garden…
The Fifty-Ninth New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment had ceased to exist.
Twenty minutes ago they had marched forward through the woods, shoulder to shoulder, almost four hundred men, each strong and determined.
Twenty minutes ago they had been a regiment, two battalions of proud Union men.
Now two hundred laid dead and dying.
Around the youth men of his shattered regiment, and the whole brigade, broke and ran. They pelted off into the grey mist, escaping the unceasing fire that the rebels poured into their flank with continuous and devastating volleys.
“C’mon lads!” called Lieutenant Roosa, grabbing men, pulling them back into line. “What will you think of yourself if you run? What will your sweethearts think of you? What will your mothers think?”
Mother.
The youth put his hand to his chest, tapping it. There the locket still sat there, safe.
The youth swallowed hard, tripped across the unmoving body of a comrade, and looked back into the line of grey and brown that stood to his left. He reached deep into his cartridge box, scrambling to find a remaining round. He threw an empty tin to the ground and rummaged through it. He fought to load the musket once more. Oh, how his throat burned! The black powder had now dried his throat, stung at his lips. To his horror his canteen now hung empty at his side, the stopper hanging loose.
“Good lads!” called Roosa, guiding them with the flat of his sword. “Keep at it, fire away! Fire at the sons of bi…”
A volley leapt at them, the whole length of the rebel line exploding with red and orange.
A spray of blood erupted from Roosa, and with that he was on the ground. The youth looked down upon the lieutenant, his face going ashen at the man held his hands starkly above himself, the arms shaking, his eyes flying around.
The youth was at once reminded of a cow that was in the midst of being slaughtered, one whom the first strike of the hammer had not at once killed. At once one instinct fell through him… the instinct to run.
“Please, God, don’t let me die here,” he said to no one as he spun, slinging the rifle across his shoulder. At once the rebel yell rose up around him again, and behind him came movement, the feeling of the Secesh pushing forward.
“Please, please, God, please! I don’t want to die here!” he called again, his pace quickening. With greater speed the youth scrambled back through the woods, his eyes set only on the distance.
“Allie! Allorian, please, don’t leave me!”
The youth looked back as the weak, plaintive call of Lewis met him. The Kingston boy had crawled far, but now he lay there, hardly even able to lift his head.
The youth was so close to being free, to escaping…
“Allie…”
The youth scrambled back down the path, looked for some way to grab hold of Lewis. “Clear the way!” came a booming voice, and with that the youth felt himself being thrown aside, some panicked soldier tossing him as easily as if her were a sack of flour.
“Allie…”
The youth fought to his feet and searched the brush for Lewis. The smoke clung to the ground, and he could not find him. The youth looked around once more and lifted his head…
Only to find himself looking down the barrel of an Enfield, to see himself in the sight of a Secesh only perhaps thirty yards distant…
“Please, God, I don’t want to die here!” the youth called aloud, grasping at his locket. “Please, God!”
There was a flash of red and orange, and smoke rolled out over the scene.
The young rebel picked his way forward with the rest of his battalion, rummaging through dead and wounded Yankees for whatever they desired.
The young rebel had no need for any trinkets, and he’d only just gotten some new socks of another dead Yank back at South Mountain. So, his only stop was to give some water from his canteen to a wounded Federal. He nodded to the man and then went forward towards a spot he had marked in his mind.
The young rebel stood in a patch of smoke, kicking through it.
“What in the bloody Hell you kickin’ at, T.J.?” asked the corporal, laughing at the sight.
“Should be a dead Yank here, or hurt bad at least,” said the young rebel, his hands going to his hips, looking around with a growing sense of disappointment evident on his features. “Took just as clean a shot at him as I ever done took at any squirrel I ever plucked…”
The young rebel sighed.
“Well, come out of there,” spoke the corporal. “Mr. Lincoln’ll send ya’ plenty more where that one came from.”
The young rebel kicked through the smoke once more, unslung his Enfield, and looked down to where he had seen the Bluecoat fall through the grey mist.
“Ain’t that the damnedest thing? I had him dead for rights, I swear it,” he swore as he walked down to join the rest of his battalion. “It’s like he just flew off, like that Yank just flew off to somewhere…”