THE LAST WORD

By

Warren Bull

Sunlight from the clear blue sky that warm August morning glistened on the ripe green corn.  It was a beautiful day to die.  Stonewall Jackson’s boys beyond the field sent Minie balls whistling at us. The bullets sliced leaves, punctured stalks, and cut down my friends and neighbors.  Edward Evans, the preacher’s son, blasphemed and tried to stanch the blood from the stump of his right thumb.  Emanuel Johnson, self-proclaimed heathen, prayed for life to a merciful God he did not believe in while struggling to keep his intestines inside his body. Someone shouted, “I want to know the name of this place is so I can tell Jesus where I died.”

“Antietam,” I hollered back.

“’Tis a hell of a note,” grumbled Jebediah Smith.  “I paid the gypsy lady two bits to tell my fortune and she promised me I would die by hanging.” He spat careful to avoid the battalion members lying dead or dying.  “If I get out of this alive, I’m gonna get my money back.”

“If you get out of this alive,” I observed, “you still might hang.” 

Smith grinned at me, showing his few tobacco-stained teeth.  We were unlikely friends.  My pa owned the biggest house back in Liberty.  Smith’s family farmed a hardscrabble patch of ground and, some said, made off with anything not nailed down.  My Latin academy school class joined the 23rd Wolverine Volunteers together. Later at Smith’s request I signed his name on the enlistment papers for him in bold letters.  Then I found a wisp of hay for his left foot and a sprig of straw for his right to help him remember which was which for marching.  For his part, Smith kept us fed even when others were hungry. 

Maybe what sealed our friendship was that we shot to kill.  In battle some men found that they could not shoot at another human being. Smith and I each reached a different conclusion.  We preferred to kill than to be killed.  What The Almighty will say about that, I do not know.

My kepi got blasted off my head just before a solid-built man pounded up to us on a sweating brown stallion.  He ignored the balls whistling around his head.

“Where’s your colonel?” he shouted.

I pointed toward the middle of the file and he dashed off.

“He talks funny,” said Smith.  “Where do you reckon he’s from?”

“I’d guess Boston, but if he can build a fire under Colonel White, I’ll swear he came from heaven.”

You have to understand.  Colonel White was not a coward.  He was the Latin teacher who had us read about Julius Caesar’s wars and got us all to enlist together.  As a reward, he was named the most junior officer in the regiment.  With illnesses and deaths, he rose in rank until it was no longer possible to keep him from command.  In the classroom he agonized over grades.  Now he was like a horse with its forelegs on one side of a fence and its hindquarters on the other side.  He could not control his fear enough to order an advance, but he did not dare retreat.  Our regiment had stood firm through artillery barrages, charges upon an entrenched enemy and attacks by screaming rebels.  But standing still and watching while friends and family members got harvested around us had many men flinching and thinking about running away. 

We could hear the Bostonian arguing with the Colonel.

“White ain’t gonna make up his mind,” said Smith.

The Bostonian lowered his voice and said something we could not hear.  White jerked as if slapped and started shouting orders.  In short order we pushed out skirmishers and moved forward. 

“I owe that man a drink,” said Smith.

“I wonder what he said to the Colonel.”

The rest of the day was as rough as the morning.  Both armies took turns moving forward through the cornfield. Colonel White died leading an attack.  By nightfall a man could walk on dead bodies from one end of the field to other and never set foot on the ground. Enemies in life died together and lay as intertwined as lovers on the bloody ground.

General McClellan licked his wounds, dithered and waited.  General Lee seized the chance to move his troops back to Virginia.

Back in camp Smith and I were talking when he called out.

“’Tis the man what got White to advance.”

Sure enough there he was.

We introduced ourselves and he responded, “George Smiley, special correspondent of the New York Tribune.”

Smith offered him a drink, and Smiley accepted.

 “We were present, sir, at Antietam when you spoke to our colonel and persuaded him to advance before the regiment was shot to doll rags.”

Smiley answered, “I was with General Hooker’s command.  He dispatched every available staff officer.  Then he espied your regiment. I agreed to carry his orders that the regiment was to advance to the front and stay there.”

“But our colonel did not obey,” I said.

“No, he said I was not an officer and he could not move without an order directly from a staff officer or from his commander.”

“Then, sir, you said something that got him moving.  I have wondered ever since then what it was that you said. 

“I inquired about his name so that I could tell General Hooker who it was that refused his direct order.”

Smith and I laughed.

“Your colonel responded, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t do that!’  He called for his orderly and directly thereafter you moved.”

“So you had the last word,” I said.

“Oh no. If you think that, you don’t know ‘Fighting Joe Hooker.’”

“He rarely palavers with me personally,” I admitted.

“When I got back to headquarters, I explained to the General what happened.  ‘Yes, I see,’ he said, ‘but next time don’t let the next man talk so much.’”