This is an important part of leadership, noted Colonel Teack, who was in attendance and standing by one of the windows. Knowing when to be human, knowing how, without embarrassing yourself or your men, to represent your faith in them. So that, when the time comes, if necessary, they will die for you.
In the midst of these reflections, Teack happened to glance out the window. One of those U.S. photography outfits had pulled up in the street and a man in a long coat and derby was standing with his hands on his hips and looking up at him. Sherman, passing by Teack and lighting a cigar, caught sight of the fellow down in the street and, understanding instantly the opportunity this afforded, turned to the room. Gentlemen, he said, the world is calling. Let us go and get our picture took. We’ll sit for it out there in the sun, with the flag of these United States flying above the city of Goldsboro, so the citizenry will, ever after, know the glorious brotherhood of the Army of the West.
AS THEY HAD approached the courthouse, with the guards standing about, Arly said to Calvin, All right, he is in there, son, and now we are going to make history. I am going to shoot Gen’ral Sherman’s picture. But if you do anything to make it harder for me—
Why would I do that? Calvin said.
Because you are a wily free nigger. Tell me, was you ever not free?
No.
More’s the pity. ’Cause then you don’t know the things that can happen to your kind when they don’t do right.
I think I do know.
I hope you do. God has looked down upon this war and in his usual mysterious manner he has put us to the test. He is testing our mettle, burning us out and shooting us down and setting our black folks to thinking they better than they are. But none of that means your Pres’dent Lincoln is going to win his war. All it means is that we are consumed by fire so as we can rise from the ashes, new and reborn. All it means! Amn’t I right, Will? Why else would God put you in jail for desertion and me for sleeping on duty except greater and grander things were intended for us out of our disgrace?
ALL TOGETHER THERE were eleven generals. Chairs were brought out and set in the plaza in front of the courthouse steps. One grand armchair for Sherman, four straight-backed chairs for the two generals seated on either side of him. The rest stood in a row behind the chairs. Sherman, of course, directed who should sit and who should stand and where.
As the preparations were being made, a crowd of passersby began to collect. Colonel Teack added to the guard detail and troops, with their arms at the ready, stood between the generals and the street.
A light breeze was blowing and the morning air was cool. The Colonel was the person to talk to. But how? Calvin needed time. He fussed with the equipment, running back and forth to the wagon to get this or that, whatever he could think of. He kept changing the position of the camera, moving it closer or farther back, slightly to the right or left. He knew that eventually the generals would become impatient. Sherman sat with his legs crossed and his arms folded, assuming the pose he wanted to be recorded for posterity and waiting for the photographers to do their job.
Arly muttered, Any time Calvin, any time at all—it’s just all the generals of the Yew-nited States waitin on you. For answer, Calvin dropped the photographic plate he was carrying. It shattered on the ground. Then he had to pick up the pieces and run back to the wagon for another. This caused Arly the same embarrassment as it would have Mr. Culp. He responded by deciding the generals needed instruction on their various poses. He indicated who among the standees should show his profile and who was to face forward. He pulled down the corners of his mouth to indicate that there should be no smiling. How did he know that? Calvin wondered.
Anyway, Calvin thought, if Arly intended to do harm, he would have done so by now. He’d certainly had the chance, being this near to Sherman. Calvin glanced at the generals posed in their solemnity, with the white columns of the courthouse rising behind them, and he thought it would make a fine historic photo if it were actually going to be taken. But he had done some things. The plate he slipped into the camera was not coated—it would not record the image. To make doubly sure, the lens he screwed into the box was the wrong one for the distance between the camera and the subject. He felt peculiar, subverting his own craft, denying history its rights. But he was determined. Whatever was going to happen, whatever this crazy Reb intended, no picture would be taken by him.
As the generals obeyed his instructions, Arly began to enjoy himself. His coattails flapping, he strode back and forth, yanking Mr. Culp’s derby down on his ears and praising the sight before him. This is a moment for the ages, he announced, and the Josiah Culp U.S. Photography Salon is honored to take its picture.
Sherman was becoming impatient now, turning his head to mutter something, scratching his beard, changing which leg to cross over the other. Now, gen’men, Arly said, you know at the time the camera is exposing you cannot move a muscle, lest the photo be spoiled. He seemed only then to notice something not right with General Sherman. Sir, he said, would you consider accustoming yourself to a temporary head brace? For with all this preparation you may become restless in your chair, and without absolute stillness your image will not be clearly drawn. Sherman frowned but nodded in agreement, and Arly sent Calvin back to the wagon for the brace, a calipered bar attached to a stand. Calvin knew that in this morning sunlight, which required only ten seconds of exposure, no head brace was necessary. But this was his opportunity. He stood behind Sherman and affixed it and whispered, hardly able to catch his breath, Sir, that man is not a U.S. photographer. He is a crazy Rebel. And he ran off. Sherman couldn’t turn his head. What? he said. What’s that the Negro said?
Seeing Arly diverting himself with the camera, Calvin moved quickly to Colonel Teack, who stood in the shade at the side of the terrace. Sir, he said, Mr. Josiah Culp is dead. This man in his clothes is a crazy Rebel soldier.
What are you talking about, Teack said. What Rebel soldier?
The Colonel grabbed him by the shoulder, but at this moment Calvin was stunned to see Arly unscrewing the lens from the box. Did Arly know it was the wrong lens? But how could he? Tearing himself from the Colonel’s grasp, Calvin ran toward his camera with a sense that something terribly wrong was being done to it. Arly had ducked his head under the black cloth. His muffled voice was heard. Hold still now, Gen’ral Sherman, the moment of exposure has come! Then Arly’s face rose into view contorted to a rapturous expression that Calvin would remember for the rest of his life. Poking through the socket where a lens should have been, and what Calvin did not in time realize, was the barrel of Mr. Culp’s pistol. The first shot, like a bolt of heat, tore past Calvin’s eyes and blinded him. But he had lunged at the camera, tilting it awry, and the second shot had found Colonel Teack in the chest, knocking him to the ground, though Calvin could not have known it. He was down on his knees, bright lights flashing through his head, and when he put his hand to his eyes they were wet. He didn’t know what the wetness was until he found himself swallowing it. All around him men were shouting. He heard running footsteps, he heard Bert the mule braying. On his hands and knees, and with blood coursing down his throat, he felt the sharp point of a bayonet at his back.
AFTER ARLY PULLED the trigger for the second time, jumping out of the way to avoid the toppling camera, he cursed at Calvin, stood back and, as several troopers advanced on him, threw off Mr. Culp’s coat and hat and stood waiting for his capture in a neatly buttoned gray tunic taken from Mr. Culp’s store of uniforms. He was knocked down with the butt of a rifle, pressed to the ground under someone’s boot, and then dragged roughly to his feet, while complaining loudly of the ill treatment: Damn, that ain’t right, you near to have broken my shoulder! As he was being hustled away he demanded to be imprisoned with his fellow soldiers of the C.S. of A. This was a honorable act of war, he shouted. I am a soldier!
In the excitement and confusion a guard detail had quickly formed around the eleven generals. Sherman, somewhat shaken, ordered Teack carried back int
o the conference room. The generals, after determining that Sherman was unhurt, were all asking one another if they were hurt. It turned out none of them were. But they agreed it would be best to go back inside the courthouse and settle themselves with more brandy and coffee. Maybe forget the coffee, Kilpatrick said, loping up the steps. The others followed in dignified fashion, careful to avoid unseemly haste, though one or two looked back at the crowd standing beyond the plaza, lest anyone else was out there pointing a gun. Isn’t it odd, one of them said, that accustomed as we are to being under fire we should find this situation unnatural.
Sherman stood on the steps for a moment and looked out at the crowd that had appeared in the street. How did the damn fool get so close? he said to no one in particular.
THE COFFEE CUPS were swept away and the Colonel was laid upon the table with Sherman’s own tunic folded up for pillow. Though white with pain, Teack was more concerned about the damage to his uniform. And it seemed to him unfitting that he should lie there in the presence of general officers. He tried to get up. Nonsense, Teack, Sherman said, and pressed him to the table.
Wrede Sartorius was one of three surgeons to arrive. He was immediately deferred to by the others. He offered the Colonel an anesthetic. It was refused. The bullet had cracked a rib but lay shallow enough to be extracted without complication. Bone splinters were removed. Two small bleeding arteries were ligated. Wrede percussed the chest and was satisfied the lung had not collapsed. He sutured and put lint over the wound but did not bandage it. He called for orderlies and a stretcher, and told Colonel Teack that he would be required to rest in a regimental hospital tent.
All the while, the generals had stood watching like students in a medical college. General Sherman kept asking questions—what is this for? why do you do that?—and Wrede kept not answering, which impressed Sherman greatly.
Wrede gave postoperative instructions to his assistant surgeon and left to attend to the black man who still lay outside in the courthouse plaza. Sherman turned to one of his staff and said, Who is that colonel? What’s his name? He carries himself like a soldier, unlike most of the Medical Department.
AT DAWN THE next morning Arly Wilcox was executed by firing squad, a ceremonial event complete with mounted officers, a military band, a pine coffin, and a detachment of Confederate prisoners taken at Bentonville who were present for purposes of instruction. Arly, having argued he was a bona fide prisoner of war, had been assured by his amused guards that that was why he was going to be shot rather than hanged. Well, Will, he said to the picture in his pocket, so we’re back where we were there in Milledgeville. But leastwise it’s the damn Unions doing the executin rather than my own army, which suggests to me God’s continued mercy and maybe future recognition of my martyrdom.
Required to dig his own grave, Arly had squared off the sides with the shovel’s edge. This gonna be my new home I want it nice, he had said.
CALVIN HAD NOT been executed along with Arly Wilcox because of his injury and because the extent of his complicity was not clear. There was some question as to why a Negro would assist in such an enterprise. Wrede Sartorius was to decide when Calvin Harper would be fit to appear for the administrative hearing that would determine his fate.
But now orders were delivered to Wrede assigning him provisionally to General Sherman’s staff. He was to accompany Sherman to the Army of the Potomac headquarters at City Point, Virginia. He could not imagine for what purpose, or how he could be more useful to the army than as a regimental surgeon.
Not knowing the duration of his provisional transfer, he believed it likely that he would be back before the Negro’s recovery could be vouchsafed. The nose was broken at the bridge and both corneas had been seared. The blindness might be partial or total. It was too early to tell. He left instructions regarding the patient’s care, packed a few things, picked up his field-instrument case, and left without advising his staff where he was going.
Wrede was still angry about the loss of Albion Simms. The brown child should never have been left alone with him. Of course, it is my own fault for having taken on people who have no medical training, he thought. Stephen Walsh and his Miss Jameson are children themselves. They are well meaning, but look what I have lost. When I return, I will send Walsh back to his regiment. The girl will have to fend for herself.
VIII
A LOCOMOTIVE HAD TAKEN THEM TO MOREHEAD CITY, and there they boarded a coastal steamer for the overnight trip to City Point. The sea was like glass but Sherman said, What can you do for seasickness? Wrede prescribed tincture of laudanum and Sherman drank it greedily.
Among the things I have to talk to Grant about is this business of executing a Negro, Sherman said. The Southern papers would go to town with that. And I want you to look at Grant when we get there. Tell me if his liver is intact. I hope so. I would prefer he kept drinking—he thinks better when he’s drunk. I can tell when his letters are written under the influence—they’re precise, to the point, clear, and beautiful to read.
After Sherman fell asleep Wrede stood on the foredeck and looked out to sea. Army life demanded a self-submission that did not come easily to him. Here he was, aboard this steamer with his medical instrument bag for luggage and the obligation to attend a general like some factotum.
It was difficult on this overcast night to see where sea and sky were different. Wrede Sartorius saw, as if reflected, his inherently bleak state of being. He smiled, a man who lived alone, his own mind his only companion. He had been in America for almost twenty years, but he felt no more settled here than he had in Europe. He was contemptuous of the army’s Medical Department and no longer saw any reason to share his findings. The war was almost over. He was ready to resign his commission.
GENERAL GRANT’S RESIDENCE was not elaborate but well situated on the bank of the James River, with a view of the harbor. It was a place. It stood still. Sartorius found himself sitting in a tufted parlor chair with his knees together and his hands in his lap while Mrs. Grant sat opposite him and gallantly attempted to deal with his silences. Somewhere along the march, he supposed he had lost the talent for polite conversation. She was a charmingly homely woman, Mrs. Grant, a thoughtful hostess, and he appreciated her effort to entertain him while her husband and General Sherman were secluded. But she did ask him his advice about Ulysses, who was having some trouble with his back. Then she herself admitted to some difficulty breathing when walking up a stairs.
Grant, when he appeared with Sherman, was almost shockingly unprepossessing—rather short, stocky, brown beard of a thick texture, a quiet man clearly not interested in making any kind of impression, unlike Sherman, who didn’t seem to be able to stop talking. Grant’s color was good, and his eyes only slightly bloodshot.
Wrede was included in the luncheon, an affair of about twelve, mostly Army of the Potomac staff, with Mrs. Grant at one end of the table and the General at the other. His tunic unbuttoned, Grant sat slumped in his chair, not eating very much, nor drinking anything but water. Uley, Mrs. Grant called to him, Dr. Sartorius has a liniment for your back, if you would consider it. I think that is so very kind of him, don’t you?
After lunch everyone stood up from the table and Wrede didn’t know what to do when Grant and Sherman walked out of the room and made to leave the house, but Sherman came back and beckoned to him, and he joined the two generals as they strode down to the wharf and went aboard the River Queen, a large white steamer with an American flag flying at the stern. After the bright light of day, Wrede needed a moment to acclimate himself to the dim light of the aftercabin, where a tall man had risen from his chair to receive them. He had the weak, hopeful smile of the sick, a head of wildly unmanageable hair, he wore a shawl over his shoulders and house slippers, and Wrede Sartorius realized with a shock, this was not the resolute, visionary leader of the country whose portrait photographs were seen everywhere in the Union. This was someone eaten away by life, with eyes pained and a physiognomy almost sepulchral, but nevertheless, still unm
istakably, the President of the United States.
After these many months of nomadic life in the Southern lowlands, Wrede could not quite accept his proximity to Abraham Lincoln. The real presence and the mythic office did not converge. The one was here in a small space, the other unlocatable anywhere save in one’s own mind. Lincoln’s conversation was deferential, too much so. You could not imagine any European leader appearing this self-deprecatory before underlings. The President at moments had about him the quality of an elderly woman, fearful of war and despairing of its ever ending. General Sherman, he said, are you sure your army is in good hands while you’re away? Why, Mr. President, General Schofield is in command while I’m gone who is a most able officer. Yes, Lincoln said, I’m sure he is. But we’ll have our little talk and we won’t keep you.
Sherman was ready to speak of the war as if it were over. He thought that, for the peacetime regular army, new regiments should not be commissioned but, rather, that existing regiments should be replenished from the ranks. Ah, General Sherman, Lincoln said with a faint smile, so you think we have a future? Sherman, humorless in this situation, replied, General Grant will agree with me that with one more good battle the war will be won. One more battle, said Lincoln. How many would that make, now? I think I have lost count, he said, bowing his head and closing his eyes.