The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg

  After seeing that Harold is well supplied, I make myself useful hauling ammunition to some of the others, who are strung out all the way to the southern end of the little hill, and under vicious fire from the troops below.

  Time and again the Alabama men scream out their wild rebel yell and swarm up the hill, only to be turned back at the last moment, punished by the men of the 20th Maine, who hold their ground, hunkered down among the rocks like smoking barnacles, refusing to let go.

  For an hour or more the bullets fly. Men are wounded, men scream, men die, but still the bullets fly.

  Colonel Chamberlain is everywhere. He strides along the ridge, in direct line of the rebel sharpshooters firing from below, ordering where his men should be placed and how they might best repel the next desperate charge of the troops from Alabama.

  Bullets crease the air around him, close enough to part his hair, but he never flinches from his purpose.

  Later I heard he was a college professor who knew nothing of war excepting what he’d read in books, but that fateful day upon the little hill he seems to be Napoleon himself, never in doubt as to what must happen next. He orders where the men should move, when the line should be extended, and when the wounded should be dragged back to safety and carried by stretcher away from the withering fire.

  The bodies of the fallen have to be left where they fall, to be retrieved when the battle concludes, if ever it does.

  Even when they’re dead, bullets make them flinch.

  Seeing me scurrying along with a load of ammunition, Colonel Chamberlain pauses in his purposeful stride and says, “You there, boy! Do you know the risk you take?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Very good! Carry on!” he commands. “And keep your head down!”

  Then his attention is drawn elsewhere as one of his officers falls, wounded in the neck, and he must see to a replacement.

  In the first few minutes of the assault the rebels almost gain the top of the hill, where they are met with pistol shot and sword. A few soldiers fight hand to hand, rolling among the rocks, each one desperate to kill the other man, but most of the casualties are inflicted at a distance of thirty yards or so. An Alabama man will emerge from cover, firing as he tries to gain a few yards, and a Maine man will stand up, exposed to the withering hail of bullets, and take aim at the Alabama man, and most times one or the other will fall wounded or dead.

  Sometimes both.

  All to gain advantage on a rocky little spur of a hill that happens to stand at the far end of the line, where the Confederates hope to sweep around and crush the Union Army from both sides. A small hill shrouded in gray gun smoke and running with the blood of the wounded and the dead.

  The steady hail of lead chops little bits out of the trees, like they are being attacked by small, invisible axes.

  I keep down, like Harold and the colonel suggested, and find myself a good boulder to hide behind.

  All the ammunition has been taken from the wagons and distributed. It can’t last forever, the way the men are using it up, each taking two or three shots a minute, but for now the gunfire spits and pops like a full load of popcorn in a hot pan of grease.

  There comes a lull when only a few guns are popping off and I hear Harold call out for more ammunition.

  “All gone!” an officer shouts back. “Find cartridges where you can!”

  Already they are borrowing cartridge cases from the many who have fallen. The dead men don’t object.

  In my hiding place, curled up small, I’m praying the cartridges will run out soon, so we can fall back.

  It comes to this: I care not if the rebels take the hill. There are a million hills in Pennsylvania, let them have this one if they want it so bad!

  A little distance away, half obscured by the clouds of gun smoke, the colonel confers with his officers. From what I can see of their faces the news must be very grim indeed.

  Good, I’m thinking, sound your retreat! An army can’t fight without bullets, can it? We are outnumbered, outgunned, and outfought. The only sensible thing to do is run for it.

  Then, clear as a bell that tolls through the fog, comes his order.

  “Fix bayonets!” he roars.

  All down the line soldiers eagerly slip bayonets onto the muzzles of their empty rifles and ready themselves for what happens next.

  Ahead of me, crouching behind his rock, my brother, Harold, shakes his head at me.

  “Homer, get back!” he shouts above the din. “Go home! Save yourself!”

  Then Colonel Chamberlain’s voice booms out, louder than the crack of artillery.

  “Charge!” he commands, lifting high his sword.

  Harold leaps to his feet and follows him down the hill, into the guns of the enemy.

  TO THIS DAY I CANNOT SAY what made me follow my brother down that hill. It was not ignorance, because I had seen what war does, and hated it. It was not courage, because fear of dying made me scream out loud.

  All I know is, there I was, running after Harold and begging him to take shelter. And as I come over the top of the hill the air itself is hot enough to catch afire from the heat of flying lead.

  To my shock, no more than fifty feet separates us from the enemy. Measured in blood it might as well be a hundred miles. All around me men are charging downhill, eyes wide in the madness of killing, teeth snapping like dogs at the scent of death.

  Fast as I’m running over that rough ground, I can’t seem to catch up to Harold. Soldiers on either side of him fall like rag dolls but he keeps on going.

  Just ahead of him is the burly sergeant with the regimental flag, the one who cussed Harold and said he was swamp trash. The sergeant stumbles, clutching at his stomach, and the flag starts to fall.

  Without breaking stride Harold drops his empty rifle and seizes the flag from the wounded sergeant.

  “Harold, no!”

  Now all rebel eyes — and rebel guns — will be upon him. My brother holds up the flag as he advances, leaning into the lead-filled air as if he is leaning into warm summer rain.

  “Harold, get down!” I scream. “Get down or be killed!”

  Holes appear like stars in the billowing flag, but still he will not take shelter.

  I search for a rock to throw at him, to bring him to his senses, but the first thing my groping hand encounters is the fallen sergeant who passed the flag to Harold. He lies on his side, grinning at his pain, hands clawing at his wounded stomach. I want to ask him why he blacked my brother’s eye, and if he’s sorry now, but it don’t seem right to ask while he’s busy dying.

  Instead I lift the pistol from his holster and take aim, intending to fire at Harold’s feet to get his attention.

  I pull the trigger.

  The bullet strikes the ground. Harold falls.

  At first I think he has finally been struck by rebel lead and then I see what has happened. My own shot has splintered away a chunk of rock that has stuck itself in his leg like a dart in a board.

  As Harold falls he tries to keep the flag upright.

  Without thinking I drop the sergeant’s pistol and somehow the flag ends up in my hands and my brother lying at my feet.

  By rights I should toss aside the flag and drop to the ground and try to get under the flying lead, but something in me won’t let go. Now that the flag is in my hands it don’t seem right to let it fall on bloody ground.

  A dumb idea. Dumb enough to get me killed, but there it is.

  The strangest thing is happening. All around me, all down the hillside, rebel soldiers are throwing down their rifles and surrendering. Begging mercy from the crazy men with the bayonets, men mad enough to charge without a shot to fire, into the face of certain death. Men who will not give up. Men who would rather die than be defeated.

  Beneath me Harold is groaning and trying to pry loose the sliver of stone imbedded in his leg. I am sorry he is hurt but glad that he is alive.

  Then I notice that not all the Alabama soldiers have surrendered. I notice bec
ause one of them has risen from the ground with his sword in both hands. His eyes moving from the flag to me, as if deciding what to strike first, the hated Yankee flag or the boy holding it.

  He hesitates.

  At that moment exactly, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain appears and aims his pistol at the swordsman’s head with a steady hand.

  “Surrender or die,” he suggests.

  The man drops the sword and falls to his knees.

  “I’ll take the flag,” the colonel says. “See to your brother.”

  THAT DAY THE BATTLE ends for us, but not for others.

  All that night, as I waited in the surgeon’s tent with Harold, the wounded were carried from the field. Supplies were brought in, meals were cooked or eaten cold, artillery cannons were shifted into new positions. Men sang and cried and waited for the dawn. And when the sun rose it did not seem so bad at first. A few skirmishes, a cannonade or two — it was as if the rebels wanted only to give us a little slap, to remind us they had not been truly beaten.

  Then, early that afternoon, the Confederate artillery began to fire in earnest, hurling thousands of explosive shells upon the Union positions, and the earth itself began to shake, as if some mad giant was stamping his feet in rage.

  Our tent was more than a mile from the field of battle but the shaking was so bad that water sloshed in the glass and dust rose from the ground. One of the surgeons shouted that it was like an earthquake, but unlike an earthquake it did not stop.

  Eventually, of course, it did stop, and the Confederates, thinking the Union artillery had been pounded into oblivion, launched an infantry attack into the very middle of the Union forces. They sent almost thirteen thousand men marching in line across a mile of open ground. And in that bloody mile, pounded by Union artillery and hundreds of Union sharpshooters, half of the Confederates were killed or wounded.

  Among those who participated in that doomed assault was Reginald Robertson Crockett, the gentleman spy, the man I knew as Professor Fleabottom. Having bribed his way free of his jailers, paying them with the golden buttons on his coat, he rode hard for the battlefield and soon perished there, as his famous ancestor did at the Alamo, fighting to the last man.

  That night Robert E. Lee and his rebel army fled south, and would never again set foot on Northern soil.

  A FEW DAYS AFTER the battle, while the dead were still being buried in the fields and meadows of Gettysburg, and some of their fallen officers shipped home in boxes, Colonel Chamberlain came to see us. Harold’s wound was healing nicely, so it seemed, and the colonel had sent a telegraph message to Pine Swamp, Maine, and received a reply.

  Harold’s age was proved as seventeen.

  “You are released from your service as being too young to enlist,” the colonel informed him.

  Better words I never heard, although Harold was none too pleased — he wanted to keep on fighting, once his leg had healed.

  Before he left us the colonel turned to me and asked why I did it. Why did I stand my ground and hold the flag?

  “You’re only a boy and could have run away with no shame,” he says, fixing his cold blue eyes on me. “What made you stand?”

  Try as I might, I could not think of an answer that day. And all these years later, I still cannot say why I did not run. Surely I wanted to, but something made me stay.

  “If we are still fighting in two years’ time,” the colonel said, “I will send for both of you.”

  In two years time the long and terrible war finally came to an end, and we were never again called upon to fight. Instead we wandered north, relying upon each other, working wherever we could, on farms and in small factories, and searching all the while for a medicine show as good as Professor Fleabottom’s.

  We never did find one.

  Eventually Jebediah Brewster located us in our wanderings and took us in and made us feel at home, and was made our legal guardian. By then the slaves had been freed of their bondage and the Brewster Mines were opened up again, bringing precious stones out of the dirt and rocks.

  Mr. Brewster says me and Harold are like tourmaline. We come in dirty but we wash up shiny, and he is proud to call us his kin and make us his heirs. It was him that suggested I write down my true adventures, so if you hate this book put the blame on Jebediah Brewster, not on me.

  One more thing I got to say about my big brother, Harold, and that’s what happened after the battle at Gettysburg. At first his wound healed, and for a few weeks it seemed like his leg would be saved. Then one day an infection set in, and it swelled up blue and nearly killed him. Nothing to cure it but the knife and the saw.

  My brother lost his leg.

  He still feels it sometimes, like the ghost of a limb that used to be. When that happens he will smile and say, “Remember when we were boys? Remember how you saved my life by trying to kill me? Remember how you stood your ground, a small boy of twelve that never owned a pair of shoes? Don’t you worry, little brother, don’t you shed a tear. Wasn’t you that took my leg, it was the war.”

  I think in some ways it’s like that for all of us, living with the ghosts of things that used to be, or never were. We’re all of us haunted by yesterday, and we got no choice but to keep marching into our tomorrows.

  Keep marching, boys and girls. Keep marching.

  YOURS TRULY (MOSTLY),

  HOMER P. FIGG

  ABOLITIONIST

  One who wants to abolish the institution of slavery.

  ABRAHAM LINCOLN

  The prairie lawyer whose election as president prompted many of the slave-holding states to declare that they were no longer part of the United States of America, and would form a nation of their own. The new Confederacy struck quickly, attacking Fort Sumter a mere thirty-nine days after Lincoln took office. Lincoln’s own view that slavery should not be expanded into the new states — a view that failed to prevent war — eventually evolved into the belief that slavery itself should be abolished. His short speech honoring the dead at Gettysburg is considered to be one of the most powerful and eloquent in the English language. He was assassinated a few days after the Confederacy surrendered.

  ARTILLERY

  Cannons and big guns, some with ranges of more than a mile. Arguably the most effective cannon used in the Civil War was the Napoleon, which fired a twelve-pound exploding shell loaded with small iron balls. It was, in effect, a giant sawed-off shotgun.

  BALLOONS

  Large silk surveillance balloons filled with hydrogen gas. The advantage of height enabled pilots to survey the entire battlefield and report to the generals. After a time the opposing army learned how to shoot down the balloons, and their use was discontinued.

  BASEBALL

  Sometimes called “town ball” or “bat ball,” it was encouraged by the army to improve physical conditioning. Teamwork on the field was thought to lead to teamwork on the field of battle. Organized baseball grew in popularity after the soldiers returned from war.

  CASUALTIES OF THE CIVIL WAR

  More than 600,000 lives were lost, the most in any war fought by American soldiers.

  CONDUCTORS

  Men and women, often of color, who guided slaves to freedom.

  CONSCRIPTION LAW

  Required all males between the ages of twenty and forty-five to register for the draft by April 1, 1863. A man could be exempted by paying three hundred dollars or by hiring a substitute to serve in his place.

  EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

  Lincoln’s executive order on January 1, 1863, freeing slaves in the Confederate states. Slaves in the border states of West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware would not finally be freed until the war ended.

  FIREARMS

  The rifled musket — soon shortened to “rifle” — was the most common firearm of the Civil War. It fired a new lead slug developed by French army Captain Claude Minié. Often called a “minié ball,” this modern half-inch bullet was made to spin by the rifling inside the barrel of the weapon, which gr
eatly improved accuracy. It could be deadly at a range of half a mile, and changed the nature of warfare. The author refers to this new form of ammunition simply as a bullet, for clarity.

  FREDERICK DOUGLASS

  One of the most amazing men of the 19th century, Douglass secretly taught himself to read while laboring as a slave in Maryland. When he began to teach other slaves to read, fearful slave owners menaced him with clubs and stones. After several attempts, he finally escaped to freedom in 1838, at the age of twenty. Soon after, he was asked to speak at an abolitionist meeting, and his powerful eloquence and intellect made him one of the most celebrated orators and authors of his age. He championed the rights of all humans — whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant — until the day of his death in 1895.

  FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW

  Meant that escaped slaves could be seized and returned to their “owners” without trial, relying only on the word of the owner. There were many instances in which legally freed blacks and some who had been born free were “returned” in this way. The Fugitive Slave Law outraged many Americans, even those not opposed to slavery itself.

  GEEK

  Carnival performer who bites off the heads of live chickens.

  JEFFERSON DAVIS

  President of the Confederate States of America, 1861–1865. In stating his reasons for going to war, Davis wrote, “What is the reason we are compelled to assert our rights? That the labor of our African slaves should be taken away by the federal government.” His vice-president, Alexander Stephens, was even more forthright: “The immediate cause of our present revolution is the threat to the institution of slavery. Our new government is founded upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.”