Chickamauga by Shelby Foote Read Free Book Online Page A

trousers as if he didn’t have any suspenders.
    “All you ladies outside,” he said, “we need this car for the wounded.”
    “What?”
    “Hey!”
    “We paid for our tickets, didn’t we?”
    “I don’t care. We need all the cars for the wounded and the other cars are about filled up.”
    “Hey! We didn’t come down to fight in any battle!”
    “It doesn’t matter what you came down for—you’re in a battle, a hell of a battle.”
    I was scared I can tell you. I thought maybe the Rebs would capture us and send us down to one of those prisons you hear about where they starve you to death unless you sing Dixie all the time and kiss niggers.
    “Hurry up now!”
    But another officer had come in who looked more nice.
    “Stay where you are, ladies,” he said, and then he said to the officer, “What do you want to do, leave them standing on the siding! If Sedgewick’s Corps is broken like they say the Rebs may come up in this direction!” Some of the girls began crying out loud. “These are northern women after all.”
    “These are—”
    “Oh shut up—go back to your command. I’m detailed to this transportation job, and I’m taking these girls to Washington with us.”
    I thought they were going to hit each other but they both walked off together, and we sat wondering what we were going to do.
    What happened next I don’t quite remember. The cannon were sometimes very loud and then sometimes more far away, but there was firing of shots right near us and a girl down the car had her window smashed. I heard a whole bunch of horses gallop by our windows but I still couldn’t see anything.
    This went on for half an hour—gallopings and more shots. We couldn’t tell how far away but they sounded like up by the engine.
    Then it got quiet and two guys came into our car—we all knew right away they were rebels, not officers, just plain private ones with guns. One had on a brown blouse and one a blue blouse and I was surprised because I thought they always wore grey. They were disgusting looking and very dirty; one had a big pot of jam he’d smeared all over his face and the other had a box of crackers.
    “Hi, ladies.”
    “What you gals doin’ down here?”
    “Kaint you see, Steve, this is old Joe Hooker’s staff.”
    “Reckin we ought to take ’em back to the General?”
    They talked outlandish like that—I could hardly understand they talked so funny.
    One of the girls got hysterical, she was so scared and that made them kind of shy. They were just kids I guess, under those beards, and one of them tipped his hat or whatever the old thing was:
    “We’re not fixin’ to hurt you.”
    At that moment there was a whole bunch more shooting down by the engine and the rebs turned and ran. We were glad I can tell you.
    Then about fifteen minutes later in came one of our officers. This was another new one.
    “You better duck down!” he shouted to us, “they may shell this train. We’re starting you off as soon as we load two more ambulances on board.”
    Half of us was on the floor already. The rich women sitting ahead of Nell and me went up into the car ahead where the wounded were—I heard one ofthem say to see if they could do anything. Nell thought she’d look in too, but she came back holding her nose—she said it smelled awful in there.
    It was lucky she didn’t go in because two of the girls did try and see if they could help, but the nurses sent them right back, as if they was dirt under their feet.
    After I don’t know how long the train began to move. A soldier came in and poured the oil out of all our lights except one and took it into the wounded car, so now we could hardly see at all.
    If the trip down was slow the trip back was terrible. The wounded began groaning and we could hear in our car, so nobody couldn’t get a decent sleep. We stopped everywhere.
    When we got in Washington at last there was a lot of people in the station and they were all anxious about what had happened to