The Sentinels of Andersonville by Tracy Groot Read Free Book Online Page B

beard and flicked it away. She pointed to the other. He took care of that one, too.
    “What are they, Papa?” she asked, nose wrinkled.
    “Why, the first was Miss Mary, and the second was her beau, come courtin’.” He smiled tiredly, and patted her arm. “Not to worry.” And she wondered what she should be worried about.
    The next day, Papa cut off his beard.
    Tell your father he needs to be more careful.
    Was Papa in trouble? What trouble could come from volunteering his medical services?
    She picked up the box of seashells and brought it over to the corral, where the smart black Maxwell brougham waited outside the stable to be harnessed to the smart black Maxwell horse. She put the box inside the carriage, then closed the door, tied her bonnet strings, and headed for the east side of the Andersonville depot.

4
    A DIRT ROAD cut through a stand of pines and led east from the sandy bank of the depot. Two hundred and twelve weary men moved slowly through double lines of guards. Most were captured in the hard fighting northeast of Atlanta, where Sherman ground his way south, inch by bloody inch; some were transferred from other prisons close to the fighting, where Confederate authorities feared to be overrun by wild, vengeful Yankees come to set their captives free.
    The men were from all over the Union. Most were native-born Americans; others were immigrants   —German, Irish, Italian, French, Polish. There were a few Indians, one from a tribe in Minnesota and one from Kansas, and two black men from the 54th Massachusetts Colored Division. There were hapless sailing men from the Dutch Indies who had taken their chances supplying blockaders and gotten caught in the cross fire, arrested because they might be Union spies. There were a few Marines, some sailors. Most were army regulars, and most of those were veteran volunteers. Some were pressed, and some were bounty scags, men who would sign up in one county tocollect an enlistment dole, then head for another county and do the same. The men represented every character and position in society, except those in the echelons of the rich; that sort could hire substitutes to do their fighting for them.
    They were mostly farmers. They were blacksmiths and shoemakers, hatters and coopers, shopkeepers, sheriffs, and barbers. They were teachers, lawyers, printers, and daguerreotypists; groomsmen, carpenters, barkeeps. Most were young, and of those, the average age was twenty-one. The oldest in this group was forty-seven, a brawny blacksmith from Iowa.
    A man of smallish build rode alongside the men on a gray mare. He wore a gray cap and a short gray coat. His hair, beard, and eyes were black. He was from Switzerland, and had immigrated in 1849. His name was Captain Henry Wirz.
    “Pye Gott, if you tam Yankees don’t tay in dem ranks   —no rations!” He swung his revolver about in a menacing fashion. “Tay in dem ranks, you no good . . .” and off he went in a flourish of profanity.
    A few looks of mild surprise went his way, and a few veteran campaigners shook their heads; they were quick to sum up different sorts of leadership, and this ranting captain who had nothing to rant about   —who would fall out of rank while sandwiched between armed guards?   —would likely shake down to be the punitive, nit-piddly sort, the kind to set you on edge for future or imagined offenses just because he could. Some men could lead with few words, and others couldn’t lead with many.
    Lew Gann had seen his type on both sides of the line. A man like that in a position of power was unpleasant at best, and dangerous at worst.
    “You dere!” Wirz roared, and spurred the gray mare ahead.
    “Welcome to Andersonville,” Emery quipped. He walkedalongside Lew in a line of guards. “I’d stay on that fellow’s good side, if I were you.”
    “He don’t have a good side,” the guard ahead of Emery said over his shoulder.
    “Who, Wirz?” snorted the guard behind. “I’ll see his