Return to Sharpsburg
He stood at the edge of a cornfield in Western Maryland, looking out over the rolling terrain with its hidden swales that once engulfed entire regiments in battle, looking out over corn knee high but remembering corn here when it was head high. Remembering how it was cut down by bullets and trampled down by soldiers and washed down by blood. Nearly twenty years ago now, but he remembered. He remembered that some of those bullets were his, some of those heavy footsteps were his, some of that blood was his.
Jarrod Barkley lived far away now, thousands of miles, and he not been back here since the day he left his blood here. It was not a place he wanted to remember, but now, over the last few weeks, he couldn't forget it. He rubbed his sore arm, connecting today's pain with that pain from long ago, when the same arm had nearly been blown away by a minie ball. It was only by the grace of God the bullet that hit him then nearly went through. When they began to amputate his arm, they discovered the bullet had traveled through his bicep but stopped just short of exiting his arm. They could feel the bullet. They decided to cut it out and save the arm - quicker surgery than an amputation and God knew the surgeons had to work fast on that day. They let him keep his arm, to let whatever would happen, happen. He got lucky then. There was no infection, no bone damage. His arm was sore and the muscle irrevocably damaged, but with work and patience he recovered almost full use of it over time. No one would ever have guessed from watching him use it that it had been so badly damaged.
Now, it had been hit again, in much the same way as it had been back then. Shot while serving on a posse, again the bullet had gone through the bicep, this time apparently nicking the bone but not shattering it before it went clean through. He had lost a lot of blood, and the damage to the bicep was bad again. Same arm, same bicep, damaged again.
Maybe that was what brought him here now, the same damage to that same arm. The same pain. The same risk of infection. He remembered what the doctor had said to him this time, what he'd said to the family. "We have to take the arm, Jarrod. The damage is too great, especially because you still have damage from the war. You got almost all the use back from that, but you're not gonna get it back this time. If you don't let us take the arm, it could easily get infected and you could die. I know it's bitter, Jarrod, but we have to take the arm."
"No," Jarrod said.
"Jarrod – "
"No."
The same thing all over again this time, the same as in 1862. Same arm, same bicep, same damage, but this time no one was expecting the same result. The family had a fit, not only because he wouldn't let them take the arm, but also because he insisted he was still coming to Washington. Important business, he had convinced them. It couldn't wait and no one else could do it. He didn't tell them he was planning to come back to Sharpsburg, too.
Jarrod Barkley stood for a long time, looking over that corn, rubbing his arm still encased in a sling. Feeling guilty. How stupid, to feel guilty because they did not amputate his arm in 1862. He should be feeling lucky, and in one way he did. He remembered crawling off this field, stumbling over dead bodies and groaning wounded men, not even sure he was crawling in the right direction. Getting covered with the blood from his arm and the blood from every man he crawled over. But he made it off the field. By the time he got back to his lines, he was so blood soaked they couldn't tell where he had been wounded. They had to take all his clothing off to find it was his arm that was wounded. He never saw that uniform again. No doubt they burned it.
He rubbed his arm again. The doctors in California had told him to keep it in the sling. They nagged him about paying proper attention to it while he was so far away from home. They – the doctor, the family, the sheriff who had led the posse – all of the "theys" who didn't trust him to take good care of that arm. They assumed he would rather die than let it be amputated.
Well, maybe he would, but he darned well would take good care of the arm while it was still attached to him. Maybe that was why he felt such a strong pull to come here to Sharpsburg now. He didn't leave his arm here in Sharpsburg in 1862. He wasn't about to leave it here now in 1879.
He sighed and looked up again, up along the Hagerstown Pike toward the north. That was the direction he and his men had come from in 1862. Suddenly he saw something that made him wonder if it was real. There was suddenly a man standing there at the edge of the road. He had no left arm.
The man was only about thirty yards away. The man turned to look at him. Was he a ghost? Jarrod couldn't believe whether he was or he wasn't. Then, oddly, the man smiled and shook his head. "You didn't get that here," he said, looking at Jarrod's arm.
Jarrod walked toward the man, looking at his injured arm and then back up. "Not this time, but I actually did take a bullet in the left arm here," he said. "Just somehow managed to keep my arm. Did you leave yours here?"
The man nodded, glancing at his empty sleeve, but his smile did not fade much. He extended his right hand. "Harry Meade, 125th Pennsylvania, twelfth corps."
Jarrod took his hand with his own good right one. "Jarrod Barkley, aide to General George G. Meade. Any relation?"
"I don't think so, but could be, who knows?" Harry said. "We're both Pennsylvania men. You?"
"California."
Harry looked surprised. "California? How did you get mixed up in this war?"
Jarrod sighed. "I was a kid. Wanted to see the elephant. You?"
"The same," Harry said, "but I got hit about twelve steps into the battle, and that was the end of my tour of duty. You stayed in?"
Jarrod nodded. "Til the end. From here I was reassigned to army intelligence in Washington for a couple years, then to a colored cavalry unit in Virginia. Took a couple more hits, but came out of everything with all my limbs intact."
"What's with your arm now? It doesn't still bother you from the war."
"No. Got it in a posse chasing a bank robber a few weeks ago."
"Hey, hey!" Harry laughed. "So the wild west is as wild as I've read about!"
Jarrod laughed. After all the tough memories going through his head, it felt good to laugh. "Sometimes. I've been shot up out there more than I ever was in the war, but I'd never go through this day here again for all the gold at Sutter's Mill."
Both men looked out across the cornfield. Harry said, "I didn't know the worst of it until I saw they brought General Mansfield off the field. Poor old man. First day in battle in his whole career and he didn't last much longer than I did. That was when they were taking me off to the surgery, and I wasn't awake enough to hear everything until the next day. When they told me what the casualty figures looked like, and when I saw all the wounded and dying around me behind the lines – I just couldn't believe it. I grieved the loss of this arm, and it hurt like the devil even though it was gone, but I was glad my time in that war was over."
"I was out of this battle pretty early, too," Jarrod said, "but my war wasn't over yet. I didn't muster out until late July '65. Hadn't been home to California in all that time. Got home and found I'd grown a couple inches and actually gained a few pounds."
"On that lousy army food?"
"I don't know how it happened," Jarrod said, laughing again. "How can you gain weight on hardtack?" He shook his head. "Probably just came with the height increase."
"What brings you here?"
"Oh, I live not far away," Harry said. "I come here quite a lot. Funny thing, but I find it very peaceful now. I live on a small farm and I have ten kids. Not very peaceful around the house."
Jarrod chuckled again.
"What brings you here now?" Harry asked.
"This arm, I think," Jarrod said. "I had business in Washington, so I took an extra day to come up here. This arm is taking a long time to heal. Keeps reminding me of what I got here. I often wondered why I didn't leave my arm here like you did. It didn't seem right."
"Right? Man, you got lucky. Don't go thinking that was a bad thing. The rest of us would pay you good money to be in your shoes."
Now Jarrod really did feel guilty, not for failing to lose his arm but failing to appreciate that he kept it. But he said, "It's funny what you think when so many of your comrades are missing arms and legs, and you didn't lose yours. You do feel guilty about it. You really do."
"Yeah, I've heard that can happen, but Jarrod, it's poppycock. I'm glad you didn't lose your arm. I'm sorry you've gotten it shot up again, but I'm glad you didn't leave it here with mine."
Jarrod sighed. "They want to amputate it now. I won't let them."
"Hmm," Harry said. "You think maybe this is a lucky place for you – kept your arm once, maybe you'll keep it again."
"No," Jarrod said with another small laugh. "There's nothing lucky about this place."
"Well, there you might be wrong. We sent Bobby Lee running back to Virginia, didn't we? We saved the Union here so we could fight another day. And you and I are still alive. There's plenty of luck in all that."
Jarrod gave Harry a grateful smile. "You've got a good way of looking at things, Harry."
Harry shrugged. "This place cost me my arm, but it got me out of the war alive, and then I met the right girl and she's given me ten kids. I got no complaints."
Jarrod considered his own mirror image of that past. He kept his arm, but spent the next three and half years in the war, and now he was widowed with no children to leave behind him. But he kept his arm, and he was going to keep it now, and he was going to get the use of it back – maybe not all of it, but enough of it to avoid being a cripple. "You're right, Harry. This place does have some luck in it."
"And it is peaceful again, and with God's blessing, it'll stay peaceful for a long, long time," Harry said. "I'm sorry you can't come back more often, Jarrod. This place can give a man something, if he lets it."
"Tell you what, Harry. You come back for me. Give me a thought now and then, and maybe any peace will drift all the way to California." Jarrod extended his hand.
Harry took Jarrod's hand warmly. "I'll do that."
They parted company then, Jarrod returning to the horse he'd hitched to a fence post further south down the pike. He had to return it to the local livery and be back at the train depot in time to catch the eastbound to Washington. He got himself up into the saddle one-handed and turned to give Harry a good-bye wave, but the man was already gone.
Jarrod was startled for a moment. The man was absolutely gone. How did he get away so fast? Or had he ever been there at all?
Then Harry appeared walking north on the Pike, coming up out of one of those swales around here that hid entire regiments in September 1862. Jarrod laughed to himself, turned his horse, and headed back for the livery in town.
The End