Henry did his best to help with the wounded.
They came in about an hour and a half after the fighting and the Confederate field hospitals were overwhelmed with those hobbling or crawling their way back to friendlier territory. And while he was only acting as a 'newspaper man', he couldn't sit by and watch the nurses and medical aides struggle to keep up with the wounded. He took one of the few remaining butcher's aprons, tied it on and helped the aides tend to those who were not as badly hurt. There were screams as those whose legs and arms couldn't be saved and had to be removed.
Henry tried to remained focused on his task, giving the men in front of him anything for the pain they were feeling. However, a terrifying scream had him turning around, and his gaze landed on an amputation.
Despite himself, he found himself back at Antietam, standing over his friend Thomas, a man whom he'd known all his life bleed out from a wound on his leg. He remembered the man fighting the surgeon, fighting to keep all his limbs, yelling what use a one-legged cripple was to his country, to his friends. Those words were the last his friend ever said before passing out and bleeding to death. These men, these…..boys didn't deserve this.
"Come on, damn it! I need help!"
Henry shook himself into moving and bent down to help him.
The sun had reached well past the noon point when he was allowed to take a break, allowed to removed his apron, bloodied, and set it aside. He sat on a stump and watched his blood-stained hands tremble ever so slightly.
Odd….his hands shaking like that.
His hands hadn't shaken like that since he was a lad when he first fired a pistol. The loud noise, the way the pistol jerked backwards, the sulfuric stench of gunpowder…..
Henry clenched his hands and willed them to stop shaking. He turned towards the other tents, which was basically an open field just back of the line. There were small tents, white as the freshly fallen snow, all over the field and bigger tents where the screams of the men could be heard as the surgeons performed their surgeries. His eyes were fixed on those big white tents, watching them closely until General Longstreet came out, his face hardened and stretched into a pinched expression of pain and preparation of loss. While that expression was nothing new to Henry, he had seen it on his own sister's face when he received news of his youngest nephew's death, he knew that he had to get closer, to see what was going on.
He stood on genuinely shaking legs and made his way over to the bushy-bearded general.
"General!" Henry called. The man looked dazed so he tried again. "General Longstreet! Sir!"
That got his attention. The man turned around and caught sight of Henry running towards him. He slowed his pace but not his stride. When Henry reached his side, Longstreet glanced down at his hands and didn't even bat an eye when he said, "Been busy?"
"Ah. Yes, sir. I have." Henry said as he glanced down at his hands. "Quite a…..an activity, I should say. I'm glad I went to journalism, instead of medicine."
"Well….it is the medicine that will save some-" Longstreet stopped abruptly, his eyes going to where two bodies were laying out in the field, both covered by a sheet.
Henry sighed heavily before finishing the general's saying, "While it is all up to God who lives."
"General Barksdale and Brigadier General Semmes." Longstreet whispered, his face returning to the ground and he moved off. "Good men. Good soldiers."
There was a question that he wanted to ask, Henry could tell. It was the same question Margaret, his family, the entire country and both sides were asking since that first fateful shot two years ago in Charleston, South Carolina.
How many others? How many more will die from gunshots, cannon blasts, wounds or infection? How many will try to leave both sides, will try to leave and return to his home and family? And how many men will be dishonored as deserters?
It was a depressing line of thought that he cut off before it could swallow him up.
He wondered how his sister was doing. Whether she was still alive, wounded or just somewhere where she wasn't supposed to be.
"You want something to eat, Mr. Phillips?"
"Yes." Though his stomach wasn't clamoring for food, he offered the reins that General Longstreet was offering and got situated in the saddle of a dark grey horse. "Thank you."
They were about to ride off somewhere, when someone called out to General Longstreet. The man turned around.
The man said, "Captain Goree is here, sir. AH, you sent for him."
Longstreet looked and Henry turned around, spotting a skinny man. Longstreet said, "T.J. I want you to get out to the right and scout the position. No more damn fool countermarches in the morning. Take most of the night but get it clear, get it clear. I've got Hood's division posted on our right flank. Or…. what's left of it. I've put Law in command. You need any help, you get it from Law, all right?"
The man nodded but didn't move. Longstreet's brow furrowed.
"What's the matter?"
"They're blaming us." The man said. His voice was squeaky, much like a wagon wheel that didn't have enough oil. There was anger coming off hi, radiating off him in waves like an incoming tide.
"What?"
Henry remained silent as he watched the exchange.
"I been talking to Hood's officers. Do you know they blame u? They blame you for today. Sir." The man in front of him took a deep breath. "You may hear of it, General. I had to hit this fella. They all said the attack was your fault and if General Lee knowed he wouldn't have ordered it and I just couldn't stand there and I couldn't say right out what I felt, so I had to hit this one fella. Pretty hard. Had to do it. Aint gonna apologize neither. No time. But. Thought you ought to know."
"Is he dead?"
"I don't think so."
Henry lowered his head to conceal his smirk.
"Well, that's good." There was a long pause from Longstreet before he said, "Well, don't worry on it. Probably won't hear another thing if you didn't kill him. Probably forgotten in the morning. One thing: I want no duels. No silly, damn duels."
"Yes sir, though…thing is, if anything bad happens now, they all blame it on you. I seen it comin'. They can't blame General Lee. Not no more. So…they all take it out on you. You got to watch yourself, General."
"Wel. Let it go."
The other man still didn't let it go. "Yes sir. But it ain't easy. After I saw you take all morning trying to get General Lee to move to the right."
"Let it go, T.J." Longstreet stressed. He sounded tired. "We'll talk on it after the fight."
The man moved out. Longstreet and Henry left as well, away from the hospitals and headed forward. Henry respected the silence that exploded from the two, allowing the general the time to think and to plan and to prepare for the reports that would no doubt arrive, numbering the day's lost and the day's wounded.
Henry, much to his displeasure, returned to the line of thought. He prayed that his sister was safe, unhurt and doing what she needed to do. It was clear to him that their mission to stop this horrible engagement had failed, so now they had to find some other way to stop it. There was still time, Henry could feel it in his bones, but…...it seems as though Providence wanted this confrontation to happen. Henry wasn't a Godly man, didn't have time for faith or prayers but he could see something behind this, some unseen hand guiding all these events, moving these two armies into position, like pieces on a chess board. Henry had been around the Assassins long enough, had seen the evidence of the Isu still manipulate the human race to know when a hand is working behind the scenes.
Whether Providence or something else was the thing guiding this ship, he feared that this was only the beginning.
A storm, much bigger than the one witnessed here, was brewing on the horizon.
Henry forced himself back into the presence when he saw that General Longstreet was approaching a group of soldiers. Officers by the looks of them. They were surrounding a man that looked very…. gaudy compared to the plainness of the others. He wore a broad-brimmed with a large, dark plume that moved with every bob of his head. Henry glanced sharply at Longstreet, sensing the anger that exploded out from the general beside him. He noted the barely concealed rage that was etched into his lined face, his eyes burning with a deep fire.
"General?"
"That, my dear friend, is Jeb Stuart." Longstreet growled out. He spurred his horse forward without another word, which Henry did as well. When they approached. they dismounted as one, and straightened themselves as Lee came out. Henry, as he was always when he came face-to-face with the high commander of the Confederate Army, was shocked as the men lifted off their hats, and gave a small, subdued call of support. Though, when the men caught sight of the expression on Lee's face, they all scurried like rats.
"General Stuart is back."
Henry shuddered at that voice, soft and formerly warm, this time holding an icy chill that could freeze a Southern summer and send ice down from the skies into the hottest parts of Hell. Henry knew that someone, particularly General Stuart, was in the deepest trouble. He watched closely the attitudes and the body language of the soldiers and generals, watching as they all tensed up as Stuart started to try and start a conversation with several officers. But the other generals were…. closed off, as though shunning the plumed-hat general. Henry could easily sense anger, pure undiluted anger coming off Longstreet beside him.
There was something happening in front of him. Some sort of schism between all the officers and the pretentious- looking Stuart.
"If you'll excuse me, Mr. Williams. I've got to speak to General Lee."
"Of course, General." Henry allowed the man to walk off. Curiosity pulled him towards General Stuart and the group of men gathered around him, or rather the group of men Stuart was trying to gather around him.
"Ah! Mr. Williams!" General Pickett called as soon as he saw him approach. "Come! Come and meet General Stuart! General Stuart, this young man right here is a journalist from Maine. Quite the conversationalist despite being a Yankee if I do say so myself. Uh, no offense son."
"There is none to be taken, General Pickett." Henry assured the man. His attention turned towards the new arrival. "Phillip Williams, sir. Maine Gazette."
"Ah." Stuart shook his outstretched hand. "Excellent! A newspaper man! I do enjoy talking to your folk. However, you Yankee reporters don't really paint me in a flattering light."
Henry, along with everyone else it seems, became suddenly uncomfortable. "You might want to talk to my constituents then. I haven't reported yet on the war as of now."
"And why is that good sir? Seems like everyone and their grandmother has been running stories on this godawful war."
"Well…." Think, Henry…..think. "Well, I was taking care of my aunt, who lives in Baltimore. The whole conflict has given her some illnesses that have worn her down quite a bit. And since she lives alone by herself, I thought it prudent enough to stay with her until she was well. My sister is taking care of her now."
"How sweet." Stuart touched a handkerchief to his face.
Henry refrained from rolling his eyes at the dramatics of it all before they darted towards Longstreet. He was talking with another higher-ranking general, one who looked furious. Longstreet was trying to calm him down but the other general just stormed off, leaving Longstreet to look dejected. Henry pulled his eyes away from the scene as Major Taylor approached the full bearded man, and his attention went back to the group in front of him. General Stuart was preaching to the group, begging them to speak on his behalf if a court-marital appeared. The fact that he was doing so didn't seem to bode well with Henry, or the other generals in fact as they all politely excused themselves from the group, claiming to be tired after having a long day.
Henry raised an eyebrow at the pointed looks they were shooting Stuart.
"Well, if you don't mind, General, I believe that I must excuse myself. It indeed has been a very long day and this poor soul is exhausted."
"Of course, Mr. Williams." The man did a sweeping bow, one that Henry returned, only he just bobbed his head. "Have an excellent night."
"And you as well."
Henry started off towards his tent. However, once he was sure that no one was looking his way, he darted his way into the bushes, and once in the cover of darkness, retraced his steps. He found his way, using stealth and the shadows, snuck into General Lee's headquarters. Henry arrived in the home, using one of the hidden closets close to the kitchen where the white-haired general was to listen in on the conversation.