Faith Bradshaw pondered those words as the wagon jostled southeast along the rutted Mummasburg Road toward Gettysburg. War certainly wasn’t glorious or dignified like many politicians would have one believe. It certainly wasn’t the grand and marvelous spectacle described in books of yore.

She had often speculated just how reality and patriotic fiction differed. Until now, she had considered herself and her town fortunate for not having experienced a battle, unlike scores of Southern communities. Indeed, the only near-encounter had occurred during last year’s battle at Sharpsburg, Maryland, some forty miles distant. Yet even then, forty miles made all the difference between fiction and fact. Still, she had presumed in her heart of hearts the reality would be bad—

But she had never expected such a nightmare of bloodshed and desecration, had never envisioned this peaceful town as a charnel house, a butcher’s pen with man as its victim. Now, her hometown acted as a haven for thousands of wounded men, a final resting place for thousands more, mutating this once-beautiful countryside into a replica of hell. No written accounts, no photographic evidence—regardless how advanced the art had become—would ever do the reality justice.

Faith massaged her temples, while the snood enclosing her waist-length, bronze-colored hair seemed burdening. She felt older than her twenty-one years, assumed she looked older as well. She knew, after three seemingly endless days of battle around her home, that her blue eyes were puffy from tears, fright, and the lack of rest. Not being able to sleep was the worst of it, but a good night’s rest to relieve reality’s strain was a luxury, one she wouldn’t receive anytime soon. Or perhaps never again, she thought, with a shiver.

Black clouds shrouded the western sky over Seminary Ridge. Thunder rippled the Saturday afternoon air. Despite her aversion to thunderstorms, Faith breathed easier nonetheless, for at first she’d feared the reports of a cease-fire had been erroneous.

The teamster sitting beside her, a muscular Negro with a face so dark it exhibited a blue cast, reassuringly patted her hand. “It’s all right,” he said, the hint of a twang in his sonorous voice. “They’re gone and let’s pray for good.”

“Amen to that. Thank you, Isiah.”

“No need to thank me. You try to put up a brave front, yet I can see how skittish you’ve become. But now it’s over.”

The battle perhaps, but not its aftermath, Faith thought, giving his work-roughened, almost leathery hand a fierce squeeze. When Isiah announced plans to take the wagon into town for supplies, she had jumped at the chance to accompany him, disregarding his warnings regarding the area’s condition. Anything to free herself from the house. Listening to the suffering of the wounded was bad enough, but living for another second without a break from the stench would have forced her brother, Steven, to commit her to an asylum.

Yet, that might not be such a bad alternative—not after this.

In all directions, discarded canteens, bayonets, muskets, and ramrods littered the fields. Scraps of clothing speckled the landscape in tones of blue, gray, and butternut. Bullet-punctured hats fluttered in the breeze—one bearing a red Maltese cross leaned against a Texas sombrero, while dozens of Confederate slouch hats lounged beside forage caps of Union blue. Shreds of envelopes and letters danced among shoes, rubber blankets, tin plates, and bloodstained pocket testaments. Crocks of butter and lard rotted away in the sticky heat beside baby bonnets, silver candlesticks, women’s dresses and gaiters, even a feather mattress—obviously pilfered from homes with the intention of resupplying an impoverished South.

The land itself chilled her heart. Grain and grass were ground to a jelly. Wheat or corn fields, once healthy and bountiful, lay blackened and charred. Trees, raked of leaves, embedded with cannonballs, chopped to the white bark by musket balls, stood at drunken angles.

Faith felt an onrush of tears when she witnessed the animals. Chickens, hogs, and oxen lay dead and moldering, while their wounded counterparts teetered over the desecrated fields, raising an occasional plea for someone to end their misery. Scattered amongst broken gun carriages and disabled cannon barrels, dead horses abounded; in defiance of Newton’s ancient law, their uppermost hind legs, swollen with decay, hovered inches above the ground. One creature hung halfway over a fence, as if shot in mid-leap. Faith shied away from the pitiful scene.

By the time the wagon neared Pennsylvania College, tears were cascading down her face. Now, a city of tents commanded one section of the expansive lawn, a sea of wounded overflowed the remainder. Stretcher-bearers marched hither and thither, hauling patients into the institution’s main building. Bloodstained textbooks, which had served as pillows for the dying, cluttered the grass, their pages flapping in the breeze as if being perused by phantom students.

But the worst hell of all—the bodies.

Lifeless forms lined the fields, waiting with eternal patience for someone to inter them in hastily prepared, shallow trenches. The riotous movement of flies and maggots seemed to bring their sun-blackened faces alive. Bloated hands clutched tufts of grass, silver medals, or daguerreotypes. Some lay contorted as if their death agony had been molded in clay, while others bore frozen smiles as though the end had come free of torment. Some draped fallen horses; others dangled off fence rails. Adversaries lay together in mocking camaraderie. As hundreds of glaring, glossy, unfocussed eyes stared a constant vigil, Faith’s stomach churned.

No, she pondered, never in her wildest fancies could she have envisioned such a nightmare.

The southwesterly wind quickened, thrusting malodorous air into her face. For an instant, the breath seemed to stop in her throat as if her lungs rejected the poisonous miasma. She fumbled in her pocket for a bottle of pennyroyal. Soon, a minty smell temporarily squelched the odor of rotting flesh.

“Dear God,” she muttered, cuffing her damp cheeks. “You were right about the area’s condition, Isiah.”

“Do you want me to turn back?”

She considered his offer, then lifted her chin. “There’s no time. Supplies are needed and, by God, supplies we will collect.”

He forced a smile. “You’re a determined young lady. That’s your mother’s influence coming through.”

“I just thank the Lord she’s not here to see the ruination of her homeland.”

But Faith also knew Gillian Bradshaw would have persevered. Before she had succumbed to cancer nearly eleven years earlier, Gillian spent the first ten years of Faith’s life instilling strength in her youngest child. She taught her daughter to question authority, to stand against injustice. Faith knew she inherited her mother’s tenacity, her feistiness to see things through. She just prayed her mother’s lessons would aid her now when she needed them most.

Her fingers traced the cameo brooch at her collar. Her mother’s brooch provided inspiration, reminded her of lessons embedded long ago. “We didn’t request to have our lives turned topsy-turvy, Isiah. But Providence has assigned to me a sacred duty, and to the best of my ability, I mean to accomplish it.” A crack of thunder rocked the earth. Its striking resemblance to booming cannon pruned away some of her resolve, but she clutched the brooch, battling to regain her strength.

“You all right?” asked Isiah.

Faith smiled at the thirty-year-old man who had come into their lives just before her mother’s death. Without a surname, but with his former master’s written permission and his own dogged resolution, Isiah had trudged hundreds of miles into northern territory, searching for a better life. In Cincinnati, he had met Faith’s father, Nathan, at an abolitionist rally. Nathan Bradshaw immediately took a liking to the bright-eyed youth with a gentle nature and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and offered him both a job and an education. So moved by the young man’s will to foot it all the way into the north, Nathan had even suggested the man’s adopted surname. Ever since, Isiah Walker had become an indispensable member of the family.

“I’m all right now, Isiah, knowing you’re safe and sound.” Isiah and some of the town’s other Free Blacks had hidden themselves in the belfry of Christ Lutheran Church after narrowly avoiding Confederates who were determined to reenslave them. “I can’t help thinking, however, that if Father had been here, perhaps you might not have gone through—”

“What could he have done? Besides, he’s in Europe doing righteous work for my people. That’s more important than saving my lone hide.”

“Father’s influential. A world renowned abolitionist, for glory’s sake, working with Frederick Douglass. He has the ears of many important men in Washington—”

“That don’t hold no truck with the Rebs. No, I’m glad your pappy wasn’t here. After all he’s done for me, I wouldn’t want to see him hurt trying to defend me to a pack of ornery Graybacks.”

A bolt of lightning sliced the western sky. Thunder rumbled. Faith’s gaze settled on a bullet-stormed tree—a severed arm dangled from a branch. She closed her eyes, fought the urge to retch, and clutched the cameo. But before her mind could dwell on the sight, Isiah’s angry voice forced her attention elsewhere.

“Stop that!” screamed Isiah to a man in a field, who was creeping among the dead, carrying a bulging burlap sack in one hand and a knife in the other. With the blade, the man made an obscene gesture before turning back to his macabre business.

“What was he doing, Isiah?”

“Thieving. Cutting off a finger just so he can claim possession of the gold ring. Ghoulish scavenger.”

Instantly, anger replaced Faith’s shock. “First they suffer the indignity of awaiting burial, then robbed in such a devilish fashion. I don’t understand human nature. What pushes people to such cold-hearted acts?”

“Takes all kinds to make up this world.” With a huff, Isiah pointed. Many such men roamed the fields in their quest for resalable goods, leaving behind shoeless corpses with out-turned pockets. “Just look at all them fiends. Blind to the slaughter. All they see is the possibility to turn a profit.”

Faith’s blood began to boil. “I almost wish every man, woman, and child could witness this, then they’d truly appreciate the horrible price paid by their countrymen. They wouldn’t be so quick to fervently call for war in future. It amazes me how this country is so quick to boast of its compromising nature, yet the failure to compromise—bigoted obstinacy—is what started this. If the hotspurs who goaded the country to choose sides could witness this, then perhaps both sides would sue for peace come the morrow.”

Isiah nodded. “I reckon that’s true.”

Storm clouds swallowed the noontime sun. Drizzle began to fall just as Isiah directed the horses onto Carlisle Street, taking them past the railroad station into the northern edge of town.

Shrieks poured from the three-story Washington House Hotel, its rooms now accommodating the wounded. Cries emitting from McConaughy’s Hall, a large store and warehouse, told of the building’s similar fate. All around, stretcher-bearers were scooping up the wounded from beds of hay on the plank sidewalks, while other men were nailing signs above warehouse doorways advertising embalming facilities. Civilians were cleaning up the wreckage about their property, uprighting prostrate fence rails, collecting window glass from trampled flower beds, washing blood from stained walkways, surveying dents in their houses and outbuildings—probably counting in dumbfounded consternation the number of bullet holes in their honeycombed walls.

Though the sights were loathsome, Faith concluded that coming into town had been a good decision. She now felt a strengthened kinship with the townspeople, for these were the very tasks she had also performed.

The wagon crept forward, finally entering the Diamond—the center of Gettysburg’s business district—where chaos reigned supreme. Between speeding supply wagons, adolescents scurried to and fro, their arms laden with firewood or water buckets; their faces displaying expressions from boyish excitement to adult trepidation. Sightseers stood before the Tyson Brothers Excelsior Gallery, scanning the damage inflicted on the photography studio by an unexploded shell that had demolished a wall. Looters burst from the Arnold Building, their arms freighted with pilfered clothing, while other men wrenched the bullet-spattered shutters from windows of Boyer’s Grocery to use as kindling. Clusters of blue-clad soldiers passed liquor bottles from hand to hand; some spewed proud boasts of valor; others spat wads of tobacco into drying puddles of God-knew-what. Matterhorns of coffins littered the sidewalks. Horses whinnied and stamped. Dogs yipped and snarled. Curses, moans, and military orders clogged the air, punctuated by the intermittent cracks of rifles.

“Dear God,” muttered Faith.

A private on horseback waved them to a stop. In swift obedience, Isiah braked the wagon. “Where are you heading?” asked the soldier, raising his voice above the din.

“To Fahnestock’s store,” replied Faith. She held out her arm, bearing a white cloth tied around her sleeve just above the elbow.

“Hospital folk?” The youth winced. “Not there, Miss.”

“I was told the Christian Commission or the Sanitary Commission would be using Fahnestock’s?”

“They can’t get through. The blasted Secesh blew up the Rock Creek Bridge days ago.”

“Then where are the supplies?”

“The Sanitary Commission set up temporary quarters at the White Run Schoolhouse.”

Faith tensed. The schoolhouse was some distance south of town along the Baltimore Pike—not far from where the heaviest fighting was rumored to have occurred. Who knew what dangers she’d have to face? She gripped the cameo at her throat. “All right, Isiah,” said Faith, swallowing her fear. “Let’s go.”

Isiah began to jingle the reins, but the soldier halted him. “Can’t let you go that way.” With his pistol, he pointed to the western end of the Diamond, down Chambersburg Street. Faith saw Christ Lutheran Church, its high stone steps overlaid with wounded men. There, also, stood barricades of wood, stone, and sundered wagons. Behind the prepared obstruction, Federal soldiers crouched with guns outstretched, facing westward. “The Rebs have positioned sharpshooters along Haupt’s Hill,” explained the soldier. “They’re picking off anything that moves to cover their retreat. You have to turn ’round. Go through that alley yonder to Stratton, then head south.”

Faith felt the blood drain from her face and knew Isiah and the soldier could view her mounting terror.

“Don’t worry,” said Isiah, “we’ll get there.” He whipped the reins, setting the horses in motion. “Damned Rebels!”

Wind blustered through the ruined streets; tapping drizzle amplified into a bludgeoning rain. Faith seized a burnous cape from the wagon bed, wrapped it around her shoulders and pulled up the hood as Isiah directed the wagon on the suggested route.

Agape, Faith silently eyed the town’s changes. At Stratton and East High Streets, a parade of stretcher-bearers entered the German Reformed Church; enlarged and rededicated last year, the half-century-old building brimmed with wounded, while a red flag fluttered from its grand cupola, signifying its use as a hospital. On East High Street, they passed the turreted, medieval-looking Adams County Prison, its spike-fenced yard clogged with sodden Confederate prisoners. The Union Public School, with a wind-lashed crimson flag flying above the entrance, also acted as a haven for the wounded.

Before long, the wagon turned south on Baltimore Street. Faith continued to clutch the cameo, determined to sustain her stoicism, but, as their trek continued and signs of devastation increased, she found the task evermore difficult.

Just past Breckenridge Street, a girl emerged from a house. Faith called a word of greeting to her childhood friend, Anna Garlach. Anna hastened to meet the wagon. “You’re safe, thank the heavens.”

Faith nodded. “And your family?”

“All are in good health and accounted for. Where are you heading?”

“The White Run Schoolhouse—for supplies.”

“Mother’s there now. She’s been helping at the courthouse and other makeshift hospitals. You as well?”

“We have one of our own.”

Anna’s jaw plummeted. “Not in your house?”

“Ever since the thing began.”

“But you’re north of town in former” —a gasp—“ in former Rebel-held territory.”

“Our house is a Confederate hospital.”

“How can you stand it? They’re nothing but uneducated vermin.”

Who bleed and die like everyone else, Faith thought with a start. But she held her tongue as a bundle of barefoot Confederates trudged north along the muddied street. A half-dozen Union soldiers encircled them, urging them forward with curses and the occasional poke with a musket. Rain slapped the ground, the wind howled, yet the captives seemed not to notice. In gentlemanly fashion, they tipped their hats at the women.

Though Faith didn’t acknowledge their greeting, she had to admit that just about every Confederate she had met in the last three days had been most polite. And her surprise at that revelation lent a guilty twinge. Earlier, she had declared that bigoted obstinacy had sparked the war. Though she had never thought herself a bigot, she certainly felt like one now. The Rebs weren’t the tempestuous ruffians and ill-mannered buffoons political propaganda had led her to believe. Indeed, after witnessing many Rebels dying under her roof, her heart broke for them as it would for any of their Northern counterparts. She frowned. Another bigoted notion dashed.

Anna seemed to have other opinions. “Hope you Cotton Rebels rot in Hades,” she snapped as the prisoners approached. When one man winked, the young girl stomped her foot. “Honestly! First they traipse from Cottondom to invade our town, then have the audacity to flirt like dandies. As if any of those hooligans could hope to become suitable beaux. Papa would have a regular conniption.”

“By the way,” interjected Faith, “where is your father?”

“In his carpenter’s shed. And doing lively business, I might add—fashioning coffins.” Anna glared at the Rebels. “But not for them. For our boys!”

Isiah cleared his throat. “Don’t mean to interrupt, but shouldn’t we get moving before the storm picks up?”

“You’re absolutely correct, Isiah.” Faith turned to Anna and wished her and her family well. The girl, still using her eyes to thrust scornful daggers at the passing captives, didn’t seem to hear.

As the wagon bounced past the ever-increasing signs of death and destruction, Faith fingered her cameo, praying she’d be able to maintain her resolve, and wondering if the hatred and bigotry would ever end.

The first thing Jeb felt was the ache in his stomach, not from hunger pangs that had intermittently plagued him for months, but from the gut-churning stench. Then came the agony along his entire left side; each well-aimed raindrop felt like acid pelting his wounds. When he struggled to open his eyes, his left eyelid refused to budge. He groaned, and for a instant wondered if his body hadn’t been used as a razor strop by some fiendish giant of a barber. But then the memories returned, bringing with them a mixture of panic, horror, and distress.

The charge! The damned charge! My boys! Dear God, where are my brave boys?

He turned his head. On his left lay a dead horse, its three remaining legs stretching in Jeb’s direction. Worms and green bottleflies, feeding off the decaying flesh, swarmed over the hole where the fourth limb had been. Jeb turned his head back to the gray-clad sky, waiting for the fresh bout of queasiness to pass.

Eventually, Jeb looked to his right, finding near him the lifeless body of a comrade. Unrecognizable in his bloated condition, the soldier faced the sky with forearms bent back on stiff elbows, as if pointing an accusatory finger at heaven. The disheveled uniform gave the appearance of looting, but Jeb knew the man had done it himself; gut-shot men usually tore at their uniforms to see the extent of their wounds, knowing a direct hit would preface a swift death, courtesy of those stomach-lacerating minié balls.

Just beyond that body lay another. Legs on a small incline, the soldier’s head disappeared in a pool of rain water. If the rain continued much longer, Jeb knew he’d also face the threat of drowning.

When he tried to move, pain clenched his jaw, yet he mustered strength to inspect his torso. Intact, no signs of self ransacking. Just blood on the left side of his jacket. A good sign. He released a thankful sigh, then lifted his right arm. He held it before his good eye and smiled. It remained.

Scathing pain, however, darted through him when he tried to move his left arm. Renewed dread hammered into his brain. With his right arm, he reached over his body, felt with his hand. His left arm—it was there. His right hand traced its outline, moved up its length under the blood-soaked jacket to the shoulder. Still attached. Still attached—

But for how long? If his bone was shattered, his muscles shredded, no alternative to amputation existed. Fear quickened his heartbeat, while images of surgeon’s blades flashed through his mind. He tried to marshal his courage—Come on, Jebediah, you’re a brave officer, calm yourself—then, with a prayer, attempted to move the fingers of his left hand.

Nothing but horrific agony. A lump came to his throat. He tried again.

—Please God—

Then again.

—Please—

Movement. Faint. But movement, nonetheless.

Relief rushed over him. Agony in his left leg and ankle bespoke of additional wounds, but their biting pain had dulled to a steady throb. Another faint smile haunted his cracked lips. “Pain is acceptable,” he mumbled to his deceased comrade, “because pain makes me alive.”

The condition of the soldier’s body told Jeb that a day or two must have passed. Regardless of the downpour, nebulous shapes of hawks and buzzards circled overhead. Jeb could almost sense their anticipation as they surveyed the banquet of flesh below.

Now what am I to do, Father? he thought. Monumental depression, a keening, unbearable sense of loneliness and grief filled Jeb’s soul. He wanted his father. His mentor. Needed to see him. To hear him. To touch him. But his father was gone forever, killed in battle, shot from his horse while defending the cause.

Tears blurred the malevolent sky. “Why was I spared, Father? Why was I—”

Voices interrupted Jeb’s lament. He pushed his own voice to cry out, but no strength remained in his raw throat. With all his might, he concentrated on his uninjured arm. In dreamlike slowness, it elevated and stood erect over him.

“Please—help—” Gravity yanked and tugged. His arm muscles ached, but he fought the earth’s pull. “—Dear God—water—someone—”

A female voice pierced the eerie stillness of the battlefield. “Over here! Dear Lord! He’s Alive!”

“Thank you, Father,” muttered Jeb to the heavens. “I knew I could count on you.”

The mile-long field stretched before him, and he imagined he could walk for yards across fallen Confederates and his feet would never have to touch the ground. Secesh currency floated in muddy pools of rainwater, while jewelry and silver medals sparkled in boot-trampled grass. Jettisoned card decks and homemade dice, flasks and bottles, licentious dime novels and risqué daguerreotypes dotted the land—the signs of soldiers ridding themselves of objectionable belongings as death approached.

Everywhere, men toiled on burial detail. Flesh slithered off the mangled corpses, making the job all the harder. Men with pike poles rolled corpses onto stretchers, while the stretcher-bearers gagged and regurgitated. Some bodies had exploded under the force of death’s gasses, while others possessed fist-sized water blisters. Boys shooed away hogs that had beaten the hawks and buzzards to the gruesome feast.

Mass graves were taking shape, water-logged bodies flanking them. Gravediggers with kerchief-masked faces looked like bandits as they searched corpses for identification. Others fashioned grave markers out of fence rails or roofing shingles. Some stood beside freshly packed mud, heads bowed, hats over hearts in silent prayer, respect for death blinding them to colors of blue and gray.

Elsewhere in the field, men and women tossed branches, bushes, and fence rails around mountains of dead horses. With kerosene-drenched wood, they set the stiffened animals ablaze. The wagon passed one such hellish bonfire and the nauseating aroma of a country barbecue and rotting horse-flesh filled Jeb’s nostrils.

When the wagon rattled into the southern edge of town, the ancient teamster hailed a group of women. “Another live one, Miss Garlach. Any idea where I’m to take him?”

The comely young woman wiped sweat from her forehead. For a moment, she viewed Jeb with scathing eyes, then turned. “Where to, Mama?”

The matron neared the wagon, wisps of hair escaping her snood. “Who are you?” she asked Jeb, fishing paper from her pocket. “Can you tell me your brig—” She paused, noting Jeb’s jacket. “You’re a general?”

“Third Corps—Heth’s Division—Fourth Brigade. Please—where are my boys?”

The woman scanned the paper. “Scattered. Some in hospitals along the Chambersburg Pike. Some in Cashtown—” Her face lit up. “Ah—the Bradshaws. And I know for a fact they have some room available.” She glanced at the teamster. “You know the place? Just northwest up the Mummasburg Road?”

The man nodded, then started the wagon north on Baltimore. Jeb remembered running through this street on the first day of battle, after Lee’s army gained possession of the town and pushed the Union forces to the south. But now, with the scattered remains of war in evidence, he hardly recognized it. As he traveled in the opposite direction, he was forced to observe the path of destruction his army had wrought. He knew countless Southern towns had seen this breed of abuse. The Yanks didn’t often have experience in these matters. Yet, what a shame any town, North or South, should go through this ordeal. He prayed that Vicksburg, his home, currently under siege, would not have to endure a similar fate.

Suddenly, a house drew his attention. A shell had ripped a hole in the second floor of the once-grand estate, shedding light on the desecrated furnishings. Eyeing a looking glass, the same shape as one that had forever hung in his father’s study, Jeb battled a wave of homesickness.

Wakefield Plantation, built at the turn of the century by Jeb’s grandfather and christened for his bride’s family name, had passed down to Jeb’s father, Jackson. There, Jackson and his wife, Rebecca Simpson, of the Atlanta Simpsons, had resided for more than twenty years and raised four children, Jeb being the eldest. The epitome of grandeur and splendor, the lavish acreage became the envy of Warren County. An architect’s masterpiece, Wakefield was an estate designed for laughter. But the laughter had long-ago ceased, even before war gripped the nation. One act of senseless violence had torn the clan apart, altering their lives forever.

Just then, the wagon entered an intersection. Without warning, the bark of rifles sliced through the rhythmic clip-clop of hooves, shocking Jeb back to the present. With a sudden “Hi-Yah,” the teamster drove the horses forward at a gallop. The wagon bounced under Jeb’s aching body. He tried to shout for the man to slow down, but could utter nothing more than a weak cry. After a few harrowing moments, the driver finally brought the wagon to a halt.

The teamster made no attempt to disguise his hatred. “So, Johnny Reb, how does it feel to be shot at by your own men?” Without waiting for a reply, he swung his whip over the horses. The wagon jerked forward.

Jeb screamed with renewed distress as the teamster cackled. Rage would have been Jeb’s normal reaction—Jesus, old man, why take it out on me?—but he supposed he could understand the man’s cruelty. Scared, the man needed to take it out on someone. And who better than a Confederate general?

Thunder rumbled as Jeb wondered how his mother would take the news of his wounding. For all he knew, he would die in this enemy town and it pained him to think of what it would do to her. Especially after losing his father last year; losing his sister, Belinda, the year before that; and his brother, Charles, dead more than ten years now. At least Charles’s surviving twin, Caleb, still lived with their mother in Vicksburg. Since Charles’s death, Rebecca had babied Caleb, but Southern conscription would eventually drag him into the fight, and no amount of coddling would keep him home.

When the wagon rolled past the college on Mummasburg Road, Jeb knew he had to write a letter to Vicksburg, telling his family of his survival. But how? With a wounded left arm, he’d have to enlist the aid of a friendly soul—if he could find one. And with Vicksburg surrounded, would his mother even receive the letter? These questions plagued him until the wagon slowed, then stopped, before a two-story house.

Turning, the teamster smirked in torturous pleasure. “Well, Johnny Reb—welcome to your new home.”

The red-brick building stood isolated. Placed back from the road and shaded by oaks and walnuts, it would’ve had the air of peaceful solitude if not for some telltale signs of strife. A red flag—actually a vermilion shawl—clung to the front door, signifying a hospital. The brick walls displayed white pockmarks of bullet holes, while several windows bore cracked or shattered glass. The splintered remnants of a white fence lay about the yard amidst a few fallen horses. And, as Jeb had observed in every direction from the time his wagon ride had commenced, bloody rain puddles stained the white-stoned path.

The reek of disinfectant, festering wounds, and fecal matter fouled the air, expunging all traces of sweet summer fragrances. Kettles and caldrons, suspended from cross-pieces on upright poles over open fires, added pungent vapors into the mixture.

Rain-spattered, mud-covered, half-naked Confederates confused the lawn. From privates to colonels, with sweating and shattered bodies, they waited with terrorized faces for a surgeon’s examination. Others with oozing stumps, deprived of so much as a straw pallet or a warm blanket, waited for their turn to die.

War’s babble wafted from the house—not the pandemonium of an actual battle, but war just the same. Articulations of agony clogged the air—sobbing, moaning, dying. Hideous shrieks forced Jeb’s attention to the house’s open windows, and what he saw sent chills up his spine, more bloodcurdling than the sounds.

A gruesome collection of human body parts—legs, feet, arms, hands—had formed Shastas of bloody flesh in crushed flower beds. Jeb took a deep breath of the rank air and prayed.

Here it was, the place he would die, or worse, suffer amputation. Soldiers were being mutilated by men who deemed themselves surgeons. More like butchers. Medical science at its ghastliest. If they didn’t know how to mend it, they just cut it off. Yes, he thought, the ravages of war had found this once-peaceful home—

His new home.