She leveled her finger at him. “Word is the Union families have started forming their own bands of rangers. There’s talk of secret societies, of passwords, and meetings held in the darkest of night. Lots of folks is feeling betrayed by their neighbors, Butler. And if the army can’t keep a lid on the pot, it’s going to boil over.”
“We’re going to do our best to make sure the Federals stay gone,” Butler said softly. “Under old Granny Holmes’s orders, we’ve got nearly five thousand cavalry tying the Federals in knots up in Missouri. If we can get the country folk up there to rise for the Confederacy, the state will turn in our favor.”
Sarah said, “Billy was talking to one of his friends up at the tavern. He said there was just as much Union recruitment in Missouri as there was Secesh recruitment in Arkansas. That in the end, the Federals just plain have more men.”
“I suggested the recruitment of Negro regiments, offering freedom for service. To save Arkansas, Hindman would have done it. Though God alone knows what the reaction from Richmond would have been. But with Granny Holmes in charge, even that hope is gone.”
“Heard the Federals recruited several Negro regiments of runaway slaves.” Maw studied him thoughtfully. “How do they fight?”
“They fight as well as any other men. Which makes a lie of the old notion of Negro inferiority.” Butler looked suddenly fatigued. “It boils down to a matter of will. In the end, we just have to want it more than the Federals do. Just like when we were ordered back here after Shiloh and Pea Ridge. Arkansas was defeated, and now she’s back in the fight.” He glanced around, as if noticing. “Where is Billy anyway?”
“Out in the woods,” Maw told him. “Where none of the recruiters can find him.”
“He doesn’t have to hide. Not from our soldiers,” Butler protested. “They can’t take anyone under eighteen.”
Sarah laughed, the sound of it bitter. “You’ve been in headquarters too long. Big strapping boy like Billy? Your soldiers don’t care. If Billy falls into their hands, one will look to the other and say, ‘Why, I do declare, he looks like he’s a solid eighteen to me.’ And the other will say, ‘Of course he’s lying about being fifteen. He’s eighteen sure. And besides, once we get him to camp, it’s his word agin’ ours.’”
Butler sucked his lips for a moment, an unfamiliar tension in the set of his brow. Sarah thought he looked pale, and his hair, sweat-darkened, hung in strands.
Butler asked, “He ever said so much as a word about enlisting?”
Sarah laughed. “Your brother? Last thing he wants to be is a soldier. Butler, he’s the happiest he’s been in his entire life! He’s hunting for a living, and we’re so thankful he is.”
“Then you keep him out there, sis. You, too, Maw. I don’t want him to see the things I have. You promise me.”
The intensity of his words unnerved her. “Of course, Butler.”
“Too many ghosts already,” Butler whispered under his breath, then dropped his head into his hands, as if his soul had shriveled away inside him.
29
November 24, 1862
Did anyone ever get used to a place like Camp Douglas prison camp? Doc wondered as he exhaled frosty breath in the chill air. He plodded along, feet numb where the holes in his shoes sucked in cold with each step.
He had volunteered at the hospital and spent most of his days there. Regimental surgeon Higbee rarely stuck his nose into the place, and when he did, it was with an expression of absolute disgust.
As a result, however, Doc was subtly and occasionally successful in his attempts to influence the “medical” assistants in their ministrations to the wretched prisoners. None had had anything beyond the most rudimentary medical training. As a result, they listened when Doc made a suggestion.
For the most part, however, it had been an exercise in frustration. The lack of supplies, the intransigence of the authorities—and most of all, Higbee—to improve sanititation.
Maybe I’m just fooling myself.
He plodded his way through the crowds, glancing up at the wall: a plank fence that surrounded the prison barracks and “bull pen” where the Reb soldiers congregated and attempted to fight the incessant boredom.
Doc had to step carefully around a clot of soldiers clustered around a game of chuck-a-luck. Someone had carved a board onto which wagers could be placed. Shouts of delight or dismay went up as each roll of the three dice was made. With each round of play a fortune in tobacco and hardtack—the only wealth a prisoner in Camp Douglas could amass—hung in the balance. But it was the crafty board owner, with his dice, who was going to go back to his bunk a winner.
Young James—who didn’t gamble—had a biscuit tin half full of hardtack “crackers” that he’d been carefully hoarding since the summer. His stash had made him a somewhat renowned personage among the other prisoners, and several schemes had been concocted to separate James from his crackers, but to no avail. They remained James’s most prized possession.
Rounding the corner of his barracks, Doc was surprised to see James. The subject of his thoughts sat on the ground, hunched, arms crossed tight on his stomach, back against one of the posts supporting the elevated floor of the barracks. Doc needed no more than a glance: something was terribly wrong.
Hurrying forward, Doc crouched, asking, “James? You all right?”
“Nothing I won’t get over.” James gave him a queasy sidelong look.
“What’s wrong? Stomach? You got the squirts? Cramps in your guts?”
“Naw, just feel like spewing my guts. Sick over something I ate. What it made me do.”
Doc sighed, diarrhea was a constant scourge. “I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to stick to fresh servings that have been boiled before they can turn foul.”
“It ain’t
