Summary: A few months after the Union defeat at Fredericksburg, a disillusioned Captain Adam Cartwright writes a letter to his family. A prequel to my other Adam in the Civil War stories.

Rated: T for the horrors of war

Word count: 1,830

The Long Road Home Series:

Missing
A Father’s Gift
A Well Deserved Comeuppance
Someday Never Comes

Someday Never Comes

 

February 17^th, 1863

It was cold; not just an uncomfortable chill, but a real shiver-in-your-boots, freeze-your-nose-off cold that penetrated even the thickest of materials. Another icy blast struck the tent, causing me to shudder and vainly draw my threadbare blanket closer about my shoulders. It was a wonder that my oil lamp remained lit despite the wind’s valiant attempts to snuff it out.

And here I thought Nevada winters were bad, I mused, coughing wetly into my uniform sleeve. Virginia weather and I disagreed with each other as far as my health was concerned. What had started as a mild sniffle soon turned into a full-blown case of influenza that had left me in a state of delirium for over a week. Once my fever had finally broken, I was more than happy to give up my cot in the medical tent to the next poor soul unlucky enough to fall ill.

Shunting those thoughts to the back of my mind, I refocused on the task at hand. A day after my company’s arrival in the icicle they called Fort Monroe, I had purloined an empty wooden crate to serve as a make-shift desk. Upon it sat the miraculously lit lantern, a sheet of paper, a nub of a pencil, and my mother’s well-worn copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost. It was the blank parchment, however, that commanded my attention.

What to tell? There was much that had happened since I had last put lead to paper, most of which I dared not share—not even with my own family. They had enough trouble to deal with without me adding to it.

Casting about in my mind, I finally struck on a topic. Picking up my pencil, I began to write.

Dear Pa,

I pray that the ranch is prospering and that both you and my brothers are in good health. As for myself, I was a bit under the weather recently due to a trifling cold…

“No need to worry them unduly.” I murmured as the little white lie flowed easily onto the parchment.

…Too bad the latest shipment of supplies didn’t contain chamomile tea or one of Hop Sing’s Chinese remedies. I would have been in full health much sooner if it had. But you know, if wishes were horses everyone would ride, as the saying goes. Anyway, I procured a not-so-pleasant draft from our local sawbones that eventually set me to rights.

I grimaced, smacking my lips together in disgust; I could still taste the terrible concoction the surgeon had poured down my throat in an attempt to ease my symptoms.

If the disease doesn’t kill you, the cure just might, I thought, shaking my head in bitter humor. It took a strong constitution to withstand both the illness and the physician—especially in the Union Army where the doctors were more akin to butchers than healers. The surgeon of the 9^th Massachusetts and his assistant were no exception.

I will never complain about Doc Martin’s medicine ever again.

You may have already heard this, but we have a new commander: Major-General Joseph Hooker. My hope is that he will be a better leader than the sorry bunch we’ve had so far. I hate to speak ill of an officer, but the worst of the lot so far has been A. E. Burnside—and having served under the Little Napoleon* during the failed Peninsula Campaign, that is saying something! I’m not high enough in the ranks to be personally acquainted with Burnside, but every order passed down by him only led to us to disaster….

Images of Fredericksburg and the mounds of dead soldiers garbed in blue laid out on Marye’s Heights filled my mind’s eye. The battle had been a hash from the beginning. The delay in the arrival of the pontoon bridges should have been enough for Burnside to call off the attack, but pressure from Washington prevented him from using his God-given good sense, if he had ever had any in the first place. Orders were sent out, but they were not understood; costly mistakes were made and because of them, many a good man lost his life.

The rebs had discovered our position early on and settled in on the high ground long before we even made it across the Rappahannock. And what a nightmare the crossing had been! I had awakened more than one night, heart pounding in my chest, with the screams of the injured and dying ringing in my ears. I would never forget the biting cold of the river water, nor the terror of sleeping on the battlefield, praying that private O’Malley’s dead body would protect me from the occasional sniper’s bullet.

His latest attempt to take Richmond ended in failure. We spent several days slogging our way through thick mud, building log-roads, and levering countless beasts of burden out of the muck. As we toiled along, the rebels taunted us with derisive shouts about our “mud march”. Not that I blamed them much; we must have looked a sight, all of us coated from head to toe in thick, Virginia clay. After all of that hard work, word reached us that the attack had been called off—no surprise there—and that Hooker had replaced Burnside. It wasn’t long after that we were ordered to march to Fort Monroe under the command of General Dix.

Poor Alexander the Great became the latest casualty of this sorry campaign….

A pang smote my chest as I thought of the spirited, grey gelding. He had been too high-strung to be good war horse material, but when it came to horseflesh, the Union Army took what it could get. Having gone through two mounts already, I had known better than to get too attached, but the beast had wormed his way into my heart all the same.

Alexander had spooked at nothing and plunged off of the wooden road, back into the mud, breaking his left foreleg in the process. There was nothing to be done but to put the poor creature out of his misery.

Tell Hoss that yesterday I was given a new mount, a giant, black beast that I have dubbed “Admiral”. He’s a beauty, that one; always prancing about as if to say, “look at me.” Never before have I met a horse that loves attention more than he does!

With a sigh, I slid my fingers through my hair. I was running out of appropriate material to write home about.

If only I could talk to pa, I mean really talk to him…there was no point in such thinking, but I wished it all the same. If I could I would tell him everything, how he was right about warning me off of joining up…and how much I missed him. I had been too hot headed, too full of righteous anger to pay heed to his words of wisdom. I, like many a young man, had thought that the war would be over in a month. In fact, I had been terrified that I would arrive in Boston too late to enlist. What a fool I had been.

The war had been going on for two years now, and still there was no end in sight.

Maybe today, I thought every morning when the bugle sounded, dragging us all from our beds. Maybe today we will get the news that it’s over, that we can finally go home. The longer the fighting raged on, the more I began to think that that day would never come, and that the war would go on and on until there was no one left to fight it. I didn’t think about winning anymore or even about our righteous cause; despite their lack of numbers, the Confederate Army more than made up for that with cunning strategy. No, the way things had been going, I knew that we would lose. At this point all I wanted was to go home. How I missed it!

I hope this letter reaches you in a timely manner. I will not hold my breath though, knowing the dubious reputation of A.o.t.P.* post as intimately as I do. The latest camp theory regarding the use of single-winged carrier pigeons press-gained into the mail service is proving to be truer by the day, judging by the long span of time between missives. I can only assume that the Army sent your latest one to me round Cape Horn instead of overland since it arrived eight months old and weather-stained.

I reached into the breast pocket of my uniform jacket and fingered the worn edge of pa’s most recent letter. Closing my eyes I could almost picture him and my two younger brothers. I wondered how much more grey was in my father’s hair. I wondered if Hoss had talked pa into letting him keep one of Mr. Thatcher’s coon hound pups. I wondered how much taller Little Joe had grown. I could see the new barn that pa had talked about building and the calves milling about in the corral waiting to be branded. Life might be hard out West, but I would give up my life as a soldier in the blink of an eye just to be there, to see them again.

I miss you—all of you—more than I can say. We will see each other again, but until then, as my Irish companions like to say, “May God hold you in the palm of His hand.”

Love your son and brother,

~ Captain Adam Stoddard Cartwright, Company G, 9^th Massachusetts Volunteers

My hands shook as I folded the parchment and slid it into an envelope. A shiver that had nothing to do with the frigid temperature tripped up my spine. Placing the document atop the upturned box, I blew out the lamp and settled back onto my bunk for a much needed night’s rest.

“Someday, someday I will return home.” I vowed, knowing all the while that someday might never come.

~ Finis

 

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author Notes:

• This story was written for the Bonanza Ballads #8 writing challenge on Bonanza Boomers. I was giving the song title “Someday Never Comes” by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
• *The Little Napoleon was a nickname for General George B. McClellan who was one of the many commanders of the Union Army.
• *A.o.t.P. stands for “Army of the Potomac”.
• The 9^th Massachusetts Volunteers was comprised of mainly Irish soldiers. There were ten companies in all (A-I and K—I’m sure there is a reason why there was no company J, but I don’t know it). Company G was also known as the Wolf Tone Guards in memory of Theobald Wolf Tone who was an Irish patriot and martyr.
• Most of my knowledge of the 9^th Massachusetts comes from the book The History of the Ninth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Second Brigade, First Division, Fifth Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, June, 1861-June, 1864 winner of the Title That Would Never Make It Into Publication in the Twenty-First Century Award written by Daniel George Macnamara who served as an officer in the 9^th.
• And if the disturbing image of using dead bodies as a shield seems familiar, I kinda used the idea from the film Gods and Generals. 

 

Tags: Adam Cartwright, Civil War, Letter