he had eaten and had coffee and then walkedâlimpedâback to his small house on the edge of town. Heâd heard it called a shack. Charleyâs shack. But he thought of it as a house.
He found a place where a soft breeze kept the mosquitoes away, and the sun warmed thegrass and dirt, and some rocks in the river made rippling sounds and he stopped and with great effort lowered himself into a sitting position. He sat with his legs straight out in front of him. It was an awkward position but his knees didnât want to bend and he couldnât lie back on the grass because it made him sick to lie down, so he sat, watching the river go by. Then he reached into the sack and took out the bread and cheese and set them on a small flat rock nearby. Then, as he removed the jar of coffee, his hands brushed the other thing in the sack and he took it out and put it on the rock near the bread and cheese.
It was a .36-caliber cap-and-ball revolver heâd taken off the body of a Confederate officer. Charley had known the man was dead because heâd just killed him with his bayonet, watching the steel slide in just over the belt buckle. He remembered taking the revolver.
Everybody wanted them, those Confederaterevolversâback home they wanted them. âPick me up a Confederate pistol,â theyâd say in letters. As if youâd just pick one up off the ground. As if they werenât being carried by Confederate soldiers who didnât want to give them away. As if you wouldnât have to kill men to get the revolvers â¦
He shook his head. That wasnât one of the things he liked to think about.
The revolver shone in the sun. It was clean and free of rust and corrosion, greased and capped and fully loaded, the walnut grips so shiny they looked deep and almost red.
It was a pretty thing, he thought. The revolver was as pretty as anything heâd seen, black and shining, and he held it for a moment, hefting it. He eased the hammer back until it clicked, looked at his finger on the trigger and knew that if he just touched it there, just a light touch, it would trip the hammer to slap the percussion cap and set off the powder andsend the little .36-caliber ball speeding out of the barrel and into his â¦
He eased the hammer down with his thumb and laid the pistol back on the rock next to the cheese and then sat, listening to the ripple of the river, watching the water go by, thinking of all the pretty things.
AUTHORâS NOTE
T his is partly a work of fiction. Charley Goddard really existed. He enlisted in the First Minnesota Volunteers when he was fifteen, lying about his age, and fought through virtually the entire war.
I have had to take some minor liberties with timing because no one man could have been everywhere at once. Charley, for instance, did not fight at Bull Run, although that was about the only battle he missed. He did not fight because he was laid up with dysentery. But in all respects everything in this book happened, either to Charley or to men around him. Every event is factual, including the building of a wall of dead bodies to stop the wind. Charley really did receive wounds at Gettysburg. The destruction at Gettysburg was nearly biblical in its proportions; more men were killed there in just two hours than in all the previous American wars, the Revolution included,
combined
. When the battle atGettysburg was finished and theyâd made their fateful charge, only forty-seven men were left standing of the thousand original soldiers of the First Minnesota Volunteers.
Charley was not one of them. He was hit severely, and though they patched him up as best they could and he managed to fight in later actions, his wounds did not heal properly, nor did his mental anguish. When the war was finished he went back and tried to hold jobs and couldnât, eventually running for county clerk on the basis of his war record. He was elected, but before he could serve, his
He found a place where a soft breeze kept the mosquitoes away, and the sun warmed thegrass and dirt, and some rocks in the river made rippling sounds and he stopped and with great effort lowered himself into a sitting position. He sat with his legs straight out in front of him. It was an awkward position but his knees didnât want to bend and he couldnât lie back on the grass because it made him sick to lie down, so he sat, watching the river go by. Then he reached into the sack and took out the bread and cheese and set them on a small flat rock nearby. Then, as he removed the jar of coffee, his hands brushed the other thing in the sack and he took it out and put it on the rock near the bread and cheese.
It was a .36-caliber cap-and-ball revolver heâd taken off the body of a Confederate officer. Charley had known the man was dead because heâd just killed him with his bayonet, watching the steel slide in just over the belt buckle. He remembered taking the revolver.
Everybody wanted them, those Confederaterevolversâback home they wanted them. âPick me up a Confederate pistol,â theyâd say in letters. As if youâd just pick one up off the ground. As if they werenât being carried by Confederate soldiers who didnât want to give them away. As if you wouldnât have to kill men to get the revolvers â¦
He shook his head. That wasnât one of the things he liked to think about.
The revolver shone in the sun. It was clean and free of rust and corrosion, greased and capped and fully loaded, the walnut grips so shiny they looked deep and almost red.
It was a pretty thing, he thought. The revolver was as pretty as anything heâd seen, black and shining, and he held it for a moment, hefting it. He eased the hammer back until it clicked, looked at his finger on the trigger and knew that if he just touched it there, just a light touch, it would trip the hammer to slap the percussion cap and set off the powder andsend the little .36-caliber ball speeding out of the barrel and into his â¦
He eased the hammer down with his thumb and laid the pistol back on the rock next to the cheese and then sat, listening to the ripple of the river, watching the water go by, thinking of all the pretty things.
AUTHORâS NOTE
T his is partly a work of fiction. Charley Goddard really existed. He enlisted in the First Minnesota Volunteers when he was fifteen, lying about his age, and fought through virtually the entire war.
I have had to take some minor liberties with timing because no one man could have been everywhere at once. Charley, for instance, did not fight at Bull Run, although that was about the only battle he missed. He did not fight because he was laid up with dysentery. But in all respects everything in this book happened, either to Charley or to men around him. Every event is factual, including the building of a wall of dead bodies to stop the wind. Charley really did receive wounds at Gettysburg. The destruction at Gettysburg was nearly biblical in its proportions; more men were killed there in just two hours than in all the previous American wars, the Revolution included,
combined
. When the battle atGettysburg was finished and theyâd made their fateful charge, only forty-seven men were left standing of the thousand original soldiers of the First Minnesota Volunteers.
Charley was not one of them. He was hit severely, and though they patched him up as best they could and he managed to fight in later actions, his wounds did not heal properly, nor did his mental anguish. When the war was finished he went back and tried to hold jobs and couldnât, eventually running for county clerk on the basis of his war record. He was elected, but before he could serve, his
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