9

i n november, jackson led five thousand of us north from winchester to martinsburg.

as usual, we foot soldiers had no more idea where we were going, or why, than the folks at

home. after manassas, we’d done nothing much but tramp lockstep for five months in square

formations, first one way, then another, with our rifles on our shoulders. every now and then

around the eastern town of alexandria, our soldiers on watch at night would exchange fire with

union pickets who came to spy. by the time of this winter march, we were ready to do anything

that would get us away from camp.

our mess was a tight group of five augusta boys and two from rockbridge, the adjoining

county: sam lucas, tayloe hupp, jeremy beard, jim blue, zeke skinner, otis mccorkle, and

me. those six fellows were as fine as any in the whole army, all with strong hearts and most of

them from around home. we shared tents, cooked meals, and foraged together. it had been a

happy day when jeremy beard showed up in the late summer, responding to the volunteer call-

up shortly after manassas. he was as good a friend as sam from when we were small boys in

bethel. we were also neighbors, one farm over the ridge. early on, pa fondly gave him the

nickname of beards, and it stuck.

sam and beards were polar opposites, both in appearance and temperament. slender and

taller than sam by several inches, beards was quiet and watchful. his large gray eyes speckled

with brown took in every nuance of expression and movement, and he was an intent listener,

always curious about human nature. he could tell you why you’d done something long before

you figured it out. he spoke slowly, as though he was considering the impact of every word

before letting it roll out of his mouth. where sam was like the flame at the end of a fuse, beards

was like the quiet just before dawn. he was the one who drew his penknife in the earliest days

and suggested each of us vow with a blood oath to defend the others. no one hesitated.

now that we were soldiers, i quit teasing beards about being sweet on mary. i suspected it

long before he’d admit it to himself. he was a solid man and was handsome enough. the

sideways slant from a broken nose only added to his appeal, my sister informed me. even the

most perfect appearance benefits mightily from a slight flaw, she insisted.

beards, in his accustomed way, this day wandered from mess to mess seeking familiar faces

and gathering information. the second evening as we camped near martinsburg, he came

charging back after a stroll. “boys! i’ve got news! jackson plans to destroy dams on the

potomac river.” he watched us with a crooked grin, waiting for a reaction.

nobody said anything. jim blue looked at beards in amazement and then regarded our

puzzled faces with impatience. “don’t you fellows understand what this means? this could put

a stop to the whole darned war. if the dams are broken, no river water will flow into the canal

that runs alongside, and it dries up. that canal carries the feds and material all the way from

washington to ohio and back.”

“how can you be sure that’s right? i never heard anything about canals,” zeke said. flyaway

eyebrows slanting upward toward his nose gave him a permanently quizzical look, compounded

by his perpetually ruffled brown hair. he prodded the campfire coals with a stick and laid

another potato in the hottest area to roast. then he stood to give blue’s explanation his full

attention. once again, i noted his erect posture and envied that he felt no need to stoop, as i

habitually did. he carried his broad shoulders with pride.

“i learned about the potomac canal and the erie canal, too, in jackson’s engineering class at

vmi. can’t you see for yourself? the river around here is impassable with huge boulders. the

canal with its barges makes up for it. if we destroy the dams that feed the canal, we’ll stop the

yanks dead in their tracks.” jackson had been blue’s professor at the virginia military institute,

and blue had proudly worn his dress uniform to war. we had teased him for looking like a toy

soldier until the uniform became soiled beyond recognition.

“i’m in favor of that!” zeke was now smiling broadly.

“maybe if folks in washington are freezing this winter because they don’t have coal from the

west, they may change their minds about how badly they want war.”

“i’m in favor of that too,” said zeke.

this news set my heart racing. ever since manassas, i was tired of only playing at soldiering.

destroying a dam was a hell of a sight better than sitting around camp.

on the sixteenth of december, the rumors proved true, and we set out marching the next

morning with plans to try our luck on dam number 5. once again, beards came running, out of

breath. “listen to this. i met up with some fellows just back from stealing skiffs along the

riverbank all night. they tied the boats up in the brush below the dam. there’ll be some action

tonight—i swear it.” we all strained to peer in the river’s direction, hoping to catch sight of the

stolen crafts, but trees and underbrush disguised the curving shoreline. the dam was within clear

view. double wooden walls with foundations buried in the riverbed ran parallel, four feet apart.

the space between was filled with chunks of quarried rock. their length stretched from shore to

shore.

our company and one other were ordered to the stolen skiffs that evening a little before

midnight. we yelled to jim blue to hurry up. he was in the bushes, suffering from his finicky

innards, which heaved up whenever there was danger. beards, tayloe, and i packed one of the

little boats with pickaxes, crowbars, picks, shovels, and a blanket for drying off, if need be, and

a shame-faced jim blue joined us, wiping his mouth with his shirttail. that particular night was

an odd choice for a secret maneuver because the full moon was luminous enough to read a book

by. every whisker of tayloe’s unshaven beard seemed to have a life of its own, as did the

buttons on sam’s jacket, even at ten feet. any movement of our band of thirty men would be

detectable from across the river on the northern side. my gut cramped.

tayloe disguised his fear with indignation. “what the hell is the captain thinking? it’s insane

to send a band of soldiers out in boats under a full moon.” he continued to gripe as we tugged

the heavy-laden vessel from the shore on the downside dam wall, using its mass as cover from

the union troops supposed to be camped somewhere upriver. stealthily, we joined the other men

bobbing along on the silver surface. a wiseacre rasped from sam’s boat floating next to us,

“you girls be sure to keep your heads down, now.” tayloe made a rude gesture in his direction.

a freezing veil of water splashed over the wall, soaking our faces, hands, and chests. the air

was warm for december, but the river was fed by soul-chilling mountain streams. “goddarnit,

we gentlemen aren’t properly dressed for this outing,” jim blue stage whispered. beards and i

snorted with nervous laughter. i took a poke at blue.

when the skiffs bumped the face of the dam, blue and i lifted a rope-bound stone to the

gunwale on the count of three and eased it soundlessly under the rush of the river. the little

vessel lodged next to the dam. we then lowered ourselves into the waist-high water. i stifled a

cry of shock when the cold struck my thighs and stomach. blue sank up to his chest when he

lost balance on the rocky riverbed and his foot slipped into a crevice. he cursed under his breath

and was damn lucky not to have twisted an ankle. at least it was a warning to the rest of us to

step cautiously.

the only remedy to the cold was to work like a fiend. after a while, the axe’s thunk and the

splitting of wood was distracting, but it didn’t fully cure my anxiety or the chattering of my

teeth. i feared my eyes might rattle out of my skull. i kept up a steady internal dialogue, telling

myself the mission would be a great success. i might even win a special citation. all the while,

my freezing legs and hands seemed no longer attached to my body. when there was a sizeable

hole in the wooden wall, tayloe and beards reached into the opening and rolled rocks into the

water, where they sank onto the river floor. when all the rocks were removed, water would gush

through the hole, depriving the canal of enough water to float a barge. every now and then one

of us would crawl back into the boat to huddle for warmth under the blanket, causing the skiff to

jump and quake along with the body inside. inactivity in wet clothes caused as much discomfort

as hard labor in the icy water.

so far, there was no evidence that any northern troops were watching. but you could never

be sure when that would change. blue began to softly hum the popular song “do they miss me

at home” as he worked. i couldn’t have heard it except for being right next to him. how was he

relaxed enough to hum? to cover my nervousness, i started to sing aloud with each blow.

immediately, tayloe hissed, “for tarnation’s sake, stop that before you get us killed!”

“you fellows sound like girls. there’s no yankees around here. i’ll prove it.” i don’t know

what got into me. i suppose i was afraid my singing hadn’t convinced the others — most

especially my idol, sam, in the adjacent boat—that my trembling was in response to the cold,

not fear.

fingers gripping the lip of the wooden frame, i hauled myself up on the dam to peer around

before balancing on its top in the reflecting moonlight. i tested a jig step or two on the water-

slicked rocks piled between the two walls. the three boys barely had time to stare up in disbelief

at my flickering white form when bullets whistled above my head from the maryland side of the

river. i tumbled down into the skiff, violently rocking it and sloshing icy water on the fellows’

shoulders and faces. tayloe snarled, “you goldarned fool! you almost got us shot! what a

danged idiot you are!” turns out there were yanks camped close by on the maryland shore.

“why the hell did you have to go and give away our position?” blue demanded. “you may

have ruined everything! all this freezing goddamn work for nothing!”

tayloe and blue showered oaths on me that would sear bristle off a boar’s hide. beards just

glared, which was worse. i couldn’t see or hear sam’s reaction in the other boat.

we continued working only because yankee smooth bore rifles lacked accuracy and range.

they couldn’t reach us on the far side of the shore, closer to virginia. but their barrage of

bullets peppered the water just short of the skiff for most of the night. the small craft provided

cover as we hacked at the dam’s structure, but every now and then a bullet would slap the water

only yards away. in their urgency, the boys forgot their anger, but my face smarted whenever

my thoughts returned to my stunt.

near dawn, the yanks got their hands on long-range enfield rifles, but didn’t use them until

the rising sun improved their aim. they must have sent a scout upriver to another encampment

to procure the rifles. hiding behind trees, they opened fire. their bullets now could reach the

skiff as well as our artillerymen waiting on the virginia shore. if the water hadn’t been so cold,

and our limbs hadn’t been so stiff, we might have finished before they’d gotten the better guns.

but now we were unable to work the few more necessary hours in the daylight.

ducking volleys from both sides, we paddled hell-bent to reach the riverbank. bullets kicked

up white ruffles of water just to the side of our skiff, right and left. my trembling arms worked

the oars awkwardly in the oarlocks, but tayloe begged the mercy of his lord and paddled in a

fury. the minute the boat ground ashore, we leapt from it as if it were afire. tent stakes were

yanked as bullets spat dirt in our faces, and we high-tailed it back to winchester. it wasn’t long

before the yanks repaired our bit of damage, and troops and supplies once again flowed between

washington and ohio. the war didn’t end there, any more than it had at manassas.

if i hadn’t performed that cursed foolishness in the moonlight, there’s a chance we might

have irreparably broken that dam. maybe there would have been too little time for the yankees

to make major repairs before really cold weather set in. jim blue, beards, and tayloe didn’t tell

the officers just what drew the union fire that night, but for long after, they teased me

mercilessly.