“In times of peace, the coming of a new rifle could hardly be taken as a sign of God’s love,” he said. “But here and now, when we battle for the freedom which is more precious than life itself, how can we view the arrival of these AK-47s as anything save providential?”
“That’s right!” a man said. Another shouted, “These here repeaters is gonna let us give the Yankees hell!”
The chaplain went on in that vein for a few more minutes, then called up soldiers who helped him pass out hymn books to the rest of the men. He didn’t have enough to go around, but almost all the soldiers knew the hymns by heart anyhow. “We’ll start today with ‘Rock of Ages’—page forty-seven, for those of you with hymnals,” he said. “I want to hear you put your hearts into it today—make a joyful noise unto the Lord!”
Caudell’s voice rose with the rest. The men sang enthusiastically; there were enough of them that good voices and poor mostly blended together. As the last notes of the hymn died away, though, Caudell looked around in puzzlement. Something was missing, but he could not place what it was.
Lacy noticed nothing wrong. “’Amazing Grace’ now—page, ah, fifty-one in the Army Hymn Book.”
“Amazing Grace” was harder to sing than “Rock of Ages,” which required little more than vigor. Maybe that was why, halfway through the hymn, Caudell figured out what had bothered him before. His own singing faltered as he looked around again, this time for someone in particular. He did not see him.
The hymn ended. In the distance, another regiment—probably the 26th North Carolina, whose camp was closest to that of the 47th—was singing “The Old Rugged Cross.” Caudell turned to the private next to him. “Where’s Georgie Ballentine?”
“Huh? The nigger? Ain’t he here?” the fellow said.
“No, he—” Caudell had to stop, for the regiment launched into “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.” He looked around once more while he sang. No, Ballentine wasn’t here. His ears had already told him that—the black man’s molasses—smooth baritone anchored the regiment’s singing week in and week out, for be never missed a service.
Caudell spotted a corporal from the North Carolina Tigers close by. When the hymn was done, he caught his eye. “Where’s Georgie, Henry? Is he sick?”
Henry Johnson shook his head, made a sour face. “Nope, he ain’t sick. He done run off, day before yesterday.”
“Run off? Georgie?” Caudell stared at him. “I don’t believe it.” He stopped and thought. “No, wait a minute; maybe I do. Did they take his rifle away from him?”
“You heard tell about that, did you?” Johnson said. “Cap’n Mitchell, he didn’t want to, but that Benny Lang feller, he pitched a fit like you wouldn’t believe. Said he’d go to Colonel Faribault, an’ then to General Kirkland, and then to General Heth, an’ all the way up to Jeff Davis till he got his way—maybe on up to the Holy Ghost, if ol’ Jeff wouldn’t give him what he wanted. Georgie, he took it right hard, but there weren’t nothin’ he could do. Weren’t nothin’ nobody could do. Afterwards, though, he seemed to settle on down some. But he wasn’t there at roll call yesterday mornin’, so he must’ve been shammin’. You know how niggers can do.”
Just then, Chaplain Lacy called, “Page fifty-six, men—‘Nearer My God to Thee.’” Caudell sang mechanically while he thought about what Johnson had said. Of course blacks grew adept at hiding their thoughts from whites. They had to, if they wanted to stay out of trouble. But George Ballentine had been so at home in Company H—Caudell shook his head. The joy had gone out of the service.
When “Nearer My God to Thee” was done, Henry Johnson said, “You know, I hope ol’ Georgie makes it over the Rapidan to the Yankees, an’ I don’t give a damn who hears me say so. Even a nigger, he’s got his pride.”
“Yup,” Caudell said. Instead of waiting for the next hymn, he drifted away from the open-air assembly. Johnson had hit the nail on the head. Not giving George Ballentine a repeater in the first place would have been one thing. But to give him one and then take it away—that was wrong. He hoped Ballentine made it over the Rapidan to freedom, too.
But the slave’s luck as a runaway was no better than his luck with the AK-47 had been. Three days later, a wagon came squelching down the muddy highway from Orange Court House in the late afternoon. It wasn’t a scheduled stop. “You have a load of those desiccated dinners for us?” Caudell called hopefully as the driver pulled off the main road.
“No, just a dead nigger—picket shot him up by the Rapidan Station. He was headin’ for the river. Hear tell he likely belongs to this regiment.” The driver jumped down and lowered the rear gate. “Want to see if it’s him?”
Caudell hurried over, peered in. George Ballentine lay limp and dead on the planks, without even a cloth over his staring eyes. The lower part of his gray tunic was soaked with blood; he’d been shot in the belly, a hard, hard way to die. Caudell clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Yeah, that’s Georgie.”
“You gonna take charge of him?”
“Take him over to Company H, why don’t you? He belonged to them.” Caudell pointed the way. “I expect they’ll want to give him a proper burial.”
“What the hell for? He was a goddam runaway.”
“Just do it,” Caudell snapped. As if by accident, he brushed a hand against his sleeve to call attention to his chevrons. The driver spat in the roadway, but he obeyed.
Caudell’s guess had been shrewd. The North Carolina Tigers even went so far as to ask Chaplain Lacy to officiate at the funeral, and he agreed. That told Caudell what the chaplain thought of the Negro’s reasons for running away. Driven by guilt, Caudell went to the funeral too—had he not told Lang who Ballentine was and where he belonged, the black man would still be alive.
Lacy chose a verse from Psalm 19: “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” Caudell wondered about that. He saw no evidence of divine wrath in Ballentine’s death, only the wrath of Benny Lang. It did not seem an adequate substitute. He thought about talking things over with the chaplain, but ended up talking with Mollie Bean instead. However fine a man William Lacy was, he was also an official part of the 47th North Carolina. Caudell didn’t feel comfortable discussing Georgie Ballentine’s fate with anyone official. Mollie’s place in the regiment was even less official than the Negro’s had been.
“Ain’t nothin’ to be done about it now,” she said, a self evident truth.
“I know that. It gravels me all the same,” he said. “It wasn’t fair.”
“Life ain’t fair, Nate,” she answered. “You was a woman, you’d know that. You ever work in a bawdyhouse, you’d sure as shit know that.” Her face clouded, as if at memories she’d have sooner forgotten. Then that wry smile of hers tugged one comer of her mouth upwards. “Hell, First Sergeant Caudell, sir, you was a private, you’d know that.”
“Maybe I would,” he said, startled into brief laughter. But just as Mollie could not stay gloomy, he had trouble remaining cheerful. “I expect I’d know it if I were a nigger, too. Georgie sure found out.”
“Niggers ain’t the same as white folks, they say—they just go on from day to day, don’t worry none about stuff like that.”
“Sure, people say that. I’ve said it myself, plenty of rimes. But if it’s true, why did Georgie run off when they took his repeater away?” Corporal Johnson’s words came back to Caudelclass="underline" even a nigger, he’s got his pride.
“I know what you mean, Nate, but Georgie, he didn’t seem like your regular nigger,” Mollie said. “He just seemed like people—you know what I mean?”