The Storm Before Atlanta (3 page)

Jeremy went back along the white-powdered streets to the station and bought a ticket to Washington. His money was running out, and if he didn’t find the war in Washington he didn’t know what he’d do.

THREE

T
HE OLD MAN HAD BEEN RIGHT
. E
VERYTHING CAME
through Washington, or to it. In the railroad yards Jeremy saw endless trainloads of hardtack, embalmed beef, and coffee. There were hundreds of wagons pulled by horses and mules, and men yelling at the mules and horses to get up, and at each other to get out of the way. There were trainloads of wounded soldiers, some groaning in pain but most grimly silent.

“You lost, sonny?”

Jeremy looked up at a black man with a broom in his hands. He was smiling in a friendly way, but his face looked tight with pain.

“I’m looking for the war,” said Jeremy.

“You come to the right place for that,” said the man. “This is the war.” His nod included the rail yards, the mules, the wounded soldiers, and the rail platform filled with waiting troops.

Jeremy shook his head, impatient. This wasn’t the war, not what he’d read about in the newspapers. It wasn’t the Drummer Boy of Shiloh’s war.

“I want to join a regiment,” he said.

“Sonny, I think you better go home to your ma and pa.” The man’s smile was kind, but he was talking to Jeremy like Jeremy was a little boy, which Jeremy was not.

“I want to join up as a drummer boy,” said Jeremy.

“Well, you could talk to them over there.” The man nodded across the rail yard. “There’s plenty of regiments boarding up for the West out there.”

The South, the West—Jeremy had a feeling he was going to go all over the blamed U.S. of A. looking for this war and it would be over before he found it.

“Why aren’t you in the war?” Jeremy asked. He knew that black men couldn’t join the regular regiments but that there were separate colored regiments. He’d read about them in the newspaper.

“Been in it.” A cloud passed over the man’s face, and he started sweeping.

“Oh.” Jeremy felt uncomfortable. “Well, I guess I’ll go over there and talk to the enrolling officers.”

“Sure hope they don’t take you,” said the man, but softly, like he didn’t really mean for Jeremy to hear.

Jeremy made his way through the chaos of wagons, ambulances, and shouting men to the platforms where thousands of soldiers were gathered, playing cards, singing, talking, waiting to be shipped out.

An officer was coming down the platform. Jeremy could tell from his insignia that he was a lieutenant, and from New York State. Jeremy stepped into the lieutenant’s path and saluted.

The lieutenant stopped, smiled, and returned the salute. “What regiment are you with, soldier?”

“None, sir,” said Jeremy, still holding his salute. “But I’m from York State, sir! And I’ve come to join up.”

“At ease, soldier. Can you play a drum?”

“Yes, sir!” Jeremy replied, hardly able to believe his good luck. “I’ve been practicing for years. I can play reveille, fall in, tattoo.…”

“We’re short a drummer boy in the 107th New York Volunteer Regiment,” said the lieutenant. “Come along with me. I’m Lieutenant Tuttle, by the way.”

“Jeremy DeGroot, sir.” Jeremy hurried to keep up with Lieutenant Tuttle, who led Jeremy to a little office near the platform where the enrolling officer was.

“We have a drummer boy here who wants to join the 107th,” said Lieutenant Tuttle.

Jeremy thrilled at being called a drummer boy.

The enrolling officer looked at Jeremy and took some papers from a stack. “Can you play the drums?”

“Yes, sir!” Jeremy had never actually held a real drum in his hands, but he knew how to play one, he was sure.

The enrolling officer pointed to his desk. “Drum me a reveille on that, lad.”

Jeremy put his hands flat on the desk and closed his
eyes to hear the rhythm that pulsed through his blood. He beat the reveille on the desk with his hands. Then, to show them what he could do, he beat a tattoo, and a march time, and a double-quick march, and finally the long roll that called soldiers to battle.

Then he opened his eyes and looked up at the men. Lieutenant Tuttle looked slightly impressed.

“Not bad,” said the enrolling officer. “Good enough for you, lieutenant?”

“He’ll do.”

“Right. We just need your pa’s signature on this form, and you’re in.”

Jeremy’s heart sank. “I don’t have no pa.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Can you tell me when and where he died?” said the enrolling officer.

Jeremy looked up at Lieutenant Tuttle for help. He had said they needed a drummer boy, after all.

“If you’re under sixteen, you need your father’s permission to enlist,” said the enrolling officer. “President Lincoln says the U.S. Army does not need boys who disobey their parents. Did you get your father’s permission to come join the army?”

“Not exactly,” said Jeremy.

“Perhaps you just neglected to mention it to him,” said Lieutenant Tuttle. “Where do we find your pa, Jeremy?”

“Auburn, New York,” Jeremy admitted miserably.

Lieutenant Tuttle pursed his lips. “When you say your
father’s in Auburn, do you mean that he is a guest of the State of New York?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jeremy. Tarnation! Had he come all this way only to lose his chance?

“What’s he in for?” asked the lieutenant.

“Chawed a man’s ear off.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Chawed off his ear. He tole him he was gonna chaw his ear off, and then he chawed. He got six years.”

Lieutenant Tuttle was beginning to look like he was regretting bringing Jeremy here.

But the enrolling officer said, “Maybe it can be managed. Been arrested yourself, Jeremy?”

Worse and worse. But a soldier had to tell the truth. Jeremy took a deep breath. “Only once.”

“What for?”

“Fightin’. My regiment against the Geddes Street regiment.”

“Er, did you fight with guns?”

“Rocks. Them and us both threw some rocks.”

Jeremy was the only one who’d gotten caught, and only because he’d stayed to make sure that all the rest of his regiment got away safe, over a board fence and down an alley.

The two officers were exchanging looks that said they were about to tell Jeremy to go away.

“They didn’t keep me, though,” Jeremy said. “They let me out next mornin’, on account they said I was too young to be in jail. But I was younger then.”

“Old enough for jail now, eh?” said Lieutenant Tuttle.

“Well, now,” said the enrolling officer. “The lad shows a good martial spirit. And he seems honest enough, at any rate.”

Lieutenant Tuttle gave Jeremy a measuring look, as if he didn’t think he was honest at all.

“What about your mother, then?” said the enrolling officer.

“Pa never said nothing about her.”

“Is she living?”

“Don’t think so, sir.”

“Who looks after you, then?”

“Look after myself, sir.” Jeremy saw he had better steer the officers away from this line of questioning. Telling the officers about Old Silas would land him in a heap more trouble than he needed. “I sell newspapers.”

“Well, that’s not a bad thing to do,” said the enrolling officer. “Do you want a drummer boy, lieutenant?”

Lieutenant Tuttle twisted his mouth to one side, thinking.

“I’m brave, sir,” Jeremy blurted. They didn’t hold with flat-out boasting back in York State, but he could see his chance slipping away and he wouldn’t let it go. “I ain’t scared of nothing. Everybody says so.”

He thought of adding that he would be perfectly willing to die like the Drummer Boy of Shiloh, bravely calling out to his mother in heaven while soldiers wept around
him. But in the noisy train station the idea seemed somehow far-fetched.

“I guess we’ll give him a try,” said the lieutenant at last. “But mind, boy! There’s no tolerance for misbehavior in the 107th. No tolerance at all.”

“Thank you, sir!” said Jeremy.

“Take this, raise your right hand, and read it,” said the enrolling officer. “Can you read?”

Jeremy didn’t bother to answer that. He’d had over six months of schooling—of course he could read. He raised his right hand, threw his chest out, and read loudly from the card:

“I, JeremIAH DeGroot”—he gave his first name its full, official pronunciation instead of its down-home one—“do solemnly swear that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies and opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the”—he took a deep breath and read the next words extra loud—“
president of the United States
! And the orders of the officers appointed over me according to the rules and articles for the government of the armies of the United States!”

And that was that. He was down for $13 a month, just like a grown man would get, and just like a grown man he wouldn’t see any of it for months and months, because there were always problems moving the money around to
where the armies were. He got a uniform, his first-ever pair of shoes, and best of all, a drum.

The drum was glorious. It was painted blue, with an eagle, its wings spread wide, and a red, white, and blue shield. Golden rays surrounded the eagle. The paint was scratched and battered—the drum had already been in the war, and Jeremy wondered what had happened to the drummer boy who had had it before him. Perhaps it had belonged to the Drummer Boy of Shiloh. The quartermaster had painted over the name of its last regiment and painted “107th New York Volunteer Infantry” over the eagle in red and gold.

There were ropes zigzagging around the drum, and as the 107th New York waited its turn to board a westbound train, Jeremy practiced using them to tighten and loosen the calfskin drumhead.

He was sitting on the platform among the men of the 107th New York. Lieutenant Tuttle had left him—after all, an officer was too important to hang around with a drummer boy. The men were singing, telling jokes, sleeping. They all knew each other. None of them paid any attention to Jeremy.

Jeremy picked up one of his new drumsticks and lightly tapped the drumhead. BOOM!

A twitch went through the soldiers. They stopped talking and singing. The sleeping ones woke up. Some of them were halfway to their feet before they saw it was only Jeremy, sitting there investigating his new drum.

“Knock it off, kid!”

“Pipe down!”

“You leave that drum alone or you’ll be wearin’ it for a collar.”

This last remark came from a big, golden-haired man who looked like he could make it stick. Jeremy looked down at his drum. He felt his face burning, and if he hadn’t been a soldier he probably would have run away, right off the railroad platform. But that would be deserting. So he looked down at his drum and waited for everyone to forget about him, which after a minute they did.

“Hey, kid. What’s your name?”

Jeremy looked up at a tall, skinny man with dirty blond hair.

“Jeremy DeGroot, sir.” Jeremy stood up.

“You our new drummer boy? Call me Nicholas.” Nicholas extended a hand, and Jeremy shook it.

“Yes, si—er, Nicholas.”

“You look a little young. I’ve had pupils in the first reader that were bigger’n you.”

“I can read out of the eighth reader,” said Jeremy. He guessed Nicholas was a schoolmaster. But Nicholas seemed relaxed and easygoing, not like any teacher Jeremy had ever had. Schoolmasters came and went pretty quickly in the Northwoods, and since Jeremy had only managed a couple months of school a year, he’d had quite a few teachers.

“You got a mess yet? Want to join ours?” asked Nicholas.

A mess was a small group of soldiers who cooked and ate together.

“Yes, thank you,” said Jeremy.

“C’mon over and sit with us.”

Nicholas turned and walked away, and Jeremy bent to pick up his drum. He tried putting the strap around his neck—the drum was unexpectedly heavy, and it dragged his head down. He struggled to stand straight. He wished the boys back in Syracuse could see him now—a soldier of the 107th New York, marching along the platform to join his messmates.

And he wished Mr. Dougall could see him—he would never dare give Jeremy dirty looks now that Jeremy was a U.S. soldier. And folks back home in the Northwoods who’d passed remarks about Jeremy being a jailbird’s kid. And Old Silas—no, not Old Silas. Jeremy reckoned he’d have to go a bit further before he’d be out of reach of Old Silas.