The Stone Wall

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"Hold up here boys!" Captain Rafael Ducheine held his left hand up as he watched the last few Yankees scramble away up the hill behind the farm.

His men halted at the stone wall running beside the farm track. They were leery of the buildings as up until moments ago, they had bristled with Yankee muskets. The effectiveness of those weapons could be seen in the field on their side of the wall, gray and butternut-clad bodies were strewn liberally throughout the farmer's field.

"Hey Rafe, can I get a detail together to take the wounded back to our lines?"

Ducheine had despaired of getting Sergeant Louis Gaumont to follow military protocol when they were away from the men.

"No Sergeant, we must hold this position. You may send a man back to have stretcher bearers come forward, but we can't spare a man other than that. The bluebellies will be back, you can count on that."

Gaumont nodded, then grabbed a nearby man to send back to their lines.

"Hey Capitaine, the bluebellies left behind a lot of perfectly good rifles, can we swap ours for theirs?" A private had addressed his company commander as if he was a neighbor, not his commander.

Ducheine had his glasses on the ridge to their front, due to the terrain he couldn't see much. Too many dips and hollows in the area around the farm. He half-heard the man's shout, then it registered.

Many of his men were equipped with smoothbore flintlock muskets. Effective at close range, but you had to get to that range alive first. He turned.

"Sergeant Gaumont, Corporal Pelletier, have the men with flintlocks search the dead Yanks for ammunition and caps. Gather up their rifles and collect them here. Good idea, Pierre, merci." With a nod to the man who had addressed him.

He didn't want his men to swap a perfectly good firearm for a better one if there was no ammunition to be had for the rifle.

It turned out that one of the reasons for the northerners pulling back was a shortage of cartridges. The men had gathered twenty or so perfectly good Springfields but only enough ammunition to maybe equip five men with those rifles.

As he turned to his sergeant the man was ready with his own answer. "Sir, I gave the Springfields to five of our best shots. They have thirty cartridges each, it ain't much but most of the fellows have only thirty or so rounds for their flintlocks, so the Springfielders should have enough."

Ducheine nodded as he scanned the ground to his rear, the trees they'd attacked from were on a slight rise. He started to speak when Gaumont interrupted him ...

"I figure we could put the Springfielders up in that tree line, they can fire over our heads, take advantage of their longer range and greater accuracy. Meanwhile, the rest of the fellows have pretty good cover along this wall. Wish'n it were higher, but it's better'n standing in the open."

"Get it done, Sergeant."

A party of ten stretcher bearers arrived on the field shortly after the men equipped with the Yankee rifles had taken up position in the tree line. Ducheine was walking the line, making sure the men had some cover, the stone walls in the area were very low. Built by farmers stacking up rocks they found while plowing, they had never been intended to be aesthetically pleasing or uniform.

Some of the men were using rails taken from a nearby fence to pile atop the walls, this gave them some cover in addition to the stones themselves. Better than nothing, Ducheine said to himself.

"Hey Capitaine! We got a live one 'ere!"

Ducheine walked over to where a few of his men were clustered around a man on the ground. A man in a blue uniform.

Ducheine saw the man's shoulder straps, a lieutenant, badly wounded from the looks of it. He knelt down next to the man.

"How bad are you hit, son?"

The boy grimaced, he'd been in the army long enough to recognize the three bars on Captain Ducheine's collar.

"Purty bad, Cap'n. I'm a goner for sure."

"Let me see." Ducheine reached for the young officer's jacket, it was bloody and torn and the young man had ripped open his buttons to see his wound.

It was bad, the Yankee's shirt and trousers were blood-soaked, Ducheine was surprised that the boy was still alive.

"Where ya from, son?"

"Minnesota, Cap'n. Hey, could you do something for me?"

"That depends on what the something is."

The young officer winced as he reached into his jacket, pulling forth a blood-stained notebook.

"There's a letter in there, for my Ma, another for my girl. Could you see they get sent?"

Ducheine took the notebook, sure enough, there were two envelopes tucked inside, not too bloody. "Certainly, son, I can do that. Anything else?"

Ducheine's eyes got misty as he saw the young man smile, as if he'd just won a prize. Then his eyes glazed over and the young lieutenant from Minnesota saw no more.

Ducheine was barely holding himself together, the death of the young Yankee had affected him greatly. He hadn't felt this bad since Sharpsburg, where his uncle had been killed standing next to him. He'd had to write a letter to his father and another to his aunt to tell her that she was now a widow.

"I wonder if those folks up north know they've lost their young lad?" he muttered as he sat behind the wall, sweating as the heat of the day grew.

"Sir?"

Ducheine turned, it was Sergeant Gaumont, why hadn't he used Ducheine's first name? There was no one else nearby, Gaumont sounded muted, reserved.

"What is it, Louis?" he asked in a soft tone.

"Why not catch a few winks, Cap'n? The Yanks are quiet, I'll keep an eye on things, wake you quick if needed."

Ducheine thought for a second, "Alright, mon cher sergent, I think I will. Have the boys got rations?"

"Yessir, I'll get 'em to eat. Might be a long afternoon if the bluebellies decide to get frisky again."

"Sir?"

It was then that Gaumont realized that his captain was already asleep.