The Young Sharpshooter at Antietam

by Everett T. Tomlinson

"Who is the chaplain?"

"I don't know who he is, but we'll be able to find that out later."

A low conversation which followed between the inmates of the tent revealed the fact that several of the men already had been tried and condemned by court-martial for desertion. Every one was bitter against those who had passed sentence upon him. Noel was surprised to find that the men were all claiming, what he himself had asserted as the cause for the mistake in his arrest, that some one had brought a false charge against them.

Not unnaturally both the young soldiers were depressed when darkness came on, and Noel was unable to sleep. Mortified by the charge as well as anxious, he lay with wide-open eyes staring in the dim light at the top of his tent and wondering what the following day would bring forth. The sound of guns in the distance, the restlessness that was manifested among the soldiers, the evident interest with which the colonel was reading some dispatches that he had received, as well as the severity with which the so-called deserters were being treated, all combined to make the young soldier confident that stirring action was speedily expected.

The following morning dawned wonderfully clear. When Dennis awoke the sun was shining brightly and the morning air was soft and still.

When the boys first arose they were startled at the presence of two ambulances in front of their tent. In each of these ambulances there was a rough coffin of wood. That these gruesome objects should have been brought to the place where the prisoners under the charge of desertion were confined at first had not been suggestive to Noel. He was soon aware, however, what the explanation was, and his face became pallid when he heard two of his companions ordered to advance and each man to take his seat on a coffin. A detail of soldiers had been assigned to draw these two ambulances and in solemn silence were awaiting the coming of the condemned men.

Noel Curtis shuddered when one of the prisoners, stepping lightly into the ambulance, seated himself upon the long box, and, rapping upon the wood, turned to some of the watching soldiers and flippantly said, "Boys, can't you put some shavings or something a little softer in my box? It looks as if it might be a pretty hard nest to rest in."

Instead of laughter or applause greeting his coarse remarks, the silence and disgust of the assembled soldiers seemed to react with solemn force upon the condemned man. At last the word was given and the cavalcade departed, leaving the remaining prisoners in the guard-tent dumb with the horror of the event.

Difficult as Noel Curtis had found it, in his previous experiences in the campaign on the Peninsula, to control his feelings when he found that he was actually shooting at a human being, that experience was by no means equal to the suffering which he now was undergoing.

There might be some justification for men making targets of one another when some great issue had been raised, but the young sharpshooter was now fully aware that war was no holiday game. His heart rebelled against many of the things which he saw, and yet the supreme issue of it all and the fact that war had been declared and accepted, and that there was no relief or release until one side or the other in the great conflict had won its victory, could not be ignored.