Author's note: This story takes place during the last half of the American Civil War. The war has already turned against the South. The casualty rates have devestated families in many Southern communities. A draft has been instituted. Unless a family held a large number of slaves, every male able to hold a rifle was suddenly called to fight for the Southern cause. As the war drug on, boys as young as 13 and men as old as 65 were expected to fill the already depleted ranks of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Chapter 6

"Emma, Emma, what's wrong?" Rebecca said as she shook her "sister" to wake her from her sleep.

Emma's heart was pounding. She hoped her screams didn't wake the entire camp.

Just the occupents in the tent, which included Maggie in addition to Rebecca.

Because of Maggie's presence, Emma couldn't confide in her sister. She could only tell her she had a bad dream.

In the dream, Emmitt was in a trench surrounded by bloodied soldiers, He was wearing a Confederate uniform. Union soldiers had them completely surrounded with bayonettes.

Emma had tried to push aside feelings of being Emmitt. And their tents assigned to the 17th Virginia regiment were the closest Emma had come to a battlefield. But the tales told by a soldier the night before as they set up camp had created an impression.

There were other horrors, too, that Emma was prepared for as Emma. Tending to wounded soldiers. Seeing limbs put in the trash. Those were the things the older nurses tried to prepare them for, not to mention the dying.

Since they were nurses in training, they would be spared actual surgeries. But they would be sewing stitches, dressing bandages
and other duties before and after surgery.

They did not know when they would be called into duty. Rumors had it the Yankees were close, that fighting could begin any day.

Emma, Rebecca and Maggie had originally thought of helping out near the battlefield as an adventure. But the humidity and the heat made them long for cooler days at the boarding house and school. Life in the tent was that much better.

"On the farm, I was used to the bugs," Emma told Maggie. "But not in my bunk."

*****

"It's madness, Lucien, total madness," Andy said as they marched toward the woods. "I've had a sinking feeling we're not going to catch Bobby Lee by surprise when we finish marching through that horrible mess."

"Oh come on, Andy my boy, since when did you get skittish about going into battle?" Lucien asked.

"When we can't see 20 feet in front of us," Andy replied as they tried to follow the narrow dusty path that was the only seperation from the vegetation.

If their commander was right, they would be doing like Stonewall Jackson's soldiers did to them only a year before in nearly the same thickets at Chancellorsville. Andy was playing cards with comrades when deer came running out of the thicket ahead of Jackson's troops.

Andy was one of only a few that day to realize Confederate troops were behind the running animals and quickly grabbed a gun.

"You suspect something, don't you?" Lucien asked nervously.

"I don't know why, but I feel as if we're marching into an ambush," Andy replied.

"I was afraid to ask," Lucien said. He learned to trust his gender-challenging buddy's instincts. He wondered if there really a such a thing as woman's intuition, and despite Andy's attempt to be a real man, he wondered if his friend actually had that.

They were marching in the middle of the line when Andy shouted "hit the dirt!" Troopers around them fell to the ground. But it was too late for their comrades who were marching ahead. They were mowed down as a line of Confederates opened fire from behind trees and bushes ahead of them.

From the moment Andy shouted until the Confederates opened fire might have been only five seconds.

"How the hell did you know?" Lucien asked as the two returned fire from the ground, using dead comrades for cover.

"I heard a twig crack and then I saw a patch of gray," Andy replied. "You've always got to stay alert."

Suddenly they heard a noise they've heard all to often on the battlefield: Blood curtling Rebel yells.

"Dammit, they're flanking us," Andy said as Confederate soldiers emerged from their right.

"Retreat!" they heard their company commander shout, and they took off to their left, only to have another group of Confederates open fire. The lieutenant who immediatly outranked Andy was among the soldiers who fell.

Andy and the company commander tried to rally their troops and they began to run down the path in the opposite direction they were marching in just a few minutes before. They finally found shelter around an abandoned cabin and were able to organize defensive positions.

"We should be safe here for the night," the company commander told Andy.

Lucien was among the soldiers given the task of accounting for how many were lost.

"We lost at least half of our company," he told Andy. "Another day like today, and their might not be any of us left."

*****

Although they were safely away from the battlefield, they were not safely away from the sounds of the terror. Emma could hear the gun shots, the cannon fire, the yells of the soldiers.

That was the day the boredom ended. They helped pull soldiers from wagons and carried them into the farm house that had become a field hospital.

Emma admitted throwing up five times to Rebecca.

"You're better than us," Rebecca said. "I think I've done it about 10. So has Maggie."

Emma fought nausea as she cleaned the wound of one soldier. The stench was just too hard to bear. She did her best to keep flies off bloodied arms and legs before surgery.

"Nice job, but I think it will probably have to come off," a doctor said of her work on one soldier's leg. Emma cringed
and tried not to let soldiers see hear tear up. She found out that day there was no distinction between blue or gray in a
combat hospital. Of course, sometimes the soldiers were so bloodied, you couldn't tell what side they were on.

Emma acquired a new job on the very first day, one that she came to dread. She was the whiskey runner, which usually meant one of two things: It was either used for a soldier who was about to have a limb amputated, or was one who was in immense paid but only had a few hours to live. It brought them comfort."

Emma, Rebecca, Maggie and Mrs. Ballew all cried at the end of the first day of fighting. Emma tried to focus on the beautiful orange sunset, but it was hard. They could see smoke rising from several places in the forest. And they continued to hear men yell for their lives.

"I know it was hard for you ladies today," one of the doctors told them. "But you did a good job today. And we'll likely need you tomorrow."

*****

Helpless.

That's how Andy felt during the first night following the battle that became known as "The Wilderness."

Huddled around an abandoned cabin they could see a haunting sight. The graves from the previous year's fighting were so shallow, that many of the bodies had become exposed. They didn't notice them during the day, they were too busy fighting for their lives.

But the moonlight exposed the white skulls of those who fought and died the year before at Chancellorsville. It was a macabre sight.

"It is almost as if they are looking at us," Andy told Lucien.

Too make matters worse. They could see the flames in the distance. They could hear soldiers yell as they were being burned alive.

There was nothing either side could do. The forest was too thick to move through at night. There were too many fires.

There were also snipers on both sides who tried to pick off as many of the enemy as they could.

"You know what, Lucien?" Andy said as he whittled to try to keep his mind off the tragedy that was unfolding. "When this is all over, I'm going to find a nice quiet farm and live the rest of my days in peace."

*****

Rebecca looked at Emma and how Emma's face seemed to have a glow from the lamp in the tent.

"It is really amazing," Rebecca wrote in a letter to their mother. "We were worried so much that Emma will hit that growth spurt where she must choose to be Emmitt again. But I see no signs of that happening. She is the most beautiful among us. I heard a soldier say yesterday her beauty kept his mind off the horrors of war."

Emma thought of something else. She brought a young, dying soldier a cup of cold water for some comfort in his last few moments left on earth.

She almost dropped a cup when the soldier told her he was only 15. His voice hadn't even really changed. It hit Emma hard, since she was just a few months shy of 14.

Emma began to contemplate whether there was any honor in what she was doing. The thought of putting away Emma the dresses and putting on Emmitt and the Confederate gray weighed heavily on her mind.

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