Savage Wounds: The True Story of the Ruined Men

By Sam Knupp

Eight million shots fired. Some of that lead actually hit its intended targets. And that lethal storm of projectiles doesn't count artillery fire, or the toll exacted by sword and fixed bayonet. The Battle at Gettysburg was a killing floor. It was also a place of creation. The 1st Gettysburg Invalids were born from that battle. This is their story.

Mr. Lincoln's Men, some called them. Created from the aftermath: carnage the father, ingenuity the mother, and God only knows the additions and subtractions of bits and pieces of horribly wounded men now ruined and can't go home. A battalion of the unlucky, unfortunate, and hard to kill: blind men, men without legs, men missing arms, men bereft of reason, shell-shocked and howling mad men. Sorry looking men individually. But collectively, a true fighting force and something the world has never seen before.

From rack and ruin, they come. To hell, they run. Soldiers of the line carried, dragged, and pushed onto the battlefront. Invalids all, gun fodder and a joke if they didn't look so terrifying: 'tin cup' men, white cane and sideshow freaks armed, resolute and those many sightless eyes staring holes in space, screaming Bellamus Aeterni as they killed, as they died. They are one with their motto: forever we fight. For the terribly wounded, the war never ends in victory or defeat: only death changes anything.

Hail the 1st Gettysburg Invalids. They are on the march. And wherever they go, their colonel leads them. He is the man with no face. He wears the black velvet bag of command, and from the ruins of his lips, words slither into life. His men call him The Cobra. He is that and more. Colonel Goliath Entwhistle, the tallest man in America, first a traitor to the Union and then a traitor to the 'Cause,' forsworn twofold and yet promoted and entrusted by President Lincoln and General Meade with a battalion of ruined men. A Confederate officer commands the 1st Gettysburg. He is savagely wounded.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667861630

Book preview

Dedicated to:

Benjamin Newton Knupp, Jr., father, husband,

citizen-soldier, and a very kind man.

‘Boilerplate’

This is a ‘complete’ work of fiction with a ‘twist.’ Some of the described events have a basis in American history. For example, the Civil War is a fact. North and South as both directions and ‘sides’ is reality. But this book wasn’t written to record ‘facts.’ Instead, it was written to challenge the past from a point in the present so that there may be more possibilities and a greater potential for good in the future. The ‘twist’ in this type of writing style is that I attempt to place concepts and ideas that may have been ‘foreign’ to that era and rewrite a story around a ‘seed’ of historical reality. I write in this manner to bend the far past into current understandings, believing that reading history reinforces an ugly fact of man’s inhumanity to man: the great truths of human survival – the fittest and most ruthless rule. If we continue to populate the past with those realities, we lose the opportunity to alter the overwhelmingly destructive nature of historical truth.

Humans look to the past to understand the present. Modernity can only speculatively ‘reenact’ what has occurred. Every year historical battles are fought to the same ends. Imagine what might happen if those long-decided issues were treated as still fraught and open to different conclusions. If we want a better future, we must write a better past.

In some areas, we don’t seem to have changed much from Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel. Certain patterns and understandings repeat. History repeats the same in every generation. The only thing that doesn’t repeat is something new.

I have come to the sad conclusion that history is boring in its sad predictability. It only changes to greater or lesser forms of the same. If we continue to stick with the historical, we will continue to do the same things in the same manner and to similar effects: the weight of history is the carnivorous reality of food-chain survival. We enslave and are enslaved to that primal logic. This story is my nudge to skew the historical. ‘Ruin’ is my symbol and disability the fight.

Preface:

Time after time after time after time after time after time

Everything repeats

Again and again

Everything is everything

Repeating never ends

B ury my head in Ashkelon. Goliath of Gath groaned. Drink and women: such a wicked unity. Drink enough and every woman becomes a sultry goddess. Drink even more, and even if she really is a beauty, a man’s sword might not be able to be sheathed. His bed companion had reminded him earlier that morning, This is the mighty Goliath of Gath’s staff. A drowned snake has more life. He buried his head under the blanket to keep the morning light from stabbing his eyes, listening all the while to the chatter of the camp followers as the sun rose east of the Valley of Elah.

What a colossal waste of time. Seventy-eight times before, thirty-nine days in a row, he’d settled into his armor and walked down the rough stone road to the mouth of the valley. He’d stand there with his shield and spear in hand, gaze out over the empty pass, and bellow his challenge to the smoke of campfires defining where the Israelite army waited. Pig eaters and sister defilers was today’s salutation. It certainly wasn’t original, but how many times can you insult barren space and empty air? His heart really wasn’t in it. Such a waste of effort – but champions aren’t kings: they don’t get to decide who to insult and why.

I’m getting old. I never used to think about things. I could drink all night, fight all day, and no whore could complain about the strength of my sword. And I never talked to myself. He laughs ruefully, remembering Josiah’s comment upon hearing this solitary morning commentary, Big man, a whore doesn’t care about your sword. She’s just interested in the size of your wallet. You’re getting older. You’re thinking with your head more than your sword-arm. That’s dangerous. If you’re not careful, you’ll be thinking and not ducking, and some dumb young man without a thought in his head will chop yours off. You’re not paid to think. You’re paid to do what you’re told. And that’s why we pray to the Gods. Make a sacrifice – don’t be one.

Thinking these thoughts restored his spirits. He bellowed a time or two, giving rough notes to his voice and sounding rather magnificent as his words echoed off the rocks. He thought that maybe he should attempt a song; it sounded so good, but he remembered when they had broken the walls of Herkomon, and he had sung in those heated baths that sometimes what sounds good to our own ears isn’t the same as others hear as they begged him to not torture them further. So for a month after singing in those tiled showers, he was known as the man who killed more with song than sword. My friends laugh at me. And my enemies would be my friends. The world is a complicated place for sure.

He walked slowly back to camp, foul humor left behind, hungry as a mountain lion, thoughts now on cooks and the breakfast of champions. There was a new cereal he’d been meaning to try, an ancient grain toasted and sweetened with honey. He even hummed a little song that seemed to guide his feet and quicken his heart.

The following day just as he was choosing his ripest expletives and most hurtful enjoinments to address the empty pass, he saw a boy climbing over the rocks, heading his way. Just a stripling, more shepherd looking for his flock than a warrior threat. He seemed to be mumbling something to himself, probably some charm or prayer. But he did have a sling to hand, and that certainly merited notice. Boy, stop where you stand. Come no further. The figure stopped his progress and called out in a loud voice, I answer your challenge with my body. I will take your head for King Saul to display. As for your great and bloated body, it will lay here unburied, and the birds of the air and the creatures with talon and fang will consume you. And when you are gone, it will be as if you were never born. The God of Israel has sent me to take your life. For you, this valley is death.

Goliath was quite impressed with the length of the speech. Before the boy could even begin to whirl his sling, Goliath had advanced twenty feet and launched his spear, which took the boy through the chest and pinned him to the ground. He stood over the dying young man and felt little as he watched him die. What is your name, boy? Who is it that I have killed? The boy tried to speak, red foam on his lips, But…. And then he died, and his eyes stared at nothing. Goliath said to himself, I don’t think I know a man named But. He looked down at the dead boy, Your God is a fool.

Goliath drinking with Josiah later that day, Young men die first and easiest, Gods and Kings see to that. Josiah sadly agrees, Young men believe what they’re told. Veterans believe their own lies.

Wisdom says, ‘Just because it’s in the Bible doesn’t make it true. It only makes it Biblical.’

Presentation:

Playing the game

I thought I knew the rules

Playing war a game for fools

Don’t matter the loss or win

More a fact, it being your skin

He hears the doctor’s progress through the room. Step and then drag, step, drag – a man pulling his leg through places packed with pain – a room bursting with moans, groans, and soft weeping. He is of two minds. Did he really want to know?

Step, drag, and then some more; the doctor came close but no cigar. Finally, he step-dragged his reluctant leg out of the room. Another day in hell: oh well. He chuckled to himself and ended up choking on spit and anguish. He drank a little water, but only a few drops made it down his throat. The rest dribbled out his cheek. Every day he forgets and is beslobbered. He is the man without a face.

He hears his name whispered on many lips. He reaches up to touch his fine mustaches. They feel the same as always. He brushes them with familiarity. There is comfort here. He is careful to go no higher or lower. He knows the truth. It doesn’t take a mirror to see what a hand feels. He hears that reality one day from a man two beds over, dying with gas gangrene, burning up with fever, missing two legs, and half-mad: suppurating pus leaking from stumps, bathing every breath foul and horrid. The man with no legs called out to the man with no face, I’m so sorry, buddy. I’m praying for you. And he did. He prayed for the man with no face until he died.

The man without a face stroked his fine mustaches as he heard the praying man die. He was so angry that he vomited out the side of his face. Vile the bile, and green the envy. He listened to legless dying and wished it were he. And if he could have heard the words and thoughts from every other man in that room, he would have known despair beyond despair: every man wishing him dead, gone, and forgotten.

Because he has no ears, he doesn’t hear men inching their pallets away from his place in the far corner. And since his eyes are still bandaged, he doesn’t see the vast divide separating his space from an already crowded room. He is the hated man. So badly wounded that even one glance instills terror. There are things so much worse than death. And every wounded man in that room knows that truth now. Unfortunately, terrible things can get even worse.

He is the reminder-man: one look and then you know. You know you’d rather be dead a hundred times over. One stalwart soul crawled to his bed late one night, giving into his hand a Remington revolver saying, Think of your family.

And he does. He cannot stop thinking of Laura and the family they have planned. He thinks of her and vomits. He thinks of her. His thoughts are so dark and dire they have no bottom or top; lower and higher mean nothing when there is no gauge to understand what has happened to him, to these other men, to a world gone mad. The juice of the red poppy only dulls so much – every thought sharp, without mercy, flensing old wounds and making new. He tries to shed tears, but they refuse to fall. If he could cry, his tears would be blood. Maybe tomorrow, the lame doctor will drag himself to where he lays. Oh Lord, what will Laura say?

Wisdom says, When there are things worse than death, what does it mean to be alive?

Chapter zero:

blue bellies

Snakes and armies

Snakes and armies

Travel best on bellies

Those blue bellies had been pestering the line all night. Finally, when morning arrived, they were much closer, almost near enough to share the warmth of the cooking fires. Every now and again, a sharp crack would break the quiet - louder for its infrequency and lack of pattern. Just one shot and then a long silence that begged to know. Hit or miss the only choice.

The major speaking softly to the men of his command, the men already smiling, knowing he was gonna make one of his famous pronouncements, Now we know there are only three places a man can’t get shot, first thing in the morning, waiting for Bobby Lee to lead us to the next glorious victory over these poor Northern fellas – a man’s privates, his back, and in the head. You get shot in the privates, and nobody gonna reach in your pants to stop the bleeding. And since you are all Southern gentlemen, we don’t have to worry about you running away from a fight and catching a bullet in the back. And the last thing any Virginia soldier wants is more holes in his head. For sure, no pretty girl gonna want a man with extra holes in his face to sign her dance card. So I suggest everybody keep his head down low and learn to crawl. If that don’t sit well with you, pray as you crawl – everybody kneels before Almighty God. And I must say I’ve been crawling all night myself, and I do think I’ve come closer in my acquaintance of the Creator.

And with those gentle words, 520 men got lower to the ground, breathed a little easier, and many took a moment to share their thoughts with God. The major’s words quickly spread throughout his command, men crawling from one position to another. In the space of ten minutes, every word repeated verbatim to even the farthest outpost. Many men smiled and laughed a bit and then added the major’s tagline to every morning before battle, words so well learned in three bitter years of fighting he doesn’t even have to say them anymore. They are the implied that speak loudest without having to say a thing. Follow me where I lead. Stop when I stop. Go when I go. And together, we will take enemy ground. We are the 12th Shenandoah, the men of the Blue Ridge, and the sons of Virginia.

Three hard-fought years later, and the words remain the same. What else to say? He ran out of words two years ago. Speechless before the enormity of a minor victory in some woods, he can’t even recall the name, stunned at the cost of winning; dead men all look the same – dead. Don’t matter a whit what color the pants, butternut brown or blue. Don’t matter at all. The colonel told him, Your boys done you proud. He remembers saying back, That fella over there by that pine, the one that crow is fixing to eat his eyeballs, that’s the son of my next-door neighbor. His name is Napier Carson, and we just called him Nappy. His daddy sure do love him. Told me to take care of his boy. I guess I didn’t do such a good job. I got 18 letters to write tonight. I’ll be sure to let his father know how proud we are.

The colonel stopped coming by to visit after victories. And when they started being defeated, he’d issue many new orders and talk about ‘fighting spirit, morale, and the rightness of the Cause.’ The major would always respond the same, We follow where you lead. We stop when you stop. We go when you go. And together, we take enemy ground. We are the 12th Shenandoah, the men of the Blue Ridge, and the sons of Virginia.

A few months later, standing in a Gettysburg cornfield, he had turned to his color sergeant, his words measured and softly spoken, Please advance the 12th Shenandoah. And he stepped forward into the worst day in the history of this country. He did not look to see if anyone followed. Looking back never a good start to battle. He looked forward. If he had turned around, he would have seen 476 men moving quietly over the ground, matching him step for step except for little Bobby Brown, the twelve-year-old drummer taking an extra half step every five, his instrument giving three beats to every stride, settling into a most helpful counterpoint for men marching to take ground and kill the enemy.

It was always said the same ‘the enemy.’ If you said it any other way, it sounded like despair. The major advanced his men into battle against the enemy. When you’re fighting family, the first step in every battle – change the name of who you’re fighting and don’t look too closely at the faces of the dead. The enemy don’t have faces. Shoot what’s blue, or he’ll shoot you. When brothers fight: what do you call victory?

The major drew his sword, raised high once for all behind to see, and then rested for now against his right shoulder. 472 men fixed bayonets. The sound a looming storm. A most chilling sound, and those who listened six hundred yards away were unsettled. The grapes of wrath distilled and soon enough decanted. The major speaking now in flat command speech, The colors to me. And two men closed up tight. The flag of Virginia and the battle standard, canted forward, advances across contested ground. Behind the major, men closed ranks, and when the major drew his pistol with his left hand, 472 men went to full cock. Little Bobby Brown played on.

The cannons on the heights began their thunder at four hundred yards. First, solid shot that bounced across the ground and seemed more child’s toy in its lazy moves, and then when close, moving so fast that it takes your life before you can blink: the slaughter now begun and only when the smoke blown away and done a butcher’s bill known and presented.

At two hundred yards, the major cried out, Take the guns. He began to run, and the colors ran with him. The men behind the major followed him step for step. The enemy saw a human wave running to break upon the revetments. And the rebel war cry preceded their arrival. It was an unsettling sight and the sound most chilling. The enemy loaded grapeshot and prayed those two thousand lead balls would break the line. And all over that much larger battlefield, many thousands of men fought, lived, and died. They were the lucky ones.

A few days later, General, Surgeon Mr. Martin is here at your command. The aide de camp ushered a blood-spattered man into the field headquarters of General Meade. Meade makes a point to stand up and shake the man’s hand, hating what he’s about to do, but just because he hates the medicine doesn’t mean it’s not the cure. It’s July tenth, and nothing feels like a celebration. The man before him keeps coughing into a bloody rag. He’s a consumptive. The illness is eating him alive.

He speaks roughly to this man standing before him, swaying with fatigue. How many ruined? Surgeon Martin answers back with the same abrading speech, The grape and canister did what they do. Almost three hundred of our men and one Johnny Reb: it was a mercy they shot their ruined as they retreated. They killed hundreds that couldn’t go home. Some of the 12th Shenandoah men risked their lives to bring their major in. They begged me to do what I could and then fought their way back to their unit. It was his men that took The Heights. His name is Goliath Entwhistle. He has no face.

Meade speaking the truth, I was there. They took the guns and then died trying to hold them. I won’t forget them. I surely won’t. It was folly, but I guess he had his orders. And now I have orders for you. You’re to stay behind with these ruined men and to do what you can. When they are well enough to travel, they are to proceed as a unit to a place that will be decided later, where they will live out their lives away from family and friends. I don’t need to tell you what would happen if these men were to be seen by other units and civilian populations. What man would ever charge a gun emplacement if he knew what he really risked? We barely won here. We can’t afford to lose the morale of the army and the trust of all those mothers and wives who are waiting for their sons and husbands to come home intact. These ruined men are the real cost of war. And it’s a price the Union can’t afford to pay. They must disappear. They died with honor at Gettysburg. Now we must move on. I can spare no officer to lead this unit; even if I could, no one would be willing to receive this command. You will convince Major Entwhistle to lead this troop to a place of safety. I will accept his parole and draw up orders and a commission to this end. This unit will be called The 1st Gettysburg. These men paid a high price to put this town on the map, but they will get no welcome home parade. You will leave as soon as you can. I have heard that the politicians will be swarming this place to make speeches and add fuel to the forge of war. You must be gone before the last bodies are buried. We will never be a united nation if what was done here becomes widely known. Who could ever forgive those terrible three days?

Wisdom says, ‘When men see war as a solution, it becomes the only answer to every question.’

Chapter one:

Abel Cain

The night before

Every day

Brings what may

The night before

Nothing to say

It was never the night before battle that these types of conversations were often to be overheard, and it was always the younger men who seemed willing to play the game. Older men didn’t seem much interested in sharing their opinions. It was a young man’s thing. Only the young seemed to have much appetite for talking such nonsense. Sitting around the fire, last thoughts shared before rough beds and homesick dreams, saying stuff when battle still a few days further along, making a game of it, one man topping another in a dwindling list of fears and horrors. Every soldier who ever lived has played the ‘game.’ And it has ‘rules.’ It’s a game you win by exposing the ‘worst thing that can happen to you’ while making it sound academic and conversational. Making it a contest of sorts. Expressing your fears without everybody knowing what a coward you are, hiding everything in plain sight, just another form of ‘what if?’

The older guys, those who have seen the ‘elephant,’ know what’s really going on but don’t let on. They remember. Nobody ever fought a battle that didn’t fight another battle a few days earlier. There are always two battles waged. One’s fought over disputed ground. The other is located deep in the bowels. Every soldier who ever lived must fight and win the battle inside his head. And one of the ways of doing it is to pose the question, What’s worse than death?

It’s not really a question. It’s more a statement. The young don’t think about death much. That’s probably a good thing. Overthinking dying doesn’t leave much room for living. Can’t fight a war if everybody too scared to show up, and maybe the reason it’s always the young that are told to ‘take that hill.’ And they do. They run screaming toward the enemy. When they get there, they are changed and many questions answered. Being ‘young’ isn’t about age. An old man can be ‘young.’ It’s not about years. It’s about fears.

After the first battle, the question isn’t about death anymore. It’s about how you’re gonna live with the fact you’re a combat veteran. Innocence dies first, and that is always an ugly death.

After blotting that last sentence dry, Gunnery Sergeant Abel Cain was mightily tempted to throw his journal into the fire. The only reason he didn’t was that everything he threw with his left arm went catawampus. He’d do better to throw with his right hand, being as he was born handy that way. But like his name: he was a man at odds with himself. And that wasn’t always the case. Just a few months before, he’d entertained the general staff with his violin, sawing in a mad frenzy a most complicated piece and living up to his reputation as a modern Paganini. One might say this had been his romantic period, briefly observed and honored before an ounce of lead shattered his elbow. Surgeon Bentley removed his arm and future livelihood in less than twenty seconds, commenting wryly while tying off the bleeders and creating a tidy stump, I heard your last concert.

The sergeant arrived at Gettysburg bright and shiny as a brass button. He was one of many replacements fed into the decimated ranks of the 5th Maine. He was a Harvard man: taking a year off; gonna teach Johnny Reb a lesson, his sign-up ink barely dry, and this his first action. When the order came to fire his battery of nine pounders, he had raised his right arm above his head in a most dramatic fashion, drawing the unwanted attention of a sniper two hundred yards away, and as his unit commander commented, I believe he was the first casualty on that first day. This led naturally to men sitting around campfires discussing that every battle must have a first and last casualty.

Wisdom says, ‘No one wants to be the last casualty of war. The saddest death is always the last death. It’s the first shot fired in the next war.’

Chapter two:

‘signing up’

Follow the drum

Rat a tat tat

Beating the heart

Sounding the drum

And where it leads

Men die and bleed

I don’t believe a man has the right to own another man. Around here, he’s known for that persuasion of thought. But nobody who disagreed held that against him. Most men knew him as a fine neighbor and friend. Goliath of Shenandoah was a big, big man, or as Laura said, Like decorating a Christmas tree gonna need a ladder to give that man a kiss. Everybody knew she never dropped by to visit without her ladder coming along for the ride. Goodness gracious, bells a-ringing – won’t be long until my ladder has a new home. When Laura spoke her heart, she’d often begin, Goodness gracious, bells a-ringing…. And one year, Goliath gave Laura two silver bells to dangle from her ears. She’d toss her head and smile, Bells tell. They ring I love you.

If Staunton the Queen City of the Shenandoah Valley, then Laura was destined to be that crown’s sparkling jewel. A tiny thing, not even five feet tall: her father’s heart and everyone’s friend. When the fever came through the valley in 59, it was Laura that nursed many back to health, and it didn’t matter the color of skin or position in life. Goodness gracious, bells a-ringing - sick is sick: well is well – don’t matter who you be. Only matters you get better. You hear? That year many did hear, and her kind efforts saved many lives. Tiny little Laura didn’t have opinions much - she only had friends. Now opinions seem a place folks go to say they are different from you. I don’t really hold with opinions. I much prefer onions if I’m gonna cry.

Goliath and Laura spoke similarly, which may account for their long affection. They seemed to speak around words and talk directly to the heart. He so large, and she so small – you’d think they wouldn’t really fit. But you’d be wrong for that opinion. Peas in a pod and everybody knew that someday they’d marry – just not yet.

The valley wasn’t itself these last few years. Things were some different and maybe more. People talking and fussing over many issues and some taking up sides – brother disagreeing with brother and sisters for once expressing their thoughts too – folks were talking so heated that it wasn’t hard to imagine ‘smoke on the mountains’ and small towns burning. War talk the only conversation: men looking for excuses to argue harshly, and never enough time spent on simple salutations and kindly greeting.

Men talking war – only hearing their own heated passion and with every conversation, a kindling point drew closer - as if war the answer to every question and nobody much concerned about what being at war really means. Goliath’s opinion, War is what you do when you stop listening. Maybe that’s why God gave man two ears and only one mouth – like measuring twice and cutting once - listen twice as much as you talk and then maybe what you hear gonna be a better fit and a bright new day. He was always talking about ‘a bright new day’ ready to arrive. And when he’d say those words, he’d smile like he saw New Jerusalem come today. Into heated arguments, he’d remind, We were friends yesterday. We’re gonna be friends tomorrow. So whatever we say to each other now is just a bridge to our divide.

But being a ‘bridge to our divide’ almost cost him his life. And that’s how he became the major and finally ended up with him being the man with no face. And it was all because he found a rhinoceros in his barn.

It was 1857. Not a good year to be a slave, especially if The Original Slave Be Caught organization was out searching for you. Their advertisement and promise Don’t let your property run away. We’ll bring him home to stay. And that’s the truth. Over the course of five years, the OSBC did as advertised. Harriet Tubman called them A stain upon the national conscience. They derailed the Underground Railroad for a while, raiding with impunity private homes, barns, and various outbuildings in both the north and south, leaving behind chaos and heartache wherever they traveled. In several cases, white men and women died in their own doorways seeking to protect what hid behind those