Fire by Night Read online

  * * * F I R E

  by N I G H T

  Fire by Night

  Copyright © 2003

  Lynn Austin

  Cover design by The DesignWorks Group

  Scripture quotations identified NIV are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 978-1-55661-443-9

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Austin, Lynn N.

  Fire by night / by Lynn Austin.

  p.cm. — (Refiner’s fire)

  ISBN 1-55661-443-8 (pbk.)

  1. United States—History—CivilWar, 1861–1865—Fiction. 2. Passing (Identity)—

  Fiction. 3. Female friendship—Fiction. 4. Women soldiers—Fiction. 5. Young women—

  Fiction. 6. Nurses—Fiction. I. Title II. Series: Austin, Lynn N. Refiner’s fire.

  PS3551. U839F57 2003

  813'.54—dc22 2003014248

  * * *

  To Ken

  for your encouragement,

  support, and love.

  Books by

  Lynn Austin

  FROM BETHANY HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  __________________________________

  All She Ever Wanted

  Eve’s Daughters

  Hidden Places

  A Proper Pursuit

  Though Waters Roar

  Until We Reach Home

  Wings of Refuge

  A Woman’s Place

  REFINER’S FIRE

  Candle in the Darkness

  Fire by Night

  A Light to My Path

  CHRONICLES OF THE KINGS

  Gods and Kings

  Song of Redemption

  The Strength of His Hand

  Faith of My Fathers

  Among the Gods

  www.lynnaustin.org

  LYNN AUSTIN is a three-time Christy Award winner for her historical novels Hidden Places, Candle in the Darkness,and Fire by Night. In addition to writing, Lynn is a popular speaker at conferences, retreats, and various church and school events. She and her husband have three children and make their home in Illinois.

  Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Bull Run, Virginia July 21, 1861

  Chapter Two

  Western Virginia September 1861

  Chapter Three

  Philadelphia October 1861

  Chapter Four

  Western Pennsylvania October 1861

  Chapter Five

  Philadelphia December 1861

  Chapter Six

  Washington City December 1861

  Chapter Seven

  Washington City February 1862

  Chapter Eight

  Fairfield Hospital February 1862

  Chapter Nine

  Fortress Monroe March 1862

  Chapter Ten

  Washington City April 1862

  Chapter Eleven

  The Peninsula May 1862

  Chapter Twelve

  White House Landing, Virginia June 1862

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mechanicsville, Virginia July 1862

  Chapter Fourteen

  Washington City July 1862

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sharpsburg, Maryland September 1862

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sharpsburg, Maryland September 1862

  Chapter Seventeen

  Washington City December 1862

  Fredericksburg, Virginia December 1862

  Chapter Eighteen

  Washington City April 1863

  PART TWO

  Chapter Nineteen

  Washington City April 1863

  Philadelphia April 1863

  Chancellorsville, Virginia May 1863

  Chapter Twenty

  Philadelphia, June 1863

  Gettysburg July 1863

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Philadelphia September 1863

  Philadelphia January 1864

  Brandy Station, Virginia May 1864

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Brandy Station, Virginia May 1864

  Philadelphia May 1864

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Cold Harbor, Virginia May 1864

  City Point, Virginia July 1864

  Chapter Twenty-four

  City Point, Virginia July 1864

  Depot Hospital August 1864

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Philadelphia October 1864

  Western Pennsylvania October 1864

  Philadelphia April 1865

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Washington City May 1865

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Washington City May 1865

  Bone Hollow, West Virginia July 1865

  PART ONE

  By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light. …

  Exodus 13:21 NIV

  Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

  John 8:12 NIV

  Chapter One

  Bull Run, Virginia

  July 21, 1861

  The rippling cry split the air like torn cloth. It shivered down Julia Hoffman’s spine, making the hair on her neck stand on end. “What was that?” she murmured.

  “The Rebels,” Uncle Joseph said. “God help us …they’re attacking.” He passed his binoculars up to Reverend Nathaniel Greene, seated in the carriage across from Julia. “Here, Reverend. Just look at them all!”

  Julia leaned forward, watching the young minister’s face as he pressed the field glasses to his eyes and surveyed the distant battlefield. When Nathaniel spoke, his voice was hushed with awe or maybe fear. “Where did they all come from?”

  “What’s happening?” Julia asked. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Confederate reinforcements have arrived,” Uncle Joseph said. “Looks like thousands of them. Is our line going to hold, Reverend?”

  “I can’t tell.” Nathaniel offered the binoculars to Congressman Rhodes, seated beside him. The portly congressman shook his head, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  “I’ve gotten sweat in my eyes. Burns like the devil. This blasted heat is too much.” He slouched on the seat beside Nathaniel, looking very much like a lump of lard slowly melting in a frying pan. Empty champagne bottles clinked at his feet.

  Julia turned to her uncle, who stood in the dusty road beside the carriage wringing his hands. “I thought you told me we were winning this battle,” she said.

  “Well …we were. But now …I don’t know where all these Rebels are coming from.”

  The carriage horses suddenly tensed. They lifted their heads in unison and stared in the direction of the fighting. They had grazed sluggishly along the roadside all afternoon while Julia and the others had watched the battle, but now the pair stopped eating. The hair along the big gelding’s spine rose in a ridge, and he whinnied softly, a sound like a shiver.

  Julia stood
and took the binoculars from Nathaniel. They gave her an excellent view of the two armies fighting in the distance and the battered farmhouse that stood between them. But what she’d thought were stones scattered across the field were clearly fallen soldiers. Dead soldiers. She quickly looked away from them, pointing the glasses toward the horizon. A solid mass of gray marched forward into the clearing, bayonets glinting, crimson flags visible in the wavy heat. Then the binoculars slipped when the carriage lurched, and Julia fell backward against her seat.

  “Are you all right?” Uncle Joseph asked her.

  “I think so. Here, you can have these glasses back. What’s wrong with the horses? Why are they acting this way?” They had grown increasingly restless, capering nervously in place, rocking the carriage. The Negro coachman pulled hard on the reins to hold them steady.

  “Sorry, miss,” he said. “Must be some horses out there been hurt. Making these ones upset.”

  Julia had encountered few Negroes during her nineteen years, and most of those had been viewed from a distance—former slaves who’d spoken at the abolition meetings she’d attended with Reverend Greene. There weren’t any Negroes back home in her wealthy Philadelphia neighborhood, and she’d certainly never observed one as closely as this coachman. His skin was very black. Glistening with sweat, it reminded her of black satin.

  “Yes …I can see some fallen horses,” Uncle Joseph said, looking through the binoculars again. “A cavalry unit is fighting near Sudley Road.”

  The carriage rocked as Nathaniel jumped down from it. He was tall and lanky, with the ruddy, freckled look of an overgrown schoolboy in a clerical collar. Julia climbed down to stand beside him. She wished he would take her hand and offer her comfort and reassurance, but he took no notice of her. She watched the steadily mounting activity on the distant battlefield, feeling as uneasy as the horses.

  They’d all been here since noon—four hours—and Julia had quickly grown restless. Like the congressman, she hated the sticky Virginia heat that pressed against her like too many sweaty bodies in a crowded bed. Beneath her bonnet, Julia’s golden brown hair had escaped from its hairpins, curling damply around her face. But after pleading to come along in the congressman’s elegant landau to watch the battle, she hadn’t dared complain when she’d grown hot and bored with the distant skirmish. She had tried to engage Nathaniel Greene in conversation—the minister was the real reason she had begged to join the group—but he seemed more interested in talking politics with the men than in conversing with her.

  As the hours passed they’d eaten crab cakes and ripe peaches from the picnic basket. The two older men had drunk champagne, cheering with hundreds of other spectators as the Union army slowly pushed the Rebels across the battlefield. “This should teach them a lesson or two,” the congressman had said. “Now we’ll see how eager they are for war.”

  “I daresay it will all be over with after today,” Uncle Joseph had predicted.

  But now the tide of battle had clearly changed. The men appeared worried and no longer confident as they stood silently beside Julia, watching. The intermittent pop and rattle of gunfire grew to a steady clamor, like a storm of hailstones. The smell of sulfur and gunpowder drifted across the field in a haze of smoke. Julia’s cousin Robert was fighting out there. Uncle Joseph was surely thinking of his son.

  “Do you think we should leave, Joseph?” the congressman asked from his seat in the carriage. “Your niece…”

  “I’m not afraid,” Julia said, even though her legs felt strangely limp and she had to lean against the carriage for support. No one spoke as they watched for another half hour, the flash of exploding rifle fire visible through the smoke. Shouts, screams, and the blare of bugles filled the stagnant air with noise.

  The thrill of fear that tingled through Julia was both dreadful and exhilarating. She’d been jealous of her cousin Robert—now Lieutenant Robert Hoffman, a newly commissioned graduate of West Point—as he’d prepared to invade Virginia with the Union Army. She’d pleaded for permission to travel with her aunt and uncle to Washington by train to see him, especially after she’d learned that Reverend Greene would be joining their party. Her cousin and his company of ninety-day volunteers had been certain that the rebellion would end quickly. None of them had wanted to miss out on the excitement—and neither had Julia.

  But that excitement now turned to apprehension as she watched the Rebels slowly force the Union army to retreat the entire distance they had advanced. The ground shook with the rumble of booming cannon.

  “This is not going well,” her uncle murmured.

  “Hold your line!” the congressman shouted to the distant troops. “Don’t let them push you back!” But the blue-coated line gradually splintered and broke apart before the onslaught of gray. Union soldiers scattered as the field dissolved into chaos.

  “Dear God, our men are retreating,” Uncle Joseph moaned.

  “That’s not an orderly retreat,” Nathaniel said. “It’s a rout.”

  Julia clutched her uncle’s sleeve. “They’re coming this way!”

  “Stop, confound you! Stop!” the congressman yelled. “Stand and fight!”

  Then, above the din of clattering gunfire, an eerie whistling sound sliced the air. A roar like a burst of thunder crashed nearby, followed by another, then another.

  “They’re shelling us!” Congressman Rhodes cried out.

  Nathaniel gripped Julia’s arm. “Everyone into the carriage. Quickly!” He propelled her up onto the seat, then helped her uncle.

  The congressman’s face was pale behind a sheen of sweat. “Driver, let’s go! Make haste!” he said. For a long moment the coachman didn’t move, his eyes wide and very white against his dark face. “Hurry! Move!” the congressman shouted. “What are you waiting for?”

  The coachman finally turned around and snapped the reins. The horses, more than eager to run, lurched forward, throwing Julia backward against the seat. The carriage started down the rutted turnpike toward safety. But dozens of other carriages, coupes, and landaus bearing fleeing spectators already mobbed the road, slowing their progress. Julia turned around to watch the battle as the sounds of warfare grew unmistakably louder: exploding cannon, volleys of gunfire, and the eerie, inhuman scream of the Rebel yell.

  Congressman Rhodes suddenly stood, swaying in the jolting carriage, waving an empty champagne bottle at the retreating soldiers. “Stop! Go back! Stand and fight, you cowards!” His orders were lost in the tumult as troops sprinted across the fields toward the river, their panic made worse by the mad flight of everyone around them.

  “Please, sir. You’d better sit down,” Nathaniel urged as the cannonading grew louder. “Those shells are falling much too close.”

  “The Rebels are probably trying to destroy the bridge across Bull Run,” Uncle Joseph said. “Can’t you go any faster, driver?”

  “I sure would like to do that, sir, but they all backed up ahead. Everybody try and get across that bridge, same as us.”

  Julia saw a long line of army wagons with white canvas covers clogging the road ahead. Her carriage made very little progress, then, a few minutes later, stopped altogether. The excitement she’d felt earlier vanished, replaced by horror as fleeing soldiers staggered past, dazed and bleeding, their lips blackened from tearing open their powder cartridges. Sweat and dirt and fear covered their faces. Their abandoned knapsacks and bedrolls littered the road.

  “Let us through!” someone shouted. “Please! This man needs help!” Two soldiers hurried past the stalled carriage, supporting a third man, whose bloodied foot dangled from his leg. Julia quickly looked away.

  A hundred feet ahead, a tangle of vehicles and pushing, shoving men jammed the bridge. Dozens more men plunged headlong into the river in their haste to retreat. Then Julia heard the eerie whistling sound again, tearing the sky apart, roaring toward her like thunder. Her heart seemed to stand still. She was going to die.

  The shell slammed into the ground nearby, the powerful bla
st pulsing through her body and hurling her to the floor of the carriage. Julia felt the explosion at the same moment that she heard it. Her nerve endings prickled from the concussion as dirt and grass and tattered cloth rained down on her. Everything vanished from sight in a blinding cloud of smoke and dust.

  Above the ringing in her ears, she heard the terrible screams and moans of the wounded and the driver’s frantic shouts as he fought to restrain the rearing horses. She was still alive.

  “Are you all right?” Uncle Joseph asked as he lifted her onto the seat. He sounded far away even though he sat right beside her. Julia nodded and realized she was weeping. Dirt filled her mouth and coated her tongue. Grit stung her eyes. The front of her new blue dress had turned gray with dust.

  “Hurry, driver!” the congressman pleaded. “Get us across that bridge before they reload their artillery!”

  Julia felt the carriage jolt forward again. Through a blur of tears and dense smoke she saw that the Confederate shell had missed the bridge by only a few hundred feet. A jumble of blue-coated bodies littered the roadside where the missile had struck.

  “Help me! Please!” a soldier begged. He lay beside the road, both of his legs missing below his knees. A man lay dead beside him, still gripping his gun, the top of his head blown off.

  “Driver, stop,” Nathaniel said. “We have to take some of these wounded men on board.”