Fire by Night by Lynn Austin Page B

improvised other furnishings from whatever they could find—logs, empty crates, upturned barrels—to make the camp more comfortable. Near the door of her tent, her brand-new .58-caliber Springfield rifle was stacked teepee-style with five of her tentmates’ rifles. The army had finally issued the new weapons, and on this cold December morning the men were going to drill with them for the first time. Phoebe carefully separated hers from the others and brushed off the snow with her bare fingers, wiping it dry on the sleeve of her coat. She would have kept the gun inside the tent with her last night if she’d known it was going to snow.
    When the metal was reasonably dry, she stuck the rifle under her arm and shoved her hands in her pockets to warm them. Ted had gone off toward the latrine earlier, and she gazed in that direction until she saw him striding back. He was easy to spot; the sleeves of his new greatcoat hung below his fingertips and the lower hem reached nearly to his ankles.
    “Hey, our rifles aren’t going to get rusty sitting out here, are they?” he asked, pushing up his sleeves. “Maybe we should keep them inside with us.”
    “I was just thinking the same thing.” She pulled her hands out of her pockets and helped Ted remove his rifle from the stack. He wiped off the snow, then slung the strap over his shoulder so the gun hung behind his back.
    “You know, this blasted thing is heavy,” he said. “I’m going to wish I had my fence rail back if they expect us to march with these things all day.”
    “You don’t really wish that,” she said, gently poking him in the ribs with her gun barrel. “Can’t shoot Rebels with a fence rail, you know.” She lifted the gun to her shoulder and sighted down its length, aiming into the distant woods and squeezing the trigger. “I can’t wait to try this thing out. How ’bout you?”
    “It would be a real treat to shoot it—especially at Johnny Reb. But knowing the army, they’re just going to make us march around in circles with it until we’re too tired to stand up. I’ll bet it’ll be months before they even give us any ammunition.”
    “Boy, I hope you’re wrong,” she said, lowering the rifle again.
    So far, their schedule in this new camp varied only slightly from the one they’d followed in their first training camp in Pennsylvania. Phoebe and Ted drilled endlessly, sometimes eight hours a day. But now their company of recruits was part of a new regiment—which meant hundreds and hundreds of men marching together, with bands playing and drums pounding and regimental flags waving. Phoebe was starting to hear the tramp of marching feet in her dreams.
    Here in their winter quarters inWashington, General McClellan was whipping them into fighting shape. Phoebe often saw him watching their dress parades, riding around on his big black horse or strutting around like he was cock of the roost. The men called him “Little Mac” or “the young Napoleon” because he wasn’t a very big fellow. But they loved their commander, and they were ready to follow General McClellan to the ends of the earth.
    Phoebe and the others had learned to form a marching column of four men abreast, then change to two tightly packed battle lines on command. The way they all whirled and twirled at the same time, playing follow-the-leader, reminded Phoebe of a row of baby ducklings following the mama duck wherever she went. They had also learned to tell the difference between twenty-two different drum rolls and thirty-four different bugle calls.
    “Once the battle starts,” their commanding officer had explained, “there’ll be so much noise you won’t hear me shouting orders anymore. You have to know what each drum roll and bugle call means and be able to respond to it right away.”
    The new routine also included a daily sick call. Phoebe grew worried when hundreds of her fellow recruits took sick with silly kids’ diseases like measles and chicken pox. One of