Andersonville Read Online Free PDF

shoe.
    When he had knocked the coins into his hand, the boy’s face wrinkled.
    “I said greenbacks.”
    “Coins is just as good,” said Barclay.
    “Gold ain’t no good if it gets me killed. Where’d a buck like you get gold dollars, anyhow?”
    “Is you gonna take it or ain’t you?” Barclay said flatly, not caring for the kid’s tone.
    The boy sniffed, then took the coins and stuffed them into his shoe.
    “Third one down on the right’s all yours.”
    He straightened and began to walk off, but Barclay seized his collar.
    “Hang on, boy,” he said, and pushed him over to Charlie, who caught hold of his shoulders.
    “What’s the idea?” Red Cap said shrilly.
    “Got to make sure we’re satisfied with the purchase,” Charlie said.
    “You paid your money and I showed you your place; now let me go!”
    Charlie pulled the scrawny boy along to the shebang he had indicated, drawing a few curious stares from the waking neighbors.
    Barclay hunkered down and pulled back the canvas flap. He immediately stumbled back at the cloud of stench and flies that wafted out.
    Red Cap threw his elbow into Charlie’s gut and broke from his grasp. He ran a few feet, then turned and called, grinning.
    “All yours, boys! Don’t bother goin’ through their pockets. I already did. Welcome to Andersonville!”
    Then he was off, weaving through the rows of dismal shelters and dodging the shambling inmates.
    “Ah, hell,” Charlie said, peering in.
    Two dead men lay side by side, yellow-skinned, with clusters of flies buzzing between their closed eyelids and dancing along their teeth and maggots packed in their nostrils and ears.

Chapter 5
    “Well,” Barclay said, shrugging. “I guess we take ’em to the South Gate and air this place out.”
    They pulled the canvas covering free of the weathered pine poles, exposing the wriggling vermin to the morning sun.
    The men had expired holding hands, and their stiff, bony fingers had to be pried loose before they could drag them out of the recessed pit and into the lane.
    When they had cleared the worst of the mess, a tall, lanky man in red-striped artillery trousers and suspenders with a patchy brown mustache and long scraggly hair came out of the next-door dugout and stepped up to them, glowering at them with a set of dime-blue eyes.
    “Just what in the hell are you two doing?” the man snarled.
    “Now hold on, friend,” Charlie said. “Before you jump to conclusions, we found these men as is.”
    “How do I know that,
friend
? I knew them. I don’t know you two.”
    A few other men began to emerge from the nearby shelters and crowd behind the tall man. Evidently he was the authority in this neighborhood.
    “Scurvy got ’em, sir,” said Barclay. “You can see by their teeth and the blood.”
    The tall man narrowed his eyes at Barclay.
    “So what’re you, the black surgeon general?”
    A few of the men behind him burst out laughing.
    “Turn out your pockets,” the tall man ordered.
    “We ain’t thieves.”
    The tall man pointed down to the corpses.
    “So where’s their hen buttons?”
    Barclay looked down. The brass buttons had been pulled off both of their tunics.
    “That drummer boy must’ve took ’em off,” Charlie said quickly. “He told us about these two. We paid him to show us an empty shelter.”
    “Drummer boy?” the tall man said, his knotted brow relaxing. “You mean Red Cap? Hell, you should’ve spoke sooner, buster. That shittin’ kid’s the old man of Andersonville. How much did he take you for?” But then he quickly waved off the answer. “Never mind; it ain’t my business. I’m Sergeant Jim Laughlin, 76th Illinois. Most call me Limber.”
    When they had introduced themselves, Limber said, “Well, I guess I’ll show you boys what we do with our dead. I’ll leave a man here to protect your investment. Come on; we got to hurry. Roll call starts in fifteen.”
    He called to a large, broad-shouldered man named Big Pete in the crowd to