My stomach rumbled as we approached the edge of the woods. It was nearly midday, but I hadn’t eaten in hours. Supply troubles and nerves had left me with little food and next to no appetite. A combination that was less than ideal heading into my first taste of combat.
Pa always told me war was nothing like the heroic tales I read about when I was young. He had fought in the Battle of Bad Axe back in ’32 and said that he had lost a piece of himself somewhere in those Wisconsin woods. A piece of himself that he knew he would never get back. But despite his many warnings I enlisted in the army anyways. Being the young dumb fool that I am, I thought I knew better. I thought he was just saying these things to keep me on the farm. But now that I am here, overlooking what will surely become a blood-soaked killing field in just a matter of minutes, I can’t help but recognize just how truly wrong I was.
I gripped my rifle tight as we fell into formation. A warm ray of sunshine peeked through the opposing tree line, warming my trembling hands and drying my sweat-soaked face. This was it. This was the moment I had been waiting for all my life. This was history in the making.
“Guns at the ready,” Captain Henderson ordered with a booming cry.
I could see the glint of enemy bayonets through the corn. There must have been hundreds of them. Hundreds of them sitting, waiting, and plotting our violent deaths.
The whoosh of artillery thundered overhead. Most of it was outgoing, but just enough of it was incoming to scare the living shit out of me.
“This is it, boys,” Captain Henderson barked as he unsheathed his sword.
I was barely 16 yet here I was, staring down the barrel of hundreds of Confederate rifles, preparing myself to kill or be killed.
“Fix bayonets,” he urged, his voice barely audible over the deafening cry of cannon fire.
My shaky hands struggled to untether the razor-sharp lance strapped to my belt. I didn’t know if I had it in me to thrust this into the flesh of another human being, but I knew I would find out soon enough.
“Forward, MARCH!”
The two men beside me stepped forward, taking a large leap towards the inevitable. I tried to follow suit, but quickly found that my body adamantly refused. My brain told me to go, but my legs said no.
“Move!” An unknown sergeant yelled from somewhere back behind me.
I wanted to, but I just couldn’t seem to convince myself. My sense of self-preservation was too strong.
“I said move God damnit!” The sergeant insisted.
I turned towards the unfamiliar NCO and was just about to inform him of my stress induced bout of paralysis when all of a sudden, a massive blast swallowed him up. A blast that was as tall as a barn and as powerful as a tornado. I was stunned. Stunned by the sheer magnitude of the blast, but also by the sudden eruption of violence. It was like the whole world had completely flipped on its head in the blink of an eye and devolved into a hellscape of hot lead and unbridled fury.
Stray bullets whizzed overhead, booming explosions shook the earth, and the blood curdling cries of advancing Rebels filled the air. Despite my stunned disposition though, I started moving.
Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.
I made it roughly five yards before a nearby explosion blew me off my feet. Concussed, confused, and feeling rather cloudy, I got back up and dusted myself off. But as I did so I noticed a red stain adorning my trousers. A bright red stain that was growing larger by the second.
My face flushed as I searched for its source. My legs were sore and withered, but intact. My abdomen was aching and bulging, but still intact. My left arm was itchy and sun beaten, but it was also intact. But as I went to grab a hold of my right arm, I found it… The source of the stain…
Severed at the elbow, its mangled remains squirted rivulets of pulsating blood. Pulsating blood that had soaked my tunic and sucked the life right out of me.
“Oh, no,” I cried as I slipped down to the ground below.
Shining stars began to dance in the corners of my eyes.
“Help,” I whimpered to no one in particular.
A sea of blood began to pool beneath me.
“Please,” I pleaded.
An icy chill crawled across my skin.
“Is this it?” I asked as foot after foot stepped over me.
Then just as my vision began to fade the image of my family’s Ohio farm flashed firmly across my eyes. I could see the barn Pa and I built back in ‘57. I could see the pens where my brother and I used to wrestle hogs when we were young. But most importantly I could see the love that I felt. The love that I felt for my family, my friends, and my sweet little life. A love that warmed my clammy skin and touched my frightened soul. Then with one last deep breath everything went black.
“Eww!” A shrill voice cried out, thrusting me from my inky slumber.
My vision was blurred and as shaky as a newborn calf.
“Hello?” I asked into the ether.
I could hear what sounded like mumbled dialogue in the distance.
“Who’s there?” I asked again.
I was met with nothing but murmurs.
“Daddy, what is that?” The same shrill voice from before suddenly yelled, only now sounding much closer.
I tried blinking the sleepiness from my eyes, but quickly found that it was no use. My vision was just as shaky as before. All I could seem to make out was a bevy of blurred shapes.
“That’s an arm, baby,” a gruff masculine voice answered from somewhere up above.
An arm?
“An arm?” The shrill voice asked.
The masculine voice let out a loud laugh.
“Well, at least it used to be,” he said with a smirk.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
“What do yo…”
I was cut off by the shrill voice.
“Why does it look so gross?” It asked.
I could feel a steaming sense of frustration building up inside me.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Listen to me!”
Were these people deaf?
“That’s because it’s mummified,” the masculine voice responded.
Mummified? Whose arm is mummified?
“Like a mummy?” The shrill voice asked.
The masculine voice laughed again.
“Exactly!” It said. “Like a mummy.”
I tried to stand up, but quickly found that I was stuck. Well, stuck might not have really been the right word. It was more like I was incapable of standing up. Incapable of standing up because I didn’t have the means to. I didn’t have the hardware.
“I didn’t know there were mummies in Maryland,” the shrill voice exclaimed.
I was still in Maryland?
“Noo,” the masculine voice cooed.
It was right around then that my vision started to clear, revealing what I could only assume to be a father-daughter pair.
“It’s not from a mummy,” the father said.
The pair was standing right before me and looking down with curious eyes.
“It’s from a soldier.”
They were dressed funny and holding what looked to be little black bricks in their hands. Little black bricks that held their attention in an unnatural way.
“Like you, Daddy?” The daughter asked, looking up at her father with endearing eyes.
The man stood on a thin silver peg leg and wore a green tunic that bore the words “4th Infantry Division” in big black letters.
“Yes, baby,” he said with a smile. “Just like me.”
The little girl scrunched up her face and took a step forward.
“Where is the rest of him?” She asked, studying me closely.
The man squatted down next to her and stared at what looked to be a placard placed right beside me.
“Looks like they don’t know,” he finally said.
Wait, did she just say the rest of him?
“A farmer found the arm a few weeks after the battle.”
What battle? I was so confused.
“Did you fight in that battle, Daddy?” The little girl asked.
As confused as I might have been, I couldn’t help but think of my little sister. My sweet little sister, May, who was set to turn eight in just a few weeks, looked just like this little girl.
“No, I fought in Kamdesh,” the man said with a sense of pride.
What the hell is “Kamdesh”?
“He fought at Antietam.”
I was just about to interject and say that I fought at Antietam when I suddenly remembered the blast. The blast that had knocked me off my feet and severed my… severed my arm…
“And Antietam was 150 years ago.”
My blood ran cold. There was no way I heard him right.
“What did you say?” I asked out loud.
My mind started to race as a panicky fullness filled my chest.
“Did he die at Antietam? The little girl asked.
I desperately began scanning the room around me, looking for everything and anything that might offer some answers. Portly people clad in strange trousers and foreign tunics milled around a glass cased room. A glass cased room that held dozens of familiar weapons, pieces of equipment, and uniforms. But after scanning the room a time or two, I saw it. Posted above an especially plump woman, who was also holding one of those little black bricks, was a sign. A sign that read, “The National Museum of Civil War Medicine: Est. 1996.”
“Yes, baby, he died at Antietam.”
My heart stopped. It couldn’t be…
“That makes me sad,” she said with a sniffle.
Mummified arm? 150 years ago? Antietam? 1996? It was almost all too shocking. Almost all too unbelievable. Was I dreaming? Was I hallucinating? What was happening?
“I wish I could give him a hug,” the little girl said with tears in her eyes.
If I could have cried, I would have cried too. But like my legs, I quickly found that I didn’t have the means to shed a tear. I didn’t have the hardware to cry. Hell, it was almost like I didn’t have a body at all.
“Me too,” the man said, holding his brick up the plaque.
And that’s when it hit me, the plaque!
Side-eying it the best I could, I caught a glimpse of the words printed across it. Words that sent shockwaves across my mind and daggers into my heart.
“This human arm was donated to the Museum by an anonymous donor who reported to us that the arm was originally in the possession of a doctor in Western Maryland, and had been found on the battlefield of Antietam. Many local anecdotes exist concerning the arm, but most claim that it was found not long after the battle in 1862. It was not uncommon for farmers to turn up human remains while ploughing their fields for years after the battle. Modern analysis tells us that the arm belonged to a 16-year-old Caucasian male of slight build, probably from the Ohio Valley region. It was not amputated, but rather was torn from the body at the elbow joint, at the time of his death.”
But perhaps worst of all was the photograph that sat at the bottom of the plaque. Encased in a glass box was a mummified arm. The mummified arm of a 16-year-old soldier who had been killed at the Battle of Antietam.
It was my arm.
It was me.
It’s been almost ten years now since I made this mind-bending discovery and yet here I still am. Stuck in this glass prison, paralyzed, and mummified for all futuristic folks to see. For all futuristic folks to gawk at. But if my time here has taught me anything it’s that war is hell. And Hell is forever. So, take my words of warning and stay as far away from this worldly hell as you can. Because eternity is a hell of a lot longer than you think.