Gettysburg: The Crossroads Town by Tim Black

Author:Tim Black [Black, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: YA Historical Fiction
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Published: 2017-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Minerva was in her hotel room at a few minutes past one when the rolling thunder began: the cannonade from Seminary Ridge. The deafening noise reminded her of the clamorous sounds of a heavy Florida thunderstorm, but the subsequent vibrations from the artillery knocked the porcelain ewer from its perch beside the water bowl in her hotel room and the pitcher cracked when it met the floor. Had the artillery caused an earthquake? Minerva wondered. She ran to the window. Smoke was billowing to the south. She saw a flash from a cannon’s barrel on Cemetery Hill and deduced that an artillery exchange was underway. Mr. Greene, on crutches, hobbled into her room.

“It’s started, Minerva!” he exclaimed, excited as a little boy at his birthday party.

“What has, Mr. Greene?”

“The prelude to Pickett’s Charge, the bombardment.”

“Oh,” Minerva said. She was annoyed that gray smoke obscured her view. She was finally interested in witnessing what was happening. At that moment of her irritation, into the room floated another irritant, the ghost of Shelby Foote. The dead historian was smiling and clapping his ghostly hands excitedly.

“You are going to miss it!” Foote warned. “You are going to miss Pickett’s Charge if you stay in your hotel room! It is the chance of a lifetime.”

“It is safer here,” Minerva reasoned, declining Foote’s invitation.

“Minerva’s right, Shelby,” Mr. Greene agreed.

Shelby Foote shook his head in disbelief. “Nathan, are you going to let a little flesh wound and a pair of crutches slow you down? I am talking about the greatest infantry charge in history. And you call yourself a historian, pshaw!”

“I never called myself a historian, Shelby,” Mr. Greene replied. “I call myself a history teacher, Shelby, I do not presume to be a historian.”

“Shucks, Nathan, it is only semantics. You could be a historian if you ever decided to publish. I know that you can’t write anything for publication or they will cancel your passport to the past so to speak. But this is the experience of a lifetime, my boy. This is Pickett’s Charge. Isn’t it worth a modicum of risk?”

“That’s easy for you to say, Mr. Foote,” Minerva interjected, fearful that her teacher might fall under the spell of the Confederate Circe. “A modicum of risk? Mr. Greene came close to being killed yesterday. He’s lucky he still has his leg, and he wouldn’t if he didn’t have an abscess and had to bring along antibiotics. It’s easy for you to say. You are dead already. Neither of us is in any hurry to join you and Mr. Catton on the other side.”

The spirit of Shelby Foote was offended at Minerva’s remarks.

“Suit yourself then,” the ghost grumbled, and floated out of the room in the direction of Seminary Ridge. Minerva watched him fly down Chambersburg Street toward the Lutheran Theological Seminary. Then suddenly, Shelby Foote, returned to the hotel room.

“You didn’t tell her, Nathan?”

“No,” Mr. Greene blushed.

“Didn’t tell me what?” Minerva demanded to know.

Foote smiled. “Your teacher does not have an abscess tooth.

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