I NEVER have known whether Billy Goodwin was a brave man or not.
He was certainly not afraid of anything; but the absence of fear from his composition was so complete that I was always in doubt whether he was entitled to credit for never yielding to that emotion.
His fearlessness seemed like the color of his sandy hair and his pale blue eyes—something over which he had no control.
At Cold Harbor, in 1864, when an artillery duel was going on, plus a tremendous sharp-shooter fire, Billy, with his back to the enemy, lazily lounged upon the breastworks. All the rest of us were crouching behind them.
I remember as an incident that he was eating a sandwich. It was composed of two halves of a hard-tack biscuit and a slice of raw pickled pork—his entire rations for the day. He was carefully holding his hand under his chin, in order to save all the crumbs. We weren’t wasting crumbs in those days.
A lieutenant, who had already been mentioned in orders for gallantry, cautiously pushed up his head to peer over the breastworks on which Goodwin was sitting. Billy placed his hand upon the prematurely bald head of the lieutenant, shoved him down, and said: “Keep below the dirt, or you’ll get a bullet through your billiard ball. Don’t you know this is no time to be exposing yourself?”
I have elsewhere celebrated Billy. In doing so I have suggested that, while he had a high sense of personal duty, he had no sense whatever of personal danger.
On that terrible 30th of August, 1864, when the mine was exploded at Petersburg, Goodwin was detailed to act as courier for General Lee and General Beauregard.
A Northern negro soldier had broken somehow out of the crater and through the lines. He rushed madly into headquarters. He struck frantically at General Lee with his bayonet. General Beauregard parried the blow with his sword. The negro turned and ran out of the door. Beauregard, in his excitement, called out to Goodwin, “Go and kill that man!”
Stepping quickly, as was his custom, Billy gave pursuit. A few moments later he returned. He presented himself in all his superb length of limb. He gave the military salute to General Beauregard. When that officer asked: “What is it, orderly?” Billy replied: “I beg respectfully to report that I have killed that man in accordance with orders.”
That was Billy. As a soldier he was a good kind. He obeyed all orders without questioning them. He did all his duties as he understood them. But, as I have said, I have never been able to determine whether he was really a brave man, or whether he was merely a man so constituted as to be insensible to personal danger.
But I will say this for Billy, which may help to decide this point,—
We were marching from Spottsylvania to Cold Harbor. We marched for fifty-six hours at the double quick. Now and then we had to fight at the quadruple quick. We had no food. We had no sleep. We had no rest.
Near the end of this tremendous strain Billy came to me under a tree, where I was snatching a five minutes’ repose. He said, with an air of great mystery: “I’ve got a coon for my mess. I bought it of a nigger back there. So I don’t want this piece of corn-bread. I wish you’d take it. I know you’re hungry.”
We did not readily accept food from each other in those days, lest we starve each other.
I struggled to resist this proffer, but Billy insisted on that coon as satisfying all his personal wants. At last, therefore, I accepted the three or four ounces of powder-grimed corn-bread which he pressed upon me.
I learned afterwards that Billy had lied.
There wasn’t any coon.