Next, I will not tolerate profanity on this ground, which is consecrated and…" "I will not tolerate profanity in my presence. "Corporal Turner," he hissed, voice pitched low, remembering it was not proper to reprimand another noncommissioned officer in front of the men, or the officers for that matter. He bent over at the waist, fixing the corporal with an icy gaze. Garland turned, struggling to control his anger as he gazed down at Corporal Turner in the next hole over. "Sergeant Major, damn it, it's like trying to shovel out the Wabash River." "They're almost here, and I want this done right and proper now." "Hurry it up, men," Garland announced, stepping back, his voice carrying to the rest of the regiment.
Taking Willie's shovel, he handed it to Jeremiah and helped him slip down into the hole. "I'm a sergeant major, not a sir, save that for … the officers." He almost said, "your boss man," but caught himself. "Thank ya, Reverend … I mean, Sergeant Major, sir." "Come on, Willie, take a quick break, there's hot coffee under the tarp." He helped the private, covered head to foot in warm clinging mud, out of the ground and pointed to where the regimental cooks had ten-gallon vats of the brew waiting. Jeremiah looked at him sullenly, as Garland released his hold on Jeremiah and reached down to lend a hand to Private Thompson, who had finished his half hour stint in the hole. "Do as you are ordered back down there you go." "It's not parson, it's sergeant major now," Garland said. He put a fatherly hand on Jeremiah's shoulder, guiding him back to the hole, seven feet by three and supposedly six feet deep. "Ain't no difference, parson, we be filling it back up shortly." The first of a long line of ambulances, emerging out of the mists, was drawn by two mules, ghostlike in the morning light, followed by another and another, mud splashing up from the hooves of the mules and the wheels of the wagons. The Potomac was concealed beneath coiling fog and mists rising up from the river, shrouding the capital city on the opposite shore. It had done little to drop the temperature and now added to the misery of the men of the 28th who had been out toiling by lantern light since midnight. It had been raining most of the night, a slow steady drenching downpour out of the east. Sergeant Major Garland White, 28th United States Colored Troops, turned from his labors and looked to where Jeremiah Smith, a private from Company A, was pointing north to the road leading down from the "Iron Bridge" across the Potomac.
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