They lived on coffee and "segars," whiskey when they could get it, shouldered their way to the front armed with pencils instead of rifles. Hard-bitten generals hated them, branding them spies and parasites. Glory-seeking underlings pandered to them, promoting their own advancement. The anxious folks back home devoured their every word and clamored for more.

Civil War journalists were a breed of their own. Freewheeling opportunists and adventurers, they carved their reputations from the terror and devastation of a nation bent on self-destruction. With determination and grit, they bullied their way into places decent folks had gladly fled, hardening their hearts against the carnage and bloodshed to get the story and to get it first.

Correspondent Nick Canfield waded into the turmoil as a refugee moving against the tide. He took cold comfort from the chaos of war, the battlefield's smoke and confusion obscuring his personal struggle, a conscience at odds with itself. Like the nation, he too was torn apart by an unresolved past and now faced an uncertain future. And as the conflict played out, he must make a final reckoning -- in a world changed forever.

Nicholas J. Canfield was born in New York City in 1822. He attended the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and in 1847, undertook the arduous and uncertain journey to California via St. Joseph, Missouri, and the Oregon/California Trail. Arriving that autumn in what is now San Francisco, he was among the first to learn of the gold discovery at Sutter’s Mill in January, 1848. Nick returned to New York City and in 1849 published a well-received book based upon his western adventure. Subsequently, he was publisher of the literary review Getches Monthly, then editor of the Baltimore Weekly Intelligencer newspaper, prior to becoming a battlefield correspondent soon after the start of the American Civil War.

“Oh, have some pity on a dyin’ man, sir,” a voice sang out of the dark alongside the road. My instinct was to pass along, but I stopped, for a moment alarmed that now I’d be thronged upon by the desperate, bloody wounded.

“Have you one drop of water for a dyin’ man?” the same voice pleaded.

“Where are you, sir?” I asked, my own voice loud but without resonance, smothered by the mist and the black of the night.

“Here.”

I saw the flick of motion and carefully picked my way toward him. In fact, I had no water, but the flask of brandy in my coat.

The man had propped himself up against a fence post, beside a corpse lying face up, arms stretched out reaching away.

“I seen you pass,” the soldier said. He was breathless and did not move as I approached. His legs were straight out in front of him, and the rest of him was supported upright by the fence post.

I took out my canteen and removed the top, offered it to him.

“I don’ have the strength sir.”

Kneeling beside him, I pressed it to his lips.

“Spirits,” he said, and smiled. “I’m ’bliged, sir.”

I gave him another small drink.

“Yankee?” he asked.

“More or less. I’m a correspondent. Where you from?”

“I’s with Gordon.” He feebly raised an arm for another drink, and I fed him more. “I’m certain it’s my last, sir,” he apologized.

“The doctors are here now. In the field. They’ll be here soon.”

“No. I ain’t gon’ to last this night. I don’ mind. I’m overdue. And the Yankees have the field?”

He rolled his head against the post to face me directly.

“This field, yes. They expect General Lee might attack again at dawn. You might rejoin your company,” I said, to be encouraging.

“I’m gutshot,” he said quietly. “My legs is dead a’ready. But I got no pain.”

I said nothing. We both knew the surgeons could do little for him.

“But I’m ’bliged to you, sir.” Again he lifted his hand, and I raised the flask to his lips. His hand lighted on my own.

“You ain’t a bitter man, as a Yankee?”

I said nothing, but I felt the labored, trembling, but only slight pressure from his fingers as he groped for my hand.

“I don’ want to die alone,” he said.

I put down the flask and took his hand. He told me in quick, hoarse words between gulps of air that he was from Alabama, had a wife and two small sons. He’d tried to muster out at the end of his first enlistment, but they hadn’t let him. He hadn’t seen his wife in over a year. I told him my wife was in Charleston and I hadn’t seen her since Sumter.

He was silent for a time, and once again, I felt the delicate pressure of his fingers. He tried to speak, gave it up, then tried again. “We ain’t so very different,” he observed.

“Another drink?” I asked him, feeling on the ground in the utter blackness for the flask. My knuckles hit the metal and I took it in hand.

“Thank you kindly,” he said in a whisper. His fingers danced lightly on my hand. He released a long, sad sigh, and his hand dropped from mine.

I nudged him, told myself he’d only gone unconscious, but I knew he was dead. Hoped so, for even if he recovered, he’d have nothing of life now but misery. I put away the flask and got to my feet, looking for the lights of the hospital details, and made my way slowly along the avenue, through the haze, back down the Boonesboro Road, where I was joined once again by the tumbrels carrying the dead and wounded. My horse was where I’d left it, and I leaned against it for just a moment, comforted by its living warmth.