Night Watch: A Novel

The Sharpshooter uses herbs to lotion his hands and remembers Dearbhla, his adoptive mother. Dearbhla taught him how to use herbs medicinally. The Sharpshooter laments that he could not bring Dearbhla or Eliza, his wife, farther North before the war. They settled in abandoned cabins in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia. Eliza got pregnant as the war began, and the Sharpshooter does not know the child’s sex. The Sharpshooter is in the Army of the Potomac, under General Grant, and he complains that Grant does not know how to position sharpshooters. Sharpshooters stay out of battle, picking off officers across enemy lines. The Sharpshooter plans to reenlist, using the war to justify his new name, freedom, and relationship with Eliza.

The army pushes forward, and the Sharpshooter resents how the wilderness has no clear lines of sight. His horse, named Liza after Eliza, knows tricks to keep him alive in battle. The Union army fights at Saunders Field, with the Confederate army firing at them across the field. The Sharpshooter rushes forward, disturbed by his fellow soldiers blown apart by artillery. The Union army makes it across the field into the forest, but wooden structures and trees are lit on fire from the gunpowder in the air.