A Chain of Thunder

by Jeff Shaara

  Pemberton absorbed that. “Surely that is an exaggeration, General.”

  “Not by much. They’re bringing in more guns every night. We can hear them working. And there’s more. It’s not just guns. They’ve begun to dig earthworks of their own, trenches and whatnot.”

  “Well, I would have expected that. Despite what some in the town believe, we have not driven the enemy away. Grant is putting his people into siege operations. I suppose I would do the same in his place.”

  “Not sure about that. They’re not just digging ditches to sit in. They’re coming closer, digging out into the open ground, taking advantage of the terrain.”

  “How much closer?”

  “Well, sir, it might be best if you take a look yourself. You’ll see it pretty plainly. There’s one trench extending our way in the shape of a snake, so we can’t toss out any enfilade fire. They’re digging trenches in parallel as well, with narrow cuts adjoining them. Somebody over there knows something about engineering.”

  Lockett said, “Or good common sense. Doesn’t take education to dig a ditch. Sir.”

  Pemberton saw the defiant pride on Lockett’s face, Lockett showing none of the effects of the amazing stink. Smith was watching him, and Pemberton made every effort to ignore the smells, but the thought of riding out closer had no appeal at all. Smith called for his horse, and Pemberton held up a hand.

  “Not necessary, General. I do not need to see what you’re facing. I’m sure it is equally as grotesque all down the lines. But I will not allow this to go unanswered.”

  He turned, then motioned to Memminger, who seemed grateful for any distraction.

  “Major, prepare a dispatch. General Smith will choose an appropriate officer to cross the field under a white flag. We shall urge General Grant to retrieve his dead, in the strongest yet most respectful terms. It is possible they expect deception on our part, so make it plain that this request comes only from myself.”

  “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

  “I do not pretend to understand Grant’s thinking. It is possible he is doing this purposely, to inflict misery on our troops. I shall request that he agree to a cessation of fire … in the name of humanity. Surely he cannot disagree to that.” He paused, his hand coming back up to his face, nowhere to escape. “It is no wonder these men believe the Yankees are barbarians.”

  NORTHEAST OF THE 3RD LOUISIANA REDAN

  MAY 25, 1863

  The flags went up all along the Confederate works, flickers of white as far as Bauer could see. For much of the morning he had been on sharpshooter duty, a reward of sorts, since the alternative was to file down into the newly dug trench works with a shovel. But with the flags of truce came a gradual silence, big guns all across the field growing silent, the sharpshooters called back by their lieutenants, some, like Bauer, left where they were.

  The artillery fire had been so constant that Bauer had stopped hearing it, and like the men around him, he no longer flinched when the larger guns close behind them did their work. The rebel defenses were battered regularly, the only respite from the gunners coming at night, and then primarily to give the Federal infantry some sleep. During the darkness, the Federal pickets could plainly hear the rebels at work, and each dawn, they saw the results. Much of the damage caused by the artillery had been repaired, whether it was cut limbs or piled dirt. There were other changes as well, the rebels seeming to modify their defenses with various tweaks and changes, someone’s “new idea” how to increase the effectiveness of the rebels’ fields of fire. From the first assaults against the rebel positions, the usual routine had been for the rebel riflemen to stand on parapets, just high enough to take their aim over a shooting log, or compacted earth. So far that simple tactic had been brutally effective against masses of advancing blue troops. But with the change in Grant’s strategy, the Federal sharpshooters had made tweaks of their own, and very soon those men had moved into their camouflaged hiding places, and sighted various weaknesses in the rebel positions. Bauer learned quickly, and already he had keyed in on those places where the dirt walls showed a careless gap, some glimmer of an opening that would reveal a man’s movements. And still, there were those with the foolish bravado that inspired them to stick their heads up above their cover. Those were the easiest targets for the Federal marksmen, and Bauer soon discovered that there were a half-dozen men just like him, buried in various hiding places, who would send a peppering of musket fire at nearly the same instant. It was no better for the rebel artillerymen. Several of their guns had been wrecked completely by the Federal artillery, the blue gunners having the advantage of maneuver and sighting into targets that were placed mostly in fixed positions. What guns they did not destroy, the sharpshooters made nearly unworkable by the carefully aimed musket fire that picked off the gun crews. Bauer had realized, even before Willis had mentioned it himself, that if their own artillery had been more precise with their massive bombardment on May 22, or if the sharpshooters had been given more time, the assault that day might have been considerably more effective. As it was, no one was expecting any such order to come down from the commanders again. In the full-on frontal assaults, Grant’s army had absorbed nearly three thousand casualties. Whatever kind of new plans were being put to paper in the headquarters behind their positions, the Federal troops had to believe that no one would expect them to launch another suicidal attack against those infernal earthworks.

  Bauer was buried deep in his hiding place when the word came forward to cease all activity, no firing at all. In the predawn darkness, he had slid into a place someone else had been using for days now, a dug-out bowl in the soft dirt. To his delight, and considerable relief, the daylight revealed that he was squarely behind a fat tree trunk, surrounded by the ragged remains of a rotten tree scattered about in large sections, offering a variety of perfect shooting positions. So far he had fired more than a dozen rounds, each reload now more difficult from the fouling of the barrel. But with no one out there responding to him, it was one more reason he was beginning to enjoy the duty. Despite the amount of care he took seeking out the individual targets, he really had no idea if he had actually inflicted any damage of his own. But he understood what harassment meant. That was exactly what he was supposed to do. If he actually hit someone, more the better.

  The order to cease fire had been shouted to him by Willis, was repeated all down the line, and Bauer obeyed, knew better than to dwell on it. He had no idea when the truce had been negotiated. But the why had become gruesomely obvious. In his hidden perch, he was no more than a few yards from the first of the blue-clad corpses. The man’s uniform was near bursting, the bizarre transformation that happened to all the dead after a few days, a mystery he assumed the doctors understood.

  When the burial crews moved out past him into the fields, he sat quietly, hoped no one would order him to join in. He had done that job once before, at Shiloh, had his fill of it then. Men with shovels spread out all across the ground, and he stared up at the rebels, concerned, but there was no fire at all. With the truce clearly in place, a swarm of rebels suddenly emerged from over and behind their earthworks, some offering to assist, most just staying back, sitting high on their shooting log, or gathering along the ditches at the base of their earthen forts.

  The burials were quick, efficient, a few officers scattered throughout the burial parties, brief orders, and he saw Captain McDermott standing by as the men closest to Bauer dragged a half-dozen bodies together. He wasn’t sure about McDermott, how much of this the captain had seen, whether a company commander had the stomach for it or not. There had been only a single day of rain since the nineteenth, and so some of these corpses had been in the field for six days, most in the wide open, soaking up the Mississippi sun that turned skin to black leather. Bauer could never erase the memory of the eyes, muddy sockets, empty holes, or the teeth that suddenly protruded in what seemed to be a grotesque smile. Not all the bodies were as bad as that, and out in this broad field, Bauer knew one reason w
hy. Some of the men had been dead only a short time, had been too badly wounded to make their way back to the protection of the lines. The aftermath of the assaults drove the horror of that into every man, no one able to hide from the men who called out, screaming, crying, pleading. But he knew that routine as well, and if the wounds were too serious for the man to move himself, they were most likely too serious for him to survive. Some of those were close enough to where Bauer sat that he saw their skin, puffed up and white, and other changes that affected so many of the bodies, arms extended upright, the peculiar curling of the fingers, what Bauer had to wonder was something conscious, a dying man’s last act, reaching out for salvation, for help, for … mother. He shoved those thoughts aside, stared down now, his brain focusing on the sounds, the men with the shovels starting to do their work. Behind him, he heard steps, turned, saw Willis, fully upright, walking out toward him.

  “Might as well get up. Just ’cause they haven’t shot you yet, doesn’t mean they don’t know you’re here. You do this job right, you don’t give them the chance. That’s the whole point.”

  Willis walked up close, sat on the dead log, no pistol at his belt. The officers would take any truce seriously, no one daring to suggest any trickery. Willis noticed Bauer looking at his empty holster.

  “Any of you idiot riflemen just can’t control himself, and thinks those targets over there are too tempting … well, the punishment for that will be pretty severe.”

  “Not me.”

  “No, I know you’re not that stupid. But think about this. We’ve got half a hundred men out there from this regiment alone, and down the way, both directions, there’s maybe a thousand more, just handling the bodies. On both sides, everybody just stares at each other, respecting that little white flag. Everybody’s got their musket right close by, or there’s a pile of gunners back there next to their twelve-pounders, knowing that lanyard is hanging right beside him. But so far anyway, nobody’s messed this up, nobody’s violated the white flag. That’s one of those things left over from the old days, I guess, when wars were fought by the rules. Gentlemen and all. You see any gentlemen in this regiment? Any of these Irishmen’ll bust out your teeth, you call him that.”

  “Yeah, I know. Hey, look. The whole outfit is coming out. Gunners, too.”

  “Yep. We were waiting for the colonel to give the word. That came down with orders for the truce, that the whole lot of us could take it easy. I heard some of the Missouri boys have family over there, cousins and whatnot. The generals figured we ought to have a chat about all of this, maybe. Make new friends. Before we go back and blow them to hell.”

  “How is any Missouri boy, or anybody else, supposed to find some kin or something in miles of this stuff?”

  Willis shrugged.

  “No idea. Not me. I got nobody over there. Expect neither do you. Be kinda fun, though. I heard some of the boys talking about doing some horse trading. Those rebs are supposed to have pockets full of good tobacco, for one thing. We got coffee, and I know damn well that’s worth something to trade for.” Willis stood, looked at Bauer. “Let’s go. See us some rebels up close.”

  Bauer felt a tug of hesitation, had seen too many rebels up close as it was, mostly men aiming bayonets into his gut. He was surprised by Willis’s cheerful calm, but Willis was already moving out into the open, the others, too, even the colonel, down off his horse, walking among the men, a quick word to the burial parties. Bauer watched that work again, saw men dragged into shallow ditches, covered by a few shovelfuls of dirt. That won’t last long, he thought. This place’ll have bones sticking up all over the damn place, long after we’re gone. At least it’ll take care of the smell, or most of it anyway.

  He noticed now that the ditches were dug wide apart, all of them straight lines perpendicular to the rebel defenses. He climbed up from his hole, worked through stiff legs, caught up with Willis, and said in a whisper, “Why they burying the bodies like that? Why not just dig ’em in where they’re sitting? It’s nasty enough without pulling some poor boy’s arm off, or leaving his guts behind.” Bauer shivered, had tried too hard to forget those kinds of details.

  “Orders. And that’s why you’re not an officer. They’re burying them so’s we’ll know where they are. Nice straight lines, pointing out away from us. Word I got from the colonel is that before too much longer, we’re gonna have our own trench lines pushed out this way, right across this field. Every day, we’re gonna be a few yards closer to the enemy. It wouldn’t do for a man with a shovel to be digging like a madman and suddenly chop his way into one of these poor souls.”

  Bauer absorbed all of that, saw one man hammering a cross into the ground at the near end of the elongated ditch. Respectful, he thought. And even better: a marker to tell us where they’re buried.

  He leaned closer to Willis, a low voice.

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t have thought of that. The rebs probably hadn’t figured that out, either.”

  “Doubt it. They will in a few days. The colonel says that General Grant doesn’t have the patience for us to sit out here and jawbone with the rebs for very long. We can’t charge ’em across this open ground so we’ll burrow at ’em underneath.”

  They joined with a cluster of men in blue, all of them moving forward, slow steps, some still hesitating to walk calmly across the same ground where so many others had gone down. But Colonel McMahon called out now, a melodic brogue that Bauer had come to enjoy.

  “Fraternize if you wish. But the terms call for us to keep back a ways. No one goes up into the reb positions. They don’t want us a-peekin’ around. Can’t blame ’em. We’ll be a-findin’ out what’s over there soon enough.”

  Men were laughing with the colonel’s words, more of them at ease, moving past more of the burial parties. The ground was rolling, one deep ravine off to the left, and beyond that, the massive fortification that had drawn Bauer’s attention every day. It was an anchor point along the rebel defenses, faced by some of the men from Illinois, a huge triangular fort manned, they said, by men from Louisiana. He wanted to go down that way, but the colonel’s words took away that urge. Wouldn’t be able to see much of it, he thought.

  “Wonder what kind of fighting man comes from Louisiana?”

  Willis didn’t look at him, just said, “I’m sure they’d be happy to tell you. They’re just secesh to me. Once they’re dead, they don’t smell any different than these boys out here.”

  Bauer looked to the west, beyond the rebel works, the sun sinking low toward the river, what he had heard was three miles or more that way.

  “How long we gonna be out here? After dark, that might be a little … dangerous.”

  “The truce started at six; the colonel says we bring everybody back before nine.”

  “Be full dark by then.”

  Willis looked at him, a rare smile.

  “I don’t know, Dutchie. They might make you an officer yet.”

  Men were calling out now, and Bauer saw hands waving, amazing smiles on the dirty faces of the men he had been trying to kill. A cluster of men came forward, climbing out through their own defensive obstacles, one man tangled in the same telegraph wire that Bauer had stepped through. Bauer kept walking, heard friendly greetings, playful taunts, some of the men in blue extending hands, hearty shakes shared all along the lines. Willis slowed, Bauer as well, and Bauer knew that no matter how much calm Willis was showing, he would never be “buddies” with any of these men.

  “Hey, Yank! I gots me a handful of cigars. You got any bacon, maybe? Yankee newspapers?”

  The man stepped close, a gap-toothed smile, and behind Bauer, some of the men from Willis’s platoon were there, Kelly pulling a paper from his coat.

  “I got this here one from back home, Reb. I heerd you boys like to read all about stuff from them places you’ll never see.”

  The two men drew close, Bauer watching the scene play out, two men who might have been haggling in a general store.

  Kelly said, “W
here you from, Reb?”

  “Looseeana. Some of those boys down yonder ways from right here. M’ssippi. There’s Tennessee boys up thataways. You boys’d be from Wisconsin, then? That’s what they tells us. I cain’t say as I ever need to see nothin’ up Wisconsin way, but … well, we whip you boys, maybe we’ll be visitin’ anyways. I always said I wanted to see foreign lands. Hee. You from Ireland, then? I hear it in your talk.”

  Kelly seemed to warm to the man quickly, took a cigar from the man’s hand, smelled it slowly.

  “My family’s Irish.”

  “All I know ’bout Ireland is snakes. You got lots of ’em. Read something about that.”

  Kelly laughed, then looked around at Bauer.

  “Well, Reb, if you be wantin’ to know about snakes and such, we got us an expert right here. Dreams about ’em every night, ain’t that right, Dutchman?”

  Bauer couldn’t help a smile, felt an odd attachment to both men, some piece of joy in their conversation.

  “Yep, I guess so. Don’t care for ’em. Spent too much time in your blessed swamps. Shiloh.”

  The Louisiana man eyed Bauer, still the smile, a hint of an edge that made Bauer uneasy.

  “Well, then. We had you boys all set to skedaddle right into that blamed Tennessee River. Ought’na stopped this thing right there. I wore out a good musket that day. Busted a bayonet.…”

  The man stopped, seemed to realize he had gone too far. Bauer thought, “Busted a bayonet” where? A man’s chest?

  Another man came close and slapped the Louisiana man on the back.

  “Hey, you boys done got acquainted with my cousin Zep. Hey, I seen you boys totin’ that newspaper. Mighty fine of ya to bring it out here and such. Zep make you a trade?”

  Kelly held up the cigars.

  “I figured you’d wanna see it. It’s three weeks old, but around here, that’s like … this morning.”

  The second man looked at Bauer.