by Jeff Shaara
“I’m here, ain’t I? I’ll not let you down, Sammie. Not once. I came here to be a soldier, just like you. It feels like I been given a gift. You know that. I’m good at killing a man when he don’t even know I’m on this earth. Don’t know why it’s happened that way. Can’t believe God would do that.”
“God gave us this war, Dutchie. It’s our job to fight it the best way we can. For you, that means blowing a man’s brains out. I prefer seeing him up close.”
There was grim certainty in Willis’s voice, something else Bauer had seen before.
“Look, Captain. I’ll kill as many rebels as it takes, as many as you, or some general or President Lincoln, wants me to.” He paused. “Last week … I killed a reb officer back at Bridgeport. Four hundred yards, maybe. Did it … for sport. Impressed the heckfire out of those Pennsylvania boys. Bothered me at first. But those Eastern fellows … you shoulda heard them cheering me. Yep, they were impressed. I was impressed. Tough shot, took the fellow right off his horse. And ever since then, it’s all I can think about. I see wounded men, and it makes me sick. Wounds and chopping up people ain’t the best way to end this war. It’s gonna take folks who can shoot straight. No matter how scared I get, no matter how many rebels come at us, by God, Sammie, I’m itching to do it again.” He paused. “God help me, too, Sammie, but I do like it. Just like you.”
Willis stood, brushed dirt off his pants. “All right, Private. Bugle sounds at four thirty. There’s bacon and coffee. Your tent mate, Corporal Owens, will be up long before that, and if I was you, I’d keep to his good side. So don’t roll around in your sleep, and keep your hot wind to yourself.” Willis paused, hands on his hips, looked out over the top of the tent. “General Grant’s running this army, same as Vicksburg. You wanna kill rebels, I’m pretty sure you’ll get your chance. But that doesn’t change what I said.” Willis bent low, stared at him with a hint of a grin. “You’re still as dumb as an oyster.”
CHATTANOOGA—NOVEMBER 3, 1863
He followed three other men, the small squad assigned by Willis to find out just what was so exciting about the supposed bounty some of the men were pulling from the murky waters of the Tennessee River. The energy for this particular mission had come from the company’s cooks, curious to try their hands at a different fare than what the commissary was providing. Bauer had no problem with the food they had now, ample supplies of ham, beef, dark bread, coffee that actually tasted like coffee. But Willis had heard talk from other commanders, that with so little activity along the front line, especially the wide band of water that separated the two armies, there was no harm in anyone testing out their skills at harvesting a dinner few of these men had enjoyed for many months.
Bauer had no interest in fishing, had rarely done any of that in Wisconsin. There the tales ran tall, his father’s friends bragging about the huge hauls they brought in from Lake Michigan, or from the cold-water lakes to the north. There the prize catch was pike, a fish with the kind of bones that impale a child’s throat, and so Bauer’s mother repeated that lore with enough vigor that his father had given up ever bringing home a fish at all. Bauer had never known any of his childhood friends who had suffered that catastrophic malady, and questions to his mother always produced the same vague response, that it had been some boy somewhere else, a neighbor’s friend, some distant cousin of a boy she could never actually name. But the fear had been planted, and Bauer had avoided eating fish most of his life. Now he was on a mission to catch as many as the men could haul, and if they couldn’t find the means, the poles and lines and hooks to do the job, they were told to barter with those skilled fishermen who might be interested in sharing. To Bauer, this was the most ridiculous assignment any officer had given him. From the cheerful gleam in Willis’s eye, it was obvious to Bauer that Willis felt the same way.
They pushed through a brush line, brief nods to a scattering of skirmishers, men who lay on flat rocks and soft beds of grass, no attempt at disguise, no cover at all. The day was warm and clear, what seemed to be a rarity in this part of the world, and the men along the picket line seemed fully intent on capturing as much of the sun’s rays as nature would provide them.
They could see the river now, brown water sliding past, and Bauer’s instincts made him cautious, the hard itch spreading through him, that standing in the wide open could only invite trouble. The men in front of him kept moving, down a gentle slope, closer to the water’s edge, but Bauer stopped, close enough to the brush that he could make a quick dive into cover. Across the river, Lookout Mountain rose up tall to his right, and to the left was a wide green valley, the low ground that spread out between the mountain and Missionary Ridge. Directly across the river was the mouth of a wide creek, and Bauer froze, the musket pulled in tight to his side. On both banks of that stream were a handful of rebels.
He saw the others who had come with him looking that way, no one speaking, and now a sergeant rose up, said aloud, “Don’t go getting all excited about nothing. Any man here fires his musket answers to me. We got us an understanding with those fellows, and I don’t need nobody messing that up.”
The sergeant settled back down into a grassy bed, his hat down over his eyes. Bauer kept his eyes on the rebels, counted a dozen men, maybe more, none of them paying any attention to the Yankees who spread along this side of the river. He gauged the distance, the river no wider than an easy musket shot, thought, Somebody over here needs to keep a close eye. All it takes is one officer with a burr in his backside, and there’s a skirmish. He glanced behind him up the sloping hill, saw men huddled around small fires, no one holding a musket at all. He looked toward the sergeant again, saw the man stretched out flat on his grassy bed, heard a hint of a snore. He still felt uneasy, fought a laugh, thought, Maybe this is the right way to fight a war. Everybody just takes a nap.
He pressed on past the last of the brush, saw more men in blue out to both sides, some right along the water’s edge. And every one of them was holding a fishing pole. The scene was idyllic, low, quiet talk, and Bauer looked again toward the rebels, saw the same scene, a scattering of men along their side of the river, their fishing poles extended out over the water.
To one side, another of Willis’s men, younger, and the boy Bauer only knew as Hoover. Hoover leaned low behind the man, said, “What kind of fish they got here?”
The man looked back at him, shrugged. “Hell if I know. Some of ’em stink pretty bad. Some eat better than others.”
Bauer moved closer, saw the man’s bare feet covered in mud, studied the crooked pole, saw a string tied to the far end, dangling loosely in the water. The line ended at a piece of stick, a makeshift float, which moved with the current, drifting down to the right, the man now raising it out of the water, swinging the line out, dropping it again upstream. Bauer caught a glimpse of the bait, something white dangling from a hook. He moved up beside Hoover, said to the man, “What you using?”
The man looked back at him again, seemed suddenly suspicious. “What’s it matter? Family secret.”
Bauer saw the man’s hat, Missouri, thought of the provost sergeant. They gotta be the most unfriendly bunch in the army. Bauer watched the other three men spreading along the riverbank, joining in beside other fishermen, more men from Missouri. The conversations began now, some of the fishermen bragging about their catch, one man holding up a fish the size of Bauer’s forearm. Bauer moved that way, stared at the fish, saw a small cluster of whiskers along its mouth, the gills in motion, the fish still alive. The man looked at him, obviously proud of himself.
“Catfish. So they tell me. River’s full of ’em. Carp, and some little pissants, too. They’ll all eat better than hardtack.” The man eyed Bauer now, suddenly concerned. “You get your own. I caught this fella fair and square.”
Bauer backed away, had no idea how to begin.
“I got no pole. Captain just sent us down here, didn’t tell us what to bring. Said we could maybe trade you fellows for the right equipment.”
; “Got none extra. You got nothing I need, anyways.”
To one side, a man called out, “Hey! The reb got one. A beauty, looks like.”
Bauer followed their gaze across the river, heard a whoop, the rebel holding up the fish, clearly for the benefit of the Yankees. Beside him, the fisherman said, “Dang it all. He does that every blessed day. I catch one, he catches one better.”
Bauer couldn’t help the question. “Who? You know him?”
“Guess so. Names Goofby, or something like. That whole bunch hails from close by, Tennessee boys. No fair. They growed up fishing in this here place. Looks like I owe that scoundrel another sack of coffee.”
There was laughter from the others, one man calling out, “Hey, Herschel, when you gonna learn not to make no wager with a rebel? They probably got a pile of fish stuck in those bushes, and just wait for you to catch something, then drag one out bigger just to make you look stupid.”
The man they called Herschel slumped, a low curse.
“Gotta drag the raft out. I’ll wait till dark, slip across. Don’t need the lieutenant watching that. Unless I get a monster in the next half hour. The contest’s over at four. Same every dang day. Well, unless my luck changes, I gotta go steal me some coffee from the mess wagon.”
Another man looked back at Bauer, said, “You wanna learn how it’s done, don’t pay any attention to Herschel. Rebels got these fish trained just so. Those Tennessee boys been mighty accommodating at letting us catch just enough fish that we start thinking we know what we’re doing. Rest of us figured out not to waste a bet with ’em. Herschel’s not too smart.”
Bauer felt the good spirits in the men, looked over at the jubilation of the rebels.
“What do they wager?”
“Their fish. Herschel ain’t figured that out yet. They done caught all they can eat. They’ll toss us one even when this rock brain loses the wager. Guess they figure this river is big enough for all of us.”
Bauer pointed to the man’s fishing pole. “Can you tell me where we can get … those things?”
The man looked at him again, laughed. “Back there in the brush, there’s some willows or something close. Cut you one twice as tall as you.”
“We got no string, or hooks. Can you spare any?”
“Nope. But if’n you ain’t got the tools, you gotta make do. Keep close to the bank and wade out down thataways. Past that dead tree, it’s too shallow to fish. But there’s plenty of mussels and snails. Just dig in the mud. Bayonet makes it easier.”
“What’s a mussel?”
“Some kinda slimy thing lives in a shell. Just one more of God’s creatures. But they boil up real good.”
The men with Bauer began to move that way, and Bauer followed, still eyeing the rebels. He watched the others now, slipping barefoot into the murky water. Bauer scanned the river, memories of the swamps along the Mississippi, nervous lookouts watching for alligators. But the muddy river flowed past with only the ripples from smaller creatures, what Bauer assumed were fish, swirling tails and flopping fins far out in deeper water. He heard a shout now, “Hey! Got some! Look here!”
Bauer saw a clump of black shells in Hoover’s hands, mud dripping away, another man moving out with a cloth sack. The digging continued, the sack filling, and Bauer slipped off his brogans, eased out into the soft mud, the water colder than he expected. He looked into the sack, what seemed to be small, black, oblong rocks. Hoover knelt in the shallow water again, pulled up a thick handful of mud, and Bauer saw a different shell, round and tan, Hoover rinsing it, obvious excitement.
“Look here! Some kinda snail. What you think they taste like?”
Bauer had no appetite for anything covered in mud, said, “Crack it open. Find out.”
Hoover sniffed his find, crushed the shell in his hands, picked through the gooey remains of the animal, then slipped it into his mouth, his eyes widening. He ejected it with a loud wet spit.
“Aagh. Ptew. Nasty. Tastes like mud and snot.”
Along the riverbank, the men from Missouri were laughing, and one man called out, “You can’t eat ’em raw, you brick heads. Fill that sack and haul ’em back to camp. You gotta cook ’em.”
Bauer backed away from the men with the sack, said quietly, “Thanks. I’ll stick with hardtack.”
EAST OF CHATTANOOGA—NOVEMBER 4, 1863
He was beginning to wonder if the rebels were going to fight at all. The routine was established among the others, and Bauer was now a part, going out on picket duty for a four-hour stretch. He had asked the others, the rest of Willis’s men as curious as he was, just what was supposed to happen next. In the camps, the men seemed obsessed with Chickamauga, as though Bauer needed to know what these men had been called upon to do. They had left thirty men on that field, a hundred more wounded or just gone, presumed captured. No one offered a hint to Bauer that any of the men had simply run away, vanishing for reasons Bauer knew well. But now the curse of that fight was past, and the men prepared to do it all again, as they had done since the first year of the war. When they were finally ordered out east of the town to skirmish duty, the expectations ran high that, finally, there would be trouble. But for more than a week now, that duty had been as mundane as sitting idly in the camps, or marching, drilling in their various formations yet again.
He had centered himself in a cluster of brush, just beyond a burned-out barn, sat upright, his back against a soft rotten log, tall grass surrounding him. He was perched just high enough to see out across the flat field in front of him, far enough that anyone standing up would be clearly visible, if the rebels made any effort to push a line of troops his way. To his front rose the heights of Missionary Ridge, what Willis had told him was nearly six miles long, several hundred feet up a steep rocky hillside. Behind him, to his right, stood the eminence of Lookout Mountain, fifteen hundred feet high. High on both hills, the signal flags were clearly visible, the rebels waving their coded messages from one point along the tall ridge to another. Several hundred yards to his front, he could make out the rocks and brush on the slope itself, could see rifle pits and a trench line, cut like a deep scratch halfway up the long ridge. From his vantage point he could see movement on the ridge itself, down the face of the slope, flickers of color, horsemen, traveling along what seemed to be trails and gullies on the face of the slope. At the base of the hill were more rebel works, too low for a clear view, but what Bauer had to believe were stout fortifications. The memories of Vicksburg were fresh in his mind, the great mounds of earth, wide ditches, and wooden stakes, all the impediments to the army’s advance. Then it had been a lengthy siege, the Federal commanders making that decision after two disastrous thrusts right into the teeth of the rebels’ defenses. Bauer had been surprised to hear that a siege was happening here, but this time the rebels had hemmed in an entire army of blue. He understood now why the few citizens left in Chattanooga were so destitute. The army had been desperate, forced to starvation rations, stripping away everything from the town they could use, every scrap they needed for survival. But that was October. Within the past week, the supplies rolled across the pontoon bridges in massive wagon trains, bringing in every kind of matériel, horses and mules, ammunition, blankets, tents, and, of course, rations. Bauer had heard plenty of talk from the regulars that the rebels had made a ridiculous mistake, that by letting Hooker’s divisions shove through the valley west of Lookout Mountain, they had made it easy for the Federal forces to strengthen, to regain their energy, and with that, their confidence. No one Bauer spoke to had compliments for William Rosecrans. At first he had been popular with the men, but the collapse at Chickamauga had soured Willis’s men in particular, that they were cursed to follow yet another general whose inept maneuvering only produced disasters, and cost these men serious casualties. From all Bauer could tell, the men respected George Thomas, and word of General Grant’s arrival had added that final spark, the impatient urgency to end this thing. The rebels were straight in front of them, and for weeks now,
nothing about that had changed. Bauer had no idea what the volunteer regiments thought of that, whether or not they were anxious for another hard scrap. But the regulars had no patience for waiting. They had lost good men in good fights, and every one of them expected to do that again. But if losing men meant a quicker end to the war, that was a trade these men seemed willing to make. As they stood watch over the rebel positions on the distant heights, the question now was: when?
He felt the warmth of the sun, settling low behind him, dark in another hour, fought against sleepiness. No, don’t do that. You fall asleep and Sammie’ll have you by the tenders. He shifted position, worked the stiffness out of his back, turned, looked over his right shoulder toward Lookout Mountain. The signal flags were active there as well, and Bauer watched them for a long moment, wondered about their messages. What could they be telling each other? Hey, you over there! There’s a heap of blue troops down there in the town! He laughed to himself. Every day, it’s probably the same message. Or maybe somebody’s found out there’s better squirrel hunting up on that big rock than over there on the ridge, stupid rebels bragging how many tree rats they shot. He laughed at his own joke, the giddiness of his boredom. Maybe they’re waving flags just to convince their officers they got something important to do. Beats marching, beats getting shot at. Signal corps. Never really thought about that job. He could see a fleck of color high on the ridge out in front of him, a man standing tall in a leafless tree, the red and white flag shifting position. He guessed the range … six hundred yards. No, more. Betcha one of those boys get knocked out of his tree every now and then. Might be fun trying. He glanced down at the musket. Nope. Don’t think about that. Sammie’ll have you by the tenders for that, too, drawing attention to yourself. And it’s uphill a bunch. I’d have to aim twenty feet above the reb’s head. He thought of the officer he had dropped at Bridgeport. That signalman would go down the same way … never know what hit him, that’s for sure. If I hit him at all. No, leave that alone. No need to show off around here. Not yet anyway.
