The Fateful Lightning

by Jeff Shaara

  Even now, close to Savannah, Franklin faced a challenge convincing many of the fearful that the world they had left behind was gone completely, erased, and it infuriated him that so many would not listen. Some had lost a family member at Ebenezer, had become separated from everyone they knew, facing a terrifying world with more than just uncertainty. They were alone. If the blue army could not be counted on for protection, those few would seek protection in the familiar, whether or not they would be punished for returning to the only homes they knew. That sentiment carried great weight, hundreds of the slaves drifting away, groups large and small, accepting that they would likely be captured by rebel cavalry, men with whips, men who would happily take them back to their chains.

  With the army now encamped in a wide arc around Savannah, the Negroes who remained were allowed to go pretty much where they pleased, and Franklin took advantage of that, but only to a point. He still held to the fear that a lone black man was vulnerable. Adding to his fear was his new companion, that someone might mistake Clara for those among the Negro parade who traded their flesh for some benefit. Clara had kept close to Franklin since the horror at Ebenezer Creek, and for the first time in his life, Franklin had begun to feel a soft bond with a girl, something the overseers might never have allowed him to do. At the plantations, the slaves were put together for purposes of breeding, and whether or not a strong healthy man cared for the woman he was to impregnate made little difference to those masters hoping to profit from their valuable offspring. Once the army had allowed the slaves to abandon their plantations, the men in blue seemed not to care what kinds of bonds the Negroes might have with one another. And so Franklin had allowed himself to see past the frightened girl he had pulled from the grasp of a nasty mistress in Millen, to realize that Clara was much more like him than he had realized. They were roughly the same age, though neither of them could be exactly certain of their years. Both knew the hand of the master, had felt the whip. To his surprise, Clara had listened to his stories of the dogs not with horror, but with teary empathy. It was the first time he had grasped the notion that he could share every kind of feeling with another person, whether pain or joy. And as they grew closer, she had begun giving him a great deal of joy.

  The troops of the 113th Ohio had seemed to recognize that, and their abuse had poured out, the usual crudeness of soldiers, something Franklin had become accustomed to. But when it had been directed at Clara, it twisted something inside him that he saw as dangerous. She would never be one of those girls, and if a soldier was to suggest something so vile, or make an offer that Franklin found obscene, he might do something about it. But the warnings had buried themselves deep inside him, the enormous soldier, Sergeant Knight, the man’s strong advice that striking a white man, any white man, was still a foolish and possibly deadly mistake. Franklin’s new bursts of anger had been a dismaying surprise all its own, and within days after Ebenezer Creek, he had pulled Clara away from the camp, farther from the eyes of the soldiers and their officers, and settled more with the black families who still trailed behind the army. If Captain Jones required him for anything, he would certainly answer. But with Savannah so close in front of them, the activity throughout the army was all about skirmishing, the men driven forward through deep swamps, increasing musket and artillery fire against an enemy Franklin never saw. There was little for him to do but help old Poke water the horses and assist the others in cooking the new rations of rice and sweet potatoes. Franklin realized quickly that those kinds of rations tasted far sweeter when he could share them with Clara, alone in some quiet place.

  —

  They shared a makeshift tent, and he met the dawn with a foggy-eyed stare at her, as she still slept. He was used to being up with the army, well before daylight, and it was no different now. But there was noise, a commotion that seemed to spread all through the camp, voices, men calling out. He stepped clear of the tent, wouldn’t wake her, saw several of the older men moving past. He knew them all, had become close to a gray-haired man named Baxter. Franklin saw him waving toward him, moved that way, and Baxter seemed out of breath, said, “Oh, Lord, boy, you gots to get up and moving. The army’s done moving out of their camps, marching into the roads.”

  “The roads are dangerous. Cannons.”

  “Not so now. Somethin’s done changed. The soldiers is moving toward the city. Best be up wid ’em.”

  Another man came close now, Jeremy, more gray hair on a balding head. “Mr. Franklin, it could be bad, real bad. They’s said to be rebel cav’ry movin’ up behind us, or worse, a whole rebel army. The Yankees might be runnin’ scared.”

  Baxter put a finger into Jeremy’s face, his voice loud. “No, now dang you, don’ go tellin’ such things! Nobody’s seen no rebels in a while.”

  Franklin had sparred with Jeremy often, the man prone to outrageous speculation. He looked at Baxter, said, “Let me go talk to Captain Jones. He’ll know. He’ll tell me.”

  “You go on, then. But he mighta done left this place.”

  The men began to squabble now, a familiar argument, Baxter seeming to understand truth more than Jeremy. He glanced back toward the tent, saw Clara looking at him with a hint of fear. He moved toward her, said, “Sorry to wake you. I have to go to the army camp. Something’s happening.” He couldn’t avoid the ongoing argument between the two old men, others gathering, an audience that seemed entertained by the two men as much as they absorbed the concerns.

  Clara grabbed his arm. “Don’ leave me alone.”

  “Just a little bit. Let me talk to the officers. This foolishness is getting everybody all stirred up. Could be nothing. But I have to know.”

  She let her hand slip off him, and he touched her face, soft fingers, turned quickly, ran past the growing crowd, ignored the calls, the fears, the rumors now exploding into panic. He called out to them as he passed, “Stay here! Nobody’s getting us! I’ll find out what’s happening!”

  He moved into the road, could see men in blue everywhere, wagons pulling out of the clearings, men limbering their artillery pieces, some breaking down tents. He felt a rush of excitement, didn’t see fear on any soldier’s face, saw men joking, backslapping laughter, and he moved past that, aimed for the cluster of tents he knew well. One had come down, horses gathering, the old man, Poke, tending them, keeping them together with a handful of reins. Franklin thought of asking him, knew better, Poke seemingly eager to stay out of everyone’s way, embracing his own ignorance. Franklin was out of breath, stopped in front of the captain’s tent, hesitated, saw Jones now, off to one side, a cluster of officers, what Franklin knew were the company commanders, Captain Gorman among them. Gorman saw him, waved him closer.

  “Come here, boy! It’s a good day!”

  Franklin was there now, most of the captains ignoring him, but Jones said, “Mr. Franklin, we have been successful. The army is advancing into Savannah. The rebels have abandoned the city!”

  Franklin heard the words, tried to decipher their meaning. “The rebels done left?”

  The officers laughed, and Jones said, “That’s exactly what they done. I imagine General Sherman’s not altogether happy about that. They skedaddled north of the big river, probably headed deep into South Carolina. You ever been to Savannah?”

  Franklin pondered that, wasn’t exactly sure just what Savannah was. “No, sir.”

  “Well, gather up your people. Once we’ve set up the guard posts, made sure the city is free from any troublemakers, we’ll all be making camp there. You, too, if you want.”

  The others began to move away, a final order from Jones, pushing them to get their men into columns. Franklin tried to feel their joy, was just as mystified by all of this as he had been many times before. The question came to him now, what he had wanted to ask Jones for some days, cutting through the loose talk and ridiculous rumors that festered in the Negro camps.

  “Sir, can I speak to you?”

  Jones pointed to the tent, said, “Come in. I’ve been putting my
trunk together, what little there is. General Sherman made us leave most everything we owned back in Atlanta. I’ve got a whole world of goods sitting in some supply depot in God knows where. My adjutant’s off at General Morgan’s headquarters, over by the creek, trying to find out just where they want us to go. This is quite a day, Mr. Franklin. Quite a feather in our caps.”

  Franklin wasn’t sure what Jones meant, didn’t see any feathers at all. He followed Jones into the tent, saw a pile of papers covering the captain’s small camp desk. Jones stacked the papers, put them into a leather box, and Franklin felt like an intruder, still wasn’t certain why the troops were so happy.

  “Sir, is the war over? The rebels whipped?”

  Jones laughed, looked at him. “Not yet. A big step for us, though. Word is, it’s bad for the rebels everywhere right now. All I really know is what’s in front of us.”

  “They be any soldiers going back?”

  “What do you mean?”

  It was the question that had burned inside him since the awful night at Ebenezer Creek. “To go back, try to find them that got left behind. It ain’t right to just go off and leave those folks. Some was drowned. I saw it.”

  Jones stopped smiling. “Mr. Franklin, there will be no marching back there. Those people, the ones who didn’t make it across, they’re gone by now. I hope to God most of them made it to some safe place, maybe back to their homes, the towns we passed through. But you can’t expect anyone to still be at the creek. Rebel cavalry went through there more than once. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too, sir. There’s bad feelings about that.”

  “More bad feelings than you know. General Davis is not a man who listens to counsel, and the only men in this army who can do anything about what he did are General Slocum and General Sherman. I don’t expect you to ever respect General Davis, but he’s my corps commander, and I follow his orders. Just like my division commander, General Morgan. It’s just the way the army works.”

  “Pardon me, sir, but that night, at the creek, the army wasn’t working a’tall.”

  Jones seemed frustrated, and Franklin began to feel as though he was going too far, expected Jones to order him away. But Jones sat at his desk, looked down for a long moment.

  “You lose anybody there? Family and such?”

  “No, sir. Not that I know.” He thought of Clara now, her panic that took him back to the creek. “Might have gained something, strange to say.”

  “The girl?”

  Franklin was surprised. “You know about Clara?”

  “Didn’t know her name. But when you left the camp, I had Sergeant Knight check on you. He said you had, um, found a friend.”

  “Yes, sir. Did that. I’m sayin’ we’re a little more than being friends.”

  “Well, that’s your business. Some things have a way of turning to the good. There is no excuse for what Jefferson Davis did at Ebenezer Creek. But maybe you got something from it. It’s another way the army works. I’ve seen men killed, only to miss out on a great victory, as though there was some kind of trade handed down by the Almighty. Men were killed right out on this causeway, and today we’re taking the city. It’s a great triumph, and men died for us to get here. Not sure how else to explain it.”

  Franklin absorbed what Jones was saying, thought of Clara, the power of those feelings. “Don’t seem fair I should be happy.”

  “It never seems fair. General Davis may or may not ever be punished for what he did back there. Nothing you nor I can do about it.”

  A new question rolled up through Franklin’s thoughts. “Sir, if you don’t mind me askin’, I thought Jefferson Davis was the master head rebel and all. Up in Richmond. I heard Master Cobb mention him, the overseers, too. How’d he get to be a general in this here army? Didn’t somebody ask what he was doing here?”

  Jones laughed. “The whole army has wondered about that, Mr. Franklin. Fact is, they’re two different people. You’re right about that fellow in Richmond. I know for a fact that General Sherman wants his scalp. General Jefferson C. Davis just happened on that name by an accident of birth. You’d have to ask his mama where that came from. I bet he feels pretty miserable over that every day, knows very well that his own men make jokes about it.”

  Franklin moved toward the opening in the tent, men in blue moving past, more wagons in the distance. “Sorry, sir. He ain’t been miserable enough.”

  —

  Franklin and Clara had followed the soldiers into the city, the jubilation of the army finally spreading through the Negroes, a vast parade that could finally gather up in close proximity, a joyous crowd that now filtered all out through Savannah’s streets. Joining them were servants and slaves from Savannah itself, many of them taking leave of their masters, whether the masters allowed them to or not. The infectious cries of liberation continued to spread, the streets and avenues, the docks and waterfront massed with black faces, mingling with soldiers attempting to bring order. Throughout the city, shops and merchant houses were coming apart, doors opened by force, both white and black looters helping themselves to food or anything else they could carry. The soldiers took part as well, many of them men who had served as scavengers now finding themselves in a race with the civilians to secure anything of value.

  As the army gradually filled the town, the white residents had seemed to welcome them with at least a hint of happiness, cautious though they might be, staring at marching columns of men with muskets. To the surprise of many of the soldiers, some of the townspeople threw out their welcoming cheers as though the army were a force of liberation. To be sure, there were still a great many in the town who regarded Sherman’s army as an invasion force, who feared the worst kinds of brutality. The rumors flew, as they always did, sparked by the fires from the rebel forts, or the flames swallowing the boats on the Savannah River. What the rebels could not carry, they had torched, including the wooden gunboats. The columns of black smoke were spread all across the waterfront, but the rebels had been careful, had restricted the fires to those goods, ammunition, and other equipment inside their fortifications. But still there was fear from the civilians that their own homes would be next. As the army established order, guards were posted along most streets, provosts patrolling every neighborhood. Even the most hostile citizens, those who wisely kept their protests indoors, began to see that this was not yet an army bent on total destruction. Whatever enthusiasm the soldiers put on display began to be infectious as well. If it was a marvelous day to be a Federal soldier, it was not quite so bad for the citizens of Savannah.

  In a world seething with new experiences, Franklin was engulfed in yet another scene he had never witnessed before. In every town the blue army had marched into, crowds of gleeful black faces were common, but in Savannah, many of those who so welcomed the army were not slaves at all. Franklin had focused mostly on the black men in the crowd, some of them dressed in finery that exceeded what their white neighbors wore. They were merchants and businessmen, some in their own homes, raising families out from under the boot heel of any white master. As he walked behind a company of troops, he caught the cheers, nothing unusual there, but the accents from some of these Negroes was very different, foreign tongues, foreign clothing.

  He wandered about with little restriction, the army’s guards moving to intervene in whatever angry protest might erupt, carefully searching for the straggling rebel soldier, always a danger in a newly occupied place. There were attempts to bring order to the looting, bayonet-wielding soldiers forcing crowds of both races away from the wreckage of warehouses, smashed storefronts, the crowds mostly accepting that whatever they had been able to grab thus far might be all they would get.

  With Clara by his side, Franklin had begun to explore in a way he had never dared before. They moved through crowds of soldiers, past homes, staring at faces that stared back at them. The smoke from the fires drifted all across the town, adding the pungent odor of pitch and pine to the smells from spilled molasses, broken kegs of liq
uor. He knew to keep far from that, that spirits might turn a man into something evil, the young girl by Franklin’s side a target that Franklin knew he would die to protect. They moved instead along the waterfront, staring out at the broken pieces of a pontoon bridge, most of that lying against the near shore. Already Federal soldiers were at work, boats moving back and forth to an island offshore, what Franklin guessed to be engineers. The bridge was being rebuilt, serving some purpose that Franklin did not yet understand.

  Clara was holding his arm and he pointed across the river to the burning hulk of a boat.

  “Has to be a rebel gunboat. They had to burn it, keep it outta our hands.”

  He knew she’d be impressed by his knowledge, had laid special emphasis on “our hands.”

  She pointed out, past the gunboat, said, “What’s that, over there?”

  He looked at the far shoreline, more blue-coated soldiers on the river, swarming close to the water, their labor increasing. “The captain said we were going to South Carolina. Maybe that’s what that is.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t really know. If the rebels went that way, the army will be wantin’ to catch ’em, likely. Captain Jones says the war ain’t over.” They stood together, watching the men in blue laboring, the ropes hauling the strange thin boats together, wagons coming up through the town, more pontoons, a stab of familiarity Franklin tried to ignore. He had a dark thought, The pontoons. Same ones they pulled up from the creek? He wouldn’t say that to her, kept his eye on a squad of men unloading them, more men sliding them into the waiting hands of men in the water. She prodded him, said, “They seem to want to get over there quick as they can.”

  Franklin looked around, soldiers in every direction, not all at labor. “I don’t know all about what the army does. But they sure building that bridge. Some of these soldiers making camp here, that’s what the captain said. I guess we will, too.”