—I thought I was going to kill that man, he said. Thanks for helping out. I never killed a man before, and I don’t want to start with one of my own men. I’d’ve been court-martialed. By the way, I might as well tell you now. The command here has been watching you, Shawnessy. They consider you a first-rate soldier. You’ve been promoted to corporal.
—Yes, sir, Johnny said. Thank you, sir.
—And another thing. All leaves have been cancelled for tonight. There’s been a change of plans. General Jake Jackson is in camp, just back from the front. It appears they need men bad down in Tennessee. Big operations under way. We may see action sooner than we thought.
That night, the soldiers in Johnny’s camp and all the others were told to make ready to leave. Johnny found time to look in on Flash. It was so dark in the shack, he couldn’t see Flash’s face.
—Hey, Flash, he said.
—Yeah?
—We’re breaking up camp and going south tomorrow.
—You mean we’re goin’ to fight?
—Sooner or later. We’re going south.
Flash gave a cowboy yell and kicked the sides of the shack with manacled feet.
—You’d better be a good soldier and get out of there, Johnny said.
—Tell ’em I’ll be good, Flash said. This is what I jined up fer.
That night Johnny lay awake for a time. Would it be such a strange thing, he wondered, if he got up from his cot and left this foolish collection of shacks and tents by the river, and walked through the night until he found Nell waiting for him in the breathing darkness on the porch of a house in Indianapolis?
Always there had been barriers. If it wasn’t the Army, it was something else. Men were always fencing themselves in with rigorous Raintree Counties. Men were always drawing lines on the earth and daring each other to cross them. Men and women were always wearing uniforms of some kind, by which they proved their enlistment in the great militia of respectability, piety, duty, temperance, morality. For a brief while in the afternoon, he had touched the primitive source of life again, had lain innocent by the river. But the soldier couldn’t really take off his uniform, couldn’t really purify himself. In becoming a soldier he had multiplied the barriers. The soldier could have no love, except with a painted face and costing a coin. Evil, hatred, and killing were almost as old as the river. In a casual afternoon, he had seen the oldest corruption of life and the almost corruption of death. Suddenly out of the unwilled sources of himself the red passion flared!
And now long trains were passing in the night, crossing the trestles that crossed the rivers. They were bearing him away from another brief intersection with his love. Where did the great trains come to rest at last?
Suddenly, beneath his shut eyes, with piercing intensity he repictured Nell’s face leaning out of the buggy as she waved good-by, and there came to him the words of a recent song by Stephen Foster that had run much in his mind during the past year, because by coincidence it bore the name of his beloved.
We parted in the springtime of life, Nell and I,
With all our gushing joys in their bloom.
But now we’ve, met the world’s busy strife, Nell and I,
And suffered from its dark, chilling gloom.
But my heart will sigh, for those days gone by,
That dwell in my memory’s soft refrain.
We parted in the springtime of life, Nell and I,
And I’ll never see her bright smiles again.
Johnny had a feeling that his love-affair with Nell had happened long ago and was already enshrined in memory.
We built our little huts by the shore, Nell and I,
And we covered them with bright colored shells.
We gathered moss and fern from the moors, Nell and I,
And we plucked the dewy flowers from the dells.
But the days rolled round, and the dark world frowned
As Time with its bitter cares fled on.
We left our little huts on the shore, Nell and I,
And we left our brightest hopes in their dawn.
It was the music of an innocent love of two childlike creatures living in a world of their own exalted fancy in which all was summer, misty and nocturnal.
We wandered by the bright running streams, Nell and i,
And we gamboled on the wide grassy lawn.
And met again in light sportive dreams, Nell and I,
When the weary hours of twilight were flown.
And our love was true, but a coldness grew.
‘Twas caused by an unrelenting foe.
We’ll play nevermore on the lawns, Nell and I,
Nor wander where the bright rivers flow.
The sad melody of this song haunted him into his sleep, and his dreams that night were woven with emotions of farewell, as the face of a girl leaning from a buggy receded down the long streets of his sentimental youth.
The following day, the men were assembled to hear General Jake Jackson. The General, one of the famous fighting officers of the War in the West, gave a fighting speech. He stood out in front of the ranks, hatless, his coat covered with medals. He was set like a fighter just ready to deliver the knockout punch. He talked with his mouth, his bearded chin, his fists.
—Hot darn! Flash Perkins said. There’s the man I wanna serve under.
—Boys, the General said, you’re being moved out today. You’ll get some more training in Tennessee, and then some of you’ll be attached to my corps. We need men and we need ’em bad. We’ve got the damn traitors on the run now, and we mean to keep ’em that way. I don’t want anybody in my corps that isn’t ready to go in there any time and fight like hell. We mean to run those bastards right into the sea before the summer’s over. It won’t be any tea party. The Reb is a goddam good soldier, damn his guts. I ought to know—I been fightin’ ‘im for two years. But he can’t stand up to a real hellraisin’ Westerner. His cause is rotten to the core. I know you men don’t like this camp routine, and I don’t blame you. They tell me you’re spoilin’ for a fight. Well, I’m here to tell you that
BEFORE YOU KNOW IT YOU’LL FIND YOURSELVES IN
THE GODDAMNDEST FUSS THAT
EVER
—ALMIGHTY PROVIDENCE DECREED, the General was saying, the Battle, and the Battle was joined. Which among us can—forget the first shock—of actual combat—the energy and resolution—with which the green and untried—defenders of the Flag—hurled themselves upon the foe! Many of those here assembled—have fought in several of those great—battles by which the safety—of the Republic was assured. How proud you must feel—to have had some humble part in the—forging of those great—events! To name the several—and separate actions in which—these men have participated—would be to call the roll—of all the great—battles of the West—Shiloh—Donelson—Corinth—Vicksburg. . . .
Mr. Shawnessy turned the General’s manuscript unobtrusively, hunting for a certain chapter.
Then did you fight, comrade—in that great war in the West, were you—one of those legions? Were you a part of——
(Epic Fragment from Fighting for Freedom)
Those vast operations on which so many hopes were founded, those intricate manoeuvres in the Fall of 1863, whereby Rosecrans hoped to trap the Confederate commander Bragg and hurl the Rebel forces staggering back from the bastion city of Chattanooga, the Gateway to the South, had finally brought about, sooner than either commander had expected and in a manner anticipated by no one, that two days’ bloody conflict which took its scarlet name from a . . .
Who can tell now the names of the rivers we crossed and the mountains we scaled! Those were our first marches. Who can tell how we pulled the guns through the passes, how we tramped on the rocky roads, cursing the grades, we that were men of the plain, how we burst our bootleather taking the bastion city! Who can show now—what sculptor of battles—how we saw for the first time the city of scrofulous shacks on the lip of the river, beneath great mountains! Who can tell with what ardor we
sought the battle! Who will show how at last we came together, two armies of thousands of half-bearded boys! The young recruits ran to their first battle, and some were chosen. An inch or a second’s wavering, a twist of the body, a slip of the trigger, a flash of the sun, a diverting branch, and one went on to take his place with the dotards of battle, the fighters-over-and-over of old campaigns, and one was chosen to fall and be young forever, lost and covered up in the words of the books about battle.
Dead or alive, they are here beside this . . .
(Epic Fragment from Fighting for Freedom)
. . . little stream that joins the Tennessee River just below Chattanooga, and which, by that ironical providence whereby the earth sometimes seems to anticipate and mock the follies of mankind, had borne for centuries an Indian name signifying in the Cherokee language ‘The River of Death’ and commemorating perhaps some legendary battle of the Indians before the white man brought civilization and the weapons of civilization to this savagely beautiful land of rivers and mountains. Here in September of 1863, along the wooded slopes and banks of the little river, two great armies ran head-on, and there ensued a contest of courage, skill, and endurance which has made mournfully appropriate forever the dark and musical name of
September 19-21—1863
—CHICKAMAUGA, THE STAFF OFFICER SAID. CHICKAMAUGA CREEK. ANYWAY, THAT’S WHAT
they tell me. The woods over there on the far side are lousy with Rebs. We’ll be fighting for sure in the morning.
He saluted and rode off. In the pale dawn, Corporal Johnny Shawnessy could see the campfires reflected in the creek. He rolled up in his blanket and tried to sleep again. But he kept thinking of the name Chickamauga. After days of marching, he had arrived at a name. Things were coming into focus.
On the far side of this creek, there was perhaps a man now sleeping who would kill John Wickliff Shawnessy of Raintree County, Indiana, or be killed by him. This man was maybe cold, tired, bruised, wet, lonely, unhappy, and hundreds of miles from home just like himself. This man was the Enemy. He and Johnny Shawnessy had been slowly approaching each other all their lives. Now they had almost met in some impersonal, terrible meeting called a battle.
Here was how the Battle had been shaping. A month before, his regiment had moved from Camp Shanks to Louisville, Kentucky. There they were brigaded with veteran soldiers and moved on. They had seen depots and Army bases choked with men and supplies, going south through Kentucky. With less than a month’s training, they had become part of the Army of the Cumberland, in the Corps commanded by General Jake Jackson. For weeks, then, they marched. They marched up and down in the land and back and forth. They hauled their artillery and supplies up and down beautiful mountains. They forded rivers. They rode in troop trains. They marched, bivouacked, marched, bivouacked, marched. They performed prodigies that would never get into the newspapers. Just pulling a heavy gun out of a mudhole, over the hump of a Tennessee mountain, or across a river was an epic of ingenuity. One night’s sleep in the rain was a saga of misery. A twenty-mile march through mountainous country was an anabasis of endurance. When you put millions of such deeds together, you got the campaign that led to the taking of Chattanooga.
For somewhere in this process of marching, during which they hadn’t seen a single Rebel, Chattanooga fell, a Great Victory.
Meanwhile, Corporal Johnny Shawnessy had begun to hate this earth that made him suffer so much. He was a man from the flat country, and he now perceived a new beauty in the level of Raintree County. It tranquillized the spirit, it was the image of space, it suggested civilization and good roads. It meant peace and plenty and contentment. Flash Perkins expressed the opinion of them all when he said,
—Why in the name of Ole Hippopotamus anybody’d fight as hard as the Rebs have for a country like this beats the hell outta me!
Two weeks before, they had marched out of Chattanooga south through a wide valley between Lookout Mountain and the Tennessee River. They were supposed to be outflanking Bragg. Then, less than a week before, in the night of September 13, they had been awakened and commanded back to Chattanooga by forced marches. The word went that Bragg was concentrating unexpectedly in front of the town and that their Corps had to get back before the rest of the Army was smashed in detail. For three days, they had retraced their steps over the narrow mountain roads, dragging artillery and supplies with them. Two days before, on the 17th of September, they were closing in. On the 18th the word was that the Rebels had not yet launched their main attack. On the night of the 18th and 19th of September, they had been brought up through a wood, still many miles from Chattanooga, and in the darkness, hungry and exhausted, had made camp.
They were in contact with the main Army. They had got there in time for the Battle.
Wrapped in a thin blanket, Johnny had fallen asleep, vaguely aware that he was close to a little stream winding through wooded and hilly country. He hadn’t slept well: all night long the roads and passes were choked with artillery caissons, supply wagons, guns, cavalry, troops, a tide of confusion moving toward a battle.
In the dawn, he had awakened and seen the little creek and heard its name, and after that he couldn’t sleep. Before it was fully day, the brigade was up, and the men ate. Mist was rising from the creek. It might have been early morning on the Shawmucky in some of the wilder parts of Raintree County.
Some distance to the right, a road approached and forded the stream, and at that point stood a white frame building with clear black letters on it:
LEE & GORDON’S
MILLS
Across the creek, Johnny could see a long, low mountain.
The cold, pale waters of Chickamauga Creek ran on over dead stones in the dead light of the beginning day. Across the river were cornfields and a long, low mountain and the Enemy. To this place the Hero of Raintree County had come, life’s American, John Wick-liff Shawnessy. Here or somewhere near in a few hours, a piece of iron might hit him and tear the life from his body, and here he might fall, absurdly stiff and still, in the sight of this little creek, this cornfield, these trees, this mountain. In all the designs he had ever had of his life, he had never allowed for such a thing. He had never supposed that he could really expire on an unfamiliar earth, hundreds of miles from Raintree County.
He was cut off from all human help. He looked at his comrades and no longer knew them with human warmth and knowing. Their names were Flash Perkins, Jesse Gardner, Natie Franklin, Thomas Conway, and so on, but in this moment they had ceased to be persons with names. They were nothing to him. They couldn’t help him. Each would be wholly preoccupied with himself. Each would be wishing that he personally could emerge safe from the Battle, no matter what else might happen. Now the mannerisms and personal whims of each one didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that one was more handsome or intelligent than another. Each was simply a man facing death.
He was sick with fear. He lay weakly on the ground, flat on his belly, and kept his face down so that no one would see how scared he was. He hadn’t even seen the Enemy, he was for the moment perfectly safe, and yet he was despicably scared. How would he ever be able to endure actual combat? How would he ever be able to stand up to wild men yelling and rushing at him with bayonets? Did he really want to defeat the Enemy so badly?
Johnny tried hard to think of the Cause. Now he must be a soldier, the anonymous instrument of a great idea. All memories of himself as an individual with a name were gratuitous hardships now.
But it was no use. Now for the first time the Enemy had acquired a personal meaning. The Enemy was a heartless something that cared nothing at all for the personal sanctity of John Wickliff Shawnessy. It was now really possible that a complete stranger from the South would thrust a bayonet into Johnny Shawnessy and destroy the precious thing that he was.
This would be the most pitiful murder since the beginning of time. To do this would be wantonly to destroy the earth and explode like a child’s balloon the whole structure of the Republic.
H
e kept staring at the other side of the creek but could see no movement in the woods, no sign of the Enemy. But the word all up and down the line was that the Rebels were going to attack.
By eight o’clock with the sun already high and bright, the brigade had been moved to the rear of another brigade, where it would remain in support. The mill was lost sight of. All through the woods troops were marching, guns were being unlimbered, officers came and went, bearing dispatches, supply wagons moved. For nearly two hours, the men of Johnny’s regiment remained in a deep wood, where they couldn’t see the creek. It was fine weather. The foliage was a rich summer green. The men sat or lay at full length, talking in low voices.
After a while, Johnny tried to fix his attention on what was happening around him. On a road near-by that went down to the mill he could see troops marching. From the shouted orders and the haste, the springing steps, the drawn, excited faces of the men, it was evident that they were expecting to fight. Now and then a wagon train came through and was driven up a road to the right in the direction of Chattanooga away from the creek. Regimental flags appeared in the woods on either side. Staff officers galloped through and through the trees. The flags, the horses, the hurrying, cursing soldiers streaming along the road, the calls from the forest on either side, the bright morning sunshine, the swarming of uniformed men in the hills and hollows, the turning of all the hundreds of faces toward the creek made Corporal Johnny Shawnessy feel that the battle which was about to be fought was like a gigantic celebration. Except for the anticipated shock of the fighting, he might be on a picnic somewhere. It didn’t seem possible that all this color and movement was about to result in killing.
Meanwhile there was a good deal of talk up and down the lines.
—When do you reckon they’ll hit us?
—Maybe we’ll hit them first.
—I wisht I was home on the old farm.
—Elmer, you be sure to mail that letter fer me, if I git hit.
What disturbed Johnny most was the fact that nothing seemed to be planned. Nothing was settled. No one knew anything for sure. Obviously the Union position had been an improvisation—else why should thousands of men be marched fifty miles away from the scene of the Battle and then fifty miles back so that they arrived bewildered and exhausted? Why were men still pouring along the roads beside the creek when the Rebels were expected to attack at any time?
Raintree County Page 71
