Shattered Nation

by Jeffrey Brooks

“Is that so?” McPherson said.

  “Yep. He also tells me that, according to a deserter, the rebels are massing southeast of the city. Right against you, James.”

  McPherson shook his head. “I have received no reports of any serious enemy activity anywhere in that area. And my scouts have been pretty busy.”

  Sherman nodded. “Well, we know that trains have been pulling out of Atlanta in a big hurry, and prisoners and deserters have been telling us that their units were on their way out. If I wasn’t sure before, I am sure now. Johnston has abandoned Atlanta. No doubt about it. Probably trying to regroup somewhere to the south.”

  “If that’s so, then Thomas may be walking into the city even as we speak.”

  Sherman thought quickly. “How soon for you to get three or four divisions in battle line and march west, toward the city?”

  McPherson considered it. “I can probably get General Logan and Fifteenth Corps lined up in an hour or so. They’re at the head of the marching column. That’s four divisions.”

  “Uh huh,” Sherman replied, still thinking. “I know we discussed entering the city tomorrow, but if the rebels have pulled out already, I see no reason why we can’t move things up by a day.”

  “Better to arrive too early than too late,” McPherson said with a grin. “I can leave a brigade or two here to get started on wrecking the railroad, and some cavalry to guard the wagon train, and form up the rest of the army behind Fifteenth Corps.”

  “That sounds good. Make the necessary arrangements. Get Fifteenth Corps in formation and head directly for Atlanta, with the rest of them following as they get organized. The militia should run away at the first volley. Frankly, I’d rather let the Army of the Tennessee have the honor of being the first to enter Atlanta than the Army of the Cumberland.”

  *****

  Moving quietly, Cleburne and Hardee scrambled up to the edge of a clearing. A few yards behind them, Lieutenant Hanley and some of Hardee’s staff officers were holding their horses. Both men knew they were taking a terrible risk, moving up so close to the enemy. But they felt it was important that they get a clear estimate for themselves of exactly where the Union line was located. The risk was no greater than hundreds of others the two men had taken during the course of the war.

  There was movement on the far side of the field. Hanging back in the trees to stay out of sight, the two men wordlessly surveyed the scene with their binoculars. Blue-clad regiments of Yankee soldiers were milling about the field. They were not setting up camp, but neither were they digging fortifications.

  “Must be waiting for other units to come up,” Hardee said. “Then they plan on continuing south.”

  “I see the flag of the 78th New York. It’s in Twentieth Corps, I think.”

  “So it’s the Army of the Cumberland for sure.”

  “They’re not digging in,” Cleburne said. “Never figured old George Thomas would ever get careless.”

  “Maybe Johnston’s right, then. He’s convinced them that we’re abandoning the city and the Yankees are focused on getting into it as fast as they can.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Don’t get cocky, though,” Hardee cautioned. “The lead units are deploying into a battle line. They may not expect an attack, but they aren’t letting their guard down too much.”

  There was a moment’s pause as the two continued to scan the Union line, relatively sure they weren’t being observed. After a few minutes, Hardee slapped Cleburne’s shoulder and the two men crawled back toward their horses. Mounting quickly, the two generals and their staff officers walked their horses quietly away from the front line, careful not to kick their mounts into a trot. None of the Yankees saw them go, for none had seen them arrive.

  When they had walked back south a considerable distance, Hardee pulled to a stop and Cleburne reined in next to him. Hardee pulled out his pocket watch.

  “It is almost twelve. Are you prepared to move forward, General Cleburne?”

  His pulse quickened. “Yes, sir.”

  A pause. “Then let the battle commence in exactly one hour. I will notify General Stewart that we are in position, so that he will be ready to send forward his corps as well. You’ve sent an officer to liaison with the rightmost division of Stewart’s corps?”

  “Of course.”

  “Very well. God go with you, Patrick.”

  “And with you, William.”

  Cleburne and Hardee exchanged sharp salutes, then Cleburne tossed his head toward Lieutenant Hanley and the two men rode off into the woods to the southeast, back toward the main body of the division.

  *****

  Johnston felt his years as he hoisted himself up into the saddle. His leg muscles protested as they gripped the side of the steed. He wasn’t the man he had been in Mexico. Still, if his body was aging, his instincts remained as combative as ever.

  “What’s the name of this horse?” he asked. It was a large and lovely brown mare with a streak of white along her snout. It was apparently the latest attempt of his staff to find a horse that Johnston liked.

  “Fleetfoot, sir,” Mackall answered.

  “Nice name for a horse.”

  “Are you sure you want to ride forward, sir? The corps commanders have their orders. Once the battle commences, there will be little we can do to influence the course of events.”

  Johnston laughed. “I’m surprised at you, William.”

  “How’s that, sir?” the chief-of-staff replied, mounting his own horse with considerably less effort than Johnston had required.

  “Today is likely to be the most important day in both of our lives. Damned if I am going to spend it confined to a comfortable house while my men fight and die on the battlefield.”

  Mackall said nothing in response, but Johnston could still see the skepticism in his face. He didn’t mind it. Part of Mackall’s job, after all, was to keep Johnston out of harm’s way unless absolutely necessary. Johnston did not doubt that Mackall would unhesitatingly put his own life on the line to protect him. Mackall might have been a staff officer rather than a battlefield commander, but Johnston did not doubt his courage for a single moment.

  Besides, Mackall was talking good sense. Johnston only needed to recall the grievous wound he had received at the Battle of Seven Pines to remind himself of the dangers an army commander faced when venturing too close to the front lines.

  They rode northwards, followed by a coterie of staff officers who had been assigned to serve as messengers and a small escort of cavalry. Off to his left, Johnston could see some of the formed units of Stewart’s corps, deployed to form the left flank of the battle line. Somewhere off to the right, hidden by the thick woods, was Hardee’s corps.

  He admitted to himself that he was nervous. He was not a gambling man by nature and he knew he was gambling now. He had rolled the dice, and though he had planned as carefully as he could and had taken every precaution he could think of, he could now do nothing but wait and see how the dice fell.

  “Where are we going?” Mackall shouted above the thunder of hooves.

  “Stewart’s headquarters!” Johnston shouted back.

  Mackall nodded. Excepting only James Longstreet, Hardee was the most experienced corps commander in the entire Confederate army. Stewart, by contrast, had only recently been elevated from the command of a division to the command of a corps. Hardee could be safely relied upon, but it was quite possible that Stewart would require the presence of the commanding general in order to be as effective as possible.

  After riding for a few minutes, Johnston slowed and reined his horse to a stop. Without a word, Mackall and the rest of the assembly halted as well. The air seemed deathly silent, and Johnston strained to listen over the thin movement of the wind and the chatter of cicadas. He turned to Mackall.

  “What time is it?”

  Mackall checked his pocket watch. “Ten minutes to one o’clock, sir.”

  The corps commanders had been ordered to attack precisely at one o’clock,
so there was no reason for him to hear the sounds of battle yet. Nevertheless, he found the silence unsettling. For a moment, he recalled the frustrating day in May, when he had waited to hear the sound of the guns that would have marked the opening of Hood’s flank attack at Cassville. Those sounds had never come. Later that month, he had awaited the sounds of the guns which would have marked the beginning of the attack at New Hope Church. Again, those sounds had never come.

  Now, every second that passed without the sound of firing was an endless agony. He didn’t move. Behind him, men exchanged nervous glances with one another, wondering what their commanding general was thinking.

  The minutes ticked away. He thought he heard something off to the right. He strained his ears to their absolute limits. Yes, there was the popping sound of musket fire off to the right, coming from the direction of Hardee’s corps. He continued to wait. The sound of musketry seemed to gradually roll over the land, quiet at first but slowly reaching a higher volume, like the sound of crashing waves over the dunes of an Atlantic seashore.

  After a few minutes, he heard a series of low booming sounds, which could only have been artillery fire. Continuing to listen intently, Johnston could now hear the sound of musketry from the left as well as the right, indicating that Stewart’s corps was also involved in combat.

  Mackall walked his horse up alongside Johnston.

  “It’s begun,” Johnston said simply.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’ve put our cards down on the table, William. Perhaps we have a pair of kings. Let us hope Sherman doesn’t have a pair of aces.”

  “Your plan is good,” Mackall said reassuringly. “The men are brave and strong. We shall emerge victorious.”

  “We shall see.”

  They sat silently and listened, their horses occasionally stirring uneasily as the sounds of battle grew louder. Eventually, Johnston reached over and placed a friendly hand on Mackall’s shoulder. “Remember this moment, my friend. If God is with us, we shall today achieve the greatest victory of the war. But if not, I hope that you and I can both be proud of what we have done and know that we have both acted in an honorable manner.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  He paused for a moment, looking again to the northeast.

  “Let’s get to Stewart’s headquarters.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With a wave of the hand and a few kicks into the sides of their horses, the two men were off, the collection of staff officers following dutifully behind them. All around, the sounds of battle were growing ever louder.

  *****

  Thomas was talking with a staff officer about getting some supply wagons across Collier’s Bridge when he stopped talking and jerked his head about. He distinctly heard a sudden crash of musketry from somewhere off to the southeast. Many nearby officers stopped what they were doing and looked in the direction from which the sound had come. It sounded too intense to be a mere exchange of fire between picket lines.

  His first thought was that some of his advance units might have stumbled upon a Confederate brigade, perhaps even a division, that was acting as a rear guard. But a few minutes later, a similar crash of heavy firing rang out from the southwest as well. In the midst of the sounds of musketry could be heard the occasional boom of cannon fire.

  Over the din of heavy musketry and artillery fire, Thomas thought he could make out another sound, only partially muffled by the forest. After a few moments, he recognized the distant high-pitched yipping sound. It was the Rebel Yell.

  He’d heard it before. At Stone’s River, at Chickamauga, and countless other battlefields. Thomas was not a man given to fear, but his ears could tell him instantly that the Rebel Yell he was hearing was coming from the throats of tens of thousands of men. For just a moment, his blood turned cold. Thomas took a deep breath as he realized how completely wrong he and Sherman had been about Johnston’s intentions. The Confederates were not abandoning Atlanta. Nor were they planning on attacking McPherson, east of the city. Instead, they had unleashed a full-scale offensive against the Army of the Cumberland, determined to drive it into Peachtree Creek.

  His men were unfortified with their backs to the creek, having been caught completely by surprise. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Thomas found himself facing the most serious crisis of his military career.

  But Thomas was not called The Rock of Chickamauga for nothing. Despite himself, Thomas found his lips curling into a sly grin. He turned and began yelling orders to his staff officers. Couriers were sent galloping to the various corps headquarters to obtain information on precisely what was happening. Artillery batteries were ordered into positions from which they might best bombard the attacking Southerners. Word was sent to the divisions still remaining on the north bank of the creek to speed up their crossing.

  Satisfied, Thomas lit a cigar and waited for events to unfold. The blood which had turned cold for a moment had now become hot once again. “Very well,” he said to himself. “If it’s a fight Johnston wants, it’s a fight he’ll get.”

  *****

  Cleburne rode back and forth behind his advancing line, trying to drive his division forward through sheer force of will. The only people with him were Lieutenant Hanley and a private who had been given the honor of bearing the division colors. Major Benham and the other staff officers were trailing somewhere behind the advancing division, attempting the impossible task of keeping everything in order. Under Cleburne’s saddle, Red Pepper breathed hard, frightened by the dreadful tumult into which his master had driven him but still obeying every tug and flip of the reins without hesitation.

  It was difficult to see what was happening. Gunpowder smoke already covered the area, as if the Almighty had pulled a curtain of hot and acrid mist over everything. The roar of musketry seemed to be coming from every direction except from behind him, and even his finely tuned ears could not sense whether it was louder in one direction as opposed to any other. From somewhere off to his right, he thought he could hear the louder booming of artillery, which might have been a Union battery pouring its deadly fire into his men. But he couldn’t be sure. All was confusion and chaos.

  He glanced up at the sun. The rising smoke of the battle was already beginning to obscure what was an otherwise cloudless sky. The light from the sun punched through the canopy of grayish gunpowder smoke, but took on a ghastly blood red appearance. That Cleburne had seen the same effect on many other battlefields made it no less forbidding. Death was happily having a feast.

  Half an hour earlier, the men of his division had marched out of the trees and into a large open space near the center of the battlefield. That field had now become a slaughterhouse of epic proportions. Although his men had caught the Yankees by surprise, it did not seem to have gained them much of an advantage. The tough veterans of the Army of the Cumberland, when faced with an unexpected attack, had quickly formed themselves into solid battle formations and begun to slug it out with their Southern foes.

  Cleburne’s men were still moving forward, exchanging fire with the Yankee troops opposite them, but only at a very slow pace. As he and his two companions advanced, the ground they passed over was littered with the corpses of dead men from both sides, as well as a larger number of wounded soldiers who were pathetically calling for help.

  Though he was behind the front line of his division, bullets shot by Cleburne every few seconds, creating a sharp and frightful buzzing sound as they whistled past. Lieutenant Hanley ducked low in his saddle.

  Cleburne laughed. “Ducking does no good, Lieutenant!” he shouted over the din. “By the time you hear them, they’re already past!”

  “I’ll keep ducking, if you please, General!”

  An artillery shell soared over Cleburne’s head and slammed into the ground a few yards behind him. It exploded immediately upon impact, showering him and his two companions with dirt. Cleburne’s hearing faltered momentarily, but recovered after about thirty seconds.

  “Let’s go forward!” Clebur
ne shouted, waving his hand. Hanley and the color bearer nodded and kicked their horses into trots. Suddenly, Cleburne realized that he did not know the name of the color bearer. He felt slightly guilty about this and considered asking the man, but just as quickly dismissed the matter as irrelevant in the middle of a battle.

  Cleburne had deployed two of his brigades in line, holding his third brigade in reserve. On the left was Govan’s brigade of Arkansas troops, while Lowrey’s brigade of Mississippians and Alabamians was on the right. A few hundred yards behind the center of the line was Granbury’s Texas brigade, held in reserve and ready at any moment to charge forward on Cleburne’s command.

  His division was on the left flank of Hardee’s corps. The leftmost regiment of Govan’s brigade was touching the right flank of Stewart’s corps, near a tiny rivulet called Tanyard Branch that ran directly north into Peachtree Creek. On the other side of the division, the rightmost regiment of Lowrey’s brigade was touching the left flank of Cheatham’s division, which was made up entirely of Tennessee troops. Having Cheatham on his right was comforting for Cleburne, who greatly respected Cheatham’s fighting abilities and the toughness of his troops. He could count on Cheatham is a way that he could never count on Walker.

  In his mind, the positions of these various brigades and divisions were organized and tidy, like neat little lines one could draw on a map. The reality, as he well knew, was completely different. Amidst the swirling chaos of battle, most regiments had only the faintest idea where they were and perhaps no idea at all where the rest of their brigade was. If they maintained even the semblance of a line facing the enemy, and had some idea of which regiment was on each of their flanks, they counted themselves lucky.

  As Cleburne and his companions drew closer to the front line, the sound of musket and artillery fire grew exponentially. His nostrils protested at the burning smell of gunpowder and Red Pepper made his displeasure known by shaking his head and whinnying vigorously. Cleburne glanced over at Hanley, seeing an expression on the lieutenant’s face that was apprehensive, but not fearful.