Raintree County (102 page)

We are tired of war on the old camp ground,

Many are dead and gone,

Of the brave and true who've left their homes;

Other's been wounded long. . . .

Dying tonight, dying tonight,

Dying on the old camp ground.

And how long would it be, he was wondering, till the very last of them all, the oldest of all the incredibly old veterans, would tent for the last time in the old camp ground of a longforgotten war?

The Perfessor drew a short, quick breath, but lapsed back again into sleep. The quavering horns quickened to a faster tempo.

In the prison cell I sit,

Thinking, Mother dear, of you,

And our bright and happy home so far away.

And the tears they fill my eyes

Spite of all that I can do,

Tho' I try to cheer my comrades and be gay.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,

Cheer up, comrades, they will come,

And beneath the starry flag

We shall breathe the air again,

Of the freeland in our own beloved home.

Listen to the sound of the bugles blowing loud.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are . . .

Who is marching there? Who are these bearded young men?

Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song—

Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along—

Sing it as we used to sing it, fifty thousand strong,

While we were marching through Georgia.

Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee,

Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!

So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,

While we were marching through Georgia.

Yes, bring the good old bugle, boys, and blow into being the ranks of the comrades of that Army. Blow into being the columns extending for miles, the husky noise of thousands singing on the march, the rattling wagons. Blow into being the hordes of the liberated slaves. Blow into being the bearded bummers. For it is still marching, that legendary Army. It was never anything but a great myth marching to Savannah on the Sea! They didn't march in any newspaper, they were from the beginning—were they not?—immense soldiers of stone!

Ah, what becomes of young hearts, warm weather, singing throats? And is victory no more enduring than defeat? Where are they all now, commander and commanded! Were they ever real, and was I one of them, bearing in my weatherstained knapsack the unseen grail of the Republic! Then, sing it as we used to sing it

the Army of the West awakened from its sleep. The vague fabric of a dream Corporal Johnny Shawnessy had been dreaming collapsed under the buglenotes fast crowding in the dawn.

He awakened. He was with the Army, they were to be up and marching soon, and there would be another day crammed with fiercely jocund images, as the Army of the West flowed on four roads toward Savannah on the sea.

Hawkfaced, naked except for his jackboots, Professor Jerusalem Webster Stiles was striding toward the dawncolored east on rakethin legs, chanting:

—Then up, then up, brave gallants all,

And don your helms amain.

Death's couriers, Fame and Honor, call

Us to the field again.

On both sides of the road the Army was getting ready to leave the night encampment. Johnny smelled bacon frying. Aroma of coffee fumed in his nostrils. Later he shook a skilletful of corncakes while the Perfessor held the coffeepot.

Flash Perkins drove up the road in a wagon crammed with provisions. Parthenia was sitting on the seat beside him, and Joe and the old man were in back. Flash whistled as he jumped down and walked over to the camp. He flung his big feet sideways. His coat was unbuttoned. His high, hard nasal voice jabbed Johnny's ears.

—Say, are you fellers part of this yere big Army I been hearin' tell about?

As usual everyone was glad to see Flash.

—What's the matter? Decide to march with us poor whites for a while?

—I brung you poor bastards a little food, Flash said.

—What a yuh got?

—Chicken, goose, pig, lard, little ever'thing. What'll yuh have?

—If you don't mind, I'll have a little of that dark meat there, the Perfessor said.

The men were cheerful as they sat around the fire eating breakfast. The sun found them still roasting chickens on their bayonets. The air was warm and bright.

—Jack, you and the Perfessor come with me today, Flash said, and I'll show you some fun.

Johnny had been wanting to go with Sherman's bummers. Foragers who operated independent of all command, they stripped the countryside of its riches and made the name of Sherman execrated on both sides of the Army's path. For a week and a half now the Army had been marching from Atlanta, and during this time Flash Perkins had spent only one day—the first—with his company. Since then he and the other bummers had moved on the Army's flanks and front, returning when they pleased, sometimes mounted on mules, sometimes driving wagons, always loaded with provisions—the fat of the land. There were regular foragers, too, usually fifty from each brigade, duly officered, but the bummers were without regular status. Fabulous stories were told by and about them—how they made themselves rich in a few nights by the pillage of buried treasures, how they went among the plantations acting the part of God's lieutenants, emancipating hordes of slaves, how they sometimes gathered in swarms without officers and fought detachments of the Georgia militia.

Flash, the Perfessor, and Johnny set out on foot, the two soldiers equipped with lean knapsacks, muskets, and forty rounds, the Perfessor armed with an old service revolver.

As they passed along the road, they saw the Army preparing to abandon camp. Hundreds of wagons were assembling for the day's march. The soldiers were packing on their haversacks and blanketrolls and lining up in loosely ordered columns. Fires were burning out on the low hills and among the woods. Thousands of bearded, bluecoated soldiers had sprung from this ground where they had lain for a night and to which they would never return. Regimental bands played, men sang, horses neighed. Drums were beating on a hundred hills. Like history endowed with visible form, this many-featured mass was slowly unfolding from its sleep and would go on
grandly with a thousand unrecorded collisions and adventures through the blue shining of another day and toward another campfire in the night. For the first time the War had found a deep, straight channel.

The three men soon turned down a side lane and slipped off through a forest. They found a road and went on until mid-morning without incident. Now and then from a break in the woods, at a great distance, they could see the Army. It was good to see the thin line of it proceeding, to know that it was there, vaguely parallel to them, advancing.

There seemed to be no danger in the woods and fields of Georgia. The country was pleasant, green, and firm in the dry weather.

About noon, they saw a plantation house beside a road running at right angles to the course of the Army. They came up to it through a long yard. A woman was standing on the porch, white with anger. Halfway down the lane, Johnny stopped and said,

—Maybe we better not bother her. I thought these places were deserted.

—There's gener'ly a woman around to yipe at you while you pluck the place, Flash said. I don't mind 'em. It's fun to pull their feathers and hear 'em squawk.

When they reached the porch, the woman had gone inside. A dead dog lay in the yard. Two soldiers came out of the house, carrying a chest.

—Come on, boys, they said. They's plenty more where this come from.

Around behind the house, soldiers were digging up the yard.

—We didn't git started early enough, Flash said.

He pushed open the back door. The woman they had seen before came out.

—Murderers! she said in a voice of cold hatred. Thieves! Do you call yourselves soldiers!

—Ma'am, Flash said, would you direct me to the pantry?

—Go on, she said. Wreck everything. Take everything. You'll never beat the South that way. You, there—can't you stop these men?

—Who, me? the Perfessor said. Madame, I'm only here in the capacity of a spectator. Alas, war is at best a dreadful thing. May we trouble you for a drink of water?

Johnny and the Perfessor skittered around the corner of a shed to the pump.

Several curious Negroes were watching the men dig for buried plate and money. A middle-aged white man in shabby civilian attire watched the process, chuckling.

—You boys sho is busy, he said. Dog bite it, eberywhere people been sayin', Jest wait'll the militia hems ole Sherman in. They'll cut 'im to pieces. ‘Pears to me you boys am still pretty much uncut. Look here, have y'all tried over there behind the woodshed?

—Obligin' cuss, a soldier said. Say, Uncle, you don't sound like no fire-eatin' Reb to me.

—Dog bite it, the man said, I'm tired of this war. I had my bellyful long ago. Have y'all looked down the well?

Glass shattered, and Flash Perkins stuck his grinning, shaggy head out of a cellar window.

—This here cellar's full a liquor, he said. Here, I'll throw it out.

He began to shove bottles through the opening. Several soldiers came around and drank freely. They went on spading up the garden. Johnny and the Perfessor walked down to the Negro quarters. A group of slaves came out and watched them, not saying much.

—You there, Uncle, the Perfessor said to an old black man. Do you know who we are?

—I reckon youse some of Gennul Sherman's men, the old man said.

—Well, do you know what we're here for?

—Yassuh, the old man said. Dey say hit's the yar ob jubilee.

—That's right, Uncle, Johnny said. You're free now. You don't have to work without pay any more.

They heard an explosion of angry voices behind them, and returning to the house found an old white-haired man standing at the corner of the house. He had a pistol in his hand. His mouth trembled, and his hands shook.

—Go on and git out a here, he said. Goddamyankees. Git back where you belong. This land don't belong to you and never will.

—Better put that pistol down, Grampa, one of the soldiers said.

—I'm a-tellin' you to git.

The woman came out and took the old man by the hand.

—Come on, she said. Come on in, Papa. They'll murder you.

—Listen, you ole bastard, one of the men said, we didn't start this
war. You folks would a been let alone, but you had to go and fire on the flag.

—Goddamn the flag! the old man said. I ain't never been a Union man, and never will!

One of the soldiers slipped up behind him. The old man whirled and would have fired, but another forager slipping up from the other side grabbed his arm. One soldier tore the gun away from him, and the other knocked him down.

—Go on, git out, you old bastard, he said, before you git hurt.

—Come on, several of the soldiers said roughly, let's burn this place up and git out a here.

The old man sobbed weakly and yelled something, and the woman led him into the house.

—I hate you! she said, turning to the soldiers. You'll never beat us! Never! We'll hate you to our dying days.

—Let's go, the Perfessor said. This is no business for gentlemen to be engaged in.

Flash came out of the barn driving a wagon. They filled it up with hams, pots of lard, live chickens tied in bunches by the legs, turkeys, geese, a hog, several bottles of liquor. They opened a bottle of wine and drank it as they drove off. Johnny kept trying to forget the hatred in the woman's eyes and voice. They drove for a long time down little roads and stopped at two other places where they got some more provisions. At one a very pretty girl stood and watched them, saucy and proud.

—What do you expect to do with us after you beat us? she asked.

—Nothing, Johnny said. If you'd just let yourselves get beat, we'd quit and draw off. Come back in the Union, that's all, and free your slaves.

—What do you expect to do with the Nigroes when they're free? the girl said.

—Educate them, Johnny said. Set them to work like human beings, getting their own wages.

—Well, the young woman said, you may beat us, but you can never rule us.

—Madame, the Perfessor said, describing a deep bow, Beauty rules and is not ruled.

—You ugly jackanapes! she said, what are you doing here? You aren't even in uniform. Just along for the fun, I suppose.

—Pardon me, the Perfessor said, I see you have some newspapers there. May I borrow one?

They picked up several newspapers lying on a table and carried them off.

When they were in the wagon again, Johnny said,

—I don't see how we can ever reconcile them.

—That was a pretty little Rebel, the Perfessor said. I'd love to reconcile her.

They had dinner in an abandoned plantation house close to the line of march. They stopped the wagon in the yard and went inside the house. Other bummers had already been there, and the place was a shambles. Flash built a fire in the fireplace, and they dragged up a table and prepared to eat. Flash and Johnny set about preparing a broiled turkey, while the Perfessor read aloud to them from the newspapers. Several other soldiers came into the room while they were there, and one of them banged on a bayonet-scarred piano.

There was much loud singing, shouting, cursing, drunken mirth. Several of the men came downstairs with velvet curtains draped around their shoulders.

—Well, shet mah mouf! the Perfessor said. These heah Southuhn newspapuhs shuah ah declamatoruh sheets.

He read in a stagey Southern accent:

—TO THE PEOPLE OF GEORGIA

Arise for the defense of your native soil! Rally round your patriotic Governor and gallant soldiers! Obstruct and destroy all the roads in Sherman's front, flank, and rear, and his army will soon starve in your midst.