Raintree County (94 page)

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.

He 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?

One thing he was appallingly sure of. If every soldier in the Union Army felt as milky, sick, and helpless as he did, the game was up. The Republic was finished.

About nine o'clock, General Jake Jackson came riding along the lines with his aides. Instantly a cheer went up, in which before he knew it, Johnny had joined. Here at least was a completely confident figure.

General Jackson was hatless, black locks streaming out behind. He bestrode a beautiful, fast horse, and he was smiling as if he expected something wonderful to happen. He stopped a short way from where Johnny was.

—Boys, he said, we may have an attack any time now. We aren't just going to sit around and let 'em come on. We'll meet 'em head-on. Aim for their guts, and give 'em hell.

He stopped and exchanged a few words with an officer. Then he rode up to Johnny's regiment and said,

—I understand you men have never been in battle before. That right?

—Yes, sir. That's right, General, several voices said.

—You're not scared, are you?

—We ain't skeered, General. We're just frightened to death.

The General laughed, and everyone in hearing distance laughed. Johnny laughed too, dismally.

—You boys will be all right, the General said, shaking his chin and his fist at the creek. You're from Indiana, I hear. Well, Indiana boys don't break under fire. Let's give those bastards a thumping they won't forget!

The men gave a cheer. As it faded in the woods, there came from the left a series of deep throaty sounds that rolled in thick waves along the valley of the Chickamauga.

The General jerked his horse straight up, whirled and . . .

(Epic Fragment from
Fighting for Freedom
)

The battle began with heavy shelling of the Union Center. The Rebels followed with an infantry assault in their characteristically impetuous manner, as if they expected to carry the field in a single charge and go thundering right on through to Chattanooga. The fighting began to move down the line to the right, where the Third Corps, not yet fully in position after the forced marches of the days preceding, was lying on its arms. The Union right now sustained an attack of great magnitude, the details of which it would be fatiguing to recite, but suffice it to say that . . .

Corporal Johnny Shawnessy tried to see beyond the distant fence, but trees and bushes blocked his vision.

—Can you see anything, Jack? Flash Perkins said.

—Not a thing.

—Hey, Captain, where are the Rebs?

—You'll see them soon enough.

The noise of the shelling had become louder. Johnny and the others were yelling at the tops of their voices.

A staff officer rode up and said something to the brigade commander. They held a map in their hands and pointed excitedly. The commander jerked his chin up and down forcibly several times. He pointed toward the creek. The staff officer nodded vigorously, saluted, and rode off down the line to the left.

The brigade was ordered forward in line of battle.

—Hell, it's about time, Flash Perkins said. They're fightin' right where we was this mornin'. How come they moved us away?

No one else said anything. The men walked forward through the woods. Johnny's company was to the left of the regimental colors. The brigade went forward in two lines, the men almost shoulder to shoulder. The noise from the creek grew. Smoke began to roll up the hill. Rifle fire was continuous.

Men are being killed there, Johnny said to himself. Men are being killed down there by the creek where I was this morning.

He had never in his life before seen a man killed.

Bullets sang through the forest like angry bees, socking trees. Johnny hunched over. He wanted to throw himself on the ground and dig under. A round shot crashed through near-by trees, a brutal chunk of pure chance, lopping off branches. Johnny saw the spent ball, as big as a man's head, roll harmlessly down a little hill.

—Gosh! a boy said. That might've hit somebody.

No one laughed.

Every now and then a spray of leaves suddenly relaxed and sank to the perpendicular or floated gently to the ground.

At the edge of the wood, the brigade halted at a railfence and everyone went to the ground. A battery of Union guns was firing from a little hill about fifty yards to the right. Around the nearest gun the men made quick, methodical movements, then broke away to left and right. There was a stiff white stream of smoke standing out from the muzzle of the gun. A second later the report struck like a slap on the ears. The gunners ran forward, laid hold of the handspike and spokes and ran the gun back into position.

Johnny lay on the ground, mouth open, panting, though he had only been walking. He felt that if the noise should all abruptly cease, his fear would become audible. But, in a way, the noise of the Battle was the noise of his fear.

There was a little fluttering sound seemingly in the air overhead but growing louder. It ended suddenly, and a hundred feet away in front of the fence, the earth spurted in a fountain mixed with black smoke. Dirt rained all over the men in Company A.

—What the hell! Flash Perkins yelled at Johnny, as if he had a personal grudge against him, what're they doin'! How come we don't git in there and whop 'em? We ain't jist gonna sit here and let 'em shell hell out of us, are we?

Johnny lay at the base of the railfence, panting and praying. The
fluttering, whining sound came again and again as more shells fell in the field in front of the brigade.

Any one of these shells, Johnny was thinking, any one of these bullets might be for him. He seemed to have an infinite capacity for being afraid. He feared each shell and bullet and he feared them all. He feared them before they were shot and while they were being shot.

Suddenly he was lifted and thrown by the ground. A strong stink and blinding flash stunned him. A shell had landed close by. Someone was hit. He could hear a man saying in a low voice over and over again,

—Please. Please. It's me.

—Stand up, boys! Stand up!

Men were getting to their feet all up and down the line. Johnny got up. The officers were standing in the intervals of the companies.

—They're comin', someone said.

The open field in front sloped to a wood on the far side. Out of this wood men came running, stopping now and then to fire their muskets back toward the creek, then biting cartridges and ramming as they ran. One of the men lay down gently on his face. Another stopped abruptly as if he had just seen a yawning hole at his feet. He teetered exactly like a man reluctant to go over a precipice, dropping his gun and swinging his arms for balance. Then he collapsed backward.

—Them's our men.

—Yeah, but the Rebs are back there too.

Men in Union uniforms kept coming out of the woods. They were not withdrawing straight back toward the Third Brigade, but to the left and right.

Suddenly, Johnny realized that he was seeing men killed. While he had been standing here, half a dozen men had lost their lives in the field before him.

—Load! Load at will!

The word went up and down the line.

Johnny bit a cartridge and rammed it down the barrel. All up and down the line the rammers rang in the barrels, the gunlocks clicked.

—I don't see anything.

—Where are they?

—I don't know. I can't see a thing.

Just then Johnny saw several men in gaps of smoke, approaching the fence at the far end of the field. His first impression was that they didn't have uniforms. There were twenty, and then fifty, and then a hundred, and then all along the line of the fence, coming up from the creek, hundreds of them. Flags emerged from the woods. The men were in groups rather than lines.

Johnny took a rest on the railfence and sighted on a man approaching the distant fence. The figure became incredibly small at his rifle's end and was blotted out by the sight.

—Fire!

He squeezed off, and the buttguard socked his shoulder. He coughed with smoke in his eyes, and started to load again. He bit the twist of the cartridge too close, and dropped his rod. Panic rushed over him. He bit another cartridge and managed to ram it home.