The Last Confederate (40 page)

“It sure wasn’t a fancy prayer, Studs,” he ended his story.
“I just said, ‘God, save me!” or something like that. And ever since that minute, I’ve been all right.”

Mellon sat still, breathing heavily in the darkness, saying nothing. Thad said quietly, “I’d like to see you do that before the Yanks come calling, Studs—and not just because we’re liable to get killed. It’s just that the best and happiest people I know are Christians. Seems like Jesus just does that to folks.”

When Studs did not reply, Thad decided to leave him alone. “Reckon I’ll get a little sleep. Wish you’d think on it, Studs.” He lay down and the big man sat there, not moving. Finally Thad drifted off, and when he awoke at dawn he saw Mellon in his place twenty yards down the line. Thad was about to go and ask him if he had called on God, but cannon and musket fire broke out to his left.

“That’s Hood over there,” Dooley said wisely. He had come to take his place beside Thad, and spat emphatically. “Sounds like the hull Yankee Army’s pilin’ in on him, don’t it, Thad?”

The roar of gunfire reached a crescendo, and seemed to go on endlessly. Thad saw a horseman gallop madly out of the smoke, ride up and yell, “Major Lee, General Jackson says give him support!”

Lee shouted at once, “Captain Wickham, take your company and engage the enemy with General Jackson!” He called out three other companies, and Thad stumbled along, keeping his head down as Wickham led the way through the curtain of smoke.

“There’s Jackson!” Thad heard Mark Winslow cry out, and looked up to see a small church, the ground about it littered with bodies of both Confederate and Union dead and wounded. “They’re coming across that cornfield, Captain!” Mark shouted, and then waved the men forward, “Company A—come on!”

Thad ran across the broken field until he heard Captain Wickham shout, “Form line of battle!”

Thad fell into the line not ten feet from where a Confederate officer stood watching the Yankees threading their way
through the green field of corn. The man seemed as calm as if he had nothing to do with the affair. Then he turned and his pale blue eyes fell on Wickham, who identified himself. “Captain Wickham, Third Virginia, General Jackson.”

Jackson nodded and waved toward the cornfield. Thad was amazed to see that he held a lemon in his hand! “Have your men stop those people, Captain.”

Thad stared at the legendary leader, but there was no time to waste, for Wickham, along with Beauchamp and Winslow, was urging the men to action. Thad lifted his rifle, fired, and saw a blue coat drop like a bundle in the midst of the corn. As he reloaded, he heard the whine of minie balls in the air, and flinched. Then he fired again, but just as he stopped to reload, he saw Captain Wickham fall to the ground. “Keep firing!” Wickham shouted. “I’m all right!” He got to his feet and limped along the line, favoring his left leg, where a ball had cut through the flesh of his calf.

The Yankees faced a terrible fire, leaning against it as men will do against a hard, driving wind. As the men in front fell to the ground, those in the rear stepped over them and pressed on toward the church. The barrel of Thad’s musket grew hot, and Dooley shook his head, shouting above the din, “Ain’t they no end to them boys, Thad? Never seen so many Yankees.”

The Confederates were not untouched, for the approaching Yankees fired as they came. Thad saw Les Satterfield, Dooley’s cousin, take a ball in the face, destroying his features. Dooley paused to stare at him, then resumed firing with a new fury. Gaps began to appear in the line, and Wickham walked among the company, calmly directing their fire. Thad saw that the captain’s left arm was dripping blood, and he held it away to keep his uniform clean. He stopped beside Thad and said, “Hot work!”

“Sir, let me tie up that arm.”

“No! Let’s get those Yankees back on the other side of
the creek and then we’ll take care of that. Keep firing! Keep firing!” he called out as he walked away to Thad’s left.

The roar of battle swelled, and McLaw and Early arrived with reinforcements for Jackson and Hood’s thin line of defense, but fresh Union troops poured across the field; and there was no letup until nine o’clock, when the Union troops slowly retreated, leaving a bloody harvest of dead and wounded in the cornfield.

In the momentary lull, Thad and his comrades crowded around the well beside the church to assuage their parching thirst. Novak filled his canteen and went back to the line, where he discovered one of his friends, Leroy Johnson, lying with a shattered leg. He knelt down and gave him a drink, saying, “I’ll get you to the ambulance, Leroy.”

“Oh, good God!” Johnson burst out weeping. “They’ve killed me!” Thad was struggling to lift him up when Mellon appeared. “Let me have him,” Studs said. He picked up the man easily and Thad went with him, finding the ambulance behind a grove of trees. Mellon put the injured man into the covered vehicle, and the two went back toward the line.

“Glad you made it all right, Studs,” Thad told him. “We must have lost a fourth of the company.”

“Well—I’m glad you didn’t catch one, Thad,” Mellon replied. He seemed to be struggling with something. After a moment he said with some embarrassment, “I done it.”

Thad glanced at him puzzled. “You did
what?
”

“I—I asked God to save me—just like you did.” He grinned self-consciously. “And He done it, too!”

“Hey, that’s great!” Thad cried, giving Mellon a hard blow to his shoulder. “I sure am glad for you, Studs.”

“You reckon I could get baptized, Thad?” Mellon asked. “In the creek. My ma, she always prayed for me to be baptized.”

“Well, it might be pretty hard to find a chaplain—but we’ll see.”

They got back to the line, and just as they did, a crackle
of musket fire broke out to their right. Captain Wickham yelled, “Come on, men!” They followed him back over the ground they had traversed earlier, and found General D. H. Hill and his group of Confederates in a sunken road under a furious attack. “We’ll make a line behind that sunken road!” Wickham shouted. He raised his bandaged arm and waved them into position, and for the next two hours the most savage fighting of the entire war took place. Again and again the blue-clad soldiers charged the trench, falling by entire rows as the Confederates raked them from their well-protected position. But slowly the weight of the heavy Union divisions enfiladed the lane, enabling them to pour a deadly barrage on Hill’s embattled troops from each end of the lane.

The toll was costly. Finally, Major Lee said, “There’re not enough men in Hill’s command to take another charge, Captain Wickham—and we don’t have enough here to stand it, either.”

“We’ve lost it all if the Yankees come at our position now,” Wickham agreed, and the two men stood there braced for the attack that would wipe them out—and perhaps the Southern Confederacy as well—but it never came. Once again, McClellan was unable to give the order to send his main force into action.

Slowly the crisis passed, and Thad looked around, saying to Dooley, “I don’t reckon we lost any of the boys in our company—but those poor fellows in that trench sure took it on the chin.”

Wickham called his lieutenants aside. “We’d better move back to help defend the bridge. I have a feeling things are going to get hot there.” His thin face was pale and his voice weak as he added, “The Yankees have tried the left flank and the center—I’ve got a feeling Burnside will make a big move to cross that bridge.”

“If he does,” Beauchamp replied gloomily, “he can sweep to his right and have us flanked.” Then he studied Wickham’s
face and said with concern, “You’d better get those wounds taken care of, sir. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“Later. Take the men back to their position.”

“Yes, sir.”

Beauchamp walked away with Mark. “I don’t like Vance’s look,” Beau remarked. “Remember how General Johnston died at Shiloh from a wound in his leg just like Vance has?”

“You’re right, Beau,” Mark frowned. “I’ll get Major Lee to order him to the rear.”

But such was not to be, for as they made their way back to the bridge, a spattering of firing broke out, increasing in such volume that it nearly broke their eardrums. “It’s started!” Beau yelled. “Double time, men!”

They stumbled back with lungs on fire, and as they reached Lieutenant Winslow’s line he called out, “Sergeant! Take five men and scout the riverbanks! They may be trying to cross here!”

Tom yelled, “Thad, you and Dooley come with me—and Taylor and French!”

Thad joined the small group, plunging recklessly through scrub oak and tall willows until they reached the river. “Careful!” Tom whispered. “You can bet they have sharpshooters posted just for folks like us.”

They moved more cautiously along the bank, searching the opposite shore and the ridge behind it for signs of the enemy, but saw none.

“What’s that up ahead?’ Thad whispered.

“Looks like a cabin of some kind,” Tom answered, peering through the brush. “Walk carefully—and don’t shoot any civilians.”

They found a half-built log cabin right on the bank of the Antietam with a number of huge freshly cut logs lying beside it, ready to be lifted. “Nobody here,” Dooley said, and they advanced along the bank to where it made a wide bend. Tom was leading the way, then stopped abruptly and moved back.
“Bridge is just around the bend—and it looks as if there’re about ten thousand men trying to cross it.”

“Could you see our bunch?” Thad asked.

“No. But we’ll get to ’em if we cut through these woods to the right.”

They fought their way through the thickets, emerging a hundred yards to the left of the main Confederate force. “Keep your heads down!” Tom warned. “We’ve got to get back in the middle of the line. I see a big gap there.”

They ran across the broken ground, falling into place behind some logs, and began firing. The bridge was crowded, as Tom Winslow had said. Blue-clad men jostled each other and were cut down before they could get off. Thad wondered what kind of an officer would send men across to certain death from the blistering fire they ran into, but he had no time to speculate, for the gray ranks were thin and every gun was needed. He continued firing, and for the next half hour a gargantuan struggle took place, with terrific losses on both sides.

Thad discovered he was out of ammunition, and moved forward to the body of a dead infantryman. The air seemed to be full of lead, and he felt a sudden stinging sensation on the right side of his neck, then a warmth as blood trickled down under his collar. He gathered a small supply of powder and balls, and from that point sent his fire across the creek, but he soon had to find more ammunition.

He kept his head down and moved to his left, where a small cluster of bodies provided more powder and balls. The dust at his feet exploded as several balls thudded into the ground, and he threw himself behind a small mound, gasping with the effort. He loaded while lying down, poked his head up, and flung up his rifle for a quick shot.

As he reloaded, he looked around for Dooley, but could not find him. After ten more minutes, he heard a shrill cry from a soldier in front of him, “They’re backin’ off!” Thad looked quickly at the bridge and saw that it was true—for the
third time that day the Yankees were routed. He joined in the fierce rebel cry and sent a final shot at the retreating enemy.

But there was still a continuous fire raking the Confederates from the determined Yankees who had taken station in a grove of trees a hundred yards from the creek. The Union men could not advance any closer, for the ground was open and it was certain death to cross it. The situation on his side of the river was about the same, Thad saw—the open field was littered with bodies of Confederates.

The firing slowed down, but never stopped. Most of his company was out of ammunition, and Thad called out to Lew Avery, “Hey, Lew, you got any powder?”

“No. And we better get some quick,” the ex-gambler said grimly. “If they come at us again, we’ll have nothing but bayonets.”

Thad snaked his way along to his left until he came to Lieutenant Beauchamp. “Lieutenant, most of us are out of ammunition.”

Beauchamp stared at Thad, his lips contorted. “I just sent Tom for some—but the word is that we’re to move out as soon as we can do it.”

“Let them have the bridge?”

“No choice.” His face was red with anger, and he waved his arm in an abrupt gesture. “Am I supposed to leave Major Lee down there? I
won’t
do it!”

“Major Lee?” Thad asked, and then as he looked down toward the stream, he saw through the smoke a dead horse not ten feet from the bank. Straining his eyes, Thad recognized a gray uniform—an officer’s. “Is—is he dead, sir?”

“No!” Beauchamp exclaimed. “He’s hit, but he’s alive. Even if he weren’t wounded, he couldn’t move. No man could cross that open space without taking a dozen balls.”

Thad stood there, struck dumb, but finally asked, “How’d he get down there, Lieutenant?”

“The Yankees broke through and Lee led a group down to repulse them. I tried to pull him back, but he spurred away.
They broke the Yankee’s charge—but most of our soldiers didn’t make it back.”

“We can’t leave him, can we, Lieutenant?”

Beauchamp’s face was dark with anger. “How can we get him, Novak? We’ve lost half our company—and if we tried to send a force down, the men would be cut to shreds before they even reached him—much less got him back.” He gritted his teeth in determination, then ordered, “Move down the line and have the men get all the ammunition they can from the dead. Maybe the Yankees will move off and we can try it.”

Thad could see that Lieutenant Beauchamp entertained no real hope of success, but the corporal did as he was ordered. He stealthily moved to the end of the line where the creek curved sharply, giving Beauchamp’s order, then made his way back.

As he returned, a thought flashed through his mind, which he dismissed as fanatical. But by the time he reached Beauchamp, with Captain Wickham beside him, Thad made a decision.

“I passed the word along, sir,” he informed him.

“We’re pulling out in half an hour,” Wickham spoke up. “Orders from General Longstreet.”