A Chain of Thunder

by Jeff Shaara

  In the first thirty minutes, the Federal attack was crushed to a halt, and those men who could obey the order to retreat did so willingly. But the fury in the soldiers had spread to the generals, and by early afternoon, the orders had come, attack again, another massed assault against the earthworks that no one seemed to know how to breach. The soft soil had absorbed much of the Federal artillery fire, and in many places the ground was simply too steep for the men in blue to climb. In those places where the rebel works were more accessible, the firepower behind was strongest, and so any attempt by Federal troops to drive through the more forgiving fortifications was met by a storm of fire that no one on the Federal side could absorb for very long. As the afternoon passed, the Federal troops had no choice but to withdraw, some accomplishing the only victory they could, planting their colors against the sides of the rebel works.

  Even before nightfall, the Federal troops who huddled against the base of the earthen walls were called away, a mad scramble back through the same difficult barriers they had crossed, back across the narrow patches of open ground to the safety of the closest ravine.

  He sat again, near the same place he had left his backpack, the coffee cup still stained with the remnants from that morning. Around him, men did the same, some nursing wounds, a doctor slipping through them, checking bandages, searching for anyone who required aid. Bauer stared into nothing, the stink of the smoke still in him, the sight of that carpet of blue, sickeningly familiar, dozens of men down, some of the wounded making their way into any kind of cover, some crawling back to the ravine. The musket fire was confined mainly to sharpshooters on both sides, a duel that had become a game, carefully hidden men on both sides seeking any glimpse at all of the careless. The musket fire from across the way had one purpose Bauer tried to ignore, but the cries of the wounded were everywhere, one man no more than fifty yards above Bauer now. The man screamed mightily, asking for water, for any help at all, and Bauer tried not to hear, but the man’s voice was too vivid, reaching into him, into the others around him. There was low cursing, and Bauer saw Kelly stand, a hard shout now.

  “Stop it! We can’t get to you! Wait for dark! Bloody hell!”

  Willis was there and grabbed Kelly by the shirt collar.

  “That could be you! Sit down! We’re waiting for orders.”

  Bauer felt a punch from that, let out a shout of his own.

  “They gonna make us do that again?”

  Willis turned to him, no friendship in the glare, just hot words: “What if they do? You gonna run?”

  Bauer wanted to stand, energized by a growing fury of his own, Willis bowing up to meet him, fists coming up, but a horseman was there, then another.

  “Attention! Knock that off!”

  Willis dropped his hands, and Bauer saw him straighten, trying to regain some kind of decorum. Bauer saw Colonel McMahon, a staff officer close behind him, and coming toward them, the captain, more of the lieutenants.

  Willis ignored Bauer now and said with a strong exhale, “Orders, sir?”

  “Hell no. This day is done. They can hang me if they want. I’m not sending my boys into that fire again.” McMahon seemed to catch himself, the officers continuing to gather, waiting for more. After a long moment, he said, “General Grant wants to take that ground; let him lead the way.”

  Around Bauer, some men looked up, but others ignored the officers, few seeming to care what any colonel had to say, not even their own. The talk went on, and in every part of the field the officers were doing their jobs, messengers going out in all directions, reports and regrouping, organization and every other detail of command. Bauer ignored it all, stared down between his knees, had nothing left, a flicker of sadness for the men still out there, for his sudden anger at Willis. There would be mending for that, but not now. He rolled back onto the leaves, the shadows lengthening through the brushy ravine, and now the wounded man called out one more time, a hard, shrieking yell. Bauer pushed it away, fought the only fight he had left, pulling himself away from one more horror across a bloody piece of ground, and made a desperate search for that dark, quiet place.

  ONE QUARTER MILE NORTH OF STOCKADE REDAN

  MAY 23, 1863

  The day began with a soft cool rain, which seemed to silence both armies. But it was more than wetness that kept them quiet. The Federal forces had absorbed far more losses than Sherman ever expected to see, and no doubt the rebels were licking their wounds as well. With the rain came a pause, a chance for both armies to see to those who needed care, to reorganize and refit. As much as it galled Sherman to give the enemy any time at all, he understood the crushing reality that it was the men in blue who had been bloodied far worse than anything they had done to their foe.

  He had watched the assault from behind a cluster of trees no more than two hundred yards from the massive fortress the rebels called the Stockade Redan. With so much artillery fire beginning the attack, Sherman had believed that the way would be cleared, that no enemy defenses could stand up to so much shelling. But the soft earth that made up so much of the enemy’s defenses had absorbed most of that with comparative ease, and though Sherman could see some damage, it was mostly back behind, a few pieces of shattered rebel artillery, wagons destroyed, craters blown out of thick dirt walls. But none of the damage had been what he expected, nothing blown through the rebel defenses that anyone could describe as an opening. From his perch close to the rebels’ fortification, he had watched with utter helplessness as those first men charged across the open ground with ladders and axes, the critical seconds those men would need to drive across the wide ditches, to lay planks across the tangled thickets, to throw ladders up against the tall earthen walls. They were called the Forlorn Hope, a dismal name passed down through history, given to any group who would lead the way, who would make the first effort, not to fight, but to carve out the pathway, to do whatever was required so the bulk of the army behind them could do the job. Sherman’s Hope totaled one hundred fifty men, volunteers from several regiments, their bravado inspired first by the promise of a sixty-day leave. Sherman had wondered about that, if the army was such a miserable place that so many men would welcome a chance for a simple vacation, knowing that in return, the risk was enormous. It had to be more, he thought. It had to be a kind of badge of honor, something they hadn’t found in any of the fight so far. Some of them were misfits, perhaps, or men who had been shamed among their units for some indiscretion, the one singled out by the abusive sergeant, the one who spent too much time in the stockade. And so there could be redemption, the chance to prove worthiness, achieve instant heroics. All you had to do was survive. Or maybe not. There are dead heroes, too. A pile of them … right out there.

  Sherman stared at the rebel mounds, the wide ditch just in front littered with broken ladders and lumps of blue and black, what had been so much of his Forlorn Hope. All that artillery … all those shells. Has that ever worked? Even I believed they could make it. The enemy’s defenses should have been broken to pieces, and if we couldn’t knock down their walls, then sure as hell we would have sucked away their will to fight. They haven’t had much of that in a while. Until they got behind those fat piles of dirt.

  With the halt in the artillery barrage, he had stared hard through his field glasses, expectant, a hope of his own. But all I saw were busted-up artillery pieces, he thought. Someone’s good aim. That helped, no doubt. But the rebels … they knew it would stop, sooner or later. And so they huddled down in their dirt, and did what my men did: They just waited.

  Sherman had seen the first volley, the Forlorn Hope drawing wonderfully close to the enemy’s obstacles, the ladders on shoulders, excited, breathless men who were so close … and then the muskets had come up, a thousand rebels emerging from hidden places, far more than he had thought would be there, as though they knew just where the first wave would come.

  He stared through the misty rain at the rolling ground, blanketed with the bodies of his men, some of them from the Forlorn Hope, ma
ny more the men who followed. This was a bloody awful mess, he thought. And how much of it was my fault? Grant must know that, must know that we didn’t go in as one big fist. The damn colonels … what? We gave them coffee for breakfast and so they forgot there was supposed to be some kind of organization to this thing? How clear did I have to be?

  He tried to find the usual anger, but he felt drained, depressed, knew that if Grant was to find fault at all, it would start first with Sherman. The others, too. Maybe. He expected us to swing a hundred hammers at the same instant, and we told him we could. We set our damn watches, for God’s sake, every one of us with their minute hand in the same place. And so, when the cannons stop, my men stagger into this thing in bunches, scattered, ragged organization, regiments with no flank support, some of them not moving at all. He wanted to be angry at … someone. But it wasn’t one failure, a single idiot he could pluck from the camps, a tirade he could launch at one brigade commander, one regimental commander. It was all of us, he thought. And that means … it was me.

  “Sir! General Grant is approaching.”

  The staff had kept their distance, some knowing him well, not wanting to be within range of his wrath, others very aware that he was within musket range of rebel sharpshooters who could be watching this very spot. Sherman had thought of that, had kept close behind a fat oak tree, the same place he had watched the disaster unfold. But the rain offered just enough haze to disguise who he might be, this officer standing too close to be someone important. Right now, he didn’t feel important at all.

  Grant dismounted a dozen yards back behind a rise, then seemed to hesitate, Sherman watching him. Grant was frowning at him, hands on his hips, a cigar stuffed in his mouth.

  “Get back here, Sherman!”

  He moved without answering, a quick scamper up and over the sandy knoll, removed his hat, then slapped his thigh with it, dislodging a soaking of rainwater. He knew a salute was called for, Grant seeming to wait for that. The names were one thing, the stark informality that shocked most of the other generals. But this was still the army, and Sherman tossed up the salute. They stood silently, a strange awkwardness, Sherman feeling anxious, trying to read Grant’s mood, looked to one side, a cut tree stump.

  “Mind if we sit?”

  Grant shrugged, and Sherman moved that way, sat, regretted it immediately, the wetness driving up to his bottom. He still held the hat, ran the brim through his fingers, Grant keeping silent. After a moment, Sherman’s impatience got the best of him.

  “We’re supposed to learn from our mistakes, Grant. Nice fresh ones, too. These were only three days old. I can’t speak for the others … but this corps didn’t learn a damn thing. I look at those damn ladders out there, busted all to hell, a couple of ’em still up against those dirt walls. The rebels haven’t even bothered knocking them away.” He stopped, knew he was chattering, mindless nervousness. He looked up at Grant, who still held the same posture, no smoke from the wet cigar, barely a stub now.

  “At least you had ladders.”

  Sherman wasn’t sure what Grant meant, but there was no humor in the words, the spent cigar tossed away now. Sherman felt the burn of curiosity, fought against his need to keep his mouth shut.

  “Nobody else had ladders?”

  “I wouldn’t say nobody. There were some. A few made it to the enemy. Most didn’t … or somebody couldn’t find them to begin with. Too late to worry about that now.”

  Sherman felt the aching need for his own cigar, fought that, waited for more from Grant. He expected Grant to give him a serious blasting, but that wasn’t Grant’s way, at least not often. Grant stared out past him, seemed lost in thought, and Sherman heard the pop of a single musket, then a response, the sharpshooters playing their game. The silence was maddening, and Sherman stood again, paced, felt a surge of questions rising up. There were failures … everywhere? Everybody? Who? Was it as bad to the south?

  Grant looked at him, seemed to read him, and said, “This won’t work.”

  Sherman succumbed, pulled out a cigar, tried to light it, but the wetness had soaked through everything. He gave up, chewed it furiously, was increasingly nervous, his gut rolling over, the cigar chewed to mush in his mouth.

  “If it makes you feel any better, you weren’t the only one who didn’t get the job done.”

  Sherman pulled the mess of tobacco from his mouth, tossed it away, tried to be as casual as he could.

  “Who else?”

  “Everyone.”

  Sherman was puzzled now.

  “But you were right here with me when McClernand sent word.… He said he grabbed a big slice of the rebel works, broke clean through. Was he pushed back?”

  Grant put his hands on his hips again, glanced back toward the gathered staff officers, stepped closer to Sherman, and lowered his voice.

  “I rode down there as quick as I could. Well, you know that. Had to see it for myself. That’s why we ordered the second charge. Well, you know that, too. He told me he opened a breach. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when someone opens a breach? Shove through it? Take every advantage? I’m pretty sure there’s a textbook at West Point that says something about that. But all I saw down that way was a couple of regimental colors stuck in the dirt. His men made some good progress near the railroad cut, but they couldn’t hold it long, and they left a good many of their number behind when the enemy drove them back. Whatever McClernand ‘captured’ was in his mind. There were brigade commanders down there wondering why we were going in a second time. I heard plenty of that. Too much of it. We had colonels and captains who knew more about what we should have been doing than all the generals in this army!”

  Grant’s voice had risen, the disgust obvious, a show of rage Grant tried to clamp down, another self-conscious glance back toward the staffs. Sherman had thought McClernand’s breakthrough might have been the one genuine success on the field, had actually convinced a skeptical Grant that it might be true. As Grant had ridden away, Sherman had to digest what was immediately a huge bitter pill, that McClernand might have exaggerated his success, something to make him even more insufferable than he was now. But … there was no breakthrough at all?

  After a long moment, Grant said, “McPherson did no better. He’s pretty hot. The man knows something about engineering, after all, and even he couldn’t find his ladders. Not sure who to blame for that. I’ll leave that to him. But he took a pile of casualties. Well, we all did.” Grant paused. “As I said, this won’t work.” He glanced back again to his staff, and Sherman saw Charles Dana, the one civilian among a cluster of officers. Grant lowered his voice again. “Washington will get the reports of this. I’m not waiting for a reply. Not even waiting for the secretary to compose his letter. There was always the option of going into a siege. I didn’t want to go that way.… I didn’t think we’d have to. But I was wrong. And if I don’t admit that, Secretary Dana will do it for me.”

  Sherman knew that Grant hated the idea of a siege, that even behind their heavy defensive works, the rebels weren’t likely to make a stand, might not fight at all.

  He thought of the map, which he knew at least as well as Grant did.

  “If you order us to pen him up,” Sherman said, “it has to work. There’s nowhere for Pemberton to go. Not up this way, for certain. I’m anchored on the riverbank out here. And Porter’s not letting anybody cross that river.” He stopped, knew the other flank couldn’t be his concern. At least not out loud.

  Grant nodded; once again he knew what Sherman was thinking.

  “McClernand’s in the process of extending his lines down to the river, and we’ve got reinforcements headed this way who can complete that job. You’re right. Maybe the first time in a week. Once he’s penned up, Pemberton’s got nowhere else to go.”

  Sherman absorbed the insult silently, grateful that was as far as Grant wanted to go. But it only meant Grant was holding a good deal more inside, just Grant’s way. Sherman glanced up, the rain a steady drizzle.
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  “What about the casualties? We pulled some of the wounded back last night. But in this country, the heat will be back pretty quick. We need to pull in as many of the bodies as we can.”

  “When I say so.”

  Sherman was surprised by Grant’s response.

  “The smell’s gonna get pretty strong.”

  “Yep. When I say so.”

  Sherman didn’t know what else to say, but unless Grant ordered it, he wasn’t going to risk any more of his men to any sharp-eyed rebels. Grant looked back toward his staff.

  “I’m going back to my headquarters,” he said. “Secretary Dana seems a bit uncomfortable. So am I. And not from this weather.” He paused. “I truly believed we’d be in Vicksburg by now. Instead we’ve handed the enemy a major boost in their morale. Well, Sherman, we broke ’em once, we’ll break ’em again. Call your senior commanders together. I’ll send word to McPherson and McClernand to do the same. I want it made clear. Tonight, we bring up every wagon load of digging tools we’ve got. The enemy knows he’s given us a hard punch in the face, but Pemberton has to know we’re not going anywhere. That will be very clear to that Pennsylvanian by tomorrow morning. Who’s your chief engineer?”

  “Captain Comstock.”

  “Right. Put him to work.”

  A musket fired close by, adding to the distant fire scattered all down through the lines. Grant seemed to hear that for the first time.

  “I’m not going to have us sitting out here picking at each other. Every damn one of the West Pointers in this army knows something about engineering, including you. If this is going to be a siege, it’s going be an active one. I want artillery to raise Cain every day, and I’ll make sure Porter’s gunboats do the same. If Mr. Dana wants to write letters, he can send one upriver to Memphis that I’m ordering every available regiment west of the mountains to roll in here and beef up our strength. In the meantime, we’ll start digging ditches of our own, and shove them closer to the enemy as quick as we can.”