The Fateful Lightning

by Jeff Shaara

  When the order was passed by General Mitchell, Franklin had jumped in to help, had long known how to handle the heavy axe. With the roar of the fighting keeping off to the left, the men of Mitchell’s brigade had taken advantage of the quiet to their front, had attacked the tree line for the cover it could offer. Already a hundred or more trees had been felled, a snaking line of timber now providing protection. Franklin felt the same aching weariness he could see on the sergeant’s face, tried to ignore the ongoing fight he couldn’t see, the sky far to the left of the line a thick haze of gray smoke. He stretched his back, saw Jones now, on horseback, the adjutant, Hartmann staying close to him, as though their horses were glued together.

  “Good! If they come, we’ll be ready. The whole line is strong, I promise you that! Nobody’s running over this regiment, nor anyone around us.”

  A man came stumbling from the trees, exhausted, one hand in the air. “Colonel! The Illinois boys say something’s happening. There’s drums starting up.”

  Franklin stared that way, still nothing to see, but he heard it now, a slow, steady cadence, a low rumble now passing through the men around him. Jones called out, “Get into position! Prepare to receive the enemy!”

  The men scrambled to fall in behind the ragged log wall, muskets coming up. Franklin stood, paralyzed, stared at the tree line, ached to see what was coming, what they would look like. He felt the horse up behind him now, and Jones said, “Mr. Franklin, you had best settle in behind these logs. Could be a storm of lead blowing past you in a few minutes.”

  Franklin looked at him, saw fear, something new. Beside Jones, Hartmann was staring out as well, seemed to quiver in every part of his body.

  “Sir, shouldn’t we get down?”

  Jones eyed the trees, said, “No. Our place is back behind these works. Stay on your horse. We need to keep tight against the 108, so stay close, and pay attention to anything I tell you. The 16th Illinois is to our right. Can’t have any gaps there, either.” Jones looked at Franklin again, seemed suddenly concerned. “Mr. Franklin, I didn’t mean to put you in the middle of something like this. I appreciate all you’ve done.”

  Franklin stepped up and over the log pile, sat down in soft dirt, his eyes on Jones. He felt suddenly very cold, the fear of the moment building inside him. “You didn’t do nothing to me I didn’t ask for.”

  “Maybe. We’ll decide that later. Get down, stay low. There’s nothing for you to peek at. That’s how a ball finds you. These boys know what to do. You don’t. So I’m telling you, keep your head down in these logs. If a rebel runs over you, just let him go.”

  Captain Gorman was close by, said, “Sir? All the same to me, you can put a musket in this boy’s hands. I’ll take every man I can get.”

  Jones said nothing, his eyes staring hard toward the trees. The drums were louder now, and Franklin tried to obey the colonel’s orders, knelt low, put his face down into a dark gap in the logs. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, an icy lump in his gut, his fingers flexing with the nervousness. Men were calling out around him now, Captain Gorman, the gravelly voice of Sergeant Knight, “The skirmishers are coming! Get ready, boys!”

  Franklin had to see, a fierce argument with himself, wouldn’t disobey the colonel. But this was all new, every piece of it, and he raised his head slowly, peered through a small gap in the logs, his vision blocked by thickets of briars, low brush. The sounds came closer, the crash of men running, moving up toward him, his heart leaping in his chest. But they were wearing blue, coming in through the brush and brambles in a mad scamper toward the line. There was no shooting, the men stumbling closer, and Franklin was confused, thought, They ain’t rebels a’tall. The men reached the log works, climbed over in breathless exhaustion, settled down among the men from Ohio, excited voices all along the logs.

  “They’s a pile of ’em!”

  “Whole dang reb army!”

  Beside Franklin, Knight said, “Boy, you’re about to find out what the fun’s all about.”

  Franklin kept his eyes focused between the logs, realized the line had fallen silent, no sound but the distant drums. The men around him seemed to be frozen, every man sitting still, musket perched on a log, no one speaking at all. There were voices, but far away, down in the trees, and Franklin wanted to stand up, to see, glanced down the line, everyone else down like he was. Best stay right here, he thought. Colonel said keep down. He knows more than you do.

  The voices were growing louder now, blending with the steady rhythm of the drums. Now, a new sound, a high-pitched scream, the tree line seeming to erupt into some kind of demonic hell. Franklin kept his face down, tried to pray, anything he could recall, begging God for anything, his entire body shaking from the terror. The scream grew louder, all across the trees, far down where the other regiments were, a great wave rolling toward them all. He put his hands over his ears, tried to make it go away, closed his eyes, the sounds still piercing through him. He wanted to run, to escape, thought suddenly of the Sunday school lessons, the devil, the stories to terrify a small boy, terrifying him now. He dared to open his eyes, looked to the side, expected fire, flames engulfing the men, but still they sat perched behind the logs, quiet, waiting for whatever hell the rebels were bringing them. He watched Knight, the man twitching, and just beyond Knight, Captain Gorman, a pistol in Gorman’s hand. Knight sighted down the musket, and Franklin looked again through the logs, nothing, brush and briars, the screaming closer still. And then a new voice, close by, a single word, “Fire!”

  The log works came alive with the shattering blast from the muskets, smoke blowing straight forward into the thickets. Franklin felt deafened, put his hands on his ears, looked toward Knight, saw a musket handed to him from behind, Knight aiming again, the musket firing one more time. All along the logs, the men continued to fire their muskets, the men in position just behind them reloading, a continuous process, the men closest to the logs taking aim, firing, handing the muskets back. Franklin tried to see the targets, the smoke now filling the gaps in the brush, his face pushing against the opening in the logs, straining to see, eyes watering from the stink of the smoke. His ears felt stuffed with cotton, the hard crack of the muskets a steady roar, and he ached to stand, to see what they were shooting at, but the colonel’s words kept him low. He felt the terror leaving him, his courage coming from the men around him, no one panicking, just doing the job, the muskets still firing, the men working together. He wanted to shoot a musket himself, had seen it done, watched Knight, the others, aim, pulling the hammer back, careful, pulling the trigger, the hard jerk against their shoulders. I can do this, he thought. I can be just like them! This is what it is to be a soldier. God bless them!

  And then, another order, his ears barely picking it up, the men repeating it down the lines, the men obeying, the shooting suddenly stopping. He put his hands on his ears, pulled them away, not much difference, coughed through the smoke, felt a sudden hard slap on his shoulder, Sergeant Knight.

  “Hah! They’re pulling back! We did it, boy! We drove ’em away!”

  Men were cheering all around Franklin, muskets held high, hats waving, the smoke clearing. Men began to rise, and Franklin uncurled himself from behind the logs, tried to stand, his knees weak, still the shaking in his legs. He pulled himself up, hands holding unsteadily to the top log, could see out through the brush. The smoke was nearly gone, the men around him still calling out, some cursing the rebels, taunts and cheers. He could see the brush clearly, realized it was flattened, pressed down by a vast carpet of bodies. He stared, mouth open, saw men moving slowly, some crawling, some just shaking, an arm, a head rising up, falling back into the briars. He tried to absorb what he was seeing, a man a few feet in front of him, splayed out facedown, arms and legs wide, and now Franklin saw the blood.

  “Hey, boy, that was something, huh?”

  Franklin ignored the voice, his eyes still on the dripping red, the man raised slightly above the ground by the crush of thin briars beneath him
. Franklin saw the man’s musket, standing upright at an angle, caught by the brush, and he was suddenly afraid, wondered if the man would reach for it, might still try to fight.

  “Is he dead?”

  No one answered him, the voice seeming to hide in his throat. Men were talking, jubilant, and Franklin still watched the blood, said again, louder, “Is he dead? This un, right here!”

  “You damn right he’s dead. Got him square in the chest. He was coming right for you, too, darkie! I sent him straight to hell!”

  Franklin looked to his right, saw a toothy smile, a man he didn’t really know. Franklin didn’t know what to say, thought, Why would he come for me? I couldn’t hurt him.

  The cheers began again, aimed back behind him, and he turned, saw Colonel Jones on the horse, the color bearer beside him.

  “Up and over! Search those men for cartridges! They’ll come again, you can count on that. There’s still a fight out across the road. Get to it! Up and over!”

  The men obeyed, scrambling up across the logs, a rush into the flattened briars. Franklin looked at Jones, caught his eye now, and Jones moved the horse closer.

  “Hell of a thing, Mr. Franklin. They kept in formation right up to us. Must not have seen much of us through all that brush. I waited long as I could, and when that first volley went out, they just melted. Took out their whole first line! They stood it longer than I’d have thought. But those are North Carolina boys. They’ll be back.”

  Franklin saw concern on the colonel’s face, none of the cheerfulness of the men. “I didn’t never see ’em.”

  “Not much to see. Too much smoke. But they know where we are. There might be artillery out past those trees. You hear a whistle, you drop down.”

  Franklin felt suddenly exhausted, leaned against the logs, Jones’s attention caught by something farther down the line. He spurred the horse, the color bearer in tow, was gone quickly. Franklin looked that way, saw another of the officers, horses and colors, looked out toward the open ground now. The men were scurrying through the downed rebels like so many blue mice, rolling men over, hands into pockets, unbuckling belts, grabbing cartridge boxes. There were cries, and Franklin saw wounded rebels, more blood, men in blue seeming to ignore that, searching for cartridges, the colonel’s order. Muskets were picked up as well, men returning to the logs, climbing up, one man handing Franklin a pair of muskets.

  “Take good care of these, boy. We done about melted ours, shot ’em so many times. Barrels as hot as a coffeepot!”

  “Here, I’ll take those.”

  Franklin saw Gorman, red-faced, his hand extended, and Franklin obeyed, giving up the muskets. The captain moved away, and Franklin looked back down toward the trees, could see the soldiers carrying all manner of weapons and gear. Farther down, some of the men in blue were dragging rebel wounded away, down closer to the trees, and Franklin saw Gorman again, said, “Where they takin’ those boys?”

  “Closer to the reb line. Make it easier for them to claim their own. We might need a white flag come sundown. Both sides fetching their wounded. Or maybe not. Rather have those fellows farther away from us.”

  Franklin had no idea what Gorman meant…white flag…but Gorman was moving quickly, calling out to the men, orders to return to the logs. Franklin knew when to keep quiet, could feel the raw seriousness in every man around him. Sergeant Knight stepped up through the briars, climbed over the logs, a half-dozen belts draped over his arm.

  “Damn rebels didn’t have near what we could use. This’ll do, though. Lookee here. Got me a good knife.” Knight held out the blade, broad, shining, the handle from a deer’s antler.

  “Can I see it, sir?”

  “Sure. Don’t cut yourself. Rebs know how to sharpen a knife, I’ll say that for ’em. Ain’t much on ducking, though. They left behind a pile.” Knight paused. “Tell you what. You hang on to that thing until I need it. A man oughta have something to defend himself with. No telling what these rebels got left. I’d teach you to shoot a musket, but there ain’t time nor cartridges for that.”

  “THE BULL PEN,” NEAR BENTONVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA—MARCH 19, 1865

  The rebels had come again, more carefully this time, slow and methodical, the men in blue behind the logs taking full advantage of their cover. The results were the same, a brutal firestorm where the Federal soldiers had every advantage. For Franklin, the curiosity had been overwhelmed by the sounds of the musket balls, the logs in front of him slapped and splintered as the rebels made a more determined effort to shoot their way through. But the defensive position all across the two brigades of Morgan’s division was too strong, the rebels finally pulling away again.

  As the sun began to set, the officers had gathered, Morgan coming forward himself, Mitchell and Vandever laying out in detail everything they had seen, concern even greater now that the men might not have the ammunition to withstand another assault.

  —

  The soldiers huddled low, as they had done before, the men now dirtier, sweating, the stink of powder in their clothes. The logs were still the best protection they had, but even then, there had been wounds. Franklin had been put to work by Captain Gorman, assisting a corporal named Jasper, carrying the injured men back away from the logs.

  He knelt low beside the wounded man, watched as a dirty strip of white cloth was wrapped around the man’s arm, the man mumbling something, fear in his words. The corporal said, “Here, Smitty. Drink this.”

  Jasper eased a small flask to the man’s quivering lips, the liquid flowing slowly into the man’s mouth.

  Franklin said, “What’s that?”

  “Whiskey. Won’t cure nothing, but he’ll feel better.”

  The corporal stood, and Franklin looked up at him, said, “Ain’t nothing else we can do?”

  “Not out here. There’s ambulances back there somewhere. Stretcher bearers will fetch him when they can.”

  Jasper moved away, back to the logs, and Franklin stood, looked out over the wounded, a dozen men, pulled together from all down the line. He stared to the right, what the colonel said was Vandever’s men, saw colors, men on horses, more wounded men spread out across open ground.

  The fight above the road had continued, no one around Franklin seeming to pay that much heed to that. He left the wounded man, walked back to the logs, saw blood on his hands, wiped that on his pants. But much of it had dried, the red under his fingernails now a dirty brown. He wiped again, felt sick at that, stared at it. Knight was there, eating a piece of hardtack, said, “Don’t worry about that. As long as it ain’t yours. You get used to it.”

  Franklin sat against the logs, and Knight pulled out another cracker, handed it to him.

  “Thank you most kindly, sir.”

  “You do this enough, you get used to the blood. It don’t ever seem to go away. Every pair of brogans in this regiment’s got blood on ’em somewheres. Maybe the swamp water washes ’em.”

  Franklin gnawed on the hardtack, realized now he was ravenously hungry. He saw a smear from his hands on the dull white cracker, stopped, held the cracker out away from him. “Ain’t seen blood like this…once. My papa done lost his foot to a tracking hound.”

  “Good God. When?”

  “Don’t know. I was small. Years, I s’pose. Ain’t never cried so much in my whole life.”

  “Where’s he at now?”

  “Master Cobb’s. Wouldn’t come with me. Old, I guess. Maybe a little crazy. Stubborn, for sure.”

  “Back in Georgia. Yeah, I remember that place. Cobb’s some big shot. Well, he ain’t no more.”

  Franklin chewed again on the hardtack, his hunger overcoming the uneasiness from the dried blood. “Never thought of that. He was a rich man, for sure. Governor and all. Not sure what that means, ’cept lots of people come by the house. All fancy wagons, fancy people. I didn’t never go in there. They’d have whipped me good.”

  “What about now?”

  Franklin looked at him. “What you mean?”

  “
I mean that fellow Cobb. He’s nothing to nobody now. This war ends, he won’t have any slaves. Not much you can do with all that land if you got nobody to do the work. My papa had a farm, just north of Cincinnati. The war comes, and he loses all his workers. Lost me, too. Rather do this than follow a mule.”

  Franklin was surprised, had no idea any of these soldiers knew anything about the land. “I like it. Working the ground, I mean. Cotton comes up, small little plants, it’s like the world done being born again. Corn grows up same way. Used to crawl out in the field when I was little. The overseers wouldn’t pay me no mind. I’d go out week after week, and wait for the corn to get taller than me. But I got taller, too. All that went away. Learned to be scared of the dogs. The overseers, too. They didn’t mind a colored child playing. A colored man, that’s different. Time to work.”

  “You ain’t gotta worry ’bout none of that. The president done freed all you folks, all the darkies. You can go anyplace you want to, I guess.”

  Franklin still looked at Knight, thought, Why’s he talking to me?

  “I didn’t think you paid no mind to us people. Some of the soldiers made it plain they don’t want none of us around.”

  “Well, I gotta say. You’re the first darkie I ever really knew. If it hadn’t been for the colonel, I doubt you’d be here at all. He likes you, says you’re a good worker. Says you’re smart. Never heard no one talk about any of you folks like that. I like the colonel. Been with him since the beginning, since Camp Dennison. Nearly three years now. He says to watch out for you, I’ll do it. Captain Gorman seems to like you, too.”

  “I like the colonel just fine. Ain’t never met a white man didn’t spit on me first, then talk. Got a fist in my face every now and again. Didn’t know there was white men any other way.”

  “Oh, we got a few. I’ve seen plenty of meanness in this army. You remember that idiot Dunlap? Dug up that colored baby? But it’s not just that. You see those wounded men you helped? Some of them were just plain stupid. Man stands up in a storm of volleys, just ’cause he wants to get a clear shot. Thinks he’s bulletproof. I’ve seen heads taken off. Those fellows back there, they’re lucky. Might only lose an arm. Just ’cause a man’s a soldier don’t mean he’s any smarter than a man who pushes a plow. You don’t forget that.”