“Johnny, I . . . I’m, uhm, sorry I . . .” Philip struggled to get out.
“Shut up, Philip,” Johnny said. “You bein’ in the line wouldn’t have kept Sammy from fallin’ out. You bein’ there didn’t keep Mule from drownin’ neither.”
Philip nodded and drew in a deep breath. “You come out of this, don’t make me go back home to tell your Pa he’s lost a son.”
Philip held out his hand, and Johnny took it in both of his with a hearty shake.
“You stay well behind the line, Chaplain. You findin’ too many ways to get in front. I want my sister’s children to have an uncle other than me one day. You keep your brother safe too, along them lines. He needs to get back home to marry her, an’ you supposed to be the one that does the ceremony.” Johnny gave Philip a hug as he finished.
A commotion stirred the two men from reminiscence as the Round Forest came alive with movement. Captain Bacon appeared and did a double take in the midst of passing on a warning to fall in on the other side of the forest.
“Pearson? What are you doing here?”
“Captain,” Philip replied as he stood and started to salute out of habit. “Came in from the fields out there.”
“Well, the regiment is pulling out of the trees and falling back. Rosecrans is establishing a new line. We’re being relieved and leaving a thin picket line in the trees.”
Philip hadn’t seen George Bacon since after Shiloh—he had been absent during the move on Corinth and Philip’s discharge to the chaplaincy.
“I have to find the 21st Ohio. Was just lucky we was holding these trees and not the Rebels,” Philip replied.
“Rest of the army is all drawn up along the railroad embankment and beyond it,” Bacon said. “Rebels got in behind us yesterday nearabouts and nearly gained the pike in force. Bragg bludgeoned himself attacking us here, but we held. Expect the Rebels to hit us again at first light, so the brigade is pulling back and regrouping. We was separated and attached to Hazen’s brigade and have held this spot since dark. Army’s all disorganized and in a hell of a state.”
Even though Philip was of nominally equal rank to Bacon, he couldn’t help thinking of the man as his commander. Philip had never felt much like an officer, and he’d forgotten that he was one when he found Johnny. He was still a pard, not a superior.
“Think you’ll find Miller’s brigade to our right,” Bacon said as the two emerged from the trunks to see the remnants of the 24th Ohio spread out in regiment formation. “We lost near one hundred men yesterday.”
Philip noted how small each company looked, even in the uncertain light of a cloudy and low-moonlit early morning.
“We was surrounded and had to fight our way out. Don’t know how the command fared,” Philip said.
“Godspeed, Chaplain,” Bacon said and offered Philip his hand. He quickly shook Philip’s hand before leaving him to himself, off to see to his company. The regiment soon marched off in column, and Philip followed some paces behind, lost in his thoughts. The loss of Samuel Henson was a terrible blow.
As he watched the 24th march away, he was struck by what he missed most of all from his time as a private soldier: camaraderie. He’d stood and fought for his pards and they the same. Being an officer had its perks, but the fellowship wasn’t the same. That’s what he’d been trying to tell Johnny and the guilt he’d been carrying ever since he’d left them. He’d broken up the pards.
After some minutes Philip found that he’d been staring at the ground. Looking up, he was surrounded by men, cannon, and teams of horses and wagons. He had arrived in their midst as if from a long desert trek into an oasis of trees and teeming wildlife. Regiments and brigades were drawn up, and men everywhere were stirring from slumber, falling in on their musket stacks and preparing for what was to come. Philip peeled off from trailing the 24th Ohio and waded into the sea of light-blue overcoats and stomping horseflesh. Somewhere in this gathered humanity was his regiment. Somewhere too was his brother.
The telltale sounds of hundreds of marching feet and clanging equipment surrounded him, though the darkness hid them from sight. With regiments pulling back, he had little hope of locating the 21st Ohio or the 3rd Battalion Pioneers here. Resigned to waiting until light, he moved off in the direction the 24th had taken. Striking the Nashville pike, he found a gruesome line of dead, laid out as if awaiting burial. He bent over to get a closer look and saw that not all were dead; some were still alive. It was a long line.
Crouching along, Philip moved from man to man, looking hard at each face. The corpses were easy to identify: mouths open, hands gnarled, bodies displaying beginnings of stiffening. Those men who were unconscious lay more loosely or were twitching now and again. It was one of these that drew Philip’s attention as he crept along. He gasped and froze, his heart a beating lump in his throat and his limbs frozen in sudden fright.
“Paul!” Philip croaked.
Chapter 20
Another Year of Blood
James Campbell walked his company line for morning inspection. The company hardly looked like a company any longer. The soldiers, drawn up and standing to attention, vacantly looked into the distance as Campbell walked his line with his dog robber, Sergeant Wade, trailing behind. There was little purpose to the act—but Campbell wanted to reassert his authority over the company after what had happened the previous morning.
The glaring and sad looks of his company as he passed by amused him. It was his prerogative to execute an inspection any time he wished. Were muskets cleaned? Were the men in their places? Were the cartridge boxes loaded with forty dead men and the cap boxes filled? All these things would be on the minds of all company commanders as the 3rd Confederate prepared to march forward once more after their crossroads reprieve from the fighting. All knew that the rear-echelon duty would be brief. Indications were that even before first light the brigade would march back to rejoin the division.
January 1, 1863, had dawned to no fanfare. New Year’s Eve had passed trying to keep warm instead of ringing in the year with fireworks or cannon shot. The guns had gone mercifully silent after the canned Federal hellfire they had marched into, with its canisters of fist-sized iron balls, was finally quelled by a darkness that ended the butcher’s bill at an even twenty men.
Sergeant Wade conducted the rifle inspection, standing square in front of each man as if this were a parade ground and the soldiers were fresh fish. Campbell watched with his lip curled. Few of the rifles were inspection worthy. Other than a brief washing of the barrel to remove a layer of caked powder residue, no one had taken the time to fully clean his. It was the duty of every soldier to be ready for the day, and that meant on a day like today to be ready to offer service with a weapon, and one that would adequately discharge.
Sergeant Wade took each stiffly offered musket and went through the motions of looking at the surface of each, checking the hammer mechanism by cocking to safe and then to fire, and lifting the ramrod arm’s length and letting it drop back into the barrel to hear the metallic clink it should make as metal struck metal. Most just ended in a dull thud, the level of caked residue thick.
If this had been camp, each man would have been in trouble for his lack of attentiveness. This wasn’t camp. Their disgust was palpable as Campbell and Wade made their way down the first rank.
For Campbell, the more disgustedly the privates and corporals looked at him, the better he felt. These men were learning who was in charge in a way they would not forget. Making Wade conduct the inspection was added bonus. It should be he doing each action, with Wade noting the outcome on his notepad. Instead, no one was noting anything, and Campbell was just observing, watching each man in turn try to avoid eye contact and yet give him a look of death to register outrage at the inspection. Campbell would prove he was no blackberry picker.
Then it was Meeks’s turn in the line. The man whom Campbell could not wait to inspect. Certainly he of all of the privates in the line would be most certain to fail inspection and take th
e marks against him. Campbell hadn’t yet decided what to do to him. Just the act of asserting himself upon the man seemed to be enough right now. They would soon be returning to the line of battle, and any other punishment he could mete out would pale in comparison to what they were all soon to experience.
But something was wrong. Wade went through the motions, and Campbell’s displeasure grew with every moment. The weapon was clean. The man’s cap box was full, indicated by a quick shake of his belt. The metallic ring of the ramrod at the bottom of Meeks’s barrel was hardly music to Campbell’s ears. Meeks had passed with a paper-collar soldier’s precision.
Meeks stood stark still and expressionless throughout, which further goaded Campbell’s sour mood at this moment—the triumph of his return to command brought to an abrupt end. Meeks took his rifle back, returned the ramrod to its slot along the bottom of the weapon, and resumed order arms, all the while keeping his gaze straight forward. The model soldier.
Campbell glared straight into Meeks’s eyes, working his mouth ever so slightly, a torrent of invective frozen upon his lips and a sudden dryness to his mouth. He was standing directly in front of the private next to Meeks, but Campbell kept his sideways glare upon the man he so hated. Wade looked confused—Campbell was supposed to move to the next man and look him over, but he wasn’t moving, and for a moment, not catching on that Campbell was not going to move, Wade took a right face and blundered into Campbell’s left shoulder.
The movement caught the attention of those who’d already been inspected, and eyes and heads turned to observe the oddness of the situation. Thomas Wade was still at right face, but Campbell still faced front, and both men were frozen in confusion.
It was some moments before Campbell realized that he was in the compromised position of being in the wrong—or was it Wade who was moving without his commander’s permission? Wade moves when I move, he argued with himself. But Wade moved before him.
With as much dignity as he could muster, still stewing over Meeks, Lieutenant James Campbell waited another moment before executing a right face and taking two steps forward to reach the next man in line. He didn’t care if he was being petulant, less than apologetic for his own mistake. It didn’t matter; he was in command!
The rest of the inspection was a blur, the outcome a foregone conclusion. The cap pouches and cartridge boxes were full, the brigade having fallen back the previous day to refill ammunition, and the muskets dirty and befouled as a result of the fighting and the little time allotted to normal upkeep. How Meeks had managed to get around that problem was a mystery only to Campbell. As he brooded angrily, waiting for Major Cameron to call the regiment to attention, he looked for any way to send Meeks to the rear in irons. Could he be accused of cowardice? They were all cowards! Every last one of the privates in the company was a coward! Perhaps someone had seen Meeks shirking. Maybe that was how he’d found time to clean his musket. Perhaps someone would vouch for his shirking? Wade? Despite his reluctance to be put out of command, Thomas Wade was still the closest thing Campbell had to a friend.
As Campbell was running these possibilities through his mind, the voice of Major Cameron called out for the regiment to right face. Whatever Campbell was to do, it would have to wait.
In the ranks, there had been soft titters of laughter and all-around smirks as Campbell found himself blocking his sergeant’s path. Everyone knew the score: the martinet was back to exact more retribution. Despite the changes since the opening of the dance, the company was no less inclined to start acting the patriot than it had been before the attack began. When Meeks’s inspection revealed an almost immaculate rifle, there was no doubt amongst the soldiers as to why. John had only just returned from running messages back and forth when the regiment tried to cross the shell-torn field before falling back once more to refill their ammunition. Meeks hadn’t fired a shot all morning long.
It took some time before John himself realized what Campbell had wanted. Having the cleanest barrel in the company was indicative of his detached service, not his cleanliness. John was amused when he realized that his inspection had been a farce, with the doubly delicious outcome that Campbell could not escape the public spectacle he’d made. Even so, as the brigade marched across a field to resume their portion of the division line, John felt a little guilty that he hadn’t fouled his weapon. If getting home was going to mean being a soldier and helping the Confederacy force an agreement with the Yankees, why not start really acting the part? They had tried to escape, tried to plot and plan, and tried to slip away in small groups only to be foiled or caught and punished. David Grover would go along—Grover was just as interested in getting home with all his limbs intact as John was. But in the absence of being thrown in irons, the only way to survive was to find a way into the rear or just accept fate.
Glenn and Holly would probably still continue to try to get away, but John couldn’t continue to be the butt of Campbell’s campaign of revenge for stuff that had happened before the war.
“You think Glenn and Holly is going to make another try?” Grover asked. The regiment was marching in columns of four and crossing over ground that was littered still with cast-off clothing, busted weapons, and dead horses.
“Yes, I think they will,” John replied. “Glenn’s made up his mind to get home and away from the fighting at any cost. As long as they don’t drag the rest of us into a mutiny, they can go whenever they like.”
“I think the rest of the company might go if the time seems right.”
“Perhaps. I think the company has got used to the thought that they will die before they see home again. I come to decide that home will be little good if we can’t live free. We be chased as deserters and hunted down. If we do as we told, no one will bother our families. That is what I come to decide. Think it took a while, but I no longer think it best to try anymore,” John replied.
Grover nodded slowly and said grimly, “They only be three ways out of this war: desert, be wounded or take ill and be discharged, or be killed. That last one can happen in any combination of the other two, mind you. Desert an’ be caught. Get wounded or take ill an’ die. Get shot on the field an’ die.”
“If we finish the work an’ destroy Rosecrans’s army, we might shorten the war an’ get to go home anyhow,” John said after some moments of silence. “You can see what Glenn an’ Holly is planning to do . . . you don’t have to stay because I do.”
David Grover nodded in affirmation and seemed to be working on the idea. The cedar brake they were entering was thick and appeared to go on forever. The ground was rocky, with little use but to be overgrown with trees.
“I happen to agree with you, John,” Grover finally said flatly. “Better to return home having won than to sneak home a fugitive. You ain’t draggin’ me nowhere.”
“I hate that it split the mess like this,” John conceded. “I suppose I was losin’ heart for deserting after a spell. Glenn and Holly not so much.”
“They take they chances,” Grover replied. He turned a little to look for Glenn, marching two rows behind. “We get through this day, we might can plan on that eventual walk home.”
Major Cameron halted the regiment as the other commands ahead did the same. The sounds of lively skirmisher fire came from several hundred yards ahead, and the faint lines of regiments could be made out amidst the trees in battle line just behind the outskirts of the cedar brake. From there a field opened up, and then the Nashville pike. The brigade was going to make up the far left of Cleburne’s division, the left of the entire army.
The front regiments were already peeling off at the left flank to continue marching to their spots. Signs of a hurried camp were in evidence about the trees. Burnt-out fires, discarded foodstuffs, bits and pieces of clothing, broken weapons, and paper cartridge remnants spoke of many men having moved and fought and then settled here for the night.
Liddell’s brigade was in their front, and his regiments stood to, leaning on rifle butts, their chin music lively un
til Wood’s brigade came to pass by and the music hushed. They noted the new arrivals with something of disdain. There was little valid purpose for the feeling: Wood’s brigade had borne the burden of fighting as much as any of Cleburne’s brigades had. Of course, they had also fallen back numerous times to draw ammunition and then not returned to the fight, but that had not been their fault.
As the 3rd Confederate executed the left flank march, John noted the reactions of Liddell’s men and the pointed jabs that came their way. Liddell’s and Polk’s brigades had advanced unsupported to the Nashville pike and then beyond only to run into the mass concentration of cannon, Rosecrans’s patented hellfire in a can. Both brigade commanders felt they had been betrayed by the absence of the others, even though by then the other brigades in the division had been hopelessly rearranged and scattered—Wood’s brigade had been commandeered by General Hardee himself to watch the Wilkinson pike. But the two brigades had been chewed up, and Polk’s in particular was nearly routed when it was in danger of being cut off by a Yankee advance on its flank.
Neither John nor any of the 3rd Confederate had been privy to the happenings at the last of the fighting the day before, but they certainly felt the stares and the unveiled insults. Even the officers of Liddell’s regiments failed to silence the catcalls of their men. There was confusion on the men’s faces as they passed by the rear of Liddell as to what it all meant.
Pulling into line, the regiment stood one hundred yards into the trees and threw out skirmishers who soon disappeared from view. Cannon fire occasionally came crashing into the treetops from far away, the enemy telling the Confederates they hadn’t forgotten about yesterday. These guns could be close to a mile away, and they could shell any target of choice from any point along the railroad embankment and high ground to the right along the river. Rounds were mostly landing far to the right, where the guns were closer to the Confederate positions, but a few found their way along the 3rd Confederate’s front, splintering several trees and making loud, knocking sounds as the rounds slammed into thick trunks.
River of Blood (Shiloh Series Book 4) Page 34