Under the wide, slow circle of the roof, the engine bell was clanging; the troops were unpacking their gear and moving toward the exits; in the brown sunstreaked spaces of the depot the voices of hundreds of men made a busy murmur.
One seldom stopped to think that great interiors could be destroyed. Hollow containers of change, themselves never changing, they were less mutable than sky and trees. It didn’t matter how long ago this roof had been lifted—it had the timelessness of a center of arrival and departure that itself never departs or arrives, but remains a constant in equations of mutability.
On a far platform a spare figure in black civilian garb was standing. Johnny instantly recognized the liquidbrown eyes, the grave composure, the trim, pointed beard.
—Well, John, Cash Carney said after the conventional greetings, looks like I got here just before the deluge. I’m glad you got my letter.
As they left the station, a group of officers standing at the entrance nodded to Cash.
—Goodday, Colonel, Cash said. Going to have some fun, I see.
—Yes. Thanks for sending that load of stuff through so promptly, Mr. Carney.
They moved out into the light.
—Colonel Poe, of Sherman’s staff, Chief Engineer, Cash said. I do a lot of business with him. I’m down here now to handle a supply problem for the Army. It’s a shame to see them rip all this stuff up. Nice depot. Not much of a town though. Just came down in time to see them blow the hell out of it. So this is what you boys were fighting for all summer? Well, it’s a war of railroads. Once Sherman wrecks the Rebel system of supply, this war is going to be over. Do you have any idea where Uncle Billy is going to take you scamps?
—He hasn’t told us, Johnny said. The order of November 9 promised a long and difficult march, involving a change of base. The Army is being stripped for movement.
—Wouldn’t surprise me if he went clear to the East Coast, Cash said. He’s cutting himself off from the North completely. Last telegraphic dispatch went through two days ago. Then they blew a bridge and cut the line. Our train was already over. I’ve been outside the city the last two days. The Union forces here in the West have been divided in two. One mass is withdrawing to Chattanooga and Nashville, and it looks as though you boys were beginning to move through Georgia. In between, Hood is squatting trying to figure out where to hit. How do the men feel about it? What do they think of marching right off into the heart of the South?
—So that we keep our bellies full, Johnny said, we don’t care where we go. This is a marching Army.
—How did you boys react to the Election?
—The Army was for Lincoln. Of course, we Indiana boys couldn’t vote because the Copperhead legislature at home wouldn’t let us.
—You boys voted with your bayonets. You elected Lincoln when you took Atlanta.
—Have you been home? Johnny said. Seen anyone I know?
This was the thing he had been wanting to say.
—I haven’t been in the County for over a year, Cash said. I guess it’s still there.
—Clear the yards! came a yell. Depot’s going up!
Cash and Johnny withdrew to a drugstore from which they could watch. The Perfessor waved his hand and came over. He and Cash greeted each other warmly. The Perfessor observed that Cassius had a lean and hungry look for a man who had been steeping in gravy since the War started, and Cash asked the Perfessor if he had been chased out of any towns lately.
Already the last charges had been laid under the walls of the depot.
—It’s been a nice little city, the Perfessor said.
Colonel Poe and his staff walked leisurely away from the depot. Several engineers ran far back from the sides. A ring of soldiers formed in the surrounding streets. The brick face of the city preserved for a final moment its ancient pattern. Then the roof of the depot shifted and a spray of bricks spouted noiselessly from the base. A series of heavy soundblows staggered the three men at the corner. The walls of the depot crumbled. The roof settled and sank as if slowly relaxing, thundered gently, sent up a huge soft flower of dust and smoke. The soldiers cheered, tossed their hats. Teeth gleamed in bearded faces. The yards swarmed with men, busily at work to destroy the roundhouse and the machineshops.
—Say, a soldier said, let’s burn the whole goddam place up. Ain’t nothin’ to keep us from it.
A hot wind fanned Corporal Johnny Shawnessy’s face. Fire was the supreme violence in this existence of perpetual violence. The War would end at last in the terror and beauty of fire until nothing was left but a dead ash. In this cataclysm, he, Northman and Invader, had connived.
A hot breath breathed on Corporal Johnny Shawnessy and died, but left the heat. He and the Perfessor said good-by to Cash Carney and walked away toward the bivouac outside the city. Evening was approaching as they reached the outskirts of the town. In the soft, still air columns of smoke stood stiffly from the center of the city. Flames licked the darkening roofs. The fire was spreading, audibly eating its way through the deserted walls of Atlanta.
Everywhere there was movement. Some companies were already beginning the march. Wagon trains were assembling and filing through and around the city, though some had to be rerouted because of the unexpected spread of the fire.
Now all along the road where the brigade was encamped, as far as Johnny could see, were the wagons of the black people. For days they had been gathering on the fringes of the Army. No regulations could prevent it. Most of the Southern Negroes stayed with their masters, but in the path of Sherman’s Army there were no masters. To the more ignorant, Lincoln was like a god, and Sherman was his brightsworded lieutenant. When they learned that the Northerners wouldn’t spit them on bayonets and roast them over slow fires, they came in growing hordes, some on foot, but the majority driving brokendown wagons. In the tragic illumination of the fire, this uprooted people had a new significance. Perhaps they collectively remembered the ancestral rape by which they had been torn from the bosom of primitive centuries, borne oversea in the stinking slavers, sold into bondage in the white man’s country. Children of violence, in violence they were being restored to freedom. Atlanta, the city of the white masters, was roaring into death.
The dark flesh glistened on the roads around Atlanta. Murmurous, like a surf, it darkly seethed at the edges of the Army. These people had heard that they were to be free, and like a sign of their liberation they saw this spectacle of fire. To many, the burning of Atlanta was Judgment Day.
Soldiers kept streaming out of the town loaded with plunder raped from deserted homes and buildings. Shortly after Johnny and the Perfessor reached the camp, Flash Perkins came in. He hadn’t been in camp for several days. He kept laughing louder than usual and hitting Johnny and the Perfessor on the back. At last, he said,
—You fellers wanna see somethin’? I’ll show you somethin’ good, if you’ll keep your mouths shut.
He led the way down a little sideroad. In the corner of the field was a pile of junk on wheels. A very pretty Negro girl was cooking pigfat at a woodfire. An old Negro man was lying on the ground close to the wagon talking to a little Negro boy.
—What the hell! Flash said belligerently. They wanted to come with me. I sot ’em free. They think I’m a god or somethin’. I brung ’em back with me.
—Um, the Perfessor said, thoughtfully regarding the group. Noble gesture, Orville.
—A souvenir of the Atlanta Campaign, Johnny said.
—I was never distinguished for race prejudice myself, Orville, the Perfessor said.
That night, Johnny, Flash, and the Perfessor took some bottles of wine and some chickens and had a banquet down in the corner of the field where the Negro girl was. She was sleek, coalblack, good-natured, young. She had the grace of a young thoroughbred. She smiled most of the time and spoke in a husky, pleasant voice. Her name was Parthenia. The old Negro man was referred to as Uncle Hervey, though he claimed no relationship to the girl, of whom he openly disapproved. The little colored boy was call
ed Joe. None of them had a last name.
The hot wind fanned Corporal Johnny Shawnessy’s cheek. Lying in the redfimmed darkness, he remembered John Brown’s song:
Blow ye the trumpet, blow
The gladly-solemn sound!
Let all the nations know
To earth’s remotest bound,
The year of Jubilee has come!
The torch of Atlanta grew brighter and hotter. For a long time there had been intermittent explosions. Someone said an arsenal was on fire.
—What do you think of that for a bonfire, Parthenia? the Perfessor asked.
—It seem a shame to burn up all them white folk house thataway, she said.
The Perfessor became very moody as the night wore on, and later in the evening he said,
—Do you have a sister, Parthenia?
Flash laughed fiercely.
—I see you took Sherman’s advice to heart, Orville, the Perfessor said. Forage liberally on the country.
—What are you going to do with them when we march? Johnny asked.
—Take ’em along, Flash said. Hell, they look up to me to save ’em and take keer of ’em.
Later on, back in camp, Johnny lay listening to the songs of the Negroes still swelling through the redlit darkness.
—No mo hunded lash foh me,
No mo, no mo.
No mo hunded lash foh me.
Many a thousand die.
No mo bag a cawn foh me,
No mo, no mo.
No mo bag a cawn foh me.
Many a thousand die.
His skin was fevered with the heat he had felt from the moment when the depot had shifted and sunk and the first flames had sprung. The wine of the South burned in his veins. Primeval images struggled in him, sensual and strong, bringing no release but only wishes that could have no fulfillment.
He listened to the thick waves of song that came from the night, the distant cries and muffled booms from the city, the rattle and creak of the wagontrains departing, departing. In this darkness, the times were changing, the War was changing, the Republic was changing. After years of deadlock, a few hours had shown signs of the crumbling of an era. The earth of mancreated boundaries and habitations was in convulsion. What did it mean that around him uprooted thousands without names, whose past was darker than their skins, swarmed toward the beacon of burning Atlanta!
He was troubled by the image of the Negro girl. She seemed to him a darkskinned Helen for whom this epic war was being fought.
The hot wind fanned his cheeks. He could feel great tides of change and old desire going over him on the cinderladen wind. Perhaps a man felt most alive when things were changing, when cities were being raped and burned, when love laughed at forbiddenness. If then he could have had a beautiful, smoothfleshed woman of his own kind in this night of permitted crime, he would have been utterly fulfilled.
The hot wind fanned his cheeks. He had come southward to march through stately names. Atlanta—it was a name feminine, as of a once lovely woman of pathetic memory. Now it was being destroyed by fire. Ah, it was no use to be the rememberer at such times as this. Was he doomed always to remember his name and Raintree County origins! All barriers, inhibitions, memories, names, duties, and speculations were swept away by purging and terrific fire! It was time for that nameless hero to exert himself again and striding through the night discover love beneath a shaken tree, while the light of ravaged cities shone on distant waters. It was good to be lost in this onrushing Event, to be this city burning in the night, to be this seed-dense earth on which he lay, to be this flame that purified and destroyed, to be this moving of the wagontrains, to be of and in and for this Army of insouciant young men, to be each and all of them, from the General whose orders set a hundred thousand hands to work, down to the lustful and triumphant comrade who exerted himself this night upon a creature of the musky Southern earth. This it was to live, to be lifted and borne upon the crest of events, to be at the head of the column where the veteran soldiers loved to be, to be in danger, yes, but in prospect of victory and the savage and sweet spoils of victory.
In the morning, he awakened to a vague sense of guilt. A low pall of smoke hung on the gutted city. The brigade didn’t march all day, though many others were moving out. They didn’t march the following night either, but lingered over the cold banquet of the ravaged city. On the following morning early, they left, marching on the road to Decatur, their faces turned toward the east. As they topped a rise just outside the old Rebel works, the men turned and looked back.
—Right here is where we fought that big battle of July 22, Captain Bazzle said. McPherson fell back there.
Atlanta was still smoking. The broad scar where the railroad tracks had been, the charred fragments of buildings made Johnny think of a face in which the eyes had been destroyed and the withered pits remained, mournful reminders.
—Look there, Jack, Flash said, ain’t that Sherman?
A general with his staff was riding along the lines. A cheer went up from the men.
—Hi there, Uncle Billy!
—Hey, Uncle Billy! Flash called out. I reckon Grant is waitin’ for us in Richmond.
Sherman’s thin, ugly face smiled. Johnny was surprised by the flash of kind, quick light in the eyes of a man whom several million people execrated. A little past the two men, Sherman stopped. With an expression of nostalgia and fierce pride, he too looked back at ruined Atlanta—Sherman, who had wept when he heard the news of McPherson’s death near this spot months before in the summer of the siege.
Corporal Johnny Shawnessy remembered then how the Army had fought its way down from Chattanooga, remembered Resaca and the wide ditch in which they had buried hundreds of comrades, remembered rainy weeks in the woods at the base of Kenesaw Mountain, remembered the fierce charge halfway up the flank of that conical hill, remembered the flanking marches, the crossings of rivers, the falling back of the Southern Army to Atlanta, the hard battles after Hood had replaced Johnston in the Rebel command, the long looking from distant lines at Atlanta besieged, the sudden withdrawal from before it, the last great flanking move, the news of Atlanta’s fall, the occupation, the long camping near-by, and at last the devastation of Atlanta. And now departure.
The vast myriapod of the Army slogged monotonously on. The troops were beginning to sing as Sherman turned his horse’s head and rode along the column. The soldiers were singing the oldest song of the War.
—John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
His soul is marching on.
The longstriding Westerners were going East. An army had completely severed itself from its base of supplies, striking straight into the heart of the Enemy’s stronghold.
So in the warm autumn of the South, they had turned their faces east, and the Great March had begun. The soldiers didn’t know where they were going, but they knew that by nightfall they would be somewhere they had never been before,
SOMEWHERE FAR ALONG THE ROAD TO
THE ENDING OF THE WAR,
SOMEWHERE
. . . tenting tonight on the old camp ground
Give us a song to cheer
Our weary hearts, a song of home,
And friends we love so dear.
Chorus
Many are the hearts that are weary tonight
Wishing for the war to cease;
Many are the hearts that are looking for the right,
To see the dawn of peace.
Tenting tonight, tenting tonight,
Tenting on the old camp ground.
He was tenting on the old camp ground of hundreds of lost encampments, dressed in his faded suit of blue and dreaming of the girl he left behind him. His mother kissed him in his dream, he wrapped the flag around him, boys, to fight and die was sweet, boys, with Freedom’s starry banner, boys, wound for a winding sheet. He was tenting on that
sentimental old camp ground where all the veterans camped in their declining years.
We are tired of war on the old camp ground,
Many are dead and gone,
Of the brave and true who’ve left their homes;
Other’s been wounded long. . . .
Dying tonight, dying tonight,
Dying on the old camp ground.
And how long would it be, he was wondering, till the very last of them all, the oldest of all the incredibly old veterans, would tent for the last time in the old camp ground of a longforgotten war?
The Perfessor drew a short, quick breath, but lapsed back again into sleep. The quavering horns quickened to a faster tempo.
In the prison cell I sit,
Thinking, Mother dear, of you,
And our bright and happy home so far away.
And the tears they fill my eyes
Spite of all that I can do,
Tho’ I try to cheer my comrades and be gay.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,
Cheer up, comrades, they will come,
And beneath the starry flag
We shall breathe the air again,
Of the freeland in our own beloved home.
Listen to the sound of the bugles blowing loud. Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are . . .
Who is marching there? Who are these bearded young men?
Bring the good old bugle, boys, we’ll sing another song—
Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along—
Sing it as we used to sing it, fifty thousand strong,
While we were marching through Georgia.
Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee,
Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching through Georgia.
Yes, bring the good old bugle, boys, and blow into being the ranks of the comrades of that Army. Blow into being the columns extending for miles, the husky noise of thousands singing on the march, the rattling wagons. Blow into being the hordes of the liberated slaves. Blow into being the bearded bummers. For it is still marching, that legendary Army. It was never anything but a great myth marching to Savannah on the Sea! They didn’t march in any newspaper, they were from the beginning—were they not?—immense soldiers of stone!
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