Of Ashes and Dust

by Marc Graham

  Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and a gurgling sound rose with each breath.

  “See my watch gets home,” he told me, then his eyes fixed on mine. “JD, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “What, that I’m the better rider?”

  He laughed at that—or tried to, but managed only a wet cough, then curled up in pain. I cradled his head to my chest and pressed my hand uselessly against the wound.

  “Whatever it was,” I said, “you can tell me later, once we get you patched up.”

  He nodded, then shuddered in my arms. The color drained from his face and his eyes went wide as he stared up at me.

  “When you find your dream, don’t look back,” he said in a dreamlike voice. “You just follow right after her, and damn the rest.”

  Before I could question the words, Matt took a deep, heaving breath. A sigh rattled from his throat, and his eyes fixed on a passing cloud as his body went slack in my arms.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Williamson County, Tennessee—December 1864

  “Gentlemen, I give you progress.”

  “Progress,” the toast was answered, along with a few Hear-hears. Sherry glasses were raised amid the rustle of wool and the creak of stiff leather, but the replies were muted and there was no clinking of glasses. The horrors of the past few days gave little cause for celebration, save for the fact that the men gathered in the command tent were still among the living.

  For the past month, the Army of Tennessee had been burrowing into that state—through snow and freezing rain—in a march toward Nashville and an effort to reclaim it for the Confederacy. Skirmishes had punctuated the march through winding passes, across bone-chilling streams, and through towns and burgs abandoned by the retreating Union Army. At last, the Federal troops had dug in at Franklin and formed an impenetrable bulwark around that city.

  The last day of November had seen our troops throw themselves up against the Union defenses in a wasted effort. By nightfall, some six thousand troops—more than a fifth of our entire army—lay dead or wounded. As December dawned, we watched impotently from outside the city’s defenses as the Union troops pulled back across the Harpeth River and up the Nashville Pike. We carried the wounded to makeshift hospitals in nearby homes, and buried the dead beneath the field of battle. Then the remnants of the Army of Tennessee regrouped and began our own crossing of the river.

  The sole bright spot of the engagement had been the capture of a small supply train. Most of the wagons had been burned by the retreating Federals, but three cars were salvaged. These provided a fresh supply of rations for the troops, along with a few bottles of sherry, which were now being consumed by the officer corps. The toast was both a remembrance of those fallen and a charge for the battle yet to come.

  “Nashville is the linchpin upon which the southwest theater hinges, gentlemen,” Brigadier General James Smith solemnly declared after the toast. The new commander of Cleburne’s Division looked drawn and haggard. Fighting near the center of the pitched battle, Cleburne’s men had witnessed some of the fiercest combat. Of the six generals killed at Franklin, two— Brigadier General Hiram Granbury and Major General Patrick Cleburne himself—had come from our division.

  “Our dead urge us forward,” Smith continued, his voice wavering, “to victory and to vengeance. With the names of Cleburne and Granbury on our lips, our victory at Nashville shall be theirs, and their sacrifice in the cause of liberty shall not have been in vain.”

  Smith nodded to his adjutant, who dismissed the junior officers while the brigade and battalion commanders remained for further discussions. I ducked out through the tent flap, replaced my cap and hugged my collar close to my throat.

  “Sergeant Newton.” I summoned the man from among the cluster of aides huddled about a small fire. “Let’s make ready.”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied, then shook hands with his comrades and came to join me.

  My belly was still warm from the wine, but the chill air quickly overcame the small measure of sherry. Newton and I rode back to where our battery was camped, past clusters of frozen, battle-weary men. I set my mind to the task of mobilizing my men for the coming march. The prospect of trudging another fifteen miles in freezing weather was not a welcome one, but it was far less disturbing than the ravages of the previous day.

  We rejoined our men and set them to limbering the guns and harnessing the wagon teams. Two thirds of the army had crossed the river the day before, and we worked our way into the 8,000-man queue of Cheatham’s Corps, across the Harpeth River on a pontoon bridge, then onto the Nashville Pike.

  Despite the freezing cold—or maybe because of it—the march went at a brisk pace. The road was soon thawed by the traffic, the snow and dirt churned into an ugly slurry. Fresh footprints appeared every so often in the pristine snow at the side of the road, the tracks reddened by the bleeding feet of shoeless soldiers. But the men with raw, frostbitten feet were among the lucky ones—the less fortunate lay by the side of the road, abandoned by their comrades where they’d fallen.

  As a boy, I’d read accounts of wars in the Bible and the Iliad, and in the histories of Josephus and Caesar. I’d always envisioned the sprawling armies, their lines drawn up across vast, open expanses. In my naivete, the warriors always appeared magically on the field of battle or—if conventional travel couldn’t be avoided—they crossed barren wildernesses or vast oceans far beyond the normal haunts of men. Even when cities were clearly involved, my mind pictured only high stone walls, never the people within. The carnage of war, I’d thought, was something always held at a distance from civilization.

  Not so, this.

  This war raged in the fields and yards—and sometimes on the porches—of the men who fought in it. That fact was driven home as a door burst open and a woman rushed out to wave at the passing ranks. The home was a ramshackle cottage that looked as if the slightest breeze could bring it crashing down. Its walls and roof seemed held up by nothing more than hope. The woman—little more than a girl, really—looked as thin as the weathered siding and stood barefoot in the snow with one babe in arms and a towheaded, gunny-sacked toddler by the hand. The young mother pointed out her man to the children, and the baby squalled while the toddler buried his face in his mother’s skirts.

  The shack was tucked up among the trees, and came in and out of sight as I passed by. An old walnut tree blocked my view for a bit and, when the family reappeared, my heart froze as a ghoulish trio of specters stood in their place.

  The girl now stood in filthy rags that failed to hide her nakedness. Her delicate features and straw-colored hair were now replaced by those of a sunken-cheeked horror, with wispy strands of parched hair tangled about a withered face. The infant clung to her bosom, its skeletal form wriggling madly as it suckled at a shrunken, empty breast. The toddler stood naked with browned parchment-like skin stretched tight over a bony frame and distended belly. The death-masked child stretched a blackened, bony finger straight at me as it fixed me with its hollow eyes.

  I gasped and yanked hard at Orion’s reins.

  “Captain?” Newton said, an edge in his voice as he reached for his sidearm.

  “Do you see that?” I rasped, pointing at the hellish trio who were again hidden by the trees.

  “That I do,” he replied. “A pretty little family.”

  I blinked hard as the young mother and little ones reappeared from behind the trees, restored to human form. The toddler now dared to peek out and waved a chubby hand at his father.

  My heart started beating again and I chanced a shuddering breath. The cool air jarred me back to full wakefulness and I ran a gloved hand over my face, adjusted myself in the saddle and tried to ignore Newton’s curious stare.

  “Mm-hmm,” I grunted, then kicked at Orion’s ribs to spur him beyond the horror, not knowing that more lay ahead.

  The Army of Tennessee camped outside the gates of Nashville for nearly two weeks. The bitter cold and a heavy ice storm combined to
keep both sides hunkered down. Cheatham’s Corps was embedded on the extreme right, less than a mile from the Union stronghold at Fort Negley. Twice during that time, the entrenched Federals ventured out from their fortifications to drive back our right flank. Twice, our guns and infantry sent them scurrying back for cover.

  My battery was positioned near the center of Cheatham’s Corps, on the rise of Ridley’s Hill near the Nolensville Road. The elevation gave a clear view and a broad sweep for artillery fire. It was from this height on the morning of the fifteenth that I scanned the enemy lines through my field glass.

  “Lieutenant Hopwood,” I said softly, my eye still on the glass.

  “Sir?”

  “Send word to Colonel Hotchkiss, please.”

  “Word about what, sir?” The last syllable stuck in his throat as he looked toward the Federal position. Even through the light morning fog, and without the aid of a field glass, the expanding blue lines of the enemy formations were clearly visible from two miles away. “S-sir, is that . . . ?”

  “Looks like it.” I sighed, and the cloud of my breath fogged the lens of the field glass. “Tell them our friends are forming lines of division strength or greater. Sergeant Newton,” I called as I lowered the glass.

  I glanced to my left, where the young lieutenant remained gazing out across the field. “You’ve seen combat before, Will,” I said quietly. “Pass the word: division strength or greater.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hopwood replied tentatively, then tore his gaze from the unfolding scene across the field. His eyes met mine, and resolve quickly replaced fear. “Yes, sir,” he repeated with more confidence.

  “Go.” I turned him by the shoulders and pushed him in the direction of the command tent.

  “Sir?” Newton said as he joined me on the crest of the hill.

  “Looks like we’ll have some company this morning,” I said, and handed him the glass.

  “Billy Yank’s finally grown a pair. Looks like he’s coming out to play for real,” he said as he panned the lens across the opposing lines. He surveyed the field, then swung the glass back a few degrees. “I’ll be damned. Are those—?”

  I took the glass back and pointed it across the field.

  “Well, how about that?” I said.

  “What do you suppose it means?”

  “Means we’ll have a lot of blue targets to point at, same as always.”

  “Yes, sir,” Newton said. “I reckon that’s the fact.”

  “Looks like they’ll be forming from the east,” I said as I followed the assembling lines. “We’ll have to shoot over the heads of our men. Let’s set Lieutenant Marshall’s guns for elevated firing.” Marshall was my youngest second lieutenant, and greener than a spring meadow. “Wouldn’t do to have any miscalculations.”

  “No argument here, sir.” Newton’s dislike of the young man was no secret, but he was careful to respect the distinctions of rank.

  “God, I’m tired of this,” I muttered, more to myself than anyone else.

  “I know, Jim,” came the reply, surprising both of us with the familiarity. “Excuse me, sir.”

  “It’s all right, Liam.”

  “Thank you, sir. What I mean to say is, I’m tired, too. Hell, we all are—just look at ’em.” He nodded his chin toward the crews milling about their guns, and the thousands of troops dug in below the summit of the hill. “Freezing, starving, half-naked. But this is our home. Those bastards have invaded our country. If we throw them back here, we may not have to fight too much longer. Begging your pardon, sir.”

  “I can’t argue with you there, Sergeant. It’s just a damned ugly business. I’ll be happy to see it finished either way.”

  Newton raised his brow at that, but made no other reply.

  “Regardless,” I said, “they don’t pay us to argue politics. Let’s set to it, shall we?”

  “Yes, sir.” He turned away without a salute, lest he provide a target for any sharpshooter that might be in range.

  I watched the distant blue line as it drew up a formation. A few hours earlier and the morning fog might have hidden their movements and given the enemy an element of surprise. Already, though, the morning sun was burning off the mist, exposing the Union movements to full view. When the Federals stopped moving, I held my breath in anticipation of what would come next.

  I didn’t have long to wait.

  The guns at Fort Negley unleashed their rounds and signaled the advance. In reply, the distant thunder of field guns and the muffled cries of thousands of voices announced the fighting on our distant left flank. Closer by, under the cover of the barrage from the fort, the Union’s left wing began its advance.

  Slowly, stately at first, rank upon rank of blue-jacketed infantrymen began crossing the field toward our entrenchments. The advance itself was nothing of note, little different than the dozens I’d faced during the course of the war. Rather, what captured my attention—and that of every other man with a field glass—was the fact that no fewer than ten regimental banners flew over colored troops.

  The Confederacy was no stranger to Negroes on the battlefield. While the government in Richmond frowned upon it, the state militias had enlisted more than fifty thousand blacks, free and slave, to fight against the Union. These men were scattered within the ranks and, I supposed, from across the field of battle were as nameless and faceless as their white comrades.

  General Cleburne, God rest him, had proposed a further step. He’d proposed to free the slaves and enroll them in colored regiments. Doing so would swell our dwindling ranks and, more importantly, rob the North of any moral advantage. For a random Negro to be felled by a Union bullet was one thing. For the Union to fire against even a single company of free colored soldiers would prove the Federals as aggressive occupiers, not the liberators they claimed to be.

  For his unorthodox vision, General Cleburne had been rewarded by having his command shot out from under him. While he had once been favorably compared to Stonewall Jackson, after his proposal he was made subordinate to far lesser men. The horror at Franklin bore testimony to the effect of politics on military strategy.

  The Union Army, however, apparently had far less political generals—or far smarter politicians. Northern propaganda painted the Confederacy as enemy to an entire race, and now thousands of tan and brown and black faces marched in blue uniforms toward our lines.

  In orderly ranks they came, like recruits on dress review. The covering fire from Fort Negley tapered off as the ranks drew nearer to our position. On the Confederate lines, men clambered up the earthworks for a peek at the advancing troops. As the enemy drew nearer, officers and sergeants started yanking men off the walls and readying them for battle.

  My battery was farthest from the line of battle and would be the first to fire, followed by Turner’s Battery, which was positioned on the front. I’d seen more than enough canister and grape shot since that first morning at Elkhorn Tavern, and I was content to fire explosive shell and case shot from the rear where smoke and dust would hide most of the carnage. I measured the enemy advance through my field glass and readied the crews, timing my command to deliver maximum effect.

  “Fire,” I ordered the battery when I reckoned the moment was right.

  The entire hill shook as all eight guns discharged at once. The cannon spat their lethal venom over the tops of our own men’s heads to rain death upon the enemy almost a mile away.

  “Case shot, reload,” I ordered my crews, trusting my lieutenants to issue similar commands for their guns.

  We would have time for only one more shot before the lines met and any further fire would be as dangerous to our own men as to the Blue Jackets.

  “Fire.” I repeated the order in little more than a whisper.

  Again the ground shook as the guns loosed their murderous volleys. I ordered the crews to stand by, then raised my glass to survey the field. By this time, our entrenched infantry had mounted the tops of the works and was delivering its own deadly fire to the en
emy. While the parade array of the advancing troops made for an impressive display, it also gave our riflemen and gunners far easier targets.

  As I focused on the field, our second volley was just landing among what remained of the lines. Turner’s guns were unleashing what must have been their second or third rounds while our infantry added to the destruction. What had been an orderly advance of Union soldiers turned quickly into a rout. Even as I watched, the white Union officers raced from the field, closely trailed by their men. A few Negro standard bearers tried to rally the soldiers around them but, when these fell to our sharpshooters, all heart was lost.

  The lines that had come closest to the entrenchment had their retreat cut off by our artillery. Unable to escape, the Federal troops sought shelter in the ditches at the base of our earthworks. For them, destruction was swift and heartless, as their shelter became a mass grave.

  Then, as one man, the Confederate infantry poured over the embankments. The few Union troops that remained on the field quickly threw down their arms and hurried to join their fleeing comrades. The wind cleared the smoke and dust from the field to reveal the brutal aftermath of the battle.

  Southern troops stalked across the body-littered field and picked through the remains, collecting weapons and ammunition, supplies and souvenirs. I watched through my glass as a young soldier compared his bared feet against the soles of one of the fallen. Finding a good fit, he began to pry off the boots.

  The body stirred and hands beat at the would-be robber. A lump rose in my throat as I saw through the blood-and dust-streaked mask to recognize Izzy. Even across a mile of distance and through a cloudy lens, I knew it was him. I shouted, though I knew it was useless—the Confederate soldier couldn’t know and likely wouldn’t care that the boots he wanted belonged to my friend. He stilled Izzy’s struggle with a bayonet through the chest and went about his business.

  I watched helplessly as the boy left his rifle upended, pinning Izzy’s body to the ground while he stripped off the boots. He plopped onto the frozen earth beside my dying friend, even talked with him as he pulled the boots onto his own feet.