For a while, it had looked as if those brave men on Snodgrass Hill would hold. Then a young map officer from Ohio, who'd been ordered by no less an authority than General George H. Thomas himself to go scout for a missing ammunition train, came scurrying back with inexplicable, horrifying news.
The dead, he said, were rising.
General Thomas was a man of much gravitas and little imagination, and he knew that this particular officer was much given to flights of Poe-esque phantasy. Still, there was something in the major's voice that spoke of real terror-not the fear that a sane man experiences in the field, when the air hums with mini- balls and canister, and the whine of the descending shell almost drowns out the scream of the wounded soldier. Rather, this was true terror, the look of a man who had seen something that simply Should Not Be.
Ever sensible, General Thomas merely asked the young staff officer if he might borrow his binoculars. The officer complied, and Thomas put the glasses to his eyes for a long, silent moment. Then he lowered them, returned them to their rightful owner, and uttered what was the only piece of profanity attributed to him in his long and honorable career of service.
They'd left Snodgrass Hill, of course, in as good order as they could. Reserve divisions under Granger opened a corridor in the roiling conflict for Thomas' troops, and the Federals had managed a hasty retreat rather than a rout as they double-quick marched back toward the Tennessee River. But it was plain to see on every man's face: They had lost, and they knew they had lost, and they had no idea how to deal with losing. They had seen their advance halted, and their best chance for victory crushed—things that would be enough to shake the faith of even the stoutest soldiers. But they had also seen dead friends and foes rise to take up arms once again, not against Reb or Yank but against the living, and that seared their souls worse than all the rest. They were a beaten army, and all they could hope for was enough time to lick their wounds at Chattanooga before the horror started again.
Thomas was later ridiculed in the Northern papers as "The Rock of Chickamauga," the title given to him sardonically after it was reported (erroneously) that he had made no effort to hold Snodgrass Hill. Longstreet, his work in the west done, returned to Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Rosecrans, who'd . reached Chattanooga (and the Northern news correspondents holed up therein) before Thomas had, came off slightly better in the press than his corps commander had, but still was relieved of duty and shuffled off to Ohio in a desperate attempt to gather new recruits. Braxton Bragg, the ill-mannered, pockmarked fussbudget who'd almost accidentally led his troops to a smashing victory, strutted and preened and claimed credit for all of the goings-on, while his subordinates quietly and effectively pressed the attack on the beleaguered Federals in Chattanooga. Careers were made and broken, promotions given and court-martials handed out, and confusion reigned as everyone tried to understand what exactly the unprecedented events of Chickamauga actually meant.
None of this, however, meant anything to the piled dead left behind on the battlefield. Their fight was over, and they had earned their rest. Orders and generals didn't matter to them any longer.
Unfortunately, not all of Chickamauga's dead were so peaceful.
***
It had been said of the man in the chair that looking at him was like looking into the mouth of a particularly hostile-looking cannon. It has also been said that when asked how he felt about a certain matter, he had told his questioner that he had carefully trained himself not to feel.
Right now, however, he was indeed feeling something, which was to say intense pain. He was a big man, six feet tall and well over two hundred pounds, and his back had been a constant source of agony to him since an accident back during the early days of the war. The sheer discomfort of movement gave his actions a certain stately grace, making him seem even more somber and dour than was his usual somber and dour wont. He was bitter, though quietly so, at his treatment by both his government and Fate, and had come west to what had been the state of California so that he might live out his last few years with minimal reminders of either.
Most days, that consisted of sitting out in the sun, writing treatises on military thinking that no one would ever read (for he could suffer no one to read them once he'd finished, and solemnly destroyed each one in turn) and drinking sun-brewed tea, which he'd acquired a taste for. More than once his wife had pestered him to write his memoirs, which might bring them in a little extra money, but he steadfastly refused to do so. He had thought enough about what he had done and seen, and had no wish to revisit those years for the edification of schoolboys.
And when George H. Thomas set his mind that he was going to hold to a position, by God he held it.
Except for once, his conscience whispered. Except for that once.
"George? Did you say something?" His wife, Frances, stepped out of their small, neat house, carrying a tray on which sat a glass of cool tea. She insisted on bringing her husband his tea, partially because it was an excuse to check on him—he'd had a fit some years back, and had kept so quiet that she hadn't known he was ill until hours later-and partially because their one servant girl, Polly, was frankly terrified to do so.
"Hmm?" Thomas looked up from his notebook, which he had been filling with notes on more efficient ways to transport artillery by rail, and gave what passed for one of his smiles. "I said nothing, Mrs. Thomas, though I thank you for your pains and concerns."
"Are you sure?" She brought the glass over and placed it on his work-table, the late afternoon sun sparkling through it. "I could have sworn I heard you mention the name of that horrible, horrible place in Georgia."
Thomas' eyebrows bristled. "I said nothing, Mrs. Thomas, and having said nothing, I could most certainly not have said the name of that place. Do I make myself clear?"
"As ever, George." Frances lifted the empty glass and headed back toward the house. "Do call if you want more-Polly has made a veritable river of the stuff, and I would hate to see it go to waste." With that, she vanished back through the darkened doorway.
"A river, she said..." Thomas' voice trailed off, thoughtfully. He frowned. Chickamauga, he'd been told by his scouts, meant "River of Death" in some forgotten Indian tongue, and Frances' odd question and odder phrasing worried him in some inexplicable way.
With an only slightly painful shrug, he took a sip of the tea. It was excellent, as Frances had promised. Perhaps, Thomas thought to himself, he was overreacting. He was many years and many miles removed from that battlefield, and its ghosts were old ones. Surely it was no surprise that those echoes would trouble him once in a while, for no man could endure what he had endured both at the battle and afterwards and walk away unscathed. But to lend those ghosts power beyond what they held, to jump at shadows that should trouble him no longer—that was a lesser man's way of behaving. He would sit in the warm sun and enjoy its warmth, and drink excellent tea, and write until the night and Polly demanded that he remove himself indoors for supper.
Satisfied with himself, Thomas put down the glass and took up his pen once again. He glanced down at what he had written thus far, seeking to restart his train of thought.
There were two words, and two words only, written on the page below. They were (and Thomas later recalled that he was not nearly so surprised at their appearance as he might have been, all things considered) "Snodgrass Hill."
Thomas did nothing for a long moment. Then he put the pen down, slowly and carefully, and closed his notebook. He took another sip of tea, then called into the house.
"Mrs. Thomas," he said, with due deliberation. "It appears that I may owe you an apology."
***
There were four of them gathered together under the sad pines and ebullient magnolias of the north Georgia mountains.
Harris, the oldest of the four, had wanted them all to wear their old uniforms, but the other three had objected. Mayfield had felt that wearing the uniform of the Army of the Cumberland into Georgia, regardless of circumstance, would be a poor id
ea, and Bleeker had seconded that notion. Relations between common soldiers on the western front had been more or less friendly when there hadn't been actual shooting going on, but there was no need to push the point even now. Discretion, Mayfield had cautioned, was the better part of not getting one's arse shot off. As Mayfield had actually been a captain (and had spent a memorable few weeks serving on the staff of General Thomas himself), the others tended to listen when he put his foot down on an issue. Old habits, unlike old soldiers, die hard.
As for Stanton, he merely responded by telegraph with what was for him, startling verbosity. He noted that his uniform had been damaged to the point where it was no longer fit to be worn in decent company, and not in the company of his fellow soldiers, either. So other plans were laid and the quartet agreed to descend on the battlefield in their civilian finest, intent on rekindling old acquaintances and making a pilgrimage.
Bleeker thought he was the first to arrive, but as he trudged up Snodgrass Hill he found that Stanton was waiting for him, as still as one of the many stone monuments the Confederates had found time and money to put up all over the battlefield. Farmer Snodgrass still technically owned the land, but his chances of ever planting there again were about as good as the North's chances of ever reestablishing the Union.
"I thought 1 was the first to arrive," puffed Bleeker with a smile as he reached the crest of the hill.
"From where I stand, you are," said Stanton mildly Bleeker laughed. "It's good to see you again. You don't look a day older than when we fought here." And, Bleeker thought to himself, that was almost literally true. Stanton still had the same dark hair, the same sad, long hound's face that never broke into a true smile, the same lanky build and easy stance. He, on the other hand, had gotten married, put on weight, lost some hair and watched in embarrassment as the rest had gone gray practically overnight. His business had prospered, but his wife had died and he, childless, found his thoughts returning to his old comrades in arms. So he had written to those four he could find, asking them to join him here, to lay aside their business for a while and journey with him for a while. Serendipitously, all four had agreed. And so, they had agreed to meet here, where their paths had separated so many years before, and to head west together, traveling as four gentlemen of wealth and leisure might.
"I see you don't have your bags," commented Stanton. He, by contrast, had a large carpetbag of a particularly energetic shade of red at his feet "Oh, everything is back in the village. They've got quite a bustling little town there now. It's a far cry from when we marched through here, isn't it?" Bleeker let out a nervous little chuckle. "Besides, I'm hardly the man I was in those days. Hauling a steamer trunk up this hill would have finished me certain, it would." Stanton just nodded, and Bleeker found a convenient rock to sit on to wait for the arrival of the other two. Little conversation passed between them as they did, but there was nothing unusual in this. Stanton had always been one of the quietest men in the outfit, and one of the steadiest. Silence from him was like silence from a stone-precisely what one would expect. Still, there were times when Bleeker wondered at the air of distance his friend maintained; there were times when he almost could have mistaken Stanton for a carved figure, or perhaps a ghost.
It was a bare hour before sunset when Harris rode up, with the news that Mayfield was back at the hotel in the town of Chickamauga, and that the two on top of the hill were damned fools for waiting out there for God alone knows how long. Even Stanton deigned to smile, more or less, at that, and he slung his bag over his shoulder to begin the descent. Bleeker scrambled after, nearly tumbling over his own feet at one point before Stanton reached out to steady him. Bleeker gasped at this, half in relief that he had not fallen, and half in shock at the strength and chill of Stanton's grip.
"Cold hands," Stanton had said after Bleeker had righted himself. "I've been out here a while." Bleeker had nodded and the two had finished picking their way down to where Mayfield waited, as impatient as ever.
Fortunately Mayfield had been able to hire three horses, a pair of handsome, riderless bays to go with the gray mare that he was riding, and before long the three were off at a dignified trot. Mayfield had always been something of an awe-inspiring figure to Bleeker. The man had actually been promoted to sergeant (twice; he was demoted once for either flinging beer at or pissing on a captain. The stories varied depending on whom one asked), had led the unit's hideously successful foraging parties and had tumbled more of the local girls than the rest of the group put together. He was graying now, with his fine mustachios turned the color of new iron, but he still sat ramrod-straight in the saddle, and still exuded an air of reckless dashing. It was Mayfield who had always been able to talk the others into sneaking past the pickets to sing underneath pretty girls' windows, to steal fat hogs from farmers' yards when orders sternly forbade such and to keep their spirits up when it seemed as if all were about to be lost. He'd been the saving grace of the siege of Chattanooga, when men had been shot for trying to steal food from the artillery wagon horses' troughs, and the miserable days at Nashville before the end. Now he urged his horse on, nudging it into a trot and then a gallop, daring the others to keep up with him.
Bleeker gave a whoop and spurred his mount on, and a second later Stanton did the same. The three pounded into the village of Chickamauga, nearly trampled a peddlar who should have watched where he was going and pulled their snorting mounts in at the front of the modest establishment that proclaimed itself to be the "Snodgrass Hotel." The trio dismounted, two of them laughing, and Mayfield flipped the hostler a coin to take care of the mounts. Then they went inside, as Bleeker had long since taken the step of reserving rooms for all four of them.
"You'll have to excuse me for the evening, gentlemen," said Mayfield when they had tromped upstairs. "I'd intended on passing the evening with you and some of the local corn squeezings, but I've been traveling for three days and no longer possess the stamina to see in the dawn with you. Besides, we have an early start tomorrow, if I remember correctly."
"Good God, man, what's become of your sense of adventure?" Bleeker was almost comically indignant. "Is this what's become of the man who threw out the contents of his pack to make more room for whiskey? My Lord, Stanton," he said in a faux-conspiratorial tone, "I think we have an impostor!"
Stanton didn't smile. "I think he may have the right idea, in truth. For my part, I intend to turn in, and sleep like a log until morning. We have a long way to go, and I want to make the journey as pleasant as possible. Starting it with a pounding headache and red eyes strikes me as a bad idea."
"Hmm." Bleeker sighed, deflated. "I suppose you're right."
"Of course I'm right. I'm always right. That's why you invited me along, Aaron. Good night." And with that, Stanton strode easily off down the corridor, his bag slung impossibly over one shoulder. The other two looked after him curiously, then turned to face one another once the other man's door had slammed shut.
"Ahem. Yes. Well, Stanton does seem to have the right idea. I should turn in as well."
Bleeker sighed. "Well, if the lot of your are going to bed in, I should do the same. No chance that Harris would be up and about, is there?"
Mayfield shook his head. "None at all, I'm afraid. He couldn't even work up the strength to ride out with me to fetch you, and he's the reason I was so late. I don't think he has much time left, I'm afraid."
"Oh?" Bleeker's face was a mask of surprise and sorrow.
Mayfield nodded. "He's a lunger, I'm afraid. This trip is his last hurrah. But he wanted to see you and Stanton again, and who was I to talk him out of it?"
Bleeker patted his shoulder, awkwardly. "Tut, tut. You did the right thing. And if this is his last go-round, well, we'll make it one that the angels will envy when he marches up to St. Peter." He paused and sucked his lower lip for a second, then continued. "I wasn't going to tell you this, but if Harris is done for, I might as well. It could buck his spirits up. We're going to California, Mayfield. We're going
to go see the Old Man."
Mayfield looked shocked. "Are you sure he'll be willing to see us?" he finally said.
"Not at all. But if he doesn't, then at least we'll have had a grand journey from here to the Great Maze. I hear there's sights there that we can't imagine back east-sea dragons, earthquakes, God alone knows what else. It'll be a marvel to see no matter what. And if Pap does see us, we can thank him for the privilege of serving under him. Furthermore," he said with an air of finality, "I'm paying for the whole thing, so don't argue. Now get some sleep, captain. Tomorrow we ride to Chattanooga, a bit more pleasantly than the last time we took the trip, and then it's on to California."
With that Bleeker snapped off a still-smart salute, turned on his heel and marched off to his room. "If you say so, private Mayfield sighed, and retired himself. Soon the only noises to be heard were those common to a not-quite-filled hotel in the middle of the night, and occasionally, a terrible, racking cough.
***
The trip from Chickamauga along the base of Lookout Mountain to Chattanooga had been, as promised, less eventful than the prior trip the men had taken. Then, they had been part of a beaten army. Harris had been part of the mass of men who'd flooded back to the city with Rosecrans in the initial panic, he said, and his face was grim when he recalled seeing Rosecrans stop, hesitate, and then ride on toward safety. The others had stood with Thomas and the ragged half of the army that remained, until they'd finally been forced to give up their ground. It had been a frightened column of men that Thomas had led off the field amidst hard fighting that night. Not all of them had seen the horror of the dead rising, but everyone knew something terrible beyond words had happened.
Thomas had forbidden discussion of what had occurred on the field during the retreat. Those who'd seen the dead rise were only too glad to obey.
But now it was a beautiful spring day, and the air bore the scents of magnolia and hope. Now they could enjoy the sights of the beauty of the ground they'd marched over, but this time from the safety and luxury of a hired carriage. The conversation was as light and airy as their surroundings, and it was inevitable that the topic of discussion should turn to past glories and acts of heroism.
A Fist Full O' Dead Guys Page 14