Chickamauga Battlefield
September 20, 1863
Morning of the Second Day
Eli peered from behind his barricade of stacked logs at an open field of pasture land, the sound of approaching hoof beats breaking the morning silence. He turned to see a messenger reining up on his horse next to Colonel Emerson Opdycke, the commander of the 125th Ohio.
The messenger dismounted, saluted and handed the colonel a neatly folded sheet of paper.
“Hell and damnation,” exploded Opdycke upon reading it. Fully six feet tall, Eli watched him fix the orderly with an angry glare every member of the regiment knew too well. “Has General Wood completely lost his damned mind?”
The soldier’s cheeks flushed and he shifted his feet uncomfortably, slapping the reins of his horse against his leg. “General Wood’s got his orders direct from General Rosecrans, Colonel,” he replied. “Old Rosie says we’re to pull out and move to the left so’s to close up on General Reynolds just as fast as we can.”
Opdycke’s jaw dropped open looking at the front of their line and then to his left.
“And why,” he said, “in the name of the living Jesus would he want me to move from here to our left?”
“To fill the gap between you and General Reynolds,” answered the youth uncomfortably.
“Lieutenant,” Opdycke ground out, rubbing his well-trimmed beard, “there is no God damned gap between us and General Reynolds. But if I pull my men out of this line there sure as hell will be one, and we’ll be making it! Report that back to General Wood.”
The corporal sighed. “General Harker, your brigade commander, agrees with you Colonel, and he said the same thing to General Wood. But General Wood has direct orders from General Rosecrans, the General in charge of this whole party, to make this here move.”
“Well tell General Wood to tell General Rosecrans that we cannot make this move to fill this gap that doesn’t exist without making one right in the center of the entire damn Union line. The rebels have been quiet so far today, but sure as God made Adam that’s not going to last much longer and we could have a fight on our hands at any moment.”
It made Eli chuckle to see the corporal refuse to look Opdycke in the eyes. “He won’t do it, sir. Not two hours ago General Rosecrans his own self rode up to General Wood and chewed him good about being slow in obeying orders. I mean he chewed him good and he done it in front of us all, Colonel. He said, and I quote him here so you’ll excuse the language, sir, but he said to General Wood, he said, ‘You have disobeyed my specific orders you God damned son of a bitch, and I won’t God damned tolerate it. Are you some kind of mental defective that you can’t follow a God damned simple command? I will not tolerate your incompetence endangering the safety of this entire army, and by God I’ll light a fire under your hind quarters myself if that’s what it takes to get your sorry ass in motion. Move this division at once, as I have instructed, or you’ll have my God damned boot up your God damned backside so hard I’ll have my foot on your tongue, just try me and see if you don’t.’
“So you see, sir, General Wood intends to follow whatever order Old Rosie sends him, and I mean obey it straight away come hell or high water.”
Opdycke shook his head, frowning, and looked to his aide, Captain Bates. “Most likely we’ll have both hell and high water on our hands soon enough, Captain. Please get the men in formation, we’re moving out.” Bates saluted and mounted his horse to deliver the order down the line to prepare to leave.
As Eli watched, Colonel Opdycke turned back to the messenger already climbing back onto his horse. The colonel took the animal’s bridle in his right hand a moment before the young man could ride off and added, “Do tell General Wood that I make this move with the gravest of reservations.”
The corporal shrugged. “I’ll do that, Colonel, for all the good it’ll do.”
Opdycke released the bridle and the corporal spurred his horse away.
Eli gathered his gear as Colonel Opdycke walked up to gaze out over the field in front of their position. "Have you seen anything moving over there, Private Craft?" he said. “Or any of you other men?”
The men stopped, all eyes on Eli. It impressed Eli the colonel knew their names. That was not true of most officers. The colonel was a strict disciplinarian who made them train and drill, and then train and drill some more until training and drilling was all Eli dreamed about, but he took an interest in the men. "No, Colonel," he answered. "I've been watching, but haven't seen so much as a rabbit cross that field. Of course," he added looking at the thick undergrowth and trees on the far side of the pasture, "there could be half the Confederate army hidden over there and we'd have no way of knowing. I'll bet my soul there's rebels hidden in those trees, but right now we sure can't see them."
The others around Eli murmured agreement. Opdycke nodded, looking thoughtful.
Eli hesitated. The colonel cut a tall, imposing figure and he usually kept aloof from the enlisted men, a moody, determined man. Eli heard he was a veteran of the battle of Shiloh, where he was wounded back before the 125th Ohio was recruited. Eli screwed up his courage and said, “I heard you talking to the messenger, sir. You think we ought not to move?”
Opdycke glanced at him. “Doesn't really matter what I think, does it? All we can do is follow orders and hope the generals know what the hell they're doing. It could well be that General Reynolds is in trouble up ahead and needs us.” He looked to where he believed Reynolds was waiting, shaking his head. “But no, this doesn’t feel right. The rebs are out there all right,” he said, turning back to the barricade and thrusting his chin toward the far line of trees, “and I can’t believe they’re just going to sit tight all day.”
He looked back at Eli, fixing him with a stare. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Craft. I know most of the men in the 125th Ohio, or know their families, but I don't know you. More than that, nearly everyone here is Ohio born. You don't sound Ohio to me. Where are you from?”
Eli shook his head, uncomfortable whenever asked about himself. The less said the better as far as he was concerned. Not that anyone had the means of checking up on him, but this was the colonel, and there was no dodging a direct question from him.
“No, sir,” Eli said, “I was born and raised in Georgia.”
Opdycke regarded him with renewed interest. “Then why aren't you on the other side of that tree line over there?”
“I left before the war because I didn’t care for it down South. The planters control everything and everyone, and your decent common man is nothing to them. I wanted to live on free soil, and I'll fight for free soil. If the rebels win, they won’t rest until they have slaves in Boston and New York.” And, thought Eli, they would certainly make a slave of him again if they got the chance.
Opdycke nodded, amused. “I’m an abolitionist myself, though not the fire breather my wife is. You should meet her. She’s a regular hurricane when it comes to the slavery question. Anyway, I’m glad to hear it, Craft. Like I said, I know most of the men in this regiment, and most of the ones I didn’t know were nothing but bounty jumpers who joined for the bonuses and deserted at the first opportunity. That’s what I thought you were. I’m glad you’re not. Bounty jumpers never stay around long enough for a fight, so I guess we have you for the duration.”
Eli stood straight, so much shorter than the colonel he felt he was standing next to a tree. “I’ll stick by this army for as long as it takes, or I’m not a man.” Eli nearly laughed at the slip, realizing this was not, strictly speaking, what he meant to say.
“This is Tennessee, but when we win this battle we’ll find ourselves in Georgia. How do you feel about fighting your own people?”
“None of my people are over there,” said Eli with feeling. “Not one of my people will fight for the planters, and that’s a fact.”
The regimental bugler sounded the call to form up and men pulled back from their fortifications. “Time to go,” said Opdycke, turning to leave. He took two steps and halted, looking back to Eli a moment. “And private,” he said. “Eat something, will you? You’re damn gun is as tall as you are, and I’ve never seen a skinnier man in all my damn life.”