Chickamauga Battlefield
September 20, 1863
Morning of the Second Day
Colonel Opdycke trotted past Eli on a bay horse he called Barney. “Keep up the pace, men,” the Colonel repeatedly called.
“Wish I had a horse to ride,” grumbled Private Jason Case, a young, beardless kid Eli figured no more than 17 years old, and probably less. “I’d like to see the colonel walk all the damn miles I’ve walked.”
“Well, Case,” barked Sergeant Samuel Hayes behind them, “you’ll be happy to be on the ground when them rebs commence shooting. The colonel will make one fine target up there, damned if he won’t, and if you still want a ride then, why you can climb up on my back and damned if I won’t carry you. With you up top the rebs’ll be shooting at you and the colonel. That’ll direct their fire away from the rest of us which suits me just fine. How’d you like that, son?”
Jason didn’t answer.
“Didn’t think you’d like that,” laughed Hayes.
Big Joe McCarthy snickered. Marching on the other side of Eli, Big Joe was the largest man Eli had ever seen, and he suspected Hayes put them next to each other because it amused him to see the biggest man in the company marching next to the smallest.
“I’ll take that ride, Sergeant,” cried a voice from up the line. “My feet are killing me.”
“I hear you, Private Larsen,” called Hayes. “Don’t think I don’t. When we get to Atlanta I’ll have a dozen Southern belles wash them poor blistered brogans of your’n. How’s that suit you?”
“Could you do it now, Sergeant? I don’t think I can wait,” Larsen pleaded to the laughter of the men near him.
“If I come up there, Mark Larsen, I won’t be massaging your damned feet, I’ll be massaging your posterior with my boot, by God, and when I’m done you won’t hardly notice your feet for the pain in your arse.”
The column marched on down the dusty road in silence except for the sound of footfalls and the rattle of equipment. Eli’s thoughts drifted back to the day before, the first day of battle and his first day of combat, when he took his first shot at a rebel, the memory as vivid as the moment it happened. The rebels charging, screaming that eerie banshee yell of theirs, when he raised his gun and pulled the trigger. He had no idea if the shot went near anyone, but it was certainly his intent to kill a man. A Southern white man.
Even now he marveled he was not afraid. If fact, he felt a terrific thrill. He tried to kill a rebel, and might have succeeded. It made him smile to think that before he escaped Georgia the sight of a mouse terrified him. Now he sometimes camped with rats and did not lose a wink of sleep. Everything about him had changed since that day in the train station in Baltimore, when he left poor William behind.
It jarred him to think of it now because he could not remember that day without thinking of himself as a woman. Posing as a man, something that started off so awkwardly, was now so natural he hardly remembered he was not one except when he thought about William.
An explosion of rifle fire behind them shook Eli from his reverie. He, and every man around him, faced in the direction of the shooting.
“What the devil?” said Jason.
“The very devil’s exactly what that is,” muttered Hayes, also facing in the direction they left. “I hope you ladies are ready to dance with him, because that sure sounds like an invitation to the ball, damned if it don’t.”
The column slowed as men craned their heads toward the growing thunder of battle behind them. All around Eli heard nervous chatter.
Colonel Opdycke rode past at a gallop shouting orders to form up in line of battle. Buglers sounded that same order, and Eli bolted to take his position facing an open field. Behind him, Sergeant Hayes barked curses at men slow in taking their position.
“Damn, Eli,” said Big Joe standing on his right. “Ain’t you scared at all? You look calm as a old dog on a Sunday morning porch in July.”
Eli shrugged. “Any time I can shoot a rebel is fine by me, Big Joe,” he answered.
Big Joe shook his head. “I’ll kill a man if I got to, but you look to plumb enjoy it Eli. I’d never a thought it looking at you, but you got a real itch to shoot rebels and that’s a fact.”
“Damn,” said Jason, standing on the other side of Eli.
Eli saw his hands shaking.
“I can’t remember if I already loaded this here gun or not. What should I do, Eli?” His eyes looked panicked.
“Look under your hammer,” said Eli, nodding toward his gun. “Have you got a cap on the firing nipple?”
Jason checked. “Yeah,” he said. “I sure do.”
“Then it’s loaded. Don’t put another bullet in the barrel because with two the whole thing is liable to blow up in your face when you pull the trigger.”
Jason nodded and seemed to calm down.
Eli shook his head. Why were they all so rattled, he wondered? For himself, if he got killed he got killed, but so long as he was alive nothing would stop him from getting back to Georgia and William. And if that meant shooting every white man between here and Macon, then so be it.
From down the line Eli heard Colonel Opdycke shout, “125th Ohio fix bayonets!”
“You heard the colonel,” shouted Sergeant Hayes. “Fix bayonets. If the rebs come up asking to shake hands, you stick ‘em in the belly and you stick ‘em good.”
Eli pulled his bayonet from its leather holster on his belt. Up and down the line he heard the clatter of bayonets fixed over the barrels of muskets.
“I hope they don’t get so close we’ve got to use these damn things,” said Big Joe, frowning as he finished locking his bayonet in place. “I’d rather shoot a man than have to stick him up close.”
“What difference does it make?” said Steve Blue on the other side of Joe, a short stringy man with small mean eyes.
Joe shrugged. “Don’t like looking into the eyes of a man I’m killing. I’ll be seeing those eyes the rest of my life, I figure. I’d rather do without the likes a that.”
“Well, I like it,” said Steve, licking his lips. “It’s like having a bug on a pin. I wanna see them rebs squirm.” He shook the end of his gun grinning at Joe.
“There they are!” a voice shouted. Eli jerked his head up to see across the open field a ragged line of rebel troops. They appeared to just materialize out of the woods, as if the trees and brush were turning into men. The rebel line looked longer then their own, a lot longer.
“Damn,” said Jason, his face turning pale, “look at all them fellers. I ain’t never seen so many rebs in all my life.”
“That ain’t saying much,” said Sergeant Hayes behind them, “considering that you ain’t never seen no rebels at all before yesterday. Now stand firm, you men. This here dispute’s about to get personal and I expect it’ll be one hell of a argument.”
The rebels continued to pour through the woods like water, streams of men rushing forward in expanding rows of battle. They came and then kept on coming until it looked to Eli there might be no end to them.
Far on his right Eli heard Colonel Opdycke call out, “Make way, boys, let me through.” The line of soldiers parted as he trotted to their front and with a flourish whirled his horse back to face them. “Reform your lines and advance firing!” he shouted.
This was a formation they practiced many times before, and at the command Eli rushed four feet forward to form the first of four new lines of battle. Sergeant Hayes behind him barked orders as the rest of the men fell into their assigned places.
“First line, fire!” yelled Opdycke.
Eli aimed at the rebels and fired. Smoke billowed from their line in a white cloud as the roar of musketry tore through the air like the sound of tearing fabric.
“Advance!” screamed Hayes. The rear line of men trotted four feet in front of Eli.
“Give ‘em hell, boys!” yelled Hayes, and that line fired.
Once they did the rear line pressed forward to form the new front line. Eli tore open a paper cartridge, pouring its black powder contents down the barrel of his gun. He dropped the bullet at the bottom of the cartridge on top of the powder, and yanked his ramrod out from under the gun barrel to slam it down the muzzle and pack the bullet firmly in place. Replacing the ramrod, he snatched a brass firing cap from the cartridge box on his hip, pulled back the hammer on his gun and pressed the cap onto the firing nipple.
By the time he finished, he was in the rearmost line of men. The front line fired and he trotted forward to take the lead again. He raised his musket and shot at the rebel troops massed before him. He strained to see the effect, but the enemy was still too distant.
Eli yelled through the constant roar of gunfire as the rear line marched past him, preparing to shoot.
His entire world squeezed down to a focus on loading his gun, waiting to advance, and taking his next shot, dimly aware of the whole 125th Ohio pushing slowly forward toward the enemy, like a heavy mechanical tortoise spitting lead, smoke and thunder. The air smelled of sulfur and was so clouded with smoke he could scarcely see 20 feet in any direction. Even the rebels, when he could see them at all, were ghostly shapes in the smoke. Except for the shouting and the crackling roar of guns, for all he knew only the men around him were in the fight. If everyone else ran off, he could not see it.
He did not care. He loaded, sprinted forward and fired. Nothing mattered besides keeping his weapon ready. Every step forward was a step closer to William and another foot of ground lost to the Confederacy.
Eli could not tell how much time passed since the start of the fight. In the timelessness of battle it might have been a minute or an hour or ten hours. A light breeze blew into his face, throwing back the smoke and opening a view of the battlefield. A loud cheer arose from his comrades upon discovering the rebels gone except for the bodies of their killed and wounded scattered across the ground, one so near Eli clearly saw the pain and surprise on his young, beardless and very dead face.
Officers called to cease firing. Feeling as if in a dream, his ears still ringing from the roar of gunfire, Eli turned to find he was 400 yards from where he’d started. He couldn’t believe it.
“Damn,” said Jason standing next to him, “they sure as hell skedaddled. Damned if they didn’t.” He sounded giddy.
“What has me sideways is that the colonel is still on top a that horse a his,” said Big Joe. “I thought one of ‘em would be dead for sure, and most likely both.”
Where Big Joe pointed Eli saw Colonel Opdycke leaning forward on his horse giving orders to men clustered around him, including Sergeant Hayes. Opdycke finished and Hayes trotted back.
Startled to see black soot on everyone’s face from the burnt powder that blew out from under the cap on the firing nipple, Eli wiped the back of his hand across his cheek. As expected, it was smudged with soot.
“You look like a damned darkie,” said Steve Blue, smirking at Eli. “A regular step and fetch it boy.”
Eli’s hands clenched his gun.
Blue mistook Eli’s frown for anger at being called a darkie, and he laughed, “What’s wrong nigger? If them Johnnys catch you today, they’ll sell you down South sure and you’ll be picking cotton the rest a the damn war.”
“Just shut the hell up, Blue,” said Eli. “There isn’t a black man alive who isn’t worth ten of the likes of you.”
Blue’s face turned from a smirk to a scowl. He strode up to Eli, shoving him in the chest with the stock of his gun. “Watch your damned tongue before I cut it out,” he hissed. “Ain’t no man calls me less’n a nigger.”
Before Eli could answer Big Joe’s hand closed on the back of Blue’s shirt and yanked him backwards with such force his gun flew from his hands and he landed on his backside. “That’ll do, Steve,” said Joe. “Seems to me you serve it up good enough, but don’t much like having it handed back to you.” Big Joe towered over the man on the ground.
Blue scrambled up to take a swing at Big Joe when Sergeant Hayes stepped between them. “There’ll be none of that from you boys,” he bawled.
“I won’t stand for...” Blue began, but Hayes swung on him and thrust his jaw in Blue’s face. “One more word outta you and I’ll feed your damned liver to the dogs. If you’re so God damned eager to brawl you can save it for the rebs, because we’re gonna be in a hell of a fight here in short order.”
Blue fell back a step looking sullen. Hayes glared at all of them. “You hear that?” he shouted. “Those rebs come up behind us, which means one thing. They broke our line, and I’ll wager a thousand silver dollars they came through where we just left. If that’s true, and I don’t see how it can’t be, then I’ll also bet half the reb army’ll be on us fast as a dog on a hare.”
He pointed ahead to a fence crowning a rise in the field. “The colonel wants all you boys to make a line along that fence yonder. Tear it down and use it and anything else you find to build cover for when the rebs start shooting again.” He looked at them, his face hard and fire in his eyes. “I said do it, and I mean do it now!”
Eli, the first to reach the fence, stared down the far side of the ridge as the rest of the 125th Ohio formed up around him. The men immediately pried loose the split rails to stack on the ground for cover, adding rocks and anything else they found at hand.
Before Eli stretched a wide brownish green pasture dotted by clumps of brush and trees, but, too his disappointment, not a rebel in sight. The air was still except for the hollow clatter of lumber being stacked.
“Eli,” said Big Joe, “quit making yourself a target and get down.”
Eli discovered he was the only man standing. He sank to his knee between Joe and Jason. “I don’t see a soul out there,” he said, resting his gun on a rail in front of him.
“Don’t mean there ain’t no sharpshooters hidden in them trees. Some of them rebs can pick a fly off’n your nose from a 100 yards, damned if they can’t,” said Jason.
“He’s right,” said Joe. “Only they won’t be shoot’en no flies.”
Eli shrugged. “The good Lord decides when we live and when we die. Crouch down as low as you can, but when God calls you that’s the end of your days and you don’t get a day more.”
Joe sighed and shook his big shaggy head. “I reckon that’s true enough, but there ain’t no sense tempting the Lord Almighty to hurry things by acting like of fool. God helps them who help themselves, my mamma always told me.”
“If your momma can talk, it must be your daddy who’s the bear,” said Blue from the other side of Big Joe. “You’re so damn big and ugly, at least one of your parents is got to be a grizzly.”
To Eli’s annoyance, Jason snickered, but Joe just turned on his elbow to look at Blue and said, “Is there anyone in this here world you ain’t aiming to pick a fight with?”
Blue shrugged. “Just a joke,” he mumbled.
Behind them Colonel Opdycke trotted past on his horse, inspecting their line and occasionally calling on a man to close up a gap.
“He’s not afraid of any sharpshooter,” said Eli. “He’s up there plain as day.”
Big Joe shrugged. “We’ll see if he lasts the day.”
Eli looked back down the ridge, searching for a sign of movement. The men around him silent, not even a bird call broke the eerie calm.
Finally Jason said, “Somebody tell a joke. It’s too damn quiet.”
“You’ll wish it’d stayed that way soon enough,” said Sergeant Hayes from behind them.
At the far end of the clearing a rebel line of battle stepped out of the forest, advancing at a steady pace. Eli could just hear their officers shouting orders.
“Sweet Jesus,” whispered Jason, his face draining of color yet again.
Eli watched the ranks of rebels swelling out of the trees just as before, the number of men growing until they formed a crowd far larger than the one they previously faced. The whole mass of enemy soldiers moved in perfect order this time, a single sprawling beast possessed of only one purpose, which was to tear every last one of them to pieces. Well, thought Eli, maybe this is it. He looked left and right to find on every man’s face the same expression of stark terror.
Colonel Opdycke drew up his horse directly behind Eli. Apparently sensing the rising panic he called out, “Hold steady, 125th. Keep to your posts, men. The army and the future of our country depend on what you do here today.”
“They can kill us, Colonel,” answered Sergeant Hayes matter of factly, “but they won’t never whip us.”
“If it’s all the same to him, I’d rather be whipped and live,” scowled Blue under his breath.
“I ain’t running,” said Joe. “No matter if all the rest a you boys skedaddle and I’m left standing with just myself for company, I ain’t going.” He stared intently down the ridge at the gathering storm of the enemy advance.
“You won’t be alone,” answered Eli.
Joe’s large hand patted him roughly on the shoulder. “I’ll stand with you any day, and proud of it.”
“Well,” said Jason, “I hope when this is over we’ll all of us be standing, instead of lying dead in some damn grave.”
His brow beaded with sweat, Eli thought Jason looked ready to spring up and sprint for Chattanooga to their rear.
“Steady men,” growled Sergeant Hayes pacing behind them. “Just a minute more.”
The tide of rebel troops rushed forward. Eli could just make out individual faces in the front rows, their expressions confident and eager. Well, he thought, we’ll see how eager they are when the shooting starts.
“Fire,” screamed Sergeant Hayes. “Lay it on, boys!”