Evening of September 25, 1863
Chattanooga
Eli pulled his heavy wool coat tighter around his shoulders. It was much too big, but it was warm and he was glad to have it. The cold night air was quiet except for the murmuring of the men from his company seated around the campfire. Someone threw on another log causing a geyser of crackling red sparks to erupt into the darkness. “Don’t be wasting wood, girls,” said Sergeant Hayes, “it won’t be long before we clean out what’s close and won’t have no more.”
“It sure enough looks pretty out there,” said Al sitting to Eli’s right.
Big Joe was on his left. To Eli’s irritation, the two attached themselves to him for reasons he simply could not fathom. The more annoyed he grew with their efforts to help him since being shot, the more they seemed amused by it.
“What looks pretty?” said Joe.
“Them rebel campfires,” said Al. “The whole damn ridge is lit up.”
They gazed at the string of tiny flickering yellow lights that outlined the rebel positions on the hills surrounding them to the south.
“I wonder what they’re thinking?” said Mark Larsen on the other side of the fire from Eli, a tall skinny fellow with prematurely graying hair and beard.
“I reckon they’re looking down wondering what we’re thinking,” said Al.
“I’d rather be up there looking down on them here,” said Charlie Peacock, further down the circle on Eli’s left. “We’re in a hell of a pickle. We just started half rations and I’m already powerful hungry. I believe Bragg means to starve us out of Chattanooga.”
“I hear Mr. Lincoln told Rosecrans to hold Chattanooga at all hazards,” said Larsen.
“Yeah, and you know what that means,” said Russ Nelson, a grumpy young man with a wandering right eye that always made Eli uncomfortable. He could never tell who Russ was talking to because he couldn’t tell who he was looking at when he spoke. “That means we hold Chattanooga till every last one of us is kilt.”
Steve Blue laughed derisively. “Mr. Lincoln can come and hold this rat trap his self if it means so much to him, and welcome to it. If food runs out and I ain’t got ammunition to fire, what’s he expect? I should throw rocks and harsh words at them rebs?”
“I’ll have none of it, Blue,” growled Hayes. “The President’s a good man.”
“The President’s ugly as a gorilla and dumb as a jackass,” sorted Blue.
Swift as a snake Hayes pulled out his sidearm and leveled it straight at Blue’s head.
“What’d you say?” he said in a quiet but deadly voice.
Blue almost fell over backwards in fright. “Are you crazy?” he gasped.
Hayes cocked the gun. “Not the right answer,” he replied.
“I didn’t mean nothing, I didn’t mean nothing,” said Blue in a panic, holding his hands up in front of his face.
“You didn’t mean what?” said Hayes.
“Mr. Lincoln’s the finest man who ever lived. Jesus his self don’t hold a candle to him.”
Hayes held his gun on Blue two seconds more, then smiled as he holstered it. “Glad to hear you think so high of ‘em.”
“I don’t rightly understand, Sergeant,” said Peacock. “Blue here insulted the president and you thought to blow his head off for it, but in backtracking it he blasphemed the Lord and you holstered your gun. Ain’t that worse?”
“I weren’t never gonna blow Blue’s head off,” chuckled Hayes, picking up a battered tin cup and sipping hot coffee. “He’s got so little sense I doubt he’d miss it if I did blow what was there out his ears. I was gonna shoot his pecker off. Now that he’d a missed.
“And as to the Lord, He can take care a His own affairs without needing no help from the likes a me. He’ll deal with Blue in His own good time. Mr. Lincoln, contrary wise, needs all the help he can get.”
Blue, looking shaken, mumbled something under his breath.
“You got something to say, Blue?” said Hayes pleasantly.
“No sir,” said Blue not meeting his eye.
Eli just shook his head. Men, he thought. No wonder the world was such a damn mess. The trouble was, every day he became more like them. It made him shiver to think it.
“Cold?” said Al. He passed Eli a bottle of whiskey from under his coat.
“No thanks,” said Eli, passing it back.
“Take a drink,” said Joe. “My daddy always said taken in moderation it’s the best tonic known to man.”
“I don’t want it,” said Eli, remembering the last time he had a drink and how bad he felt the next day. Of course, he drank half a bottle of the stuff on that occasion.
“You’re the most stubborn man alive,” said Joe. “And you don’t never listen to reason.”
“I am not stubborn,” said Eli.
“Are too,” said Joe.
“I’m not stubborn,” Eli insisted.
“Then stop acting like a old woman and have a drink,” said Joe. “If ever a man needed it more, I’ve ain’t never met him. Ain’t you a man?”
His stomach tightened thinking maybe Big Joe knew the truth about him. When Joe carried him all that time unconscious, had he noticed something? Something that wasn’t there that should have been, or bumps where most men didn’t have them?
The others within earshot of their exchange looked at him, and Eli grabbed the bottle from Al. Looking nonchalant, he uncorked it and took a long draw to make it appear drinking whiskey was as natural to him as breathing. It burned his throat as before, but he was ready for it and did not choke. He handed the bottle to Joe with affected indifference.
“There, happy?” he said.
Joe took a drink and handed the bottle back to Al.
As irritated as Eli was, the whiskey warmed his belly and he did not feel cold anymore. In fact, he had to admit it felt pretty good.
“Hey, don’t put that bottle away,” said Blue. “You shared with them, now how ‘bout your neighbors?”
“I happen to know you got a bottle,” said Mark Larsen. “I saw you buy it when I got mine. I don’t see you sharing that around.”
“Mind your own business,” hissed Blue leaning forward, his pinched face shining yellow in the light of the campfire.
“You know,” said Al, ignoring Blue, “when General Rosecrans told us how grateful he was for what we done, it sure was a surprise to me. All I knew was we kept fight’en and them rebs kept push’en, and come the end of the day we retreated. I didn’t have no idea we’d done nothing big, like save the whole damn army, because it felt like I was just getting my backside kicked up one side and down t’other.”
“A fight’s always that way,” drawled Hayes. “You hardly ever know what’s happen’en till it’s over, and even then sometimes you don’t have no notion. Folks shoot’en at you focuses the mind,” he said pointing to his eyes, “and a battlefield’s a big place. You never see the whole of a fight. All you knows is what’s in front a your face.”
“What I’d like to know,” said Blue, “is why we’re fight’en at all. When I joined up, it was on a lark. Join the army and kill me some rebels and have a grand time, that’s what I thought. I thought we’d be drunk every night, be heroes in short order and get back home on the double quick. I got me a nice bounty for joining, too, and that put plenty a greenbacks in my pocket. Now the money’s all gone and I don’t got no idea where it went, and if I don’t never see another fight that’ll be just fine as hen feathers by me. But I’ll be damned if I can say why we’re here anymore. So what if them Southern boys want a go their own way? Let ‘em, that’s what I say. We’d be better off without ‘em and all their damn niggers, anyway.”
The whiskey warmed Eli, but Blue’s stupidity made him hotter still. He tried to think of a retort when Mark Larsen piped in, “It ain’t right for some pack a Southern so-called ‘gentlemen’ to go wrecking the country. I, for one, won’t sit still for it. Them planters lost an election fair and square, and they can’t just go busting things up because they didn’t like it none. This country belongs to us all, and they ain’t gonna tell me what’s what, by God. ”
Russ Nelson chortled. “Well that’s a strange notion to hold for a man who joined the damn army. You got Sergeant Hayes here to General Rosecrans to Abraham Lincoln telling you what’s what every day a your life.”
Nelson glanced nervously at Hayes and added, “No offense to Mr. Lincoln, of course.”
Hayes shrugged. “I’ll tell you this, girls. I been in and I been out of this here army most a my life. I took a oath a long time back to defend this country. Bobbie Lee and Jeff Davis and Braxton Bragg and all the rest a them bastards done the same. Well, they done broke their oaths. Every damn one of ‘em did, and now their word don’t mean noth’en. They call themselves men a honor, but they ain’t noth’en a the sort. Their whole rebellion’s built on a broken oath and I won’t have it. When I give my word it by God means someth’en, and all them traitors who stood before God His self and gave their word, and now are fight’en that same country they swore to defend, why they ain’t worth a damn and I won’t have it. When Samuel Hayes promises a thing, you can take it to the bank, by God.”
After a moment’s silence Al said, “Well, I’m fight’en to end slavery. It’s just plain wrong for one man to own another, and it went on long enough. I’m sorry it’s come to a fight, but I reckon that’s about the only way we’re ever gonna get this settled once and for all.”
“Well I ain’t no abolitionist and never was and never will be,” said Nelson vehemently. “And I ain’t fight’en to free no damn niggers. We should never a let ‘em in this country in the first place. They ain’t nothing but savages, and now because a these damn Southerners we got millions of ‘em thick as flies on cow shit and twice as dirty. When this here war is done we got to send ‘em all back to Africa where they belong. They got no business here, and if it weren’t for ‘em there wouldn’t be no damn war and that’s a fact.”
“They didn’t ask to come, you know,” Eli ground out between clenched teeth. “And they’re not savages, they’re people taken by force from their homes, torn from their families and all they ever knew, thrown in chains and dragged here against their will. They’ve been beaten and whipped and made to work other people’s land and care for other people’s children without any pay, and in return the white bastards who own them rape their slave women whenever they feel like it and sell their own children for profit.”
Eli stood up and pointed a finger at Nelson. “This war is God’s wrath and a curse on this whole damn country for its crimes against the black man. A curse on the North, too, for letting it go so long and not doing a thing about it, and for people like you who blame the Negro for being a victim who never asked or wanted to be here.”
Eli sat back down, reaching into Al’s coat to grab his bottle of whiskey. He took another long pull and handed it back. Al shook his head and murmured, “Not even a by your leave. Now I got to get me another bottle.”
“Damn if we ain’t got a nigger lover in the regiment,” said Blue. “You love ‘em so much you should marry one and have a whole tribe a pickaninny brats.”
Eli jumped to his feet to throw himself at Blue. Sergeant Hayes stood between them holding out his arms. “That’ll be enough a that outta you boys,” he growled.
“He ain’t worth it,” said Joe from behind Eli. “Blue just says it to get your goat.”
“It sure riles him up, don’t it,” laughed Blue.
“You just sit on back down, Craft,” said Hayes. “And Blue,” he added, turning to him, “just shut the hell up before I change my mind and let Craft here beat the hell outta you.”
“Like to see him try,” sneered Blue.
“What’d I say?” said Hayes, stepping forward and pressing a finger against Blue’s nose. When Blue stubbornly didn’t answer, he shoved his finger harder. “What’d I say?”
“You said to shut the hell up,” mumbled Blue, pulling back and rubbing his nose.
“Then why ain’t you doing it? You deaf as well as dumb?”
“No, sir.”
“Then shut up and stay shut up.”
Hayes sat back down and Eli followed suit. Hayes turned and fixed Eli with a stare until it made him look away.
“What you looking at Sergeant?” he mumbled.
Hayes shook his head. “Noth’en I reckon,” he said. “I was just wondering. It sounds like you spent time down South.”
Eli shrugged casually, but inwardly kicked himself. The last thing he wanted was to draw attention and give people a reason to ask him questions. What was he thinking?
“I was born in Georgia. We had rich planters for neighbors, so there were plenty of slaves around where I grew up. My family didn’t like it and my father moved us North when I was about twelve. I haven’t been back since,” he lied.
Looking back at Hayes, he had the uncomfortable feeling the Sergeant knew he was lying. Hayes was not well educated, but Eli felt little escaped his notice. Hayes stared a few moments more before rubbing his bushy mustache with the back of his hand and looking away. Eli gave an inward sigh of relief.
“Well,” said Charlie Peacock, “we got us abolitionists and we got us Union men and then we got us Blue, here, who don’t know why he’s fight’en except he thought it’d be fun. Anyone else?”
“How ‘bout you, Charlie?” said Big Joe. “Why’d you join?”
Something in Joe’s voice made Eli look at him. His face looked flushed, and beads of sweat hung on his cheeks and forehead despite the cold night air.
Charlie shrugged. “Look,” he said, “the way I see it, we fight ‘em now or we fight ‘em later. But the fact is a South with slaves is gonna fight a free North sooner or later. Better do it now and get ‘er done.”
“Why’s that?” said Al.
“Maybe it ain’t right the South’s got slaves, and maybe it’s Jim Dandy. I don’t claim to know one way or t’other, and frankly I don’t care. I ain’t no Southerner and I don’t wanna be one, and how they live’s none a my damn business. But one thing does trouble me and it sticks in my craw, and it’s that I sure as hell ain’t gonna live nowhere where they got slaves. Slave labor’s cheap labor, and a working man like me ain’t got no chance to get paid decent if he’s got to go against slave wages. It ain’t fair. It makes pay low for an honest free man. That’s sweet as molasses if you’re rich, and bitter as choke weed if you ain’t. Well I ain’t, and it’s bitter to me.
“So what I don’t tolerate is for no Southern planters telling us they got to have more slave states outta the territories. That’s what this war’s about and nothing else. Lincoln his self said the day he got elected he wouldn’t touch no slaves where they was, but he wouldn’t tolerate no new slave states, neither. And them Southern boys wouldn’t sit still for that.
“They want that land out west, and even if we was to let ‘em go their own way like Blue says, they’d just go to fight’en us for that western land. They want it bad as we do, and then we’re right back to a fight.
“So, we fight ‘em now or we fight ‘em later, but it’s a fight no matter what. That’s how I see it.”
Peacock picked up a stick and drew circles in the dirt at his feet as he spoke. Now that he finished, he stopped and looked up.
“So is a darkie a man? How the hell would I know?” he said. “I ain’t met one so I ain’t got a opinion. But I’ll tell you this, I won’t have slaves where I live or where I might go. And moving west after this war sounds mighty good to me, so I won’t have slavery spread there if I can help it.”
Eli noticed to his disgust there were general nods of approval around the fire.
Justice did not matter to these men, he thought. All they cared about was themselves. As long as it didn’t bother them directly, their fellow countrymen in the South could enslave any “nigger” they wanted from now to eternity and they would not lift a finger to stop it. The whiskey and his sullen, quiet resentment burned inside him.
Big Joe turned away from the fire and loudly wretched.
“That’s your reward for drinking too much whiskey, Big Joe,” laughed Larsen.
“He hasn’t had that much,” said Al, looking at Big Joe with a frown.
Big Joe threw up again and then collapsed against Eli, knocking them both off their log seat.