EARLY MORNING, NOVEMBER 30, 1862
Passing like ships in the night, unless both finally tie up at the same river port.
I CATCH THE midnight picket out by the rail station—worst duty a man can be assigned in this army. To make the midnight to six shift I get ready at ten and leave camp at eleven. A man gets no sleep if he pulls midnight picket.
Sarge whispers, “Somethin’s comin’. Can’t say what, but pack your stuff for a trip. Just be alert. The officers’ll be watchin’ you.” I stick a couple biscuits and salt pork in my shirt for tonight—my rations I’ll cook by the tracks.
It’s a frosty night and looks to rain. I make a tent covering from a cotton bale tarp. That and my rain slicker keep me warm and dry, even standing in the rain. I walk my line, back and forth ten times, and then stop under my tarp to watch for fifteen minutes. I stir my little pot of acorn coffee and taste if it’s ready. My rations cool, and I store them in my haversack.
A lieutenant stops to compliment my ingenuity for avoiding pneumonia. “Colder’n a meat cutter’s ass in the icehouse, huh, Private?”
I salute. “Yassuh.”
It rains hard, then sleet falls, but I stay dry. I walk down to one of the big fires to warm my hands but really to catch any news from the men gathered there. My hands suffer most. We have no gloves. None are issued. The rags I wrap around them help some.
By 2:00 a.m., I’m having a waking dream about Susannah when a train comes barreling down the tracks at full speed. It jolts me awake, and I jump back thinking it might be a runaway. But it slides right into the station, pretty as you please, stopping on a half dime. Another engine is steaming up preparing to leave. Men scatter like chickens at feeding time. Everyone seems to know his job and why. This must be what Sarge couldn’t say anything about.
Soldiers bail out of boxcars like cattle as officers exit passenger cars like gentlemen. Light artillery is rolled down ramps as fast as men can unload them. Cannons are hooked behind wagons, horses and mules with chains, and also pulled behind eight men with leather straps on their shoulders. Company F marches my way fast.
Sarge barks, “Pick them feet up! C’mon, Lummy, you’re goin’, too. You do what I said?” I nod and fall in at the end of the line.
As I wait my turn to climb up in a boxcar, two artillery men with leather straps strain to pull a Napoleon with six other men. I squint. One has long shaggy hair that needs a cut and the other a long raggedy beard that needs trimming.
I wipe the rain out of my eyes. “Can’t be. How could it?”
Sarge grabs me by the collar and yanks me on board. “Get your snail’s ass up in here, Lummy Tullos, the train’s movin’.” I’m as dumbstruck as that Yankee Lee must’ve been when Vicksburg didn’t surrender quick as he wanted.
Sarge yells above the train noise, “What’s wrong with you, boy? You want to get your leg taken off by a train wheel?”
“I think I just saw my brothers. Ma wrote they were in the artillery.”
Sarge pops me on the shoulder. “So sweet, Lummy boy, like ships passin’ in the night. This ain’t no love story unless you love to kill Yanks, ’cause we’re headed to Grenada, boys! Possum’s out the sack. Set your caps, top knot now, muskets when we get there, ’cause you’ll need both when we meet the blue-bellies.” The train picks up speed.
J.A. yells, “Who’s that runnin’ like a scalded dawg screamin’ like a hysterical woman?”
A man wearing a jacket with a red collar and cuffs runs after our car waving his arms.
Gasping, he chokes out, “Help me up!”
I grab him by the collar like Sarge grabbed me and swing him up in one motion. Building earthworks produces some fine sinews.
He straightens his jacket. “Whew. Thanks, friend. Captain Turner’d nail my hide to the barn door if I didn’t make this train.” He shakes my hand. I let him catch his wind, but after a couple minutes I can’t stand it.
Before I speak, Sarge butts in. “You best be goin’ where you’re supposed to, or I’ll have you in chains.”
“Nawsuh, I’m supposed to be on this train. Here’s my papers.”
Sarge looks them over. “Looks good. Go on, Lummy, ask your question before you bust.”
“You with that artillery company just rolled in?”
“Yep, 1st Missip Light Artillery, Company C. I enlisted in Choctaw County then went to the School of Instruction at Jackson. I’m good with numbers, angles, and figurin’s, so they put me to instructin’ new men, how to place and sight in a gun. That’s why I’m on this train, but I’ll be back here quick as lightnin’ when I’m done.”
I’m almost too excited to ask. “Choctaw County, you say?”
“Yep.”
“Know any Tullos men?”
His eyes light up like a kid handed a new toy at Christmas. “Sure do. Two brothers who joined the same day as me, Jasper and James. Fine artillery men. We jumped off this same boxcar a few minutes ago unloadin’ those cannons you saw go by. You know ’em?”
Sarge pats me on my back and turns away.
“They’re my brothers. I’m Lummy Tullos, in Company F, 27th Louisiana.”
“Well, any brother of Jasper and James is a brother of mine. Glad to know you, suh. Now all we got to do is survive what’s comin’ and get back so you boys can have a big ole reunion. They’re gonna be happy to see you.”
I yell louder. “Do you know anythin’ about Amariah Tullos?”
“Yeah, I knew Amariah.” He shifts from one leg to the other, hesitating. “Good man.”
“What do you mean, knew?”
“Amariah joined up before we did. He got sick, and they sent him to the hospital at Edward’s Depot and then to Pensacola near where y’all are from. Don’t know after that.”
My mind drifts back home to the farm. Amariah would chase us around the yard, thumping our ears, rolling us around on the ground, laughing and playing. If my brother was sent home from the hospital, he probably didn’t survive.
He offers his hand. “Put her here, brother. I’m Will Stern from Columbus. Don’t worry, you’ll see Jasper and Jimmy soon.”
We never called him Jimmy, but okay. It’s my first time seeing Jasper and James since leaving Choctaw County. It’s the first time I hear of Amariah’s condition. It’s the same night I ride to Jackson in search of the enemy.