DAWN, MAY 22, 1863
Many thoughts traverse a man’s mind when he realizes he might die.
THE SILENCE IS so loud I can hear it. It buzzes in my ears like bees swarming a queen in an old hollow tree—endless humming. Deafening. I’m straining to hear anything moving in the gully below. Not a cricket chirps—just J.A. snoring softly. He stands half asleep, half awake, musket in hand. Any small footstep of a night creature, and we’re at the ready.
I elbow J.A. “How can you sleep with forty thousand Yankees out there? And standin’ up?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I just do it.”
I shiver. It’s always the coldest just before dawn, even in May. The sun battles darkness to chase away the lingering coolness hiding in the hollows and behind the ridges. My shiver ain’t about temperature. A hollow cold hides in our souls this morning, gray and blue—a cold that chases my soul from my body, wanting to be anywhere but here.
“It’ll be a hot one today, but we ain’t budging.”
Hog Fart whispers, “Damn straight, Lummy. But what’s that smell?”
“Death.”
Hog Fart whimpers. “The Yank wounded don’t moan like they did.”
“Either they’re asleep or dead. Don’t matter.”
In the last assault, several Yanks crowded behind a small farmhouse to our left thinking they were safe. One dug a trench with his flag waving overhead. I guess everybody’s looking for glory. He found it that day. Bullets rattled him like a baby’s toy. Our men grabbed the colors but not his body—a very nice war trophy presented to our colonel. That choice makes me sad—a captured flag over a soldier’s life. It makes no sense. War doesn’t make any sense until you’re in the middle of it. Then it doesn’t have to. I tear up for the dead soldier. But only for a moment.
Without warning, a squirrel cuts loose chattering like an owl swooped down at him. It’s not even light enough to shoot. It’s been starry all night, but now the moon is darkened by drifting clouds and fog rising from the river. I can’t see a thing in front of me. All is quiet, except for that dang squirrel barking. His call echoes across the field of death.
I’ve never heard a squirrel go on like this before daylight. Clearly, he’s upset about something. City boys don’t know the sound. We farm boys do. Something’s coming. Something unfamiliar. Something wanting to remain unseen and unheard.
We’ve watched that big fox squirrel in the hickory still standing. “Big Red” we call him—bushy red tail with fur to match. White blazes his face and covers the tip of his tail. He even has white-socked feet. He’s big as a small cat. He’s escaped many a hawk and hunter to grow that big. Both sides want him. Big Red would be a meal fit for a king in these dusty trenches. He’s not made a sound until this morning. Like Grandpa Temple used to say, “No need to talk unless you got somethin’ to say.”
Big Red has something to say this morning.
But still, my lips smack at the thought of him in the cookpot. Too many good memories of Ma’s squirrel dumplings back home. I need to stop thinking about that. My guts have already retreated to my backbone and growl like a hungry bobcat.
I peek over the parapet. “Better’n the rats we’ll be eatin’ soon, huh boys?”
J.A. laughs. “Glad we saved that old hickory. At least we can dream about dumplin’s.”
Isham peeks at the tree. “How could Big Red survive everythin’ that’s hit that tree?”
One squirrel in one tree. Alive. Brave. His call breaks the stillness of the morning, but we can’t see the red ghost. He doesn’t want to be seen. Is it a warning? Is Big Red saying, “Hide!”
Will the Yanks attack this morning? We watch them and they us. They wave, and we wave back. We signal before we fire our cannons, and they do, too. They seem harmless. So much like us. Some Missouri boys have friends from their own state across the hollow dressed in blue. This war tears the best of people apart. I want it to stop but can’t do a damn thing about it.
Waiting, silence, stillness—a strange solitude to find among hundreds of stinking, loud, and helpless men. I think of the saints at St. Paul’s Catholic. The statues and paintings looked scary at first but became friends who helped me search my soul—just windows into heaven.
The shadowy ghoulish faces of my brother soldiers slowly become recognizable with the first touch of morning light. The saints in these trenches wish their angel would whisk them away to heaven. Not me. I want to live.
Pastor Dobbs at New Zion Baptist church never spoke about the quiet friendship we can have with God. He worried too much about appearances—dancing and cursing, paying tithes and being in church every time the doors open, drinking and fornicating. It’s easy to condemn things you don’t understand. I knew the difference then. It quelled the rage I learned growing up with Pa’s anger and violence. Creator brought peace even to that storm back home in Choctaw County.
There won’t be many saints amongst us soon. We’ll all have to become demons today.
How can I do this? Fight? Wound? Kill? Survive? And still be sane? I nearly lost myself in the first attack. How can I do this again today? I have to be someone else to kill. I’m resisting. I’m weakening. I have to be the man who picked Kneehigh up over my head and slammed him on the street. I hate it. But I want to live. I give in.
I need mad dog, nail hard, teeth-gnashing rage. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want to fight. I have to fight. I don’t want blind uncontrollable rage anymore. There ain’t no other way. Not here. Not this morning.
I ain’t afraid. Pa pretty much beat the fear out of us when he beat the hell out of us. We Tullos boys never looked for a fight but never backed down if for the right cause. This Cause just ain’t right though, as much as I love Mississippi. “Boy, don’t you blame this on Missip. She wasn’t like this ’til white folks pushed the Choctaws out.” I look around to see who’s hearing my sermon.
Who’s right in all of this, anyway? When the day is done, who will be the winner? Whose side is the Good Lord on? Both sides claim God as their champion, but how we can both be right and call on him for help? I’m sure neither side is right. There’s a fine line between those who fight the devil and those who fight for him. I’m sure I’m both. God must be worn slap out with all this holy self-righteous bullshit.
“Maybe he’ll just kill us all and let that be the end of a nation that claims freedom for all but still chains people. He brought the flood for much less.”
J.A. elbows me. “Stop your damn preachin’. Now ain’t the time.”
“When is? The South works slaves. The North uses them as an excuse to invade. The South grows cotton by slave labor. The North buys every bale of cotton they sell. Both get rich, and the Negro stays a slave.”
Sarge barks, “Quiet on the line!”
I whisper, “The only reason a poor white farmer scratchin’ out a livin’ on a small chunk of land is so hard on a Negro is it keeps him from being the lowest rung on the ladder. It’s wrong, and we’re all covered in the shit of it all up to our necks. Nobody’s clean.” I stop. No, I don’t.
“This war’s just one big baptism to get everybody clean—not in pure spring water but in the blood of men that leaves a stank that can’t be washed off. When this is over, we’ll still stink.”
Sarge points his finger at me. “Stop it!”
I want to scream, but I mumble, “We ain’t gotta do this. We’re all on the same side. We’re all human bein’s, and there’s only one Massuh.”
Isham elbows me. “Best keep your good eye on them woods down there. They’re full of Yanks.” He’s only looking out for me. This day can’t be called off.
Why don’t Grant and Pemberton meet under Big Red’s tree and settle this thing over a table of dominoes? Let the black dots on the white bone pieces be soldiers. That way, nobody goes under the dirt. There’ll be plenty of bones lying around to make many sets of dominoes after this.
The boys in blue wait in a shadowy cane patch across the deep hollow. I don’t hate them. I can’t. Why should I? I could’ve been friends with these men under different circumstances. We could have played cards and drank coffee together around the fire. But no, we’ll kill each other for beliefs we know little about but are expected to die for in this place soon to be forgotten.
A shot rings out, and we duck. A sharpshooter tries to fool us into believing that’s all the Yanks will do today. I’m thinking too much. It makes me want to throw up. I do just that.
Hog Fart dances to miss getting puked on. “Dang, its bad enough smellin’ dead Yanks, but last night’s puked up hardtack and beans, too?”
I turn to watch the field. I’m better now.
Early on, I saw Negroes as human beings, especially after meeting Susannah. It always hurt me the way folks treated their slaves. Fear of the unknown causes the ignorant to hate a person they don’t know. Until I knew different, I joined in the “niggah” jokes. If I didn’t, I’d be suspect.
Growing up I had to hide my feelings about black people. They are meant for so much more. They have good minds just like white folks and talents wasted on picking cotton and slopping hogs. How could the sweet little old ladies at the New Zion Baptist church teach me that Negroes had no souls? I guess if you make Negroes less than human, then you can treat them like animals to be bred, beaten into submission, and sold for profit. If you make them animals, then beating them ain’t so hard.
When I looked into Susannah’s eyes, I saw a window back into my own soul. That can’t happen if there’s no soul there in the first place. Truth be told, I would have married her right there at home, but it’d been hell to pay. You just didn’t do that. Not in Choctaw County, Mississippi. On the courthouse steps in Greensboro, Susannah was just property. In Mr. Gilmore’s home back in Winn Parish, she became my wife.
Now she’s gone.
The night before I left for Winn Parish, I slipped away to meet Susannah. But no Susannah. I went to town the next day, and Lester had the pleasure of telling me that Susannah was gone.
“Yeah, that slick gamblin’ fella in his high dollar duds took her in a Bucksnort card game. Bet he’s gettin’ a bath from her right about now, and who knows what else.”
Lester, the schoolyard bully who became town bully, was the sheriff’s nephew. He made everyone laugh and afraid at the same time, always at the expense of some tortured soul. The tortured soul was me that day. It was like first year of school all over again. The girls asked a couple of us boys to swing the jump rope for them. Just as dust started to fly, Lester pushed down the girls, jumped in, and told me and Poole, “Keep that rope goin’.” I winked at Poole.
We went a few rounds, but at the right moment, I yanked the rope taut. Lester’s feet caught the rope as he went up, and his face hit the ground hard. He got up, shook the dust out of his hair, and spit the grit out of his mouth. His eyes burned red as the sun rising in front of me now. He didn’t wade into me like I thought he would. He just hit me hard, once in the belly. I just took it.
Lester was stunned. He expected me to cry. I didn’t. I just stood still. Lester stared me down and walked away. I went around the corner of the schoolhouse and puked. Mrs. Crow, our school marm, made me sit on the schoolhouse steps for the rest of play time.
She smiled, gave me a lemon drop, and winked. “I saw what you did. Thanks for taking up for the girls. Don’t do it again, but if you do, just don’t let me see it.”
A stick snaps, and I point my musket at the faint gleam of bayonets in the fading darkness. My anger spikes. It’s not enough. Not for what’s coming up this hill. I need more. I go back to that moment when Lester told me Susannah was taken away.
“She’s gone, niggah lover! Somebody else straddles her tonight.” Belly laughs erupted all around. Lester bowed and turned to give me another challenge. I didn’t want it. It just wasn’t me. Never has been. I hated fighting. I hated the anger. I hated the way my Pa treated us boys, whipping us within an inch of our lives for little or no reason. Yet my blood boiled.
Lester’s half-pint sized side kick cousin, Nehemiah nicknamed Kneehigh, cursed and kicked dust at me saying he’d try me on if I wasn’t too scared. The thought about Susannah being with another man against her will as they continued their cat calls was too much.
Lester grabbed his crotch. “She’s sweet as chocolate fudge. Think I’ll go get me some. They can’t be far.”
I’d had enough. “You sorry son of a bitch.”
Kneehigh ran quick as a swamp rabbit to head butt me in the stomach. He was fast, stout as a cypress stump, but like in first grade, I stood firm and took the blow. That’s all I remember, except hearing a collective “uh oh” from the gathering crowd.
Poole yelled, “Don’t do it, Lummy, don’t do it.” Ladies covered their mouths, men shook their heads, but some hid smiles for a job well done. Poole pulled my shoulders back as I came to my senses. My hands were full of Kneehigh’s long red hair. He moaned, “Don’t hit me, please, don’t hit me.” Poole told me later I picked Kneehigh up by the skin of his back and slammed him down on the hardpan street. Poole and I slipped away before Sheriff Platner arrived.
“You’ll be throwed in jail this time for sure, boy. You best high-tail it on out of here. Go after Susannah. If you love her, she’s worth it.” I only saw Poole once before I left.
That night, Elihu heard Kneehigh said I started the fight. “He’s pressin’ charges. Lester’s the sheriff’s nephew. You best go, brother.” There was nothing to keep me in Choctaw County that I couldn’t find wherever Susannah had gone. This anger, this rage, would be the death of me or someone else. I needed to go somewhere and find the real me I knew lived deep inside. I had to leave then, and I don’t want to be here now.
I didn’t like the me I saw when I hurt Kneehigh. I don’t like the me I saw three days ago when the Yanks attacked. Pastor Dobbs preached, “You can’t conquer the world ’til you conquer home.” He was right on that one. A man is created for a purpose in this world, but I won’t know what that is until I meet the man on the inside. I have too many layers to find the true me inside.
As a kid, I mostly stayed to myself wandering alone in the woods sketching, writing poetry, and meditating. I’ve always found God easier on the outside than the inside of a church house. I’ve come to know Him better on the inside than the outside of me, too. I just want the outside to match what I feel on the inside. That’s a tough one.
Once I sneaked out the back door at a revival in town when the mouthy preacher squawked, “You can’t worship God under a tree. You better be at church every time the doors swing open, or when your time comes, the pearly gates’ll swing closed with a loud clang.” As I feigned stomach trouble to go to the outhouse, I thought, Preacher, I been worshippin’ God under a tree for years, and I’m only twelve years old. Guess I’m a rebel in more ways than one.
Here I am going soft again, and those Yanks will be coming up the hill any minute. The Kneehigh thing was the worst of it, but it certainly didn’t start there. Pa was a hard man, and though I have no regrets leaving because of the beatings and abuse he dished out, I still loved him as my father. He only did to us what was done to him, probably got it worse. All I wanted was to be with my Pa. I’m glad I made peace with him before he died. What am I doing? I need rage if I’m going to survive this thing.
The whippings that brought blood to the backside of our britches started when we boys were old enough to work with Pa. My problem was Ben got it rough from Pa, as did I. Then Ben took his anger out on me. I got a double dose. When I turned seventeen, I’d had enough of Ben.
Ben worked at a sawmill near Columbus and came home on a rain break with a friend of his. We’d just got home from the Sunday service at Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, and I laid my Bible down to change clothes. Ma was frying chicken. It smelled good. Ben and his friend burst in laughing, smelling of moonshine. Ben slapped my head and punched my shoulder, knocking me off balance. “Told you, Colu-u-umbus ain’t but a damn sissy who squats to piss.” He’d hit my head with his boney elbows and then turn to his friend, laugh, and call me nasty names. I’d had enough. I tried to dodge the blows when I saw the hunting knife Pa had made me out of a broken crosscut saw blade. It’d shave the hair off your arm. As Ben threw another blow, I slashed his arm. He let out a yell. “You cut me, you bastard.”
I was done with Ben. “Hit me ever again, and I’ll kill you where you stand.” Ben left me alone after that.
My anger boils thinking back on that. For me to fight and not hate the bluecoats, I have to go somewhere else in my mind. I just don’t want it to take over my soul.
Not long after I cut him, Ben went back to the sawmill. He never forgot that day, saying often, “If I ever get in a scrape, I want Lummy on my side. He’ll kill you.”
My anger is nearly full-blown now. I’m fighting mad. Mad dog mean. Remembering one more story should do it. On the way home from church one Sunday, Pa was riding our asses about losing one of his tools or something. Whatever he was mad about, I didn’t do it. My little brother Jasper did it, but I wouldn’t tell on him because I knew what he’d get—another plow line beating that’d leave his back bleeding like a whipped slave. As I jumped out of the wagon, Pa breathed insults and accusations down the back of my neck.
I planted my feet solidly to speak my words as respectfully as I could. “You ain’t gonna blame me anymore for things I didn’t do.”
Pa’s eyes blazed red. He front handed and backhanded me seven times, slapping my face so hard my head snapped from side to side. He finally stopped. I just stood there.
I stared him straight in the eye without a blink. “How long you gonna do this? ’Cause I can go all day.” A boy seventeen should never have to tell his daddy that. I knew then one day I’d leave. Susannah taken away and the Kneehigh incident just made it easy.
J.A. shakes me. “Boy, you best come back from wherever you been these last few minutes. Them bluecoats are comin’ again.”
Smoke from the cook fire brings the welcome scent of chicory in the acorn coffee. I reach to get a cup moving with the smoothness of a copperhead. I can barely see the morning slithering over the ridge. Light creeps bloody red over tall oaks on the far hill like a fire burning our way. We’ll soon feel the hot blaze of a thousand Union muskets.
The sun eases over the ridge still curtained by trees but not enough to reveal the danger Big Red announces. Blue coats sneak through the switch cane. Quietly. Stealthily. Nervously. Big Red saved us. We fill the lunette. Silently. Muskets primed. Hats pulled low. Grenades nearby.
Hog Fart whimpers. “I’m afraid, Lummy. What we gonna do?”
I hold up my coffee tin. “Offer them a cup of coffee, what else?” I set the cup down. “We’re gonna yell like devils crawlin’ out the pits a hell and kill ’em all. Ain’t nothin’ else we can do, dammit. It’s what we signed up for. Get your rifle up and make sure it’s got a cap.”
I grip my musket. I find a target less than a hundred yards away. The bluecoat bully “Lester” is in my sights. I try to push Ben and Pa’s faces out. Don’t matter now. The anger they gave me this morning will be my salvation. My heart pounds. I ready my musket as I steady my soul. A bloody sun rises this morning.