MAY 22-23, 1863
Demons don’t come from the Hell below us. They come from the Hell within us.
HOG FART CRIES out. “Why don’t the damn Yanks charge and get it over with?”
I cover his mouth. “Sarge’ll beat the hell out of you if you don’t shut up, boy!”
Possums and other night scavengers still work the field. When the sun’s first rays peek over the hill, they scamper away.
“Lummy, where you at, son? I need you for a minute.”
“Yassuh, Sarge, what can I do?”
Sarge takes off his hat. “Talk to the Good Lord for us. We’re all brave and fearless men, but we need His strength to make it through this one. This fight will be worse than the last. Anybody wantin’ prayer, c’mon. J.A., keep watch. You get plenty of prayer hangin’ around Lummy.” The men half-heartedly laugh.
I don’t know what to say, especially after talking about fighting like a demon when the Yanks come. It’s hard to mix killing and my true nature of peace. But I know this—it’ll only be by the grace of God any of us live.
J.A. stands close enough to hear but keeps his eyes to the front of the lunette. “Take your time, Lummy, the Lord’s listenin’.”
I pull the small Bible Mary gave me from my pocket. “I don’t have the words, but here’s a psalm. The Lord is my light and my salvation so whom am I gonna fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, so who shall make me afraid? When my wicked foes came to eat my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though a host should encamp against me my heart shall not fear, though war rises against me in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the Lord that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His house, and He shall set me up on a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me. Therefore I’ll offer up sacrifices of joy. I will sing praises. Hear, O Lord, when I cry and have mercy and answer me. Lord today we hear You when You said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart said, ‘Thy face, Lord, will I seek.’ And with my brothers here, I say, amen.”
Company F whispers, “Amen.”
Sarge squeezes my shoulder, and J.A. gives me a nod. The men start back to their places on the line when a loud long grunting noise erupts like a cross between a lop-eared braying mule and an overgrown hog rooting in slop.
Sarge turns, “What’n the hell is that? Sounds like Satan risin’ out the depths of Hades.” We duck when the noise explodes again. “We gotta find out what that is. Sounds like it’s comin’ from the 7th Missip Infantry.”
Isham squints looking in the direction the sound came from. “Sarge, them 7th Missip boys went somewhere else, and the 43rd Missip replaced them.”
“Hell, them boys must have the screamers pretty bad to make that racket when they go to the shit ditch.”
J.A. laughs. “Yeah, I want to make a sound like that when the smell follows you back from the ditch, Sarge.”
“Shut the hell up and keep your eyes on them bushes down there.”
We hustle to our positions with the love of God in our hearts but the wrath of God in our hands. We don’t hear the strange grunting noise again. It couldn’t have been our imagination.
At 11:00 a.m. sharp, Yankee cannons unleash hell.
J.A. yells above the roar. “They rainin’ fire and brimstone like God did on Sodom and Gomorrah!”
I lean over to J.A. hiding in his bombproof. “Pastor Dobbs said the main reason God destroyed those wicked cities was because they didn’t care for the the poor and needy.”
He shakes his head.
I whisper, “It’s us not treatin’ Negroes in our land right. We might be gettin’ what the Lord promised Abraham. Hellfire’s rainin’ down and there ain’t a righteous man to be found.”
J.A. cups his ears. “What? Can’t hear you.”
Since he can’t hear me, I say out loud, “I’m on the wrong side of things. And it don’t make the Yanks right any more than it makes us wrong. I just don’t believe I’m doing the right thing.”
I’m too torn up about all this. One thing I’m not torn up about though right now is staying alive. And those men in blue don’t want me to.
At noon a thin line of skirmishers cautiously test the waters, but we wait. In a massive surge like a steam locomotive starting down the tracks, the thick blue lines shove forward to begin the assault. Behind the skirmishers come men carrying planks, ladders, pick-axes, and shovels. That’s the plan. Those boys will be the easiest targets. That doesn’t make me feel any better.
Their infantry trot down Graveyard Road in the calm of men resigned to die but with hope for a better ending than last time. They march in fine order turning this way and that in perfect precision. They march across Mint Springs Creek and up the slope within a rock’s throw of our rifle pits, cheering like the victory is already won.
J.A. shakes. “Them boys is cool as cucumbers. Pretty marching can’t stop bullets, though.”
Sarge yells, “Get your muskets up and your heads down.”
It’s a grand sight. The Yanks must still believe we’ll run at the first sign of a shiny bayonet. Wishful thinking for men who know their time is up. In a flash, they make their dash. They come at us like torrents of rain pounding on a tin roof so terrific a man can’t hear himself think. The charge comes just after the last shell explodes over McNalley’s Arkansas artillery boys, taking out half the gun crew. Our guns make good targets for Yank cannons. I fear for Jasper and James. My fear becomes anger, and I let loose with the fury of a swamp cat. I hate it. It hates me.
Quick as lightning, a thousand Confederate soldiers rise up as one man over the parapet to unleash hellfire without mercy. A great, gut-belching, high-pitched yell is thrown down at the charging Yanks having as much effect as our bullets. The great blue snake staggers. It writhes left, then right, men trying to escape deadly volleys pouring out like the wrath of God’s angel armies. Many lie down where their comrades found shelter in the attack a couple days ago.
The Yanks scramble for cover, and more bodies litter the field. They fill the ditch in front of us, and their squirming stirs up the rotting bodies. The stench is unbearable. I’m thankful we’re the defenders. I’m thankful I’m born of the Picts who deliver the surprise blow to send the Yankee legion scampering back to their camps. What did it sound like when thousands of blue-painted naked warriors attacked that Roman legion above the wall in Scotland so many centuries ago? I feel like I was there. We keep loading and firing our muskets.
It amazes me how well protected we are behind this parapet, and yet they come. Redans and lunettes—fancy names given to fortifications a man can hide behind where he has free license to murder men as easy as shooting pigs in a pen. If enough dead pile up in the pit, the boys charging up the hill will just climb over the bodies and walk right into our lunette. It ain’t gonna happen. We’re just filling graves because we’re ordered to.
We build the same fortifications. We charge up the same hills. We fall into the same muddy ditches filled with blood, piss, and shit as them. And the generals still make us charge.
I load my rifle and scream, “We’re all crazy!”
I shoot another Yankee down.
The weakened Yanks hide just a few yards away in the same pit I fell in three days ago. With the Yanks too close for effective cannon fire, Jasper and James run to where I duck down.
Jasper peeks up over the wall. “Watch this!” Jasper cuts a cannon ball fuse, James lights it. I scramble back expecting it to blow when Jasper hurls the grenade over the parapet just in time for it to explode in the middle of the Yankees. The screams of the enemy are unbearable, but I quickly go to cutting and lighting fuses. They hurl the shells as fast I light them.
Jasper laughs like a kid playing a game everytime he hurls. “Better’n playin’ that stick and ball game the college boys taught us, huh?” He laughs to stay sane.
Blood splatters up in the air. The Yanks scream in agony. Men just like us. Nothing special about them except it’s their day to meet the Lord face to face. That doesn’t sound so bad. Just get it over with and be at peace from all this shit I had no part in starting in the first place.
I whisper, “Lord, forgive my cussin’.”
Jasper slugs my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Ma.”
“Get back to work, boy.” He shrugs and lobs another grenade.
Yanks shout, curse, beg, moan, cry, pray, and die. Only a man himself knows what’s in his heart in such times. We act brave, but the truth? None of us want to die. We all just want to go home. I won’t be killin’ hawgs after this. I puke, wipe my mouth, and light another fuse.
My face burns hot with anger. I need it now more than ever. It takes away the pain of killing. I think about Lester and rage seizes my soul. A Yank pokes his head up, and I split his skull with a pistol shot. A blue soldier raises his bayonet over Hog Fart, and J.A. slashes his throat with a short sword. We scream like demons. And all falls silent. For a moment.
What am I gonna do with all this anger when this is over? Will I be able to find my soul again? I can feel mine running away.
We gasp for air in a lull. I want to run to the woods where the Choctaws used to dance and deer don’t run away. Alone, just to be with the Great Alone, and maybe find my soul again. I don’t know if I’ll make it through this to get there. If the Yanks would retreat, so would I. I can’t take this anger through the thin veil to Granny Thankful, Pa, or Susannah. I must leave it here.
I pray. “Lord, will I enter the Pearly Gates if I die in this anger?” I shudder. Can’t think on that now. I have to fight. I have to live. This can’t be the end of me. Susannah wouldn’t want it.
The smoke is so thick the Yanks can’t see us nor we them. Take a peek, and they’ll blow your head off. I wait for the next charge. It’s quiet as a graveyard at midnight. I glance up at the old hickory. Big Red’s white painted red nose peeks out of his knothole home—alive, surviving, dodging every shot. I wonder if Big Red prays for us or thinks it’s all just stupid when there are good hickory nuts in the ground for the digging. A shot rings out, and Big Red disappears.
I try not to look at the Yanks’ faces. It makes the killing easier. Look into their eyes, and I see myself. It’s hard to shoot a man who looks like he could be your brother. Some men put muskets in their mouths, afraid to get bayonetted, sick of the mud and rain, weak from the screaming shits, and weary of the misery of the mosquitoes. They’re tired of being part of the human race that’s bent on ending itself.
Doc Simpson sneaks down the line, checking the wounded. His stare burns right through me, but I feel like I can see all the way to the depths of his soul, and nothing’s there. Empty. Hollow.
“I’m done with all this pain. Say a prayer for me, Lummy.” He stands so fast we can’t pull him back down in time. A single shot rings out, and blood sprays in my face as the ball blasts out of the back of his head. He sits back with with a letter from his wife in hand.
I read the few words, sobbing.
J.A. asks, “What’s it say?”
“I’ve found another. I won’t be home when you get here. Goodbye. She didn’t even sign her name.”
Isham takes the letter from my hand. “She was all he talked about.”
J.A. sniffs. “I guess Doc wanted to feel the pain that ends all pain.”
I wipe my eyes. “At least he didn’t feel nothin’ when it hit him.”
Sarge crawls over. “Sorry about the Doc, but the Yanks are about to try us again. Get ready.”
I snatch a grenade in a rage and light the fuse. I’m happy when I hear the thud of the metal hitting a body. “Take that fire and brimstone you sons of bitches!” I’m losing control.
A bluecoat rushes over the parapet just as Jed—who caught the spy earlier—launches a grenade. The young private drops his rifle and catches it. He smiles as the blast shreds him from the waste up. The lower half stands quivering. His legs finally collapse, and we push what’s left out of the way. I don’t know how much more of this I can stand.
Jed’s left side was blown away. I guess the spy returned the favor. A collective moan drifts up like ghosts rising in a graveyard from the anguish in our rifle pit. I moan, too, inside. I can’t think about that. I have to keep fighting.
Not to win. Just to live.
I scream, “God, where are you?” Here I am calling on God, fighting like a demon. No answer. The Yanks want me dead. I have to fight. “Alright dammit! I’ll call on the one who will answer!”
A dark rage rises like smoke from a cauldron. I slash with the knife Pa made me. I use my fists. I crush a man’s head with my rifle butt, screaming like a beast out of hell. It takes a certain kind of evil to do this. I invite that evil in.
The Yanks back off for a second. I yell, “Damn Yanks! Don’t you know killer demons don’t come from the hell below us? They come from the hell within us!”
My demon within conjures up old memories and disappointments, the beatings and injustices, the bullies and foolishness of hatred and meanness. I have to if I want to survive.
“Lord, just don’t make me like Cain.”
J.A. pushes me back when a Yank charges with a short sword. He plunges his knife in the soldier’s back. “You ain’t Cain, and he ain’t Abel, damn you!” He rushes back to the firing line and loads for another shot.
I whisper, “Cain and Abel. The first killing. And we’re still killing each other to this day.”
The muskets stop. The smoke clears. But the crying yet remains. The smell of burnt powder and rotting corpses rises like a fiery dragon to burn our lungs with a painful, awful stench. As the blood red sun retreats over the hill, so do the bloodied Yanks. We shake hands, glad to be alive.
Hog Fart sits in the bloody mud and cries. “Why can’t it just be over?”
I give him a cup of water. “It is, for now.”
It’s deathly quiet except for a lone crow signaling the others that the feast is about to begin. The same loud grunting noise we heard this morning erupts.
Hog Fart yells, “What is that God awful noise?”
J.A. peeks over the parapet. “It ain’t the Yanks comin’ back.”
Jasper stands up from organizing grenades and equipment. “Me and James know. You ain’t gonna believe it. When the 43rd Missip moved up, they brought a danged camel with ’em.”
Hog Fart scratches his ear. “A camel? Heck, ain’t never seen no camel.”
J.A. strains to see it. “Why’n the hell do they have a camel all the way from Africa?”
James, proud to have the answer, swells his chest. “His name is Douglas, their mascot. He carries band instruments and supplies but mostly does what he wants. They must love that damn thing. They said he broke loose in Iuka and hurt some boys. He tore up everythin’ in sight, but they kept him. They say he don’t like horses much.”
J.A. laughs. “We need to see Douglas soon.”
Sarge grins. “I say we turn him loose on the Yank’s camp.”
We relax as the big blue snake slithers over the ridge. I’m tired. Tired of the killing. Tired of men hating each other. Tired of the human race.
I need to release the feelings in my soul. I don’t know what to write, but I want someone to read my soul’s last thought if I’m killed. I pray as I write.
God’s Friend
I say to the One I love, so full of grace,
Speak with me like Moses, face to face.
Walk with me now, then take me away,
In You, O Lord, I’ll always stay.
When darkness becomes my dearest friend
Stay closer to me than a brother then.
Into Your Soul my soul as a dove descends,
I see the light of life’s long journey end.
So I ask you Father for everything,
I take only the good to me You bring.
So down I lay my life in love,
Send Your angels to wing me far above.
J.A. whispers, “Read it again, Lummy. It’s a prayer for all us boys expectin’ to die.” He wipes a tear, not from fear of death or pain, but of sorrow for the lives given in sacrifice.
———————————
DARKNESS LIES THICK on the field of death tonight. Sarge handpicks six men. “Sneak into the field in front of us and report back what you see. Pair off and watch each other’s back.”
I crawl along the ground, pistol in hand. J.A. follows with a knife in his teeth. Steps in the darkness stop me cold. I turn with my pistol cocked. A young Creole from G Company drops beside me. I relax the hammer on my pistol. “What’n the hell are you doin’? I almost shot you!”
“Askin’ these boys for forgiveness. There ain’t no priest to give absolution.”
“What’d you do so bad you gotta do it this way?”
“Our men found out I’m a good shot. So they loaded their rifles and gave them to me. I killed at least fifty Yankees today. I aim for the head.” He sobs. “Please, suh, I know you’re a prayin’ man. Ask God to ease my sorrow for what I did.”
“JoJo?” He nods. “You worked provost with us last fall. You cooked our rations one time.”
“Joseph Antoine is my Christian name. The boys just call me JoJo.”
I waste no time, but the words don’t come easy. “Lord, forgive JoJo tonight in this field of death and suffering. He only did what he had to. Ease the pain in his heart, Lord. Amen.” He sheds tears without a sound, disappearing into the darkness.
In a half hour, we’re back. Sarge asks, “What’d you see?”
We dump haversacks full of Yankee hats. Hog Fart and Isham count eighty altogether.
Sarge rubs his chin. “Damn, boys, every one of them has a bullet hole in it.”
I pray for the souls of the men who wore them.
———————————
MIDMORNING SATURDAY, MAY 23rd, and it’s a pretty day. We wake stiff and sore from fighting and repairing damaged earthworks through the night. A corporal runs through the lines yelling in a whispered voice. He jumps into our trench, slips, rolls over a couple of times, and hops right back on his feet like a circus performer.
We laugh, and J.A. yells, “So, circus man, what’s the big news?”
The corporal shakes with excitement, breathing hard. He holds up his hand and swallows hard. “We heard the Yanks jabberin’, and they’re as happy as fleas on a dawg. Grant called us a gritty bunch and declared no more frontal charges. Ain’t that a gift from the Lord?”
J.A. pats my arm. “Your prayer worked, my good friend.” I shrug like it doesn’t matter.
“No, dammit!” He yanks my jacket sleeve. “Keep sendin’ them prayers up for us. Your jawin’ with Him makes the difference.” J.A. calms himself. “Say that prayer you wrote again.” Men gather around. The corporal removes his hat.
When I finish, all say, “Amen.”
I step away for a moment and stare into the cloudless sky, “With all the killin’ I’ve done, Lord, am I still your friend?”
J.A. puts his arm around my shoulder. “If you ain’t, nobody is.”
I backhand his chest. “Jasper, James! Let’s go see us a camel!”