JUNE 1, 1863
Like the brave 300, we’ll hold the pass. Funny thing, they all got killed.
THE SHOW STARTS early this morning. We take a potshot here and there. It works if a man finds a target without taking one in the head himself. It’s easier shooting a man whose face you can’t see and name you’ll never know. It ain’t the same shooting a man you’ve become friends with.
The attacks are over. Joy is short-lived when Sarge says, “It’s official. We’re in a siege.”
Hog Fart elbows me. “What’s a siege?”
“Don’t know, never been in one before.” Nobody here has. We don’t know what to expect.
Shortages are worse now that the Yanks have completely ringed our defenses. Our rations have been cut, and we’re also running out of percussion caps. No food and no way to fight, and we don’t know when we’ll get either. Uncertainty to misery. The misery is that nothing happens.
Our captain stops by. “Boys, the Yanks raised a flag of truce demandin’ our surrender. If we don’t, they’ll bomb the town.”
Sarge snickers at this. “What in the hell do they think they’ve been doin’ up ’til now?”
We laugh.
Our captain stiffens. “Men, we must strengthen the breastworks. I know it’s extra duty, but we gotta make a good go of this. The Greeks besieged Troy for ten years and still couldn’t take the city. I know you can do this.” He moves down the line to the next company.
Hog Fart cries. “We could be here ten years?”
J.A. whispers, “He didn’t mention the Trojan Horse.”
I rub my face. “I wouldn’t tell that part, either. We’re in for a long ugly wait, I’m afraid.”
Cap comes back. “When General Johnston gets here, he’ll send Grant and Sherman packing. Keep your heads down and the Yanks out.”
He looks around. “These hills are stronger than the Trojan walls, and those Greek archers ain’t got nothing on us crack shot Looseana boys. It won’t be easy, men. There’ll be disease, lack of water, and food will be hard to come by.” He looks at the ground realizing his despair has gone too far. The silence takes its toll. “That war started over a beautiful woman named Helen whose face launched a thousand ships. Our lady is Mississippi, the Confederacy, and our sweethearts and wives, sisters and daughters.
“Good news, a courier sneaked past the Yanks last night with eighteen thousand percussion caps.” We cheer as his assistant doles them out sparingly.
“Treat them like gold. Make every one count.” He trots down the line to the next company.
“I came here for a beautiful woman, too—soft hair, dark eyes, velvety skin, and a face that’d launch ten thousand ships.” Damn, I’ll never hold her again. “I need to quit cussin’.”
J.A. laughs and pats me on the back. “Yeah, you do.”
Shots ring out, and a furious barrage sends us scampering to our bombproofs. It’s over as quickly as it started.
Cap returns, hat in hand. “Colonel Marks is wounded. Is there a praying man among you?”
The men all look at me.
“Bow your heads….” I beg for mercy.
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ALL KINDS OF reports come but none we can take for gospel. Lee whipped Hooker. Bragg beat Rosecrans. Johnston is in Canton with 30,000 men and Loring not far behind with 10,000. Good news, if true. But who knows. Rumors come frequent as the scavengers.
The only thing I can compare a siege to is the time Jasper and I shot a tricky boar raccoon we called Ole Grayback because his dark hair turned silver over the years. He ran inside the hollow of an old oak. We beat on the tree, tried to smoke him out, but nothing worked. Talk about an angry raccoon. He’d growl at our every move. He’d outsmarted Uncle George’s prized dogs every time. Talk about an angry coonhunter. He was once offered five hundred dollars for his best dog. Uncle George refused. That’s more than most folks make in a year. Still, they couldn’t catch Ole Grayback. We stood there scratching our heads. I cut a switchcane to poke him out.
“Jasper, get ready. He’ll come out quick as lightnin’.”
I jabbed it up the hollow of that oak hard as I could. That old boar coon let out an awful scream and bailed out looking for blood. I fell back, and the coon came right at me.
I yelled, “This ain’t good!”
He was mad as a nest of stirred up hornets with teeth sharp as needles and claws like straight razors. I was up on my feet just as the coon bit my boot. I screamed when his teeth sank into my big toe and didn’t turn loose. I danced like a holy rollin’ revival preacher aiming to save souls at a camp meeting trying to get him off my boot.
Jasper yelled, “Hold still!”
He shot, but missed.
“You dang near shot my foot off, you dern fool.” I fired at him straight down as I jumped straight up, but I missed. I cursed but was relieved I didn’t shoot my own foot off. Finally, the raccoon shook loose. I yelled, “Get him!”
Ole Grayback lunged at me. I fell on the ground backing up. Jasper shot him, but he still came after me. I pulled my gun up just as Ole Gray Back leaped. I shot between my feet, and he landed on my knees. I lay on my back for a minute. Jasper’s eyes were big as saucers. We started laughing and could hardly stop. That night we gorged on roasted coon and sweet potatoes. We spit enough shot out of Old Grayback to make a couple shotgun loads. That meal would go good in these trenches tonight. My stomach growls—sounds like that old coon again.
Like that old coon, we’re holed up in these hills poked by cannons and muskets. It’ll take a lot of jabbing to make us come out. We’ll wind up on the Yankee supper table if we do.
Just before midnight, a Yank takes a jab. “Heard you got a new commanding officer.”
Hog Fart yells back, “Now who’d that be, Billy Yank?”
“That’d be General Starvation, my good man.” They belly laugh.
“Keep laughin’, Yank, we’re still here, ain’t we?” I try to sleep.
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NOT A CLOUD in the sky this morning but very warm. A mockingbird in his gray coat with a grasshopper in his beak lights on one of the Arkansas cannons. He knows nothing of the instrument of death upon which he sits. I’d eat that grasshopper right now. If John the Baptist ate locusts, so can I if there’s a little honey to go with.
It’s going to be a long wait.
There’s not much to do between dodging cannon shells and minie balls except take a potshot every once in a while. The Yankees throw up their flags just to draw our fire. They shoot holes in ours, and we shoot at theirs. Better than at each other. Sarge orders us to save our bullets.
Night falls but brings little rest. A dirtclod lands at my feet.
“Hey, Reb, you asleep?”
Isham yells back, “Poke your head up and find out.”
He whispers, “Get your heads down, the cannons are about to open up.”
Shrapnel tears up a few tents in the rear and wounds three men. Mortar shells fly high in the night like shooting stars racing across the dark sky. A pretty sight until they land.
I stare up at the heavens. “Susannah, do you see me? Can you hear me when I talk to you? I know you’re just on the other side of the thin veil. Can I touch you? Can you come to me? Should I stand up and let a Yank bullet send me to your arms? I want to come to you, my darlin’. I don’t know how long I can hold on.”
J.A. whispers, “It’s all right, Lummy. It’s all right.”
The Yank’s don’t let up until morning. My spirit is low.
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WE’VE BEEN IN these trenches three weeks, and it’s been about that long since we’ve had acorn coffee. We receive a fair amount of rice and beans, but the stores of cornmeal are depleted. There’s no meat except for a little mule.
Gnawing the last bit of meat from a rat leg, Hog Fart holds up the bone. “Nothin’ but a squirrel with his tail shaved.”
“Wonder what disease we’ll catch eatin’ these things?” I try not to think about it too hard as I take another bite. It gets so bad, men in the 26th Louisiana pick corn out of cow piles in the woods behind us. I breathe deeply and swear I can smell Ma’s good cooking. Familiar scents waft over from the bluecoat side. “Dang it if that ain’t salt pork and biscuits with a wisp of real coffee.”
J.A. spits. “They do it on purpose.” He throws a dirt clod over into the Yank’s trench.
We hear a clank and a man curse. “Hey, that was our morning coffee, you Rebel bastard!”
J.A. laughs. “Sorry to disturb your breakfast, shithead.”
I laugh to cover the sound of my guts growling like Old Grayback. Our meager rations can’t feed a rat. Some make theirs last. Men who don’t expect to live out the day wolf theirs down in a couple of bites. When cut to quarter rations, men desert. Hunger is a powerful enemy, but being locked up in Yankee prison camp doesn’t sound good either.
Everybody cheers when Cap stops by to pass out tobacco. “Great news, men. Our river batteries sunk the Cincinnati, one of the Yankee’s finest iron-clads. Hundreds of town folk came out of hiding and cheered. We needed that victory.”
Cap licks his finger to check the wind direction. “Just right.” He loads his pipe. “Do me a favor. Everybody light up. I want the Yanks to smell this fine southern tobacco.” The calming aroma reminds me of sitting on Grandpa Temple’s knee listening to his stories. I rarely smoke, but I join in to let the Yanks know we ain’t done yet.
I draw in slowly, savoring the taste. “Do I hear cannons rumbling?”
J.A. elbows me. “Nope, that’s thunder in your belly.”
I look at my smoke. “As good as this tobacco is, I can’t eat it.” It crosses my mind, though.
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TODAY, A GOOD friend to the lunette finally gives up the ghost. An old poplar tree slams into our lunette. It took at least a hundred cannon shells and who knows how many minie balls to bring her down. It stood proudly though wounded terribly. Today it falls.
I check on Big Red in the hickory tree just down the hill. We haven’t seen his bushy red tail lately. Maybe he went over to the Yanks. They surely have better food and more of it.
We’re cooking rations against the fallen poplar tree when a shell buried in the woods explodes. I’m hurled back with a half-cooked ration of meat on a stick. Two men’s whiskers are singed off, while another splashes water on his smoking long hair. The boys knocked to the ground slowly stir and regain their senses. One man is severely wounded and taken to the hospital.
J.A. picks up tin plates and cups scattered when the blast went off. “I’ll be a suck egg mule if that ain’t a sight.” He pulls out his liquor ration and holds it high. “To our good luck and the Good Lord for watching over us.”
Liquor and the Good Lord. Not a common combination, except in these trenches. I’m sure God turns a blind eye in times like this. I lean against the old poplar tree wondering if I’ll be cut down by a cannonball.
Isham bumps my cup with his. “If anybody survives, it’ll be you, Lummy.”
“Dang my talkin’ out loud.” I sip a little whiskey and shrug it off.
J.A. pulls me up. “Let’s work on the earthworks. It’ll get your mind off of it.”
We work alongside Negroes pressed into service. They sing and joke as they work.
J.A. rests on his shovel. “How can they be happy workin’ like mules and livin’ off of bits of cornbread and salt pork?”
“Sure makes me think twice about complainin’.”
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JUNE 10TH, AND it gets hotter every day. The Yanks don’t come at us anymore. They have to be as tired of this as we are. It’s impossible to get our minds off hunger and disease living in a hill bank expecting death anytime. I hunker down in my bombproof and dream about Susannah—coal-black eyes, slender hips, girlish grin, laughing at my silly jokes. What will I do now with Susannah gone? My heart aches worse than my belly. I try to sleep.
I wake to heavy rainfall for my turn at watch. The rain and mud make life worse in the trenches but bring a cool and pleasant evening. I occasionally take a peek through a sniper’s hole. I can’t talk in standing guard duty, so I can only listen as the men tell jokes to keep up their spirits. It’s not long before their stories go nasty about women. Hearing them talk is like taking a big slug of clabbered milk. You just want to spit it out.
One time, Pa, my brothers, and I came in worn out and hungry from a hot and windless day working on Uncle Rube’s farm. We all liked that old bachelor. He made us laugh and let us sip a little moonshine when Pa wasn’t looking. Ma had a big pan of biscuits and fried rabbit on the table. I ate so fast, I nearly choked. I took a big gulp of cold sweet milk. Or so I thought. When it filled my mouth, I spewed it out like a Yankee cannon. I just knew Pa would slap me sideways, but he’d taken a drink at the same time.
Wet, hungry, and exhausted in this dirt hole having to smell Yankee coffee and salt pork cooking? I’d be happy to drink that clabbered milk right now.