MARCH 7, 1862
“You gotta keep movin’ like that muddy river.”
IT’S EARLY MARCH, and the air is a bit breezy this morning. Our steamer, the Trent, paddles along navigating sandbars and logs with the ease of deer slipping through the forest. I pull my coat around my neck and watch eddies and whirlpools swirl in the mile wide current.
The sky feels so big and our boat so small in the middle of this river. I look out over the great expanse of the flowing stream. Security, peace, and even tranquility washes over my soul like short river ripples lapping on a nearly exposed sandbar. “The One watchin’ over me commands all of this. What have I to fear?”
J.A. elbows me. “Nothin’, Lummy. You just gotta keep movin’ along like this big ole river.”
This steamboat ride is much better than the train. Tightly packed in a stuffy boxcar with no way to rest or relieve myself is a stark contrast to this smooth ride out in the open with plenty of fresh air. Soaking up the mid-morning sun watching the riverbank gives me time to meditate.
One of the boys pokes a log. It explodes high into the air and lands in the boat. Sarge yells, “Don’t let it get away! Gar fish is good eatin’.” The ugly fish is at least five feet long and weighs over fifty pounds.
J.A. laughs. “Alligator gar rise up from the deep to get sun on their backs.”
Sarge orders one of the fellas to grab the fish and take it to the cook.
J.A. yells, “You ain’t eat good ’til you had fresh fried gar balls.”
A city boy cries out, “Gar balls? I didn’t know fish had.…”
Sarge licks his lips. “No, fool, you get the meat off the bones, roll it up in cornmeal and spices, and fry ’em up. Put ’em with fried taters, and you got yourself a fine meal.”
I ask J.A., “A fish jumpin’ into a boat. You ever seen anythin’ like that?”
He scratches his ear. “Nope, ain’t never even heard of anythin’ like that.”
The river runs smooth and dark, almost silky, like the sweet coffee milk we drank as children. The water is thick with silt, like it has something to hide underneath like when I crossed it back in ’59. My shoulder ain’t been right since.
Occasionally a stump rolls up from the bottom, like a great beast rising only to sink down again. Ole Man River hides his true feelings about us riding his back like ticks on a dog. At any time he can hurl death from the depths. The dragons stay deep today. So do my feelings.
Sarge leans against the rail. “Peaceful, ain’t it?”
I whisper, “Oh Susanna, Oh don’t you cry for me, For I come from Mississippi with my banjo on my knee.”
J.A. stands up from where he’s been napping in the sun. “You’ve been hummin’ that ever since we left Winnfeld. What’s it called?”
“‘Oh Susanna,’ my favorite tune. Susannah is my wife’s name. It keeps me thinkin’ about her.”
“Yeah, I miss mine, too. Wish I had a song for her. Maybe I’ll come up with one.”
“Maybe so.”
Everyone thought this war would be over before it got started good. Some still think we’ll go home without firing a shot. Sarge reports that two river forts surrendered in Tennessee. That just means the Yanks’ll be heading our way soon.
I watch the rolling waters. As peaceful as the flow appears, it’s a smooth ride that can kill a man. The man who thinks he’ll have a smooth ride in this war could get himself killed. I’ll need a dragon to roar up in my soul if I’m going to survive what’s coming. The evil I fight within will rise to face men who try to kill me. I tried to leave my anger in Choctaw County. Doubt creeps into my soul. Can I do this?
None of us really know what we’ve signed up for and surely don’t know how badly we’ll want this war over. No escaping it now. There’s no circling back like a swamp rabbit throwing off the hounds. This war has its mark on us now, and the color is gray. Death has our scent, chasing us until the right moment. I look down at the swirling waters. Will I make it back home?
“It’s like this big river flowin’ to the sea. Nothin’ can stop it. And, like this war, we’re runnin’ straight at it like crazy men.” I quiet my out-loud talk. Like this river, the war will have bends, shallows, eddies, and backflows, but eventually the water all runs the same direction—to the vast ocean where it doesn’t matter if you wear blue or gray. Death doesn’t care what color you wear.
I envision the scene. We march through the countryside and line up in some unknown field. Death advances in a long line with muskets aimed at my heart. However death finds me, the color of his jacket will be blue.
A quiet hush like a preacher calling us to prayer falls over us at the front of the sternwheeler. We all feel it at the same time. We stare out into the wide, empty river expanse. I pray for the boys next to me, for my brothers, Ma, and Mr. Gilmore. And Susannah.
The trip downriver is uneventful. We send up a cheer and fire a three-cannon salute at midday as we pass the fort at Grand Gulf. Stopping at the small town for wood gives us a few minutes to go behind a bush or walk along the riverbank. The whistle blows, and we’re off again.
Except for being so crowded, I enjoy the lazy float down the stream in the warm sunshine. There’s not much to do. Most of us sleep on the decks at night and cover up to stay out of the heavy morning dew. We catch a few fish, but the boat moves too fast to let the lines settle on the bottom for a catfish.
Our progress is slow, dodging river debris and navigating sandbars that rise out of nowhere to threaten the steamer. I learned to spot them floating down Big Sand Creek with Dale back in ’59. The steamer accidentally runs up on a bar, but fortunately the boat’s tail end is swept around by the current. The captain reverses the engines, and it pulls free. It’s a nervous kind of fun, twirling like a toy top, but there’s plenty of room in this river.
We pass several boats patrolling and transporting troops south. Except for a long stop at Natchez to pick up a few distinguished passengers and officers, there isn’t much to write Susannah about.
Sarge speaks above the hum of the sternwheeler. “Get a good look, boys. This is close as you’ll get. Natchez-Under-the-Hill is the best place in the world to lose your money and catch a disease.” I don’t want either.
“Been here, boys, and got a reminder that won’t ever go away. Stay on the boat, or I’ll have your asses whooped. It’s for your own good.” I watch the roustabouts tugging ropes, unloading and loading at the landing. They look rougher than cobs in an outhouse.
J.A. asks, “You ever been here?”
“No, but Pa said he and Uncle Silas once brought moonshine here to sell. The road to Natchez was dangerous. Ruffians preyed on honest people trying to make a livin’. Uncle Silas told his father, who I call Grandpa Temple, he could handle any saw-toothed, pumpkin-headed outlaw tryin’ to rob a man who whooped the British with Andy Jackson at New Orleans.”
Pa and Silas, first cousins cut from the same cloth, ran together like two hound dawgs. Pa spent more time with Grandpa Temple than his own father, Willoughby, who treated his sons worse than his slaves. Pa didn’t like how his father treated his slaves. It made an impression. Pa never owned a slave. But he did learn Grandpa Willoughby’s heavy-handed meanness.
“There wouldn’t have been any trouble in Natchez had Uncle Silas not insisted on seeing a steamer and having a beer down by the river. Pa wanted to make the sale and go home, knowin’ Uncle Silas’s temper showed up every time he drank too much.
“After they finished dickerin’ for the best price at the trading post atop the bluff, they settled down at a little table outside a fancy saloon facin’ the river at Natchez-Under-the-Hill. Uncle Silas was quiet, but much of a man. He never started trouble but never was afraid to end it. He and Pa had just finished their first beer when a flatboat docked. A man in black pants and a red shirt wearing a big black hat with a long red feather jumped on the dock waving his arms.
“He yelled, ‘I’m Mike Fink, king of the Mississippi River. Anybody wantin’ to travel her has to kiss my boot or whip my ass!’ He looked around for a taker. Uncle Silas started to get up, but Pa pulled him down before Fink saw him. He was too late.
“Fink called Uncle Silas a yellow striped skunk-belly and said his mother wouldn’t know him when he was done whoopin’ him. Uncle Silas bristled but kept his seat. Fink wouldn’t let it go. Fink taunted him again. Uncle Silas stood up. Pa didn’t try to stop him this time.
“They lit into each other like two wildcats with their tails tied together. Uncle Silas was stronger, but Mike Fink moved like lightning. They slugged and kicked, tussled and tumbled, bit and scratched, and fell in the river twice. Uncle Silas got him in a head lock, and Fink tried to bite his nose. Finally, it ended, and they both lay exhausted. Fink threw his hand over to Uncle Silas, offering to call it a draw and to buy Silas a beer. Since Fink made the challenge and didn’t win, he gave Uncle Silas his black hat with the red feather. Uncle Silas wore that hat until the day he died. I’m glad I got to know that man.”
J.A. grins. “Damn good story. It ought to be in a book. You think we’re tough as them?”
“Oh, hell no. But the story should be in a book.”
Catching the smells of a river town makes it strange knowing Pa and Uncle Silas once looked down on this very spot. If I had the time, I’m sure there’s an old timer still around who could tell the story of that fight years ago.
Uncle Silas and Mike Fink—two men who lived very different lives. One, a woodcutter, trapper, and farmer who made his way in the wilds of the Mississippi Territory. The other, a roustabout, braggart, and brawler who worked flatboats up the Mississippi. Tough men I wouldn’t want to tangle with. I’ll have to be like them when the fighting starts.
We shove off from Natchez stopping only at Baton Rouge for supplies, mail, wood, and to pick up three officers at Port Hudson. We finally tie off just above New Orleans.
Sarge walks through the crowd of soon-to-be soldiers. “You boys get your beauty sleep tonight. We’re marchin’ out of here in the mawnin’.”
I cover my back with my coat to get the last few hours of rest. I think about Uncle Silas’s fight. “Can I be that tough?”
J.A. whispers from underneath a tarp. “Hell no, Lummy, you ain’t never gonna be that tough. Shut up, and go to sleep.”
He’s right. We’ll move out in the morning to where I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, I’m rolling like that muddy water straight to an ocean of war.