March Toward the Thunder Part 18

Louis smiled.

Private Jefferson had not yet let go of Louis's hand. "Now, what was it you said your name was, sir?"

"Louis Nolette, just Louis."

"Louis, my friends call me just Jeff, seeing as how Mr. President is such a mouthful."

Louis's smile turned into a grin. "Like to walk with me for a spell, Jeff?"

"Muh pleasure, Louis."

As the two young men strolled through the camp, Jeff kept talking. Before long, they joined the long line of soldiers in front of the commissary wagons. As they inched their way forward, Louis's listening drew out the story of the previous day's battle and the fortifications that faced them.

"Now that line of forts there," Jeff said, one hand on Louis's shoulder as he pointed toward the west, "you know who did mos' uh thuh buildin' of them? Me and about two thousand other men wid skins as black as mine. A year ago, thas where ah was, breakin' my back wid a pick and shovel. Whilst Captain Dimmock was givin' high and mighty orders about what to put here and what to move there to make that line of his im-pregnable."

Jeff held out his broad right hand palm up and used the index finger of his left to trace a shape. "Fifty-five artillery batteries along a ten-mile stretch. Fum here to here. And ever' one of um set up like its own little fort with them twenty-four-pounder siege guns. So me and mos' of thuh other men in muh company, all being fum aroun' here before we all decided to take French leave and put on this fine blue uniform, we knows jus' where to go when they sets us to fighting. We knows evah weak spot, evah ditch. Fust thing we does, we takes to this ravine between batteries Seven and Eight."

Jeff traced one of the lines in his palm. "And where did that come out? Right behind battery Nine, which we took without hardly a shot."

Their two-hour a.s.sault had been so fierce that the U.S. Colored Troops of the Eighteenth took no fewer than five of the seven batteries captured that evening by the Union. Despite Jeff's modest words about how easy it had been, Louis had already heard that the Colored Troops had encountered more than a little resistance. Their own casualties had been over 150 men as they rolled back an entire mile of the Dimmock Line.

Jeff chuckled. "They was running like chickens fum a fox," he said. "'N' well they might. When you's a boy in gray and you sees a bunch a' angry black men wid guns and bayonets comin' at you yellin' 'Remember Fort Pillow!' well, you better take to your heels!"

Fort Pillow, Tennessee.

Louis had read the newspaper stories about what happened there just three months ago. Rebel General Nathan Bedford Forrest, said to hate freed Negroes more than any other man in Dixie, had captured that fort along the Mississippi River. Of the 570 troops in the federal garrison, 262 had been Negro soldiers.

The Union commander of the fort, seeing how outnumbered they were, had surrendered almost at once. But then, either at Forrest's orders or because he turned a blind eye, the Rebel soldiers had begun shooting down unarmed black men with their hands raised. The final toll at Fort Pillow had been 231 Union dead-most of them black.

"Before we went into battle," Jeff said, his voice a reverent whisper now, "we all knelt down and took us a holy vow. Alluhs remembah Fort Pillow."

Louis nodded. "I understand."

As much as he'd grown to hate this war, Louis found himself remembering again one of the reasons he had been willing to volunteer. The best reason of all.

No human being should ever own another person.

Jeff slapped his palms together as if killing a mosquito. "'N' then, when we had 'em running, they called us off. We could of kep' goin' and taken that whole line. Why'd they go and do that? Didn't they want us black men to win their war for um? We could see those Rebs didn't have even half what they needed to defend against us. We could see down the line that there was batteries just standin' empty but they wouldn't let us take um!"

He pointed again toward the Dimmock Line. "You know what they's doin' now over there? They's rushin' in men by that Norfolk and Petersburg rail line, reinforcin' what was weak. By the next time our generals finally gets up the nerve for anuddah attack, those Rebs is goin' to be ready. Where that line was made uh sand last night, tomorrow it is goin' to be iron. I do pity the next soldiers on our side who are goin' up agin' that line. They goin' to be cut to ribbons."

And those next soldiers sent against that line, those'll be us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

ATTACK AT ALL HAZARDS.

Sat.u.r.day, June 18, 1864

"Men," Sergeant Flynn said, "Corporal Hayes and I have one command we'd like ye to be listenin' for. Corporal?"

"Down!" Hayes yelled.

Louis and all of the other men of E Company, veterans and new faces alike, dropped as one onto their bellies.

"Fine," Flynn said. "Ye can hop back up again, me lovelies. But don't be getting up till ye hear me or the corporal ask ye to do so. If ye hear the bugle blowin' the attack, stay where ye are. Even if ye have some fine big officer with all sorts of bars and braids on his clean blue uniform hollerin' at ye from back behind the parapet, pay the man no heed. And when yer down there don't be lifting up and looking about. Just roll to yer backs if you need to reload. That way ye might come out of this blessed thing with all the limbs and heads the good Lord saw fit to give us."

Two more days had pa.s.sed without a major federal a.s.sault on the Dimmock Line. Now it was the afternoon of June 18.

The whole of Meade's mighty Army of the Potomac, 100,000 strong, was just sitting back on its haunches like a balky mule refusing to pull the plow no matter how hard its master whipped it with the reins and hollered giddyup.

Even a common private like me can see clear as spring water that we're stalled.

The federal generals, it seemed, could not get together on anything.

Burnside and his Ninth Corps wanted to attack one minute and not the next.

Birney, as the newest commander of all, was waiting for others to decide.

Hanc.o.c.k was still out of action with his old wound bleeding.

And the most hesitant of all was Old Baldy Smith. He'd believed for so long the false rumors that large numbers had reinforced the Rebel trenches that by now they were likely true.

To put it plain, everyone from the top down was remembering just one thing. Cold Harbor.

No wonder Sergeant Flynn is shaking his head at the foolishness of it. We milled around like a herd of sheep while those Rebels had time to get ready to give us a hot welcome. It's like waiting all spring and summer to plant a crop and not deciding to put it in till it's time for first frost.

Just yesterday, Joker had expressed it well. "You might say that our Grand Army of the Republic appears to of been infected by politeness. You attack first, General Burnside. Oh no, after you, General Smith, I insist. Like a bunch of naughty schoolboys, not wanting to be the first through the schoolhouse door to get paddled."

But not today, Louis thought. The Snapping Turtle finally had enough. Meade's orders left no doubt about what was to be done.

Flynn had shared the gist of the orders with them.

"'Findin' it impossible to effect cooperation by appointing an hour for attack,' says the major general's order, 'I have sent a message t' each field commander to attack at all hazards and without reference t' each other.'"

Flynn looked at the men in the company. Then lifting his hands up as if holding a piece of paper between them, he mimed the gesture of crumpling that paper between his palms and tossing it over his shoulder.

"Forward march."

With Devlin to his left, Kirk to his right, and Belaney just behind him, Louis started to walk, one of thousands of anxious men.

I wonder where Artis is. Somewhere off there to the side of us, where the Legion flags are flying? Great Creator, watch over me and my friends.

As they pa.s.sed the artillery batteries, a few of the cannoneers shouted "Huzzah!" and took off their hats. Most, though, stood silent or shook their heads at the thought of what lay ahead for the dumb infantrymen.

"You fixing to charge them works?" a crew member holding a rammer called to them.

"Nossir," Joker answered back. "Our plan's to start at a trot, turn, and head back at full gallop. We had enough of earthworks at the b.l.o.o.d.y Angle and Cold Harbor."

Joker's voice was loud enough for their officers to hear, but not a one of them turned a head in his direction or said a word.

Louis looked up at the clear sky. From where the sun stood it was about four p.m. They were still on the safe side of the federal earthworks. Major General Birney was out in front of them now, telling the officers how to ma.s.s the brigade for its attack on the Rebel center.

We're too late and we all know it, Louis thought, glancing at the grim faces around him. Three days ago, we might've pushed through all the way to Richmond. Now there's been time for the Confederates to bring up enough men to turn the field ahead into a killing ground.

Four lines. The first two, where the men of the Irish Brigade were placed, was made up of veteran units. The two behind were the First Maine and the First Ma.s.sachusetts. Heavy artillery regiments converted into infantry to make up for the immense losses of the past weeks.

Men who've not seen this sort of fighting before.

"Lads," Sergeant Flynn growled as he walked backward in front of their line, "soon as yer over the top, ye know what to do. Then wait for my command!" Sergeant Flynn looked over at Corporal Hayes. There was no expression on Hayes's face, but he nodded quicker than usual in agreement with the sergeant's words.

"Over the top, men!"

Louis wasn't sure which of the saber-waving officers gave that command, but all of E Company followed it without hesitating. Though when they reached the top of their works they all dove to their stomachs with such speed that they looked more like a great line of swimmers than an attacking army. A few shots popped from the Rebel line. Then it was quiet. No further response from the soldiers in gray a hundred yards away.

Those in back of us might figure this is going to be easy. But those Rebs are just waiting for better targets.

Louis knew now what every veteran learned. A man on his stomach is seldom hit by musket fire. Just like the Union boys, Southern soldiers tended to shoot high. For every minie ball with your name on it, a hundred pounds of lead whizzed over your head. So, as he crawled forward, he kept so low that he could taste dirt on his lips.

Still no Rebel fire.

The heavy breathing of other men around him as they crawled, the sc.r.a.pe of elbows and knees against hot red soil, the occasional soft curse as a man sc.r.a.ped a wrist or banged a knee on a stone. Farther from the safety of their own entrenchments. Closer and closer to the Reb earthworks.

A little stir went down the ranks, like hair standing up on the back of the neck of a giant. Louis turned his head.

A young lieutenant in a clean uniform ten yards away was waving his dang saber.

"Rise and charge!" the lieutenant was shouting.

Other officers began standing up, echoing his command.

"Rise and charge!"

Louis looked toward Sergeant Flynn, ten feet ahead. Low on his belly as the enlisted men around him their sergeant stayed still as a stone. So did Louis and the other common soldiers in the two lines of veterans.

Bravery was one thing. Plain suicide was another.

Sounds from behind him. He squirmed around to see what was going on. The third line, the men of the First Ma.s.sachusetts were rising to their feet. Before they got halfway to their knees, hundreds of veterans between them and the enemy called back to them.

"Get back down, y' dang fools!"

"Y' can't take them works!"

"Lay down!"

"Down!"

Louis saw the looks on those Bay Stater faces as they realized the men shouting back over their shoulders at them were the Fighting Sixty-ninth, the bravest brigade in the army. As one, the First Ma.s.sachusetts flopped back down and hugged the ground.

But now the First Maine stood up. The 850 men of that brigade figured they were made of tougher stuff. They began to march forward, ignoring the veterans' warnings, stepping over the p.r.o.ne figures of the three ranks ahead of them. One heavy-footed Mainer with a beard yellow as straw stepped right on Louis's back.

Louis paid it as little mind as he did the words some of those rugged Maine boys growled down at them.

"What's wrong with you Irish?"

"You a bunch of sissies?"

"Ain't you gonna fight like men?"

Then the First Maine was past them, moving on the double against the impregnable line ahead. Five, ten, fifteen yards away.

"May the good Lord who looks after fools and children protect 'em," Flynn said in a voice like that of an Old Testament prophet.

Louis closed his eyes.

But not soon enough. He saw the great burst of smoke and flame that billowed out of the thousands of rifle slots in the high earthworks as the Confederates opened fire en ma.s.se.

Not one man of the First Maine reached the Rebel lines. Less than a quarter were able to return.

Six hundred sacrificed like lambs, Louis thought as he wormed his way backward, pulling with him the weeping Maine boy who'd managed to stagger back and then fall by his side. If we'd all charged, it would have been four times as many.

No second attack went forward.

"Would you like to know the tally, lads?" Sergeant Flynn said in a weary voice the next morning. "A friend of mine at headquarters who keeps accounts of such matters, says there's been seventy-two thousand of us killed, wounded, or captured since we started in the Wilderness."

We've lost more men in the three months I've been a soldier than old Lee has in his whole army.

"But there's t' be no more attacks. Grant himself has agreed it's time t' rest and use the spade fer protection." Sergeant Flynn made a low sad sound like a growl from the back of his throat. "And a welcome change that'll be, if indeed we kin believe it t' be so."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.