March Toward the Thunder Part 19

A VISIT TO THE LINES.

Monday, June 20, 1864

"If it han't been for them thirsty hosses, we woulda been in Petersburg now."

"Do tell," Artis said.

Louis looked up from the stump where he was sitting and whittling. He was trying to pull the shape of a bear out of the piece of pine Artis had picked up as he and Louis and their new friend, Private Thomas Jefferson, strolled among the stumps on the hill behind the USCT entrenchments.

"This used to be a forest," Artis said, flipping the piece of pine branch to him. "See what you can make of it now."

Precious little forest left around here. The Rebs had cleared most of it away for fortifications and to open a clear line of fire to the east. But the stumps at the edge of this stand of pines were just right for sitting.

The sky was as blue and clear above them as the firmament in the paintings Louis remembered from Father Andre's residence at St. Francis. There'd been peace in the blue skies of those paintings, blue that framed the figure of Jesus Christ lifting a hand in benediction. But when Louis looked up at that cloudless sky above them he just couldn't feel that sort of peace-not after all they'd been through.

Yesterday had been a Sunday that almost felt like Sunday. No fighting at all. Not even the drilling supposed to take place when there was no other action. On either side of the two opposing lines of dug-in trenches, redans, and fortifications, religious services had been held. The morning air had been hot, but so clear that the men of E Company could hear the hymns rising up from the other side.

Songbird Devlin c.o.c.ked his head. "'Rock of Ages.' Not badly sung, but they could use a few baritones." He nodded. Then he reached into his coat and pulled out a pocket-sized book with a water-stained cover. "It's glad I am they're singing the good old hymns, and not these."

Louis leaned over to read the cover.

Hymns for the Camp. Published by the South Carolina Tract Society.

Songbird flipped through the pages. "Picked this up in one of the trenches where some Johnny dropped it as he was skedaddling. Here's one to be sung to the tune of 'G.o.d Save the King.'

"Our loved Confederacy

May G.o.d remember thee

And Warfare stay;

May he lift up his hand

And smite the oppressor's hand

While our true patriots stand

With bravery."

Songbird shook his head. "It's a poor poet can't find a better rhyme for hand than the selfsame word. Ah, but hear what they're giving us now."

Louis and the others in their company listened. As sweet a version of "Amazing Grace" as he'd ever heard came floating to them light as the wings of a dove. Then, up and down the line of trenches, Union men began to join in until at least a thousand voices and hearts of men in both blue and gray were lifted above the earthly battlefield by a song.

Today, though, was Monday. Up at five a.m. with the bugle, drill and march till breakfast, drill and march again till the noonday meal. Then they were gathered together by Sergeant Flynn.

"We're to move again tomorrow," Flynn said, using a stick to sketch yet another plan just as smart as the dirt it was drawn in. "Our Second Corps and General Wright's just-arrived Sixth Corps. Sidesteppin' west, toward the Appomatox River t' cut the Weldon and Petersburg railway line that connects Petersburg with North Carolina."

A few heads nodded, but mostly the men just listened. Flynn handed Louis a paper. "Take this to headquarters."

It had been some sort of message from their new lieutenant. That job done, Louis had let his steps lead him first past Artis's nearby encampment, where he'd collected his friend. Then farther down the line by the bivouac of the Eighteenth Corps they'd found Jeff just as ready to waste some time.

Seeing how they took to one another, Louis used every spare moment to get the three of them together. Sometimes it was to play marbles-which Artis always won. Or they'd wrestle. Artis and Jeff were evenly matched there, but neither had been able to throw Louis. Other times, they'd just talk. Or, more accurately, Artis and Louis would listen to Jeff hold forth. His plan after the war was to become a preacher.

Makes sense. Never heard a better talker. Not even Father Andre.

So here they were, Artis half asleep in the sun, Louis whittling, Jeff speechifying from the pulpit of a pine stump about what might have been had certain white officers been as sharp as the black men they led.

"Yessuh," Jeff repeated, "them thirsty hosses." He paused, waiting.

"What horses?" Louis asked.

"The ones what pulls the artillery carriages," Jeff replied. "We was all set to move out towards them Rebs three hours before they let us go. But some officer misremembered that hosses needs to drink. Then when they finally saw how thirsty them hosses was, they unhitched um from the wagons and took um down to the river. And that was when we was supposed to be attackin.' Had to wait a good two hours whilst they got them hosses back in their traces."

"What's that?" Artis said.

Louis shaded his eyes with one hand as he closed the jackknife against his leg with the other. Some kind of commotion was going on in the camp below them. People were circling around a small group of men on horseback. The tallest rider was the Big Indian himself, General Parker. But the other two men, one of whom was a bearded civilian in a dark suit, were unfamiliar to him.

Jeff followed Louis's glance.

"Mah Lord," he exclaimed, standing up, brus.h.i.+ng off the seat of his pants, and throwing on his jacket. "You know who that is?"

"The Big Indian," Louis said.

"General Ely Parker, one of my people," Artis added with a grin.

"No, next to him. That's the man hisself. Old Father Abraham."

Jeff started down the hill at a trot with Louis and Artis close behind him.

The President of the United States. Abraham Lincoln. My stars!

By the time they reached the expanding circle of the Colored Troops gathered around the three mounted men, Louis recognized who the third person on horseback, a man much smaller than the other two, had to be. Although he was suited up in the uniform of a common soldier and not the resplendent finery some officers wore, the stars on his shoulders showed that he was none other than Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant.

As Louis and Artis approached, General Parker's eyes caught theirs. He nodded to each of them in turn. Just one Indian to another. No one else in the crowd noticed it, not even Jeff, who was right by Louis's side. Every other face in the crowd was fixed on the person in the black suit.

Dressed like a boss undertaker, though he does look to be easy in the saddle. Not handling his horse like a city slicker.

The lanky, bearded man took off his hat and circled with it toward the sea of dark faces, using his reins to gently turn the horse he rode so that he presented that gesture to every face looking up at him. A loud cheer rose up through the crowd.

"We's with you, Mistah President," someone yelled.

"G.o.d bless you, suh!" Jeff shouted, waving both hands above his head.

Men began reaching their hands up to gently touch his horse or the hem of his coat, then pull their hands back to press them to their mouths or their hearts. Everyone was smiling, but there were tears in many eyes, including those of President Abraham Lincoln himself.

There's a man who cares for the folks around him. Or at least he knows how to make himself look like a man who cares.

Lincoln held up his hand. Silence came as quick as a heartbeat. Everyone waited for words from the Great Emanc.i.p.ator.

"Men," Lincoln said in a rough, choked voice. "Men of the Eighteenth, I . . ." His voice broke and he paused to take a breath. "Men," he continued, "for that is what you truly are. Thank you for your cheers, even though I am not worthy of them. I should be cheering for you, for your courage and your sacrifices. I promise you this. We accepted this war as a worthy object, and this war will not end until that object is attained. Under G.o.d, I will not rest until that time."

Virtually unnoticed as he sat his horse a few yards back from the swirl of admiring former slaves and free men, General Grant nodded at the president's words.

Louis saw that nod and the determined look on Grant's face.

Am I right about what I think I read from that look?

Louis looked over at Artis, who raised an eyebrow and nodded back at him. You got it right.

The inspired Negro soldiers around them were cheering even louder now, but Louis hardly heard them. A knot the size of a fist formed in his stomach.

Mon Dieu! Grant, he's going to send us back on the attack!

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

ONE MORE THRUST.

Thursday, June 23, 1864

The thump of cannon, the crackling of muskets, the shouts and screams and confusion were behind him. Hard as that was to believe.

And I'm alive, Louis thought, looking at his blackened hands. His knee ached from running into something, there was a new tear in his s.h.i.+rt, his right hand was bleeding and he couldn't recall exactly what had caused any of that.

A sound came from the tent behind him. Songbird. But the only song that was issuing from his lips right now was a soft snore from the cot where he lay fully clothed, despite the heat. After stumbling back into camp from the futile Union attack, he'd been too tired to even take off his boots and his coat.

I'm bone-weary too, but I can't sleep.

Louis wiped some of the dirt and gunpowder stains off onto his pants.

Give thanks, his mother's remembered voice spoke in the back of his head.

"Bon Dieu, for preserving my friends yet again, ktsi oleohneh. Great thanks."

He plucked another briar from the torn cuff of his trousers. Then, picking up a stick, he began to draw in the dirt the way he'd seen Sergeant Flynn do so many times.

Here's our Second Corps, Louis thought, drawing three short lines in a row to stand for the Union divisions. He drew three more short lines below and behind them. And here's Wright's corps just arrived.

With the point of his stick Louis scratched two arrows, one for each of the corps, pointing toward the west. And there's the way we was supposed to go to cut the Weldon rail line. Nothing to it. Just cross the Jerusalem Plank Road and go two more miles west.

Louis shook his head. That had been the plan. But, as always seemed to be the case with everything in this campaign, things had gone wrong.

As they marched through the darkness and crossed the Jerusalem Plank Road, they found themselves in the sort of unpleasantly familiar tangle of woods and brush that E Company had encountered time and again since the Wilderness.