Unholy Fire (3 page)

Another officer joined us at the crest, and I recognized him as a member of Colonel Baker's staff. He was a former congressman from Philadelphia.

“The colonel's favorite cannon,” he said, smiling broadly. “It was a gift from the people of Oregon, and he is very fond of it. It's his good luck charm.”

Behind the cannon, hundreds of soldiers stood bottlenecked along the entire length of the winding path. Dozens more were standing with their muskets resting on their shoulders in the shallow water down at the riverbank, prevented from even starting up the path. I looked through the tops of the trees toward Harrison's Island. At least a thousand more were still waiting to come over, most of them just milling about or sitting on their packs. The only craft being used to ferry the attack force were the same three rowboats my men had found the previous night.

“Don't look so grim, Lieutenant,” said the staff officer. “It's going to be a great day for the Union. I can smell victory in the air.”

“Yeah … they're gonna kill us all,” muttered Sergeant Colfax, as we walked back to our position. Harlan had already survived the disaster at Bull Run back in July.

None of us had eaten anything since we'd had supper the night before. Some of the men still had food in their knapsacks, and they shared it around as far as it lasted. Fortunately, we had all filled our canteens in the river, and there was plenty of drinking water. The sun had started its downward journey when the colonel's bronze cannon finally came over the crest.

“Three hours to drag up one lousy piece,” said Harlan Colfax. “The goddamn Rebs have probably got a whole battery over in those trees by now.”

Colonel Baker came across from Harrison's early in the afternoon. Apparently, someone had finally located a barge, because the colonel's big white horse was led over the crest right behind him. His cannon was already deployed out to the left of us.

He ordered our regiment to form the middle of the line facing the woods across the pasture. Then he ordered the New York Tammany Regiment to move forward in a rank up ahead of ours and to the right. I heard a good deal of grumbling from them as they came through our position. They no longer seemed to be spoiling for a fight.

It was well after three o'clock by the time the last of the men from Harrison's were finally fed into the ranks, and the sun was dipping down toward the tree line. Off to the left, I heard the confident tattoo of a long drum roll followed by the bark of a crisp order to dress one of the lines.

“Well, General McKittredge, what happens now?” said Johnny Harpswell, with an impish grin.

Down on one knee, I remember looking up toward the heavens and mouthing a silent prayer. “Please, God,” I prayed fervently, “don't let me die until I have made love to a beautiful woman.”

As if in answer to my prayer, the Confederates chose that moment to open up on us. The entire tree line at the other end of the pasture belched out a tremendous plume of smoke, and a split second later, the balls from their first volley of musket fire came whistling past. One tore through the sleeve of my uniform coat and another ricocheted off the scabbard of my cheap presentation sword.

Almost in concert, the Tammany Regiment, which was in the rank up ahead of us to the right, turned as one and ran back through our positions. Their embarrassed officers followed behind, frantically waving their swords and bellowing for their men to rally. Now we were out in front by ourselves.

Another coordinated volley of fire erupted out of the tree line. Men were being hit all around me. Although the Confederates were still completely invisible to us, our troops began firing blindly into the woods. The reek of powder smoke filled my nose.

“Stand fast, men!” I heard one of the company commanders shout, his powerful voice loud and clear over the din. I remember thinking that it was a poor choice of words, since by then most of the men had wisely dropped to the ground. The ones who had been hit were the fellows who had raised their heads or gotten up to shoot on one knee.

Over on the left, Colonel Baker's bronze cannon began to return the Confederate fire. His artillerymen were well trained, and the first round they fired exploded to good effect in the distant tree line. The Rebel officers must have targeted them then because, after the next enemy volley, none of the gunners were left standing.

Colonel Baker coolly went forward and encouraged some men from the ranks to take over the job. They were more than willing and rushed to load the cannon, firing it as soon as the shell was in place. Unfortunately, they were not prepared for the recoil, and the gun carriage careened backward straight down the rise, crushing several wounded men who were lying in its path before disappearing into the ravine below.

I began walking along the line, making stupid jokes and encouraging the men. As each second went by, I wondered when I would be hit.

“Lord, don't take me now,” I remember praying over and over, “not until I've at least kissed a woman in passion.”

“They're firing beautifully,” called out Johnny Harpswell, as if we were watching a hockey game against Princeton.

Major Wheelock was shot twice in immediate succession, both balls ripping through his chest. The second one flipped him over on his back. With each heartbeat, his lifeblood poured forth and soaked the earth beside him.

The man lying directly in front of me raised his head to call encouragement to his younger brother, who was farther down the line. An instant later his warm brains were blasted into my eyes. I wiped them away in order to see. That was when the Confederate infantry began moving out of the trees and into the field opposite our position.

“It's the whole goddamn Reb army,” yelled someone standing behind me.

As they began to come on, I could hear the swelling roar of the Rebel yell for the first time. It slowly grew to a crescendo of noise that drowned out even the noise of the firing. The war cry reminded me of a huge wave about to break on a rocky shore.

On either side of us, men from the other regiments began to melt away. Glancing back down the rise to the bluff, I saw soldiers who were not wounded running toward the path that led to the river.

Colonel Baker was killed a few minutes later. He was out in front of the men on the left, exhorting them to hold on, when he was hit by a hail of fire that slammed him to the ground like a hammer blow. I learned later that he had been struck by eight balls. After he was carried to the rear, no one else took command.

Although I know it was just an illusion, it seemed then as if the ground caught fire, with acrid, foul-smelling smoke billowing up all around us. To my left and right, men were writhing in their death struggles like huge demented worms.

The Confederate attack had driven the surviving pockets of resistance back closer and closer to the edge of the bluff. We were no more than fifty feet away from it when I felt a wave of uncontrollable anger sweep over me. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. For the first time in my life I wanted to kill someone with my bare hands. Black rage filled my brain, crowding out all conscious thought except the compulsion to destroy the men who were massacring us.

“Let's be shot advancing instead of being slaughtered here like sheep!” I shouted to the men standing around me. “We're going forward!”

This may sound strange, but it was without fear and filled with elation that I began to charge back up the slope, waving my sword above my head. Never in my life had I felt anything so intensely. Glancing behind me I saw that more than a score of men had followed my lead, including a fiercely grinning Sergeant Colfax. Close to the top of the rise there was a wall of dense powder smoke. As it broke up, I could see a mass of Confederates advancing toward us. Above them waved a huge battle flag, blood red against the setting sun. The surprise of seeing us charging toward them when the battle was so obviously lost caused them to pull up short.

I waded into the first line, slashing madly with my sword as I went. A man toppled to my left, his eyes going vacant as he fell to his knees. Another figure, nothing more than a blur off to the right, fired at me with his pistol before the razor-sharp edge of my sword caught him on the side of the head and he went down, too.

Unlike most men who are shot in battle, I actually saw the soldier who tried to murder me. Although my revolver was already empty, I was still holding it in my right hand when my eyes were drawn to the sight of what appeared to be a comical stage figure towering over the other men. His white-maned head was crowned by a top hat that must have made him nearly seven feet tall.

With his rutted, cadaverous face, he may have been the oldest man on the battlefield. Seventy would be my best guess, although he stood ramrod straight. Even for a Rebel, his choice of uniform was distinctly odd. It consisted of a double-breasted blue frock coat that had matching rows of large gilt buttons running down the chest. He wore white breeches and had on black riding boots that came all the way up to his thighs. The way the tails of his frock coat were billowing out behind him on that windswept plain, he looked like nothing so much as a gigantic old blue jay.

As we glared at each other, he raised a smoothbore musket to his right shoulder and aimed it straight at me. I am going to die now, I remember thinking. That certainty brought with it an odd sense of calm. I became convinced that some conscious part of me would actually watch me die and then go on.

In the vain hope that there was one cartridge left in the cylinder, I aimed my revolver at him and fired. The hammer fell on a spent chamber. A split-second later, his musket exploded in flame.

I felt myself being lifted bodily in the air before coming to rest on my back. At first, I had no idea where the ball had taken me. However, my roving fingers quickly found the wet warmth covering my abdomen. My uniform was perforated in several places, and it struck me that he must have been firing buck and ball.

I had no time to ponder the question as two hands seized me by the shoulders, and someone started dragging me back down the rise. I was still conscious when we reached the edge of the path that led down to the river. It was clogged with men, and the Samaritan laid me down on the ground nearby. As he headed back up the rise, I saw that my rescuer was Harlan Colfax.

Colonel Baker's riderless white horse walked slowly toward me and stood by my side, calmly munching grass a few inches from my head. As I looked into his placid eyes, an insane thought ran through my mind. It was the notion that since I had yet to kiss a woman in passion, God would not take me.

Turning my head, I could see dozens of men still standing or kneeling along the edge of the bluff, firing up the rise into the smoke, then stopping to reload their muskets. The Confederates were pouring down a deadly fire from the field and opening up more gaps in this last Union line with each volley. I saw one man throw down his musket and leap out over the edge of the bluff, dropping into the trees far below.

That was my last conscious recollection until the face of Johnny Harpswell swam into focus above me. He appeared to be overcome with emotion, and tears were flowing down his freckled cheeks.

“I'm sorry, Kit,” he said, and then repeated it again.

“It doesn't hurt so bad,” I said, as the sound of firing continued unabated.

“It's torn open your stomach wall … I've tried … to put it all back inside.”

I believed then that the wound was mortal.

“I'll get you back, Kit, I promise,” he said.

A moment later, I felt myself being lifted up again, this time enveloped in his powerful arms. I passed out once more as he began carrying me down the path.

I awoke to find myself lying propped up against the gunwale of the same rowboat I had come over on the night before. There were no longer any oars in it, and the soldiers were using their arms and muskets to paddle back toward Harrison's Island.

It had also started raining very hard. The drops were roiling the water around the boat like a summer storm lashing the surface of a pond. I remember being puzzled not to feel any moisture on my face. Then I realized it wasn't rain.

I looked back toward the top of the bluff. All the brilliant red-and-gold foliage was gone, destroyed by the musket fire. Confederate soldiers stood several rows deep along the crest and were firing down at the men still trying to get away. For the Southern boys, it was nothing more than a grand turkey shoot.

For those of us down below, it became a desperate race for survival. Many of the men had shed their equipment and were trying to swim for it. They were shot as they struggled in the water, trying to make headway against the strong current. A hundred others who couldn't swim, or were afraid to try, just huddled along the riverbank as volley after volley of murderous fire poured down on them.

Johnny Harpswell was beside me in the skiff, his boyish face streaked with dirt and blackened powder. He was churning the water with the butt of his rifle in a fine, fast, rhythmic cadence.

“So this is your reward for being the stroke of the Harvard crew,” I said.

Grinning, he was about to give me a proper retort when his head jerked to the side and a fountain of blood, bone, and teeth burst from his open mouth. A ball had struck him in the lower jaw, carrying most of it away. The exposed muscles in his upper jaw were still expanding and contracting as the force of the ball took him over the side.

I must have fallen unconscious again because when I next opened my eyes I was lying on the ground and a large, hairy, sad-eyed man was leaning over me, examining my wound.

“So … thirsty,” I whispered.

“I cannot let you drink, Lieutenant,” he said in a shaking voice. “But I must do something with your vitals. They are covered with hen grass and dirt.”

I was fully awake now and the pain was coming in stabbing waves. Oddly, it seemed to be centered in my groin at first, although I was not wounded there. As I turned away from the obscenity of my exposed viscera, he gently rinsed them using an oaken bucket filled with river water. After repacking the entrails into my stomach cavity, he covered my abdomen with a strip of clean cheesecloth.