Battle of Lookout Mountain (12 page)

The Federals had to get their supplies from Nashville. Part of the trip was by wagon train over a steep, winding trail scarcely more than a footpath. Then the wagons had to cross into town over a pontoon bridge. The trip took from eight to twenty days—and under the heavy rains that followed the Battle of Chickamauga, the mules had to struggle through belly-deep mud.

The siege wore on. It became more and more difficult to feed the animals. Half-starved, the mules chewed on trees, fences, wagons, and anything else they could reach. More than ten thousand of them died.

Food in Chattanooga grew so scarce that men stole corn from the horses. They hunted for it on the ground where the animals had been fed. By mid-October, soldiers were assailing their officers with cries of “Crackers!” The men were now eager to see the usually despised hardtack.

A newspaperman—George Shanks, of the
New York Herald
—wrote, “I have often seen hundreds of soldiers following behind the wagon trains which had just arrived, picking out of the mud the crumbs of bread, coffee, rice, and so forth, which were wasted from the boxes and stacks by the rattling of the wagons over the stones.”

But the townspeople suffered most of all. While the army made some effort to feed its men, the non-combatants had no one to feed them. Many had their houses torn down to provide fuel for campfires. Most of the civilians eventually fled from the city.

Some of this was on Drake’s mind as he got to his feet and walked away from his squad. The situation
had been worse for him than for the others. They were suffering only the misery of poor food and bad weather—he was suffering even more from the torment of guilt.

After running away in battle, he knew the rest of the company looked on him as a coward. Even more difficult was the fact that he knew he
was
one. As the weeks wore on, his self-disgust had festered until he now little resembled the cheerful, happy-go-lucky young man who had joined the army.

Drake walked along, drawing his thin coat around him to cut off the cold breeze. His thoughts went again to Lori Jenkins.
She must despise me
, he thought bitterly.
What girl wouldn’t despise a fellow that would run away? And she’s right
.

Looking overhead, he saw dark clouds gathering and thought that snow was in them. This depressed him also, for he hated cold weather. He longed to be back in Pineville, to be out of the army, but he knew he couldn’t turn the clock back. For more than an hour he walked his solitary way, berating himself.

Early the next morning, however, Drake was approached by Ira Pickens. “Bedford, I don’t know why, but you’re gonna get a pass to go into town. You better go take it before the lieutenant changes his mind.”

With surprise in his eyes, Bedford stared at the sergeant. “They run out of real soldiers to give passes to?” He turned away.

“Wait a minute.” Pickens followed him.

Ira was a good sergeant. Drake knew that. Now it looked as if Pickens was going to try once more to set him straight.

“Look, Drake,” he said, “you made a mistake. Well, we all make them. You think you’re the only
man that ever ran away when he heard a shot fired? I was at Bull Run, and I don’t mind telling you I ran like a rabbit! All of us did, but most of us managed to swallow that and get on with the war….”

Sergeant Pickens continued to speak earnestly to Drake, but soon apparently realized that his words were having little effect. “Well,” he concluded, “go take your leave—but you’re making a mistake, living in the past.”

Drake did not thank Pickens, but he was glad for the unexpected leave. He cleaned up, shaved, and polished his boots. He caught a ride toward town with a supply wagon pulled by two skinny mules and soon found himself in front of the Jenkins house.

The wind was whipping out of the east, and he shivered as he dropped from the wagon.

The driver accepted his “Thanks for the ride” with a nod of his head and went on.

Drake crossed the yard and mounted the steps, but when he stood before the door he hesitated. The shame that was in him ran deep. He had the impulse to run, to leave without knocking. Having to face Lori while knowing his cowardice was painfully hard for him, but he pulled his shoulders back, set his jaw, and knocked.

When the door opened, Mrs. Jenkins exclaimed, “Why, Drake, come in the house!” She opened the door wide. “Let me have your hat. I’ll go tell Lori you’re here.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Jenkins.”

“You go on in the parlor now, and I’ll fix some tea. That’s always good on a chilly day like this.”

“That would go mighty good, ma’am.” Drake walked into the front room and stood staring at the
family pictures on the wall. One of them he found particularly attractive. It was a picture of Lori when she was no more than five or six. She had on a frilly white dress with a full skirt, and her hair was fixed in curls that hung down her back. She wore a curious smile. He had told her when he first saw that picture, “You seem to have been planning some outrage.”

She had replied, “I didn’t want to have my picture taken, and Ma made me smile when I didn’t want to.”

Now, studying the photograph, he saw that even at that early age, Lori had traces of the beauty that was hers today.

He looked at the other pictures. The Jenkins family could trace its history far back. Drake wished he had had a steady family, but his mother died when he was young, and his father was a drinking man. Drake had been raised in a haphazard fashion, living in many places. Lately he had wondered what sort of a man he might be if he had been reared differently.

“Why, Drake, how nice to see you!”

He turned when he heard Lori’s voice. She was wearing a dark blue dress that came to the top of her shoes, and a white sweater, and she looked very pretty.

“How long can you stay?”

“I’ve got an all-day pass.”

“Oh, that’s fine. Then we can have supper.”

“It seems like I always come for supper,” Drake said. “I wish I could take you out to a restaurant, but I’m broke. We haven’t gotten paid in weeks. I guess Washington’s forgotten about us.”

“Oh, I can cook better than any old restaurant cook,” Lori said. “But come sit down now and tell me what all you’ve been doing.”

They sat on the horsehair sofa, and from time to time Drake added wood to the fireplace. The fire made a cheerful crackling noise, and when he poked it, sparks spiraled up the chimney. “Always liked a fire,” he murmured, going back to sit beside her. He stared into the red and yellow tongues of flame that leaped and consumed the wood. “I used to want it to snow and be cold, just so we could build a fire—and then I hated the cold after it came.”

Lori laughed quietly. “I’m the same say. I love to see it snow, but then I want it to be gone the next day.”

Later on, Drake insisted on going out and cutting more firewood.

Mrs. Jenkins protested. But when he insisted, she said, “Well, put on some of my husband’s old clothes—you can’t spoil your uniform.”

Drake was soon splitting red oak. It was a job that he didn’t mind. The logs were approximately a foot and a half thick, and he sawed each into two short lengths with a bucksaw. When he had a pile, he stood them on end and with an ax split them into smaller chunks.

“You do that so well,” Lori said. She had put on a heavy coat and a cap that covered her ears and a pair of woolen mittens. She sat on an upturned box and watched him.

“Not much to it,” Drake said. He swung the ax over his head and hit one of the wood cylinders. It fell into two pieces, splinterless as a cloven rock.

“I’ve seen Daddy almost resort to profanity. He can’t do this at all. Has to hire most of it done.”

“I spent two years on a farm. I liked chopping wood better than anything.” Drake thought back to the time when he had learned how to plow and how to milk, and he shared this with her.

“What are you going to do when the war’s over? Be a farmer?” she asked.

“Don’t know. Just trying to make it through,” Drake said.

After he had finished chopping firewood, they went for a walk in the nearby woods. The wind was sharp, and dark clouds rolled overhead, but Drake’s black mood disappeared for a while. Lori was so pretty and so cheerful that he found himself laughing as he had not since the incident of his cowardice.

When they returned to the house, Lori’s father was there. “Well,” he said, after greeting Drake, “it’s time for us to see who’s best at checkers.”

“I thought we settled that last time, Mr. Jenkins.” He had beaten the older man three games out of five. He grinned, saying, “I’d be glad to give you some lessons, though, if that’s what you’d like.”

“We’ll see about that.”

The two men played while Lori and her mother prepared supper.

When they were seated at the table, as usual Mr. Jenkins bowed his head and prayed a fervent prayer of thanksgiving. When he looked up from the prayer, he said, “The cupboard’s a little bit lean, Drake. Food is pretty scarce around Chattanooga.”

“This looks good to me,” Drake said. There was a small platter of pork chops, a few potatoes, some
canned tomatoes, and fresh bread. “I guess everybody is on pretty slim rations right now.”

“Well, the Lord will provide,” Mr. Jenkins said. “Help yourself.”

They ate heartily what was there. Tonight there was no dessert. After the meal everyone went back into the parlor.

“Sing something for us, Drake,” Mrs. Jenkins said. She sat herself down at the piano and ran her fingers over the keys. “You have such a beautiful voice. I love to hear you sing.”

Drake grinned. “You wouldn’t like some of the songs. I grew up pretty rough, Mrs. Jenkins. Learned a lot of songs I’d be better off not knowing.”

“We don’t have to hear those,” she said. Mrs. Jenkins was a plump woman with a pretty face and lively brown eyes. “Do you know ‘Lorena’?”

“I suppose every soldier in both armies knows that one.”

“Lorena” was a sentimental tune that was sung around campfires. Just as soon as the army stopped and the campfires were made, you could hear this song floating in the air.

As the piano began to play, the parlor was filled with Drake’s rich tenor.

After “Lorena,” Mr. Jenkins said, “That’s enough of the romantic stuff. That song makes you feel like you’re stuck in molasses—too sweet for me. Let’s have a lively tune, Drake.”

“All right, you asked for it.”

After Drake had sung several rollicking songs, they began to sing hymns. Drake knew some of them from the few church revival meetings he’d
attended—mostly looking for the attractive young ladies who were there.

Suddenly he saw tears in Mrs. Jenkins’s eyes.
These hymns are real to her
, he thought. Glancing at Lori, he saw that she was affected by the hymn singing too. He felt strangely out of place and wondered if he would ever feel at home with godly people. It was a thought that had never occurred to him before.

Finally Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins tactfully left to “wash the dishes.”

Lori and Drake sat before the fire again, and Drake grew unusually quiet.

Lori said, “You’re not saying much, Drake. Is anything wrong?”

“I guess I don’t have much to talk about. Nothing much happens in the army.”

“Then tell me about your life when you were a boy.”

Drake hesitated, then began to tell about his childhood. He had never done this before. He related his hard beginnings and the difficulties of his early years. He fixed his gaze on the fire and spoke quietly, his words punctuated by the popping of the flames as the log crackled.

When he finished, Lori said, “You’ve had a hard time, Drake.”

“Better than some, though,” he argued. “Up until this war came, I was doing fine.”

Lori paused just a moment. “You’re wasting your life, Drake. Do you know that? Everyone does who cuts God out.”

He shifted uneasily, feeling her eyes riveted on him.

“I guess I haven’t thought much about God at all,” he admitted.

Then Lori began to tell how she had found the Lord Jesus and what He had meant to her life. He had known that she went to church, but this was a side of Lori that he had not seen. As Drake listened, he saw that she was sincere in her faith.

“I hate to see you waste your life,” she said again. “Especially with the danger of battle before you.”

Abruptly Drake turned to her. He said almost without thinking, “Lori, have you ever thought of me as a man you might marry some day?”

“Why, Drake—”

When she hesitated, Drake pulled himself together. “I guess not. I’m just not the sort of fellow you’re looking for. I guess Royal’s more along that line.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Lori said, “Drake, I’m not thinking about marriage at all right now—with Royal or with anyone else.”

Glancing at her quickly, Drake saw that she was telling the truth, and that came as a relief. “I guess you’re right. It’s no time to think about permanent things. Everything is all up in the air. We might be in a big battle tomorrow.”

He got to his feet. “I’ve got to get back. Can’t tell you what it’s meant to me, Lori—just getting away from camp for a while.”

“I want to see you do well, Drake. I’ll be praying that God will do something wonderful in your life. That you’ll be safe and that your life will have meaning.”

On his way back to camp, Drake reflected on her words. Bitterly he thought,
My life sure hasn’t meant anything up to now. Just playing the fiddle at parties—what good does that do? A man ought to be more than a fiddle player!

D
uring the siege of Chattanooga, many of the besiegers were as miserable as the besieged. Private Sam Watkins of the First Tennessee Regiment wrote about the miserable condition of the Confederate troops: