Spake As a Dragon (9 page)

They are getting closer – the deadly
musket shots are coming at them in volleys. Men are falling in
masses as the rifle and cannon fire cut big swaths in the Rebel
line of advancing men.

The order is given to,
‘Charge
Bayonets! Forward at the double quick! March!’
Looking forward,
Luke sees the split rail fence beside the Emmitsburg Road. Men are
lying all around the ground, many have terrible wounds, others are
missing arms or legs. He stumbles over the torso of a young boy
whose face is contorted and frozen in the grip of death. His deep
blue eyes stare out into eternity, tender eyes his mother will
never see again. Some of the men lying face down in the dirt are
not hurt, they are too afraid to get up and continue. He does not
say it, but Luke empathizes with them.

Luke sees he and Matthew are only a
few hundred yards from the slight protection the split rail fencing
might offer. “Run! Matt run! Come on Matt... RUN! Try to get to the
cover of the fence!” They, along with hundreds of others turn their
orderly march into a headlong flight at full speed toward the
totally inadequate protection of the fence. Luke has sprinted at
full speed many times before, but this time he believes his lungs
are going to explode. He sucks hard trying to pull air in, his
forage cap flies off, he jumps over dead and dying men on the
ground, but he keeps running. Stride for stride brother Matt is
keeping up with him. “Run Matt run. We’re goin’ to make
it!”

Just a few minutes earlier, the pride
of the Army of Northern Virginia had been a magnificent line of
Confederate Infantry. Now it is a ghastly hodgepodge of bodies
without limbs, limbs without bodies, and the mortally wounded lying
all over the field. The cream of Robert E. Lee’s Army lie mutilated
and mangled upon the battlefield. The remainder is huddled in
frightened masses behind the inadequate protection of the wooden
fence.

Some men try to climb over the split
rail fence. Nearing the top rail they are being exposed to the
murderous volleys of musket fire coming from the Union line. Most
do not get to the far side. They are killed or wounded and collapse
in a pile around the un-injured that cowers on the ground at the
base of the fence. Confederate officers move up and down the line
of scared men hiding behind the fence urging them, at gunpoint, to
advance. The men are hesitant but respond. As if in a wave, they
got up and began climbing the fence once again. Luke threw a leg
over the top rail extending his hand trying to help Matthew mount
the bottom rail. A deafening scream comes from Matt. He is hit. He
tries to grab Luke’s hand, but before he can grasp the outthrust
fingers Matt collapses upon the ground. Luke jumps from the fence,
pulls Matthew up into a sitting position, but an officer forces
Luke back over the fence. He has to leave his brother and advance
toward the Union defenses. Pickett’s Charge continues.

As they near the Union line, the
Confederates continue screaming the Rebel yell, firing their rifles
and running faster and faster. The leading elements of the charge
are now beginning to engage the Union forces in hand-to-hand
combat. Up and down the long line of Yankee soldiers, each
Company’s bugler could be heard above the roar of battle, blowing
‘
Infantry Commence Firing
.’ The men of both armies fight
with bayonets, knives, and rifle butts some even throw stones. It
is a fight for survival. Swords sever arms, hatchets split open
skulls, and the ground is red as if it had rained blood. If the
South had not retreated that horrendous day, not a man on either
side would have gone unscathed.

SPAKE AS A
DRAGON

General George Meade is not the only
commander on the field this day with Biblical scriptures on his
mind. General Robert E. Lee stands on the edge of the battlefield
with his own spyglass to his eye. As he watches the destruction of
his army, he recalls two verses:

‘
And it came to pass on
the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and
lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the
trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp
trembled. (Exodus 19:12)

‘
...I beheld another beast
coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and
he SPAKE AS A DRAGON.’ (Revelation 13:11)

General Lee, a deeply religious man
who reads his Bible daily, has always believed the reference in the
Book of Revelations about the
‘two horns like a lamb’
was a
reference to the United States. The lamb is a meek, tender loving
animal, but when provoked will use his two horns like a battering
ram. Today the Battle of Gettysburg was in its third day, and the
Ram of the Union Army is battering his Army of Northern Virginia to
pieces. General Lee has never seen a dragon, but if one exists its
voice surely would sound exactly like the roar of battle taking
place before his very eyes - a roar he imagined, that
‘SPAKE AS
A DRAGON
!’

After an hour or so of fierce
hand-to-hand fighting, the shattered Southern forces started to
lose ground and began to retreat. Pickett’s Charge is now turning
into a defeat. Not only has Lee’s invincible army been beaten, some
of the men were throwing down their arms and surrendering. Luke,
although only slightly wounded, is among the men captured. As the
men in blue lead him away, he stares intently across the body
littered field toward the Emmitsburg Road and the rail fence,
looking for Matthew. There is so many, so many, dead and wounded he
cannot distinguish merely one body from among the many. He passes a
Union Colonel watching the Confederates as they struggle to return
to the safety of their own lines. Luke reaches out, grabs the
sleeve of the Colonel’s coat and begs for a brief look through his
spyglass, “Please, sir I plead with you! I seek my brother...can I
just look one time. He is wounded.” With a look of disgust, the
Colonel jerks his coat sleeve free, turns from Luke and walks away
as though some vermin had touched his arm.

The glorious Army of Northern Virginia
began the charge with 12,000 brave and fearless men now hardly
6,000 of them are able to walk, crawl or drag themselves back to
the woods on Seminary Ridge.

General Lee rides Traveller out onto
the field of blood. Meeting the straggling survivors, he tells
them, "It is my fault, it is all my fault!"

He waits patiently on General Pickett;
finally, he sees him, his face is blacken from the gunpowder, his
uniform torn his hat missing, blood oozes from the shoulder of his
mount ‘Old Black.’ Lee approaches and addresses him, "General upon
my shoulders rests the blame. Please assembly your Division we must
provide for a counter-attack."

“
General Lee, I have
no
Division!”

Chapter
Twelve

PRISONERS OF
WAR

Sergeant Scarburg remained at Doctor
Letterman’s Hospital for a few days. Day by day his condition
improved due in large part from the constant care he received from
Miss Barton or one of her attendants. Miss Barton had found a scrap
of paper in Robert’s pocket. It was his promotion orders to
Sergeant. She could read the name
‘Robert Scarburg, Sergeant,
48
^th
Alabama Infantry.’
He was
glad to know WHO he was, but his memory was still foggy; however,
it was slowly beginning to return.

One hot day an orderly entered the
hospital tent and yells,
“Attention to Orders!”
He begins to
read the names of the Confederate prisoners that are to be
transferred.

“
Private Johnny Adams,
Private William Bates, Private Benjamin Dunway...” he continued
calling out names until he got to the “S” names – Sergeant Robert
Scarburg,” Robert did not hear the rest of the names the orderly
calls out. He knew this day would come, he just did not think it
would be this quick. At least he now knew for certain his
name!

Private Benjamin Dunway occupies the
bunk next to Robert. Ben was of McLaw’s 10
^th
Georgia
Infantry. During Pickett’s Charge, Ben’s 10
^th
was on the
left of Luke and Matthew’s 48
^th
Alabama. Before the war,
Ben worked for the Consolidated Mining Company in a small town in
the hills of northern Georgia named Dahlonega. He was raised in the
backcountry with little or no formal education, but he had a heart
as big as his six-foot six-inch frame. He has already been in the
Army almost two years even though he is only twenty years old. He
suffered a shoulder wound and he like Robert was captured on the
2
^nd
day of fighting, Robert at Devil’s Den and Ben at
the Wheat Field. During their stay in the hospital tent, Ben and
Robert become friends. Due to their age differences, Ben looked
upon Robert as a father figure.

Robert and Ben spend most of the day
talking. They are not allowed out of their tent. Ben recalls the
various battles his Company and Robert’s have been in, Ben talks
and Robert listens. But the conversation always returns to home,
well at least Ben speaks of his home. Robert did vaguely remember
his Grandmother telling him the story of the Battle of Scarburg
Mill. The blow to his head affected his short-term memory, but his
long-term was getting better by the day. He especially remembered
the name Dahlonega when Ben mentioned it. She had told of the two
Revolutionary War wagons, which had been bound from Ben’s hometown
of Dahlonega to the Armies of General Washington.

Remembering this, Robert asks Ben if
he might know what the wagons would have been carrying eighty-two
years earlier. Ben answers quickly – gold! If they left Dahlonega
fully loaded, they must have been carrying hundreds of pounds of
pure gold. It had to be gold; Dahlonega had nothing else worth
transporting anywhere. The gold ore is removed from the mines, sent
to the smelter, and after melting the gold is poured into 24 carat
gold bars weighing 27.5 lbs each. Robert is stunned as he hears
this – gold! The wagons must have been carrying gold! His
Grandmother had not told him much, those days were hard for her
since she had watched the British hang her husband and Robert’s
grandfather. She did tell of the two wagons that were burned at the
Scarburg Mill. She had talked a little about his grandfather
Pappy’s Masonic Lodge and his Bible, but he was young and those
things did not seem important to him at the time. His grandmother
did not mention the word gold. He never envisioned two wagons full
of gold BARS! Somehow the numbers 2K168 were important too, but he
did not know what they meant and his grandmother never explained
them either. Robert had figured if he died his sons should know the
‘numbers,’ whatever they meant, maybe someone would figure it out
someday, but he thought a mill, a House of the Lord, the Bible,
Masons and gold how did all this tie together? Or was there even a
connection?

Chapter
Thirteen

TRASH, REBEL
TRASH

Luke had been born in South Carolina
before the Scarburg family left Scarlett and moved to the pioneer
homestead in the newly settled country of north Alabama. He had
heard the family speak of the slaves, but he knew his father Robert
had granted them their freedom when he inherited Scarlett. He was
young, but he believed all men should be free, and his involvement
in this War Between the States wasn’t a fight against slave
freedom, but the fight for states rights, the rights for the states
of the South, especially Alabama to govern themselves.

The Yankee Captain pushed Luke into
the mass of Rebel prisoners on the backside of Cemetery Ridge, in
the rear of the Federal lines. Luke is unsure what is to happen
next after his capture during Pickett’s Charge. He along with
hundreds of other Rebels is being herded from the battlefield to a
collection point near the Federal supply line in the
rear.

A voice, from the seat of the supply
wagon, speaks to the officer-in-charge, “Captain, I knows that man
– he’s name is Scarburg – I worked fer his Pappy on his plantation
in Carolinny.”

“
Shut up you black field
hand, this here Johnny Reb’s plantation days are over,” the Captain
slaps Luke across the face with his gloved hand. “Trash, Rebel
trash!” Slapping Luke again the Captain cuts a large gash across
his cheek, which bleeds profusely, but doesn’t seem to be too
serious.

“
Beggin’ the Captain’s
pardon, Sir, but I’s knows this here fellow...his Pappy sets me and
my family freed on the Plantation...he’s a good’ern, I’m a tellin’
you Captain!”

“
All right Blackie, he’s
yours since you love’em so much. You and the rest of the blacks
have the dead to bury, make him do it too – he probably killed a
lot of those boys anyway!”

“
Jump up here ons this
here wagon Master Luke! You be my slave now!”

Without hesitation, Luke takes one
stride, steps upon the wagon wheel, and with one bound is sitting
next to a black man about his age with a black slouch hat pulled
low over his eyes.

“
Nate? Is that you? I
didn’t recognize you...what are...?”

“
Hush up Luke, don’t sez
another word, we’s got to get outta here, and I means
fast.”

Nate was one of Luke’s best childhood
friends. Nate’s family came with the Scarburg family to Alabama,
but Nate had already married and left Scarlett by the time the
Scarburgs decided to move. When Sary’s first son was born she loved
the name ‘Nathaniel’, and gave him that handsome name as she called
it, but Sary being barely able to read and write simply called him
‘Nate.’ She only used ‘Nathaniel’ when he needed discipline, or she
was angry. As slaves, Sary’s family had no surname everyone only
had a Christian name. When Robert inherited Scarlett all the slaves
had to have a surname. A full name was required on the Certificate
of Freedom, they all agreed to use ‘Scarburg.’