The Smoke at Dawn: A Novel of the Civil War (34 page)

Bauer’s heart leapt in his chest, the musket across his knees grabbed with both hands. He stared ahead, nothing but tall grass, heard another voice, straight out in front of him.

“Aw, you know them bluebellies, Paul. They ain’t about to make a decent trade less’n they get all the advantages. Hey, hungry boy! I got some dried corn mush. You got anything I cain’t get from home?”

Bauer hesitated, angry at himself now, thought, How close? Thirty yards, maybe. To his left, Brubaker spoke up.

“No time for jabber, Johnnies. We’re being relieved pretty quick. The captain says no dealing with you.”

“Well, heckfire, Yank. We been holdin’ a swap out here right regular. Got me a real nice leather satchel from one of you boys for a pound of tobacco. No need to go and be all
army
on us.”

The other rebel spoke now, Bauer straining to see any movement in the grass.

“Now, Paul, you know these lads are regular army. Eighteenth Regiment, First Battalion, Company D. That’d be Captain Willis, Colonel Moore. They say these boys got steel in their backsides. Maybe their front sides, too. Women scared to pieces when these boys march through. Ain’t you scared, Paul?”

“Yep. Reckon so. Wonder how they’ll stand up to twelve pounds of grapeshot?”

“Reckon that time’ll come soon enough.”

Bauer understood what the men were doing, the boasting that the rebels knew exactly who they were facing. Their scouts were every bit as efficient as anyone in blue, both sides letting the other know how much information they had.

Bauer waited for more, heard a rustle in the grass behind him, jumped to the side, whipping the musket around, saw the face of Corporal Owens.

“What the hell’s ailing you? You weren’t sleeping, were you?”

Bauer shook his head. “No. You just … surprised me!” He lowered his voice now, pointed out to the front. “There’s rebs about thirty yards thataway. Picket line I guess.”

Owens slipped up beside him, didn’t seem to hear him. “I’m relieving you. Go on back to camp. There’s a bucket of something supposed to be chicken. Word came down from Colonel Moore that there’s a passel of rebels on the move over in that valley, between the hills. First real marching the rebs have done in a while. Best remember that the next time you’re sent out here. Something’s up, and if it’s coming through here, you better be awake.” Owens settled in, his musket across his legs, then leaned closer to Bauer, surprising him, said in a whisper, “Now, Private, let me teach you something.” He called out now, “Hey, Paul, that you?”

The response came from in front of Brubaker’s perch. “ ’Tis surely, Randall. Who’s the new fella?”

“Wisconsin. Name’s Bauer. Edgy chap. Says he can take the eyeball out’n a squirrel at five hundred yards.”

“Well, now. We can use us a good squirrel poker back over the river.”

“Nope. He’s ours, for now. But I’d keep your head down till he gets used to how damn annoying you are.”

Bauer tried to hold the laugh inside, but Owens’s grim expression never changed. Bauer leaned close, bathed in the man’s odd smell, wanted to tease the man, felt utterly foolish for his caution.

“Hell, Corporal, I didn’t know you all were friends out here. You shoulda told me. I can bring something to trade, if that’ll help.”

Owens looked at him, close, eye to eye, said in a soft whisper, “You ain’t paying attention, Private Bauer. Let me explain something to you. We’re out here making nicely with those boys for one damn good reason. When the game starts, all our ‘friends’ out there might just pause a wink, that Paul fellow keep his fingers off’n the trigger before he realizes I got my bayonet in his throat.”

Bauer sat back, felt the heat in the man’s words. Owens settled against the fallen log, pulled his hat low across his brow, said, “Now go on. Git. That chicken’ll be gone quick.”

Bauer pulled the musket up beside him, crawled through the matted
path in the tall grass, felt suddenly nervous, sweat in his palms. The men around Chattanooga had been behaving as though the war had become
lazy
, long days of nothing to do, nothing to hear but the scattered artillery duels, the gunners on both sides putting up a fireworks display that seemed aimed at no one at all. He looked upward again, the signal flags on Lookout Mountain, rebels sitting high on their perches, no threat, no danger, making no effort even to be an army. But, they’re still the enemy. Owens never forgets that, he thought. Sammie, neither. The time’s coming, no doubt about it. General Grant’s here? They didn’t bring him all the way to Chattanooga so we can sit out here and swap tobacco. He glanced back toward Owens, and beyond, out toward the tall grass where the rebel pickets sat, heard more of the talk down the line, more of the pickets still playing the game. He understood now what Owens was saying, what they all seemed to know, that when the
real
game started, these men in blue would move forward together, and those rebels with their bartering and their friendly talk would be the first to die.

The men continued to march well past his camps, a slow, plodding shuffle, no enthusiasm, no spirit at all that would tell anyone that these same men had crushed the enemy at Chickamauga. Cleburne watched intently, had wondered about these men who came from the East, who had broken the enemy’s lines so completely at the great fight a month before. He wondered more about their commander, how James Longstreet had marched his troops to Tennessee with expectations of … what? Command? Victory? Every general in Bragg’s army was well aware that Longstreet had come south with more than a mere chip on his shoulder. His presence had resulted in complete turmoil, had pulled Cleburne into a destructive conspiracy, as it had done to so many others. Longstreet hadn’t begun that dissension. Bragg seemed to inspire rebellion among his commanders everywhere he placed his headquarters. But Longstreet had dragged the bitterness out in the open, laid it bare for the army and Jefferson Davis to see. The result thus far had benefited no one, an army held in a sickly paralysis by Bragg’s fear of the enemies in his own camp.

The troops marching through the valley below him were moving
out toward Tyner’s Station, the rail depot near the junction of Chickamauga Creek and the Tennessee River, several miles north of the Federal position at Chattanooga. The only real information Cleburne had about these men had come from Hardee, that Longstreet’s corps had been ordered away, to board the trains that would carry them toward Knoxville. Bragg had explained the move to his generals as the most effective way to blunt any threat from Burnside’s Federal forces camped now around that city, an essential bit of security to protect the flank that Cleburne held, the northernmost position of Bragg’s long line that spread out across Missionary Ridge.

Cleburne watched them from high up the ridgeline, a stand of timber to his left, the drop-off that sloped toward the junction of the two waterways. The men moved past in long lines, no one hurrying them along, no one seeming to care just how long it took for them to fill the cars. The engines had been waiting since dawn, thick black smoke belching out from fat stacks, and Cleburne had counted the cars, then estimated the size of the force Longstreet commanded. It was a puzzle why there seemed to be far too many men for far too few cars. All through the morning, what he had observed seemed clumsy and inefficient, something Cleburne had seen before. So often when Bragg’s army was on the move, there were never enough railcars, or the engines to pull them, and now that was more obvious than ever. This will take a ridiculous amount of time, he thought. Moving … what? Ten thousand men? Twelve? To what end?

Cleburne’s division anchored the far right flank of Bragg’s entire position, and so, they were the force closest to the depot at Tyner’s Station, on the Georgia and East Tennessee Line, the most direct rail line the Confederates still held that would move a large force toward Knoxville. Already two divisions of Confederate troops and Joe Wheeler’s cavalry were maneuvering to confront Burnside’s Federals, and Cleburne had studied the maps, had assumed that if Bragg believed a stronger force was needed against Burnside, the most logical maneuver would be for Cleburne’s troops to pull out of position on Missionary Ridge and make the short march to Tyner’s, where the railcars could be gathered without any threat from the Federal artillery near Chattanooga. To fill the vacancy left by Cleburne, the remaining troops along Missionary Ridge could easily shift to their
right, with little sacrifice to the strength Bragg’s army held on the heights. But the troops he saw now had marched down from their position on Lookout Mountain, the far end of the Confederate position from where Cleburne stood.

Hardee had left him early that morning, some vague duty involving paperwork, which Hardee wouldn’t discuss. But Cleburne began to wonder now, if Hardee had gone to Bragg, another exercise in futility, making yet another effort to convince Bragg that if this army ever had an advantage over the Federal troops in Chattanooga, that advantage was rapidly slipping away.

And now Cleburne saw the color bearer, the telltale staff officers in formation behind their commander. They had gathered around one of Cleburne’s outposts, clearly visible, had turned, making the long, slow climb toward where Cleburne sat now. Paperwork be damned, he thought. This is why Hardee left me here. He doesn’t want any part of
this
.

The men pushed up the long hill directly toward him, their flag unfamiliar, a handful of aides led by a large hulk of a man who rode slumped over, as though he might tumble forward at any moment. Cleburne recognized Longstreet easily, knew him from the conspiratorial meetings that had brought so much turmoil to Bragg’s command. Longstreet was a sour, brooding man, who seemed to enjoy very little, especially the company of the officers who served Bragg. It was very clear to Cleburne, and to everyone else who had taken part in the effort to unseat Bragg, that Longstreet held tightly to his own expertise, believed absolutely that his place was at the head of the table. Cleburne had heard the talk that Longstreet had come to Tennessee expecting full command, and when Bragg resisted that notion, as Bragg certainly would, the animosity between the two men had quickly boiled over into a full-blown feud. Longstreet’s stunning heroics at Chickamauga had been a perfectly timed assault against a confused shifting in the Federal lines. Longstreet’s men had smashed completely through the Federal center, splitting their position in two. The result was a stampede that swept Rosecrans and his army back to Chattanooga. It was the kind of victory that the newspapers would always embrace, adding one more reason for Bragg to hate the man.

With a dull dread, Cleburne watched him climbing the long hill,
searched quickly behind him for any sign that Hardee might rescue him from whatever Longstreet would say to him, or worse, how he would respond.

Longstreet glanced up, no greeting, pushed the horse closer, one hand now rising, holding back the staff. He continued alone, and Cleburne felt the man’s eyes on him, probing him, and Cleburne searched his brain for something benign to say, had no talent for meaningless chatter. He couldn’t avoid thoughts of Jefferson Davis, extracting from Cleburne what amounted to a pledge of loyalty to Braxton Bragg. Don’t bring me into another argument, he thought. I’m just better off keeping my mouth closed.

Longstreet offered a brief smile, halted the horse several yards from Cleburne, as though keeping his distance on purpose.

“Halloo, General. How’s things with the Irish these days?”

There was no joy to Longstreet’s salute, an odd joke that Cleburne didn’t know how to take.

“Can’t rightly say, sir. Not many Irish about. Just me, I suppose.”

“Then how are things with
you
, General?”

“Watching the enemy. Not much to see in that quarter. I was told to keep a sharp eye out for a retreat northward, but there’s no sign of that.”

Longstreet nudged the horse closer, as though satisfied Cleburne would actually speak to him.

“No, I’m quite sure you’ve seen no retreat.” Longstreet paused. “These are not good times, Mr. Cleburne. Your commanding general has proven himself to be a master at achieving victories without achieving success. That requires genuine talent. I offer you my sincere regrets. Your commanding general is one of a kind.”

Cleburne wouldn’t offer any kind of opinion about Bragg, not anymore. He glanced back, his staff gathering, and he focused on Captain Buck, motioned them all away, didn’t need any more ears hearing anything Longstreet might say.

“Sir, I do admit to being surprised to see you up this way. I was told by General Hardee that the trains would be embarking this morning. I admit that I was surprised your troops would be the ones to make the journey.”

Longstreet leaned forward on his saddle, rubbed a hand through
the horse’s mane. “Were you now? There should be no surprises left in these parts. If you can dream it, it will happen. The more fantastic your imagination, the more likely your dreams will be realized. My dream was to be free of Braxton Bragg, and yes, miracles do occur. I am taking leave of the Army of Tennessee. I suppose that is a good thing to some. You’ll hear talk aplenty, but I assure you, this was not my decision. My men and I are merely following the orders as issued by General Bragg, as approved by the president. They seem to work as a team, you know. Like two oxen, pulling a wheel-less wagon.”