Franklin was surprised, Knight’s words still low, the fierceness of the man’s size masking what Franklin could feel was unexpected kindness.
“Thank you, sir.”
Knight spoke louder now, still eyed the angry glare from the slaves. “Those coloreds back there got nothing? You think they hiding something? Seem pretty damn kindly to this old rebel woman. Don’t trust that.”
“They got nothing, sir. I believe them. They’re stayin’ fixed, right here.”
The sergeant kept his eyes on the young black woman, and Franklin saw regret on his face, but there were no words, no apology that would matter. The woman seemed inconsolable, heavy sobbing, was still held firmly by the larger man, who said to Knight, “They’s too many of you, or I’d a kilt me a man today.” He pointed to Franklin. “I done tole him, and I’m telling you. Get gone from dis place.” He paused, a break in his voice, and Franklin could see he was sharing the emotions from the woman he held.
Franklin said to Knight, “We oughta bury the body.”
The black man stepped closer, hard anger through tear-filled eyes. “You done enough. Get gone from here. I done buried my boy one time. I’ll do it again.”
EBENEZER CREEK, GEORGIA—DECEMBER 8, 1864
With the darkness, the rains had come, a soft, steady spray that softened the roads even more. They had returned from their expedition by passing through the skirmish line, soggy, hopeful men, who met the wagon with cursing anticipation. Franklin moved past them, was ignored again, the guards more focused on the haul of sweet potatoes, the only hint of treasure the men had found.
He followed the campfires toward the new camp, thought of the captain, knew he had to tell Gorman what he had seen, how meager the pickings had been. But he agonized now over the grave, an image he couldn’t shake, what little piece of a child he had seen in the bundle of cloth. Sergeant Knight’s sorry for that, he thought. There was no cause for it, and he won’t let those boys do nothing like that again. He put a hand on his sore ribs, thought, You’re maybe one stupid man. You go and punch at a white man like that. He flexed his sore fingers, shivered, the wetness from the rain soaking through his clothes. They woulda killed you if it weren’t for the sergeant. Best keep away from all those boys. Maybe they’ll forget about you. But I ain’t goin’ out with them, that’s certain. Gotta tell the captain that, anyway.
He had begun to understand the anger he saw in so many of the soldiers, that this entire army seemed driven by some kinds of experiences from long ago. He still wasn’t sure what happened in a war, listened to their talk around the campfires wondering if they were doing just what his father used to do, tall tales meant to scare a young boy. They spoke often of bloody fights, of men in pieces, of burying rebel dead in mass graves. Some spoke of facing the bayonet, the blasts of artillery slicing a man to pieces, while others kept silent, staring into the fires with hard anger. The talk seemed focused on the rebels, on what they would have to do to those men to end this war, and how some of them hoped for all that bloody fighting to come again. He thought of the soldier today, the man Knight called Dunlap. I’ll cut you in two. He would. Best believe that. Believe that if these men have gone through the worst kind of fighting and killing, one stupid black boy don’t mean a thing. That grave, though. That gal, she’ll be seein’ that forever. Maybe me, too.
He shivered again, moved toward a fire, a few men milling about, a coffeepot passing around. He searched the darkness for Poke, the makeshift corral of horses. He crossed the muddy road, passed through a gap in a marching column, a surprise, men on the move after dark. They’re going somewhere important, he thought. Guess so, anyway. Maybe trying to put the creek back there behind ’em. Guess we all need to be on the same side of the creek, in case the rebels come.
The voice found him, a high-pitched call that stopped the talk of the soldiers, men turning to find the source. He saw her now, Clara, the girl from Millen, running alongside the column, calling his name, a frantic wave, a tearful squall that made his heart turn cold.
“Franklin. You gots to come! Come now!”
He didn’t ask why, watched as she turned, still looking at him, her arms in frantic motion, crying, pleading. “Now! Come now!”
He ran after her, his feet slogging in the muddy slop along the road, soldiers calling after him as he passed them, crude remarks he ignored. She stumbled, and he was there now, held her up by the arm, saw frantic fear on her face, said, “What’s happening?”
“Come! You gots to come!”
She began to run again, and he followed, most of the column now past, wagons, horses passing, and he saw lanterns, to the rear of the column, men on horseback, more soldiers moving out from the creek, some carrying pieces of the pontoon bridge the men had built. There were more men at work, ordered about by an officer on horseback, something Franklin had seen often before. But now he heard a different cry, on the far side of the creek, another lantern there, soldiers in a line at the far end of the bridge, and all out through the swampy woods, a vast crowd of Negroes.
He followed Clara to the edge of the creek, and he stopped, out of breath, tried to absorb what he saw, what it meant. She shouted to him now, “They leavin’ ’em behind! They ain’t lettin’ ’em cross over!”
He could see it now, the far side of the creek, the soldiers pulling up the planks of the bridge, a chorus of shouting, some of the boatlike pontoons carrying the soldiers as they moved out from the bank. More men were on the bridge itself, doing the same, the planks up, brought to the near shore, tossed into wagons. She was still screaming now, calling out to him, “What they doin’? They leavin’ ’em! They tole me none of us is comin’. I beg ’em let me cross, run on the bridge, few of us come over before they stand up with guns and such. Now they stoppin’ everybody! Why? What we do?”
Franklin saw the men on horseback, the flag, recognized authority. He ran that way, heard one officer calling out, “Let’s go. Get that bridge up!”
Franklin moved up closer to the officer, a guard suddenly in his way, the man’s musket across Franklin’s chest.
“Back away from here, boy. You made it across, just move on. You can’t help the rest.”
Franklin pushed against the man, had to speak to the officer, but the guard held him fast, the officer now joined by another horseman, hard words, close above Franklin.
“Captain, who authorized this? General Baird knows nothing of this!”
“Major Connolly, my orders came from corps headquarters, straight from General Davis. I’m to pull this bridge up as quick as our men make it across. There’s rebel cavalry back there, pushing to get up with us. There’s another creek up ahead on that road there, Lockner, I think. We’ve got another bridge there, and we’re to get the men over, then pull that one up, too, quick as we can.”
“Captain Kerr, you will do no such thing! I’ve heard nothing of any rebel cavalry close to us, no confrontations at all! You cannot leave those people across the creek!”
Franklin felt the pressure from the guard slackening, the musket coming down, the man watching as he did, caught up in the argument raging between the two officers. Franklin eased forward, wanted to say something, anything, a protest, looked again across the creek, the lanterns now coming closer to the near shore, the vast sea of screams and shouts still across the way. Above him, one of the officers said, “Major, I have my orders. I don’t like this, either, but General Davis’s instructions were definite and very specific.”
“I will report this to General Baird! You cannot just leave those people behind us!”
“My orders, Major.”
The major swung his horse around, galloped away through the rainy darkness, and Franklin looked up at the captain, saw the man looking out over the creek, staring, as though he were paralyzed.
Franklin called out, “Sir! What are you doing? Those people…they’re bein’ left behind!”
The man looked down at him, a flicker of the lanterns reflecting on the grim sadness on th
e man’s face. “Nothing I can do, boy. I have my orders. You made it across. You’re lucky. Now move on, get across the next creek. We’re taking that bridge up quick as we can.”
“But, those people over there!”
“Get moving, boy!”
The captain turned his horse away, calling out more orders to the men on the bridge, the planks and pontoons coming ashore quickly, filling the wagons. Franklin moved to the water’s edge, stared across, could see the surging mass of people, heard splashing, the water churning up, arms flailing, realized people were coming across on their own. He stepped forward, the cold water to his knees, but he had never tried to swim before, felt sick, his heart racing, heard the screams still, the splashing coming closer. One man was there now, arms grabbing the muddy bank, and Franklin dropped down, reached for the man’s hand, pulled him up onto the shore. More were finding the shore, men calling out, some jumping back into the water, helping others as they made their way across. There were women coming ashore now, but not many, sobbing as they fell into the arms of any man who would help them. Franklin waded along the bank, had a desperate fear of the water, felt empty, helpless, the water alive with foaming splashes, arms flailing all across the wide creek. People were crying out all around him, more of the screaming, and he saw arms waving in the water, coming close. He moved that way, tried to step out, deeper, the water to his waist, his arms reaching out closer to the hands, a desperate grab, the hands suddenly gone, the water close to him empty, quiet. He reached down into the water, his face submerged, searching blindly with his hands, but the man was gone. He stood again, coughed out the bitter water, searched with frantic motions, saw others doing as he was, helping hands. Some of them were in uniform, the soldiers who dismantled the bridge now trying to help. But the lanterns were moving away, the darkness spreading over the sounds, the splashes, the cries, still a great chorus of voices on the far side, calling out, desperate and terrified, so many people left behind by the men they had trusted to save them.
—
Throughout the night, more of the freed slaves made good their crossing of Ebenezer Creek, but many more did not. There were makeshift rafts, some using logs to float their way over, aided by those who could wade out to receive them. The soldiers who stayed behind could not remain long, the next bridge already being dismantled, those men ordered to pull away, to make their way across Lockner Creek. Along that bank, the scene was repeated, those Negroes who had survived the crossing over Ebenezer Creek now faced with another barrier, another black waterway. But still they tried, exhausted, terrified people, plunging into the water in the driving rain, some, the most fit, making it across, while so many more did not. The helping hands were there as well, black and white, Franklin doing all he could even as he slipped deeper into the muddy bottom of the deadly stream. By morning, those who remained stranded beyond Ebenezer Creek were suddenly faced with a new terror. Rebel cavalry appeared, and for those who could not run, who could not escape into deep woods or treacherous swamps, the cavalry did their work. Those who tried to fight the rebel troops were mostly cut down, sabers and pistols, while others, the old and infirm, the women and young children, were grabbed up, only to be returned to the plantations and masters they had left behind.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHERMAN
NEAR POOLER, GEORGIA—DECEMBER 8, 1864
The house was modest, something Sherman was used to now, but more than ever, he suffered from the sleeplessness that not even a decent mattress could cure. Outside, the campfires had mostly grown dark, faint hints of embers spread out through thin pine woods, the various units of Frank Blair’s Seventeenth Corps spread apart, divided by patches of swamp, watery sandpits, and thickets of cypress and thorny brush.
He did as he had often done, easing the misery of sleeplessness by taking a walk, stepping down quietly from the headquarters toward the nearest fires. He rarely dressed, wore mostly his nightclothes, his brimless hat clamped down on his head. There would be one cigar, no pockets to hold any more, but it would do, offering a hint of warmth for those few minutes until that too fell dark. He stepped carefully, avoiding the occasional briar, the stinging nettle or even the prickly pear cactus, the unfriendly hints that the countryside had changed completely. It was all familiar to him, so much of it like Louisiana. But most of the men around him had never been in anyplace like this, and throughout the past few days, they had begun to react with a raw energy he could feel spreading through the entire army. It didn’t require maps to understand that this army was drawing closer to its goal, that somewhere out across the flat plains of swamp and rice fields lay the city of Savannah.
He stopped, took a deep breath, cool and wet, the rains settling into a gentle drizzle. The winds were from the east, unusual, but with that came the scent of salt air, that first sign that the marshlands were soon to change again, the black water of the swamps giving way to brackish pools, and then to the wide, grassy flats of pure salt water, where oysters and crabs would be found. It had already spread through the army, those men who knew the coast anxious to reap this new bounty, something they didn’t have to take from the civilians. Most of the men had begun to rely on a diet mostly of sweet potatoes, the rich variety of treasures that grew in central Georgia now behind them. The supply wagons had brought forward most of the surplus, but after so many days on the march, even the vast oversupply of goods was draining low, more wagons empty now than full. As they passed the rice fields, the cooks and commissary officers had to be taught just what to do with the reedy plants, how to shake and pound the tiny grains from the wet greenery, and then, how the grains could be made edible. But the men were learning quickly, taught mostly by slaves, and already the army was experiencing a new kind of hardtack, or a pressed cake made very differently from the awful flour they knew so well. But hardtack was still hardtack, and more of the men now spoke with enthusiasm of the salt water, what new treasures could be found. Sherman was gratified to hear just how many of his men shared his love of oysters, other shellfish, and the proximity of the ocean had added considerably to the morale of an army that, for the first time in the campaign, was beginning to experience hunger.
He moved to the nearest fire, picked up a stick, prodded the faint embers. The ground around him was soggy from the rain, the fire nearly extinguished, but he poked harder, deeper, the embers growing brighter. He was determined now, searched the darkness for something to add to the flame, some kind of kindling, saw a stack of small sticks, covered by a canvas cloth. He pulled out a single stick, smelled it, the delicious scent of fat pine, used that to prod the embers until the heat ignited the stick. He let the flame crawl upward toward his hand, tilted it away, then added the fat pine to the glowing embers. He retrieved another, creating a new fire from the old one, the flames growing, the warmth on his hands comforting, the black smoke swirling past him even more pleasing than the cigar. He stood, his eyes still on the flames, his minor victory, and he looked across the camp, the men nearly all silent, unaware that their commander found so much joy from the simple task of building a fire.
Behind him, a whisper. “Sir. Excuse me.”
Sherman kept the groaning response silent, knew it was Hitchcock. “What is it, Major?”
“Sorry to interrupt, sir. I’m finding it difficult to sleep. I know you usually take a walk. Hope you don’t mind just a bit of company.”
Sherman shrugged. “If you insist.”
There was a silent moment, Hitchcock absorbing Sherman’s hint. “Oh, sir, forgive me. I’ll be going. I should return to bed anyway. Very late.”
Sherman turned to him now, saw the man’s hair tousled, the glow of the small fire reflected on Hitchcock’s glasses. “No, it’s fine. I don’t usually have companionship out here. Can’t sleep, eh?”
“No, sir. I keep thinking of what’s ahead, Savannah and whatnot. Very exciting, to be sure.”
“The skirmishes are growing hotter. Rebels aren’t just going to lie down and let us walk in. I’d ra
ther keep my mind on what we have to do about that. It could get nasty, Major.”
“I understand that, sir. But look how far we’ve come. They’ll hear of this up north, soon enough. The newspapermen will get the word out, once we can find a wire northward.”
Sherman saw Hitchcock staring at the small fire, marching in place, a slight rhythm back and forth, warming himself from the wet chill. “Don’t really care what the newspapers say. Grab a couple of sticks from that pile, over there.”
Hitchcock obeyed, added the fuel to Sherman’s fire, the flames rising again. Hitchcock held his hands out over the low flames, said, “I understand, sir. But there will be some commotion at the War Department. They can’t know yet just what we’re doing, where we are. Must be a great deal of uncertainty about that. But with the news from Tennessee, I’m certain the president will have heightened expectations of our campaign as well.”
Sherman knew of the great fight at Franklin, had been surprised to see detailed accounts in copies of a newspaper from Savannah, captured from rebel skirmishers. The accounts were extraordinary, especially for any Southern paper, the casualty counts clearly favoring the Federal army, what seemed to be portrayed as a one-sided fight, the newspaper not hesitant to describe the battle as a horrific defeat for John Bell Hood. Sherman had read those accounts with puzzlement, had to believe that if the Savannah papers were revealing a fight so clearly against Hood’s army, the actual numbers were likely even worse for the rebels. We should have chased him. He rolled those words through his mind, thought of the doubters, Halleck for one, all that fear, the infuriating lack of confidence in Sherman, finally silenced by Grant’s approval for the campaign. A whole rebel army running loose in Tennessee and I go the other way, he thought. He smiled now, staring down at the fire. I knew Thomas could handle it. Hood’s no match for someone who sits tight in a strong defense, and Thomas knows all about defense.