“Reckon the company appreciates that, Cap’n.” Kershaw grinned and gave him a respectful nod.
Butler shifted and stared at the fire. “Colonel Govan has it from headquarters that most of the Federal army is on this side of the Tennessee and moving in from the west.” He pointed at where Lookout Mountain lay like a black lump along the western horizon. “They’re just over yonder. Bragg is probably going to withdraw us into Georgia to make a stand.”
“That ain’t gonna sit well with the Tennessee boys. They ain’t gonna want to leave the state,” Corporal Pettigrew noted.
Baker whispered under his breath, just loudly enough that Butler could hear: “Bully for General Bragg. He’s just hell on a retreat.”
“The city of Chattanooga can’t be defended. It’s in the bottom of a bowl. Our only hope to whip them is to withdraw.”
“So we drop back and hit ’em on ground of our own choosing,” Kershaw said as he fingered his beard and stared at the fire.
“That’s the plan.”
“When we moving, Cap’n?”
“Govan says tomorrow. My take is that he’s pretty good at reading General Bragg.”
“I just want it over,” Frank Thompson said. “I ain’t been back to Helena in two years. That’s home. And now, with the Yankees there, I can’t go back even if I get furlough.”
“Yeah,” Phil Vail muttered. “Most of eastern Arkansas is filled with Yankees.”
“All but the far southwest corner,” Butler agreed. “But if we finally can deliver one crushing blow to the Federals here, maybe they’ll withdraw some of their forces from Arkansas.”
“Do you think so, sir?” Corporal Pettigrew asked. “Last I heard they was dug in all along the Arkansas River from Fort Smith to the Mississippi.”
Butler pulled contemplatively on his pipe, eyes on the fire.
“I just want to go home,” Johnny Baker said wistfully. “It’s three years since I seen my wife, Missey. My boy, Jasper, is five now. My daughter, Lillie, is coming four.”
“At least you seen yor kids,” Billy Templeton told him. “I got to spend lessen a month with Serena after we’s married. My boy William? He’s most three now hisseff, and I ain’t never so much as laid eyes on him.”
Phil Vail looked around with green eyes. “Eighteen of us enlisted together at Barley Station. Not that it’s much, out in the swamp like it is. ’Cept for me, ain’t a man from there still alive.” He shook his head. “Pap, Marcus, and the rest? Who’d a thought it would be me that made it?”
“They ain’t a-gonna get you, Vail.” Kershaw’s smile created a deep dimple in his cheek. “All them fights you been in and you ain’t so much as got a scratch, sans dommage.”
“What about you, Sergeant?” Butler asked. “How’d you end up in an Arkansas regiment?”
Kershaw’s dark eyes sparkled. “How’s a man ever get hisself in trouble? La femme fatale. A woman, oui? She owns one of the establishments on de riverfront. A place you, Cap’n, as a gentleman, would not go. My wish was always to take her back to Bayou Teche, but I am not sure she would be happy.”
Phil Vail grinned to expose crooked teeth and declared, “I got three women waiting for me. There’s mother and my two sisters.” He wrapped his arms around his knees where they poked out of the worn holes in his trousers. “I’d like to go back to Arkadelphia and find me a wife. I promised God that if he’d get me through this, I’d be the best husband and father ever. I’d never cuss, and I’d be in church every Sabbath.” He paused. “Not so much to ask, is it?”
“Reckon not,” Jimmy Peterson told him as he pulled at his ear. “Sometimes I just cain’t figger God’s doin’ in all this. Most of the boys we lost up to now was good men. Lot of ’em better than me by a long shot. And they’s some black sinners that I’d figger God would’a taken right off, or at least mangled and maimed fer being dastardly. And they’ve come through without so much as a close nick. And if anything, they’s worse scoundrels now than when the war started.”
“And don’t fergit the Yankees,” Matthew Johnson said. “They catch as much grief as we do come a hard fight. So it ain’t like God’s playing sides.”
“Yep,” Kershaw agreed. “They just catch it with a stomach full of food, wrapped in a thick blanket, with good shoes an’ wool socks on their feet, and wearing a warm uniform what don’t got holes in the elbows, knees. Or seat of the britches.”
Corporal Pettigrew’s expression soured. “So, you’re saying God’s a Yankee supply officer?”
“Lordy,” Jimmy Peterson whispered. “Makes sense, because the only reason we could be as short as we always are on clothing, food, ammunition, and guns is if Lucifer himself is in charge of our rations and supply.”
“You ever think of what this army could do if we had half of what the Yankees get?” Frank Thompson wondered. “Hell, we’d be camping on Abe Lincoln’s White House lawn!”
“Reckon if’n they’d a give us the shoes, we coulda marched circles around the damn Yank army and took Washington from behind,” Vail groused.
Butler thought back to Prairie Grove. They’d had to leave a thousand men behind for lack of shoes. Had to leave the battlefield to the Federals because Hindman’s scarecrow Rebel soldiers didn’t have the powder to fight a second day, or even a meal to see them on the start of the long retreat.
Thinking of those men, he stared at the firelit faces around him. All they wanted was a chance to get home. Was that such a bother to God? Was it worth the right for rich men to keep slaves? Or even Lincoln’s supposed sanctity of federal Union?
One by one he studied them,
